The papers of sculptor and environmental artist Aleksandra Kasuba measure 12.4 linear feet and date from circa 1900-2019, with the bulk of the material from 1960-2010. The collection documents Kasuba's career through biographical material, correspondence, interviews, lectures and writings, extensive project files, printed material, a scrapbook, artwork, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptor and environmental artist Aleksandra Kasuba measure 12.4 linear feet and date from circa 1900-2019, with the bulk of the material from 1960-2010. The collection documents Kasuba's career through biographical material, correspondence, interviews, lectures and writings, extensive project files, printed material, a scrapbook, artwork, and photographs.
Biographical material includes artist's statements and letters of recommendation. Biographical data consists of curriculum vitae, bibliographies, checklists of commissioned work and biographical entries; also found are drafts of biographical accounts used for press releases. Included is a citation to Kasuba from the Women's Architectural Auxiliary, New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in honor of her participation in a West Side urban renewal project. Digital biographical materials include a CV and preserved copies of Kasuba's various websites.
General correspondence mostly consists of invitations to lecture at academic institutions and professional associations. There are letters between Kasuba and interior design firms, publishers, museums, and academic institutions. Included are letters from Columbia University, Museum of Modern Art, and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. Correpondence relates to commissioned projects, proposed exhibitions, and the scheduling of workshops and speaking engagements. Also found is correspondence with Thomas Whitridge about the publication of a monograph by Kasuba, extenisve family correspondence in Lithuanian, and correspondence with Algirdas Julien Greimas later organized for a publication.
Writings include various manuscripts and complementary visual schematics that Kasuba worked on throughout her career. Also included are Aleksandra Kasuba's lectures on the effects of alternative living environments on human behavior presented at academic forums and corporations. Writings include an essay by Kasuba and a typescript of an article on Kasuba that was published in Woman's Art Journal (Fall 1988/Winter 1984). Also included is a subseries of journals kept by Kasuba since the 1940s, before her successful emigration to the United States. Many of the earlier journals throughout the 1960s are of mixed Language content, much of them being written in Lithuanian.
Project Files document Kasuba's installations, exhibitions, tensile-fabric dwellings, shell dwellings, and live-in environments. Included are correspondence, artist's statements, project notes, plans, sketches and diagrams, business-related materials including agreements and cost estimates, printed material, clippings, and exhibition installation photographs and slides of artwork. There are files on Aleksandra Kasuba's professional activities, including teaching positions, speaking engagements, and publishing projects. Digital Project Records related to many of Kasuba's projects including digital video recordings are found in this series, as well as one super 8 mm film reel and two 8 mm motion picture film reels.
Printed material includes exhibition catalogs, announcements, and brochures; news and magazine clippings document various projects, including Kasuba's wall mosaics, shell dwellings, and alternative living environments. Many of the later tiles in this series are self-published. A scrapbook consists mainly of news clippings and reviews on Kasuba's work.
Artwork consists of sketches and drawings used as preliminary designs for Kasuba's projects. Also included are prints and elements used in the creation of the Jetty print series. Photographs are of Kasuba's wall mosaics, reliefs, space shelters, and live-in environments. Also found are slides and three slide binders of wall installations, shell dwellings, and environments made of tensile fabrics; included are slides used for lectures. Also included are photographs of Kasuba's New York City and New Mexico homes and studios, many in digital format.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 9 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1900-2017 (Boxes 1, 11: 0.5 linear ft.; 0.037 Gigabytes: ER001-ER005)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1941-2015 (Boxes 1, 11: 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 3: Interviews, 1976-1983 (Box 1: 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 4: Lectures and Writings, circa 1938-2019 (Boxes 1, 11-14, 16 3.8 linear ft.; 5.81 Gigabytes: ER006-ER0024)
Series 5: Project Files, 1960-2018 (Boxes 1-4, 15, Film cans FC 8-10: 4.6 linear ft.; 33.44 Gigabytes: ER025-ER057)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1950-2016 (0.5 Linear feet: Boxes 5, 15)
Series 7: Scrapbook, 1971-2010 (Box 6; 1 folder)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1938-2017 (0.8 Linear feet: Boxes 5-6, 15, 17)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1920-2017 (0.9 Linear feet: Boxes 5,7, 16-17; 3.35 Gigabytes: ER058-ER072)
Biographical / Historical:
Aleksandra Kasuba (1923-2019) was a Lithuanian-born sculptor, best known for her innovative architectural environments, who lived in New York and New Mexico. She attended the Kaunas Art Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius, Lithuania from 1941-1943. She studied with the sculptor, Vytautus Kasuba, whom she married in 1944. In response to the Soviet Army's occupation of their country, Aleksandra Kasuba and her husband emigrated to the United States in 1947. By 1963, Aleksandra Kasuba, her husband, and two children had moved to the Upper West Side in New York City. At the start of her career, Kasuba received commissions to make ceramic tiles for use in furniture. About the same time, she was also collaborating with architects in designing mosaic wall installations for public works. Aleksandra Kasuba's commissioned projects have included a plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., and wall mosaics for the Container Corporation in Chicago, and 560 Lexington Avenue in New York City. Some of Kasuba's mosaic compositions were made as individual pieces to be included in museum and gallery exhibitions.
Aleksandra Kasuba has also devoted her career to designing alternative living environments. In the late 1960s, Kasuba built dwellings that she referred to as Space Shelters, which were made from a fabric of her own design. In 1970, the American Craft Museum featured Kasuba's tensile-fabric structure in an exhibition "Contemplative Environments." She has also used nylon fabric to build her alternative or live-in environments. In addition, Kasuba has held several faculty positions. She taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City from 1971-1972 and was an artist-in-residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1976 and the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science in 1977. Kasuba has received awards from the American Institute of Architects in 1971 and 1972; in 1983, she was granted a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Aleksandra Kasuba has written several books, including a memoir published in 2001. Kasuba's husband, Vytautus died in 1997. From 2001 on, Aleksandra Kasuba had been living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she purchased a tract of land in the desert to continue her work on experimental housing. She died in 2019.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2013 by Aleksandra Kasuba. Additions were donated in 2018 by Aleksandra Kasuba and in 2019 by Guoda M. Burr, Kasuba's daughter.
Restrictions:
Subseries 4.2 (Journals) is access restricted; written permission is required.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Aleksandra Kasuba papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
The papers of Jan Butterfield measure 15 linear feet and date from circa 1950 to 1997. Papers contain hundreds of recorded interviews with and lectures by artists, panel discussions of artists and art historians, as well as extensive writings by Butterfield. Also found are project files, personal business records, printed materials, photographs, and additional sound and video recordings related to art subjects.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Jan Butterfield measure 15 linear feet and date from circa 1950 to 1997. Papers contain hundreds of recorded interviews with and lectures by artists, panel discussions of artists and art historians, as well as extensive writings by Butterfield. Also found are project files, personal business records, printed materials, photographs, and additional sound and video recordings related to art subjects.
Interviews and Lectures include hundreds of interviews conducted by Butterfield between 1971 and 1987 with contemporary artists about whom she was writing at the time. The artists Robert Irwin and Sam Francis are represented particularly well. Also found are slide talks, class discussions, and lectures given by artists, which are assumed to have been recorded by Butterfield in most cases. Also among the recordings are recorded performances by John Cage, Joe Goode, Newton and Helen Harrison, Jim Roche, and George Greene. Panel discussions include two notable recordings involving Milton Resnick, one with the painter Edward Dugmore in 1959, and the other with the painter Ad Reinhardt at The Club in 1961, which was later dubbed "The Attack."
The bulk of the writings relate to Butterfield's published work The Art of Light and Space, represented here in multiple drafts, research, and photographs of works of art by the artists discussed in the work including Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Maria Nordman, Douglas Wheeler, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr, Larry Bell, DeWain Valentine, Susan Kaiser Vogel, and Hap Tivey. Also found are extensive drafts and research for catalog essays for exhibitions of Larry Bell, Richard Shaw, Robert Hudson, and Elmer Bischoff. Drafts of articles and publicity writing are mainly about artists but also some galleries and other art events. There are a few transcripts of recorded interviews, and it appears that many of the writings are based on Butterfield's interviews.
Project files include records relating to Butterfield's involvement with the production of a catalog for the corporate art collection of Pacific Enterprises. These also include additional artist interviews and artist files containing research and writing, mainly by her associate Michael Karp. Also found are photographs and sound recordings for the Waterfront Project at the San Francisco Art Institute, an interdisciplinary community-centered development project that involved Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Melinda Wortz, Eric Orr, Dr. E. Wortz, Frank Gehry, Newton and Helen Harrison, Josh Young, and students at the Art Institute. And finally, project files include photographs, interviews, and printed material related to publications of Lapis Press, where Butterfield was Executive Director.
Personal business records include correspondence, price lists, financial records, notes, press releases, and career documentation of Butterfield. Printed materials include articles by Butterfield, articles about Butterfield, and articles by Henry Hopkins, most of which are photocopies. There are also clippings, exhibition catalogs, exhibition posters, and publicity. Of note is a disassembled scrapbook pertaining to the controversial Ed Kienholz exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1966, and a directory of art spaces in Los Angeles from 1978.
Most of the photographs are of works of art by artists about whom Butterfield wrote. Also found are a few files of photographs of artists, some taken by Butterfield, including Philip Guston, Ed Kienholz, Henry Hopkins with Clyfford Still, Robert Irwin, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Turrell. Additional video and sound recordings include artist installations, a documentary on Sam Francis, and an acoustiguide for an Ed Ruscha exhibition.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 7 series.
Series 1: Interviews and Lectures (Boxes 1-5; 4.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Writings (Boxes 5-7, 16, OV 17; 3.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files (Boxes 8-10, 16; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Personal Business Records (Boxes 10-11, OV 17-19; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Materials (Boxes 11-12, 16, OV 17-19; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs (Boxes 12-14, 16; 2.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Sound and Video Recordings (Box 15; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Jan Butterfield (1937-2000) was an art writer and critic of contemporary art who spent most of her career in California. She is best known for her writings on late twentieth century installation and craft artists, particularly those who worked in California and the American West.
Butterfield was born Jan Van Alstine in Los Angeles, California in 1937 and attended the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles. She received numerous fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as an art critic, and contributed art writing to dozens of exhibition catalogs and art publications including Art International, Images and Issues, Art News, Art in America, and Flash Art. Her most ambitious work of writing was The Art of Light and Space (Abbeville Press: 1993), which profiles the work of contemporary artists Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Maria Nordman, Douglas Wheeler, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr, Larry Bell, DeWain Valentine, Susan Kaiser Vogel, and Hap Tivey. She was also the author of a 1972 monograph of the Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis.
Butterfield held positions in public relations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from its opening until 1970, and at the Fort Worth Art Museum from 1970 to 1974. She taught at Northwood Experimental Art Institute in Dallas, Texas, the San Francisco Art Institute, San Jose State University, and Mills College in Oakland, California between 1973 and 1983. At the San Francisco Art Institute, she was Director of the extension program and Coordinator of the visiting artist program and the Waterfront Project between 1976 and 1978. In 1984, Butterfield and the artist Sam Francis co-founded the Lapis Press, where she served as Executive Director from its founding until 1988.
Butterfield was married twice, the second time to Henry Hopkins, Museum Director at LACMA, the Museum of Fine Art of Houston, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She died in 2000 after an extended illness.
Related Materials:
Also found among the collections of the Archives of American Art is a 1981 panel discussion on Bay area art criticism sponsored by the National Women's Caucus for Art, in which Butterfield participated, as well as an oral history interview Butterfield conducted with Helen Lundeberg for the Archives' Oral History Program in 1980.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming on reel 1042 including two volumes of scrapbooks. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Jan Butterfield lent material in 1975 for microfilming. She donated the Robert Irwin material in 1980 of and most of the interviews and audio tapes in 1989. An additional 12 feet of papers, including some material previously loaned and microfilmed, along with two additional audio tapes, were donated by Butterfield's brother, and Trustee of the Jan Butterfield Trust, Derek Van Alstine in 2002.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Jan Butterfield papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
The Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records measure 25.7 linear feet and 0.891 GB and date from circa 1975 to circa 2007. Records include administrative files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, galleries, and others; eight gallery appointment books and fourteen notebooks; exhibition files; extensive artists' files; financial and legal materials; sculpture production and inventory files; and photographic and digital materials.
Scope and Contents:
The Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records measure 25.7 linear feet and 0.891 GB and date from circa 1975 to circa 2007. Records include administrative files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, galleries, and others; eight gallery appointment books and fourteen notebooks; exhibition files; extensive artists' files; financial and legal materials; sculpture production and inventory files; and photographic and digital materials.
Administrative records document the daily operations of the Art Foundry and AFE. Correspondence is with artists, galleries, art collectors and dealers, patrons, and others.
The appointment books and notebooks document daily operations within the Foundry administrative offices, including phone messages and daily appointments, and also include notes and conversations regarding various artists' ongoing sculptural plans and projects. Entries have been made by Dwight Hackett, artists, and other staff members.
The bulk of the collection is comprised of artists' files representing over 132 artists, which may include scattered correspondence and notes; scattered exhibition materials; financial materials; photographic materials; digital materials; and sketches and plans for various sculptural productions and projects. Artists include Terry Allen, Larry Bell, Lynda Benglis, Judy Chicago, Lesley Dill, Una Hanbury, Luis Jimenez, Allan Houser, Maya Lin, Andrew Lord, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Gabriel Orozco, Tom Otterness, Michael Rees, Fritz Scholder, Peter Shelton, Kiki Smith, Valeska Soares, and Richard Tuttle, among many others. Seven CD-Rs contain material related to artists Terry Allen, Charles Arnoldi, Lesley Dill, and Michael Rees.
Financial and legal materials include invoices and financial statements, consignment agreements, and miscellaneous legal documents.
Sculpture production and inventory files document casting guidelines and costs incurred; casting logs and records; sculpture production records for various artists; and inventory cards and photographs and digital documentation for various projects and works.
The collection contains hundreds of snapshots and Polaroids that depict the collaborative atmosphere Hackett was able to create at Art Foundry. There are also slides, negatives and nine photograph albums.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 8 series. Researchers should note that Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records were merged prior to processing.
Series 1: Administrative Files, circa 1980-circa 2004 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1985-2000 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Gallery Appointment Books and Notebooks, 1985-2000 (1.0 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1986-1997 (0.2 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 5: Artists' Files, circa 1980-circa 2007 (16.8 linear feet; Boxes 3-19, OV 27-31, 0.891 GB; ER01-ER03)
Series 6: Financial and Legal Materials, 1991-circa 2001 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 19-20)
Series 7: Sculpture Production and Inventory Files, circa 1975-circa 2002 (2.4 linear feet; Boxes 20-23, OV 31)
Series 8: Photographic Materials, circa 1977-circa 2002 (3.0 linear feet; Boxes 23-26)
Biographical / Historical:
Art Foundry (est.1980-closed 2000) and Art Foundry Editions (est. 1992-closed 2000) were organizations founded and operated by Dwight Hackett in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
While working for another foundry in New Mexico, Dwight Hackett met Una Hanbury and began casting her work at his home, using a relatively new technique called cold casting. The process produced work that lighter than bronze and less expensive to produce. Una Hanbury helped Hackett travel to Washington, D. C. to study with Harvey Moore at his foundry. He formally established his studio, Art Foundry, in New Mexico, in 1980 with a loan from Hanbury and subsequent investment from the Apache sculptor Allan Houser. According to Hackett, Art Foundry's mission was to "collaborate with artists, not just work for them, and to challenge the limits of traditional casting technique."
In 1990, Hackett extended the operation by establishing Art Foundry Editions (AFE) through which he invited artists to come to Santa Fe for a residency and produce multiples of their work. AFE would acquire half of each artists' edition, and then market the works to galleries and collectors. One of AFE's first artists was Lynda Benglis, who purportedly came for a two-week residency and stayed for nine months.
Hackett sold Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions in 2000.
(Much of the biographical note was taken from collecting specialist Jason Stieber's acquisition report published in the Archives of American Art Journal, Volume Number 54, 2016.)
Provenance:
The Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records were donated by Dwight Hackett in 2014.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. The collection is subject to all copyright laws. The donor, Dwight Hackett, retains copyright to the photographs that he created.
