Interview of Lewis Iselin, conducted 1981 September 30 by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Camden, Maine.
Iselin speaks of his role as a trustee of the Guggenheim and Tiffany Foundations, the Saint-Gaudens Memorial, and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts; his own work of modeling in wax; and his "sculpture to wear." Iselin also recalls Henry Geldzahler, Robert Motherwell, Henry Allen Moe, Ron Pearson, Paul Smith and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Lewis Iselin (1913-1990) was a sculptor from Camden, Maine.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Topic:
Museums -- United States -- Trustees -- Interviews Search this
The papers of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman measure 4.0 linear feet and date from circa 1930s-2006, bulk 1942-2005. The collection documents the activities of Chaim Koppelman and his wife, Dorothy Koppelman, as artists and educators, and their affiliation with the Terrain Gallery and the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Materials include biographical material, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, teaching files, exhibition files, personal business records, scrapbooks, printed material, sketches, sketchbooks, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman measure 4.0 linear feet and date from circa 1930s-2006, bulk 1942-2005. The collection documents the activities of Chaim Koppelman and his wife, Dorothy Koppelman, as artists and educators, and their affiliation with the Terrain Gallery and the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Materials include biographical material, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, teaching files, exhibition files, personal business records, scrapbooks, printed material, sketches, sketchbooks, and photographs.
Scattered biographical material includes resumes, artist's statements, copies of entries in Who's Who directories, and miscellaneous items.
Correspondence includes personal correspondence and general correspondence. Personal correspondence mostly consists of Chaim Koppelman's letters written to Dorothy while he was serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He describes his daily activities, observations on army life, and his travels while stationed in England, France, and Germany. Of interest is Chaim Koppelman's letter to Dorothy describing his meeting Picasso and visiting the artist's studio. Personal correspondence also includes Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman's letters with family and friends. Notable correspondents include Sari Dienes, Nat Herz, Sheldon Kranz, Amédée Ozenfant, Hilla Rebay, and Theodoros Stamos. Hilla Rebay's letters to Chaim Koppelman discuss museum-related activities at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, including the Guggenheim's memorial exhibition for Wassily Kandinsky. There is also a file of letters from Eli Siegel to Chaim Koppelman. General correspondence includes mostly incoming letters to Chaim Koppelman from collectors, colleagues, students, and arts institutions. Frequent correspondents include: Associated American Artists, American Federation of the Arts, Audubon Artists, DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park, Pratt Graphics Center and Print Council of America.
Writings and notes contain annotated typescripts and handwritten drafts by Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman. Chaim Koppelman's writings include essays and talks on art, artists, and printmaking based on Aesthetic Realism; also found are some poems. Dorothy Koppelman's writings consist of artist's statements and essay-length pieces that were prepared for Aesthetic Realism talks on the work and lives of artists, held at the Terrain Gallery of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation and other venues. Also found is a sound recording of Chaim Koppelman's 1968 conversation with Richard Anuszkiewicz, Roy Lichtenstein, and Clayton Pond; the artists discuss the influence of the Siegel Theory of Opposites on their work.
Subject files document the activities, projects, and professional affiliations of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman. Included are materials on exhibitions, applications for fellowships and grants, awards, drafts of writings, donations and acquisitions of artwork by museums. Teaching files provide an overview of the faculty positions held by Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman over the course of their careers. Found are extensive files on Chaim Koppelman's tenure at the School of Visual Arts. Exhibition files chronicle the Koppelmans' solo and group shows at the Terrain and other venues; substantive files contain Chaim Koppelman's correspondence with museums and arts institutions and sales information.
Two scrapbooks contain exhibition-related materials, such as artists' statements, press releases, awards, printed material, and photographs of artwork. Artwork includes sketches and illustrated letters by Chaim Koppelman. There are twenty annotated sketchbooks by Chaim Koppelman and a sketchbook by Dorothy Koppelman.
Photographs and snapshots are of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman; many of the snapshots of Chaim Koppelman and others document his army service while stationed in the United States and Europe. Four photograph albums include black and white photographs of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman in their studio; included are snapshots of the Koppelmans with family and friends at exhibition openings, gatherings, and on their travels. There are photographs of Regina Dienes, Gerson Lieber, Bernard Olshan, Joseph Solman, and Theodoros Stamos.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 12 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1940-2001 (Box 1; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1942-2003 (Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1930s-1989, 2005 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1942-2004 (Boxes 1-2; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1940s-2006 (Box 2; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1940s-2005 (Boxes 2-3; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1944-1969 (Box 3; 3 folders)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1942-2003 (Box 3; 2 folders)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1937-1971, 2004 (Box 3; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 10: Artwork, 1933-1949, 1980-2000 (Box 3; 3 folders)
Series 11: Sketchbooks, 1944-2005 (Boxes 3-4; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 12: Photographs, 1930-circa 2004 (Box 4; 0.25 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Chaim Koppelman (1920-2009) lived and worked in New York as a printmaker, educator, and Aesthetic Realism consultant. Painter, gallery director, Aesthetic Realism consultant, and educator Dorothy Koppelman (1920-) resides and works in New York City.
Chaim Koppelman was born in Brooklyn in 1920. Koppelman studied at the American Artists School with Carl Holty and at the Art Students League with Jose De Creeft and Will Barnet. Simultaneously, he began to study in classes taught by Eli Siegel, critic, poet, and founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism. In 1942, Koppelman was drafted in the U.S. Army. Before going overseas in 1943, he married Dorothy Myers. In the army, Koppelman continued his studies in painting and sculpture, where he attended the Art College in Western England, Bristol, and the Beaux Arts School in Reims, France. Chaim Koppelman took part in the Normandy invasion and was awarded the Bronze Star for his service.
After Koppelman returned to New York in 1944, he studied at the Amédée Ozenfant School, where he eventually became Ozenfant's assistant. Around this time, Koppelman turned from painting and sculpture to printmaking. In 1955, Chaim Koppelman, his wife, Dorothy, and other artists and poets studying Aesthetic Realism established the Terrain Gallery. For many years, Koppelman was the head of the gallery's Print Division and then later became an advisory director.
Chaim Koppelman held a number of teaching positions in universities and arts institutions. He lectured at Brooklyn College, the Art Education Department from 1950-1960. In 1959, Koppelman founded the Printmaking Division at the School of Visual Arts, where he served on the school's faculty until 2007. At the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, he taught artists how to relate their artwork and their everyday lives. He wrote: "After having tested his aesthetic concepts in literally thousands of works of different periods, in different styles, in different media, I say that Eli Siegel's Theory of Opposites is the key to what is good or beautiful in art….When Eli Siegel showed that what makes a work of art beautiful—the oneness of opposites—is the same as what every individual wants, it was one of the mightiest and kindest achievements of man's mind."
Among the awards Chaim Koppelman received were: two Tiffany Grants, 1956, 1959; New York Artists Equity Annual Awards Honoring Will Barnet, Robert Blackburn, Chaim Koppelman, 1992; and the Purchase Prize, Art Students League in 2005. Koppelman was a member of the National Academy and a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA). In 2004, SAGA presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
In addition to his solo and group exhibitions at the Terrain Gallery, Chaim Koppelman's work was featured at the Beatrice Conde Gallery, International Print Center (New York), Library of Congress, and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. His prints are in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National Gallery.
In December 2009, Koppelman died at age 89 in New York City.
Born in 1920, Dorothy Koppelman attended Brooklyn College, the Art Students League, and American Artists School where she trained under Joseph Solman. During this time, she began to study poetry, and the relation of art and the self in classes with Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism.
Dorothy Koppelman has had a number of solo and group exhibitions at the Terrain Gallery. She has also shown her paintings at the Atlantic Gallery, Art Gallery of Binghamton, New York, Beatrice Conde Gallery, the Broome Street Gallery, and at MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Newark Museum, the Whitney Biennial 2006 Peace Tower, the National Academy, and the Butler Art Institute.
Dorothy Koppelman has served on the faculty at several arts institutions: the National Academy, Brooklyn College School of Education, and the School of Visual Arts. She has given presentations on Aesthetic Realism at the Fondazione Piero della Francesa in Italy, and with Carrie Wilson at the 31st World Congress of the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA). On August 16, 2002, in a talk given on Eli Siegel Day in Baltimore, she said, "Eli Siegel explained the true meaning of art for our lives. No one—no scholar, no artist, no person—in all the centuries ever saw this before: that we can learn about ourselves from the very technique of art!...He showed that far from being in a separate world, art has the answer to the trouble in this one."
She is a member of several professional organizations including the American Society of Contemporary Artists and New York Artists Equity. She has received an Honorable Mention from the Brooklyn Society of Artists, 1957; a Tiffany Grant for painting, 1965; and awards from the American Society of Contemporary Artists, 1996, 1999. Dorothy Koppelman's work has been included in the collections of Hampton University, Virginia; Rosenzweig Museum, Durham, North Carolina; New-York Historical Society; Yale University; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as well as other institutions.
Dorothy Koppelman lives in New York City. She is a consultant on the faculty of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, where she also teaches the Critical Inquiry, a workshop for artists. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and is President of the Eli Siegel/Martha Baird Foundation. She continues her study in classes with Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism Chairman of Education.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the Terrain Gallery records of which Dorothy Koppelman is the director.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman in 2006.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of H. Harvard Arnason conducted 1970 March 3-9, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Arnason speaks of his family and educational background; the influence of the WPA Federal Art Project on museums; lecturing at the Frick Collection and Hunter College; his work as U.S. representative of UNESCO; his teaching positions and his roles as director of the Walker Art Center and trustee and vice president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. He comments on Frank Lloyd Wright's design for the Guggenheim Museum building; competition among New York museums; conceptual art and museums; and the museum as a research center. He recalls Holger Cahill, Thomas M. Messer, Hilla Rebay, James Johnson Sweeney and others. Arnason also describes his writing projects, including his "History of Modern Art."
Biographical / Historical:
H. Harvard Arnason (1909-1986) was an historian, writer, and a former director of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 30 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Topic:
Museum architecture -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Museum directors -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- Interviews Search this
Drafts of letters and a few letters received; business records; legal documents; writings; printed material; and photographs primarily regarding Bauer's work as a non-objective painter, and his relationship with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and its first director Hilla Rebay.
Included are typescripts of two lengthy, rambling letters (24 p. and 45 p. single spaced) from Bauer to Rebay and two to Frank Lloyd Wright (11 p. and 40 p. single spaced) concerning his relationship with the Guggenheim Foundation and its design; a file on the Foundation, 1938-1945, containing internal reports of activities, memorandum, letters, and documents, some concerning the controversy surrounding efforts to remove Rebay as director; writings and notes by Bauer on his philosophies about contemporary art and museums; writings and lectures by Rebay on non-objective painting, 1941-1942; printed material, 1918-1969, including clippings, exhibition announcements, catalog entries, and reproductions of Bauer's work;
photographs of Bauer, his family, friends, home, car, works of art and exhibition installations; scattered business records, including shipping lists for paintings, and tax and immigration documents; a file on Bauer's antique Duesenberg Phaeton car; and a few letters to Bauer's widow, Louise Parry, including 2 from Otto Nebel, one enclosing a woodblock print, and one from Rebay's biographer, Joan Lukach, 1983.
Included in the Guggenheim Foundation file are a letter from Solomon Guggenheim to the U.S. Attorney, 1942, requesting that Bauer be allowed to visit New York without the required permit due to the frequency of Guggenheim's requests for Bauer's advice, and a letter from Frank Crowninshield, editor of Vogue, 1938, to the Foundation, requesting information on Bauer's arrival in the U.S.
Biographical / Historical:
Abstract painter, New York, N.Y. Born in Germany, Bauer's work in non-objective painting was promoted by Solomon R. Guggenheim's art advisor, and later museum director, curator Hilla Rebay, and Bauer became a paid advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim and Rebay in the formation of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (1937), later the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (1939), and then after Guggenheim's death, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1949). Guggenheim and Rebay later dropped him due to Bauer's intense criticism of the Foundation and Rebay.
Provenance:
Gift of the Estate of Louise Bauer Parry (widow of artist), 1985; arranged by Franklin Riehlman of Phillips auctioneers.
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.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Personal and professional records including correspondence, writings, notes, printed material, subject files, photograph album, and diaries relating to Zigrosser's work as an authority on prints and printmaking and his personal relationships with artists.
Included are: correspondence with family and with over 900 printmakers, painters, sculptors, acquaintances, friends, associates, organizations, museums, publishers, and magazines; general correspondence, notes, clippings, and manuscripts pertaining to The Modern School Magazine; files of correspondence from Zigrosser's work at: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1932-1971; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, 1946-1971, including correspondence with Frank Lloyd Wright concerning the Guggenheim Memorial Museum; Print Council of America, 1954-1971, regarding exhibitions, council meetings and other matters; and the Tamarind Workshop, 1960-1971.
Of particular interest is material relating to the 1913 Armory Show, including Zigrosser's annotated catalog, notes and sketches. Also included are speeches and notes, 1930-1968; manuscripts for lectures and unpublished materials; memorabilia; a photo album of sculpture by John B. Flannagan; art work, including prints and drawings by Karig Nalbandian, prints by Rockwell Kent, and oversized works of art on paper by Mabel Dwight, Wanda Gag and Kent; family photograph album; journals and pamphlets (covers only); and diaries, 1916-1971, discussing personal and professional events such as art openings, conversations and activities with Rockwell Kent, Alfred Stieglitz, and Georgia O'Keeffe, among others.
Among the correspondents are: the American Artists Group, John Taylor Arms, Art in America magazine, Art Institute of Chicago, Alfred Barr, E. Boyd, Charles Burchfield, Alexander Calder, Fitz Roy Carrington, Federico Castellon, Ed Colker, Howard N. Cook, Crown Publishers, Adolf Dehn, Caroline Durieux, John Bernard Flannagan, Andre Girard, Stanley William Hayter, Edward Hopper, Victoria Hutson Huntley, Independent Citizens Committee for the Arts, Sciences and Professions, R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Frederick Keppel, Rockwell Kent, Fiske Kimball, Misch Kohn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Julius Lankes, Mauricico Lasansky, Merritt Mauzey, Kneeland McNulty, James A. Michener, Marian Mitchell,
Museum of Non-Objective Painting (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum), Karnig Nalbandian, Dorothy Norman, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walter Pach, Harold Paris, Print Club (Philadelphia), Diego Rivera, Ruth Starr Rose, Arnold Ronnebeck, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Andre Ruellan, Carl Oscar Schniewind, Roderick Seidenberg, William Spratling, Benton Spruance, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Sternberg, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Kuei Teng, U.S. Office of War Information, Curt Valentin, Heinz Warneke, Edward Weston, Weyhe Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, Harry Wickey, and Adja Yunkers.
Biographical / Historical:
Print curator; Philadelphia, Pa.; d. 1975. Graduated Columbia University in literature. Worked with prints in New York City at Keppel and Co. and Weyhe Gallery; print curator at Philadelphia Museum of Art 1940-1963; author of books on prints and art works.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming, 1991, by the University of Pennsylvania Special Collections Department, Van Pelt Library. Zigrosser donated the papers to the University in 1972. Portions of the papers not microfilmed include research files, manuscript materials for published work, family records, and journals.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from the Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Correspondence, exhibition material, photographs, invoices, insurance records, and printed materials relating to the Wasserman's contemporary art collection and building at 180 Beacon St., Boston, Mass., and to the Wasserman family art collection. Reflected to a lesser degree are associations and financial contributions of the Wassermans to Boston area cultural institutions such as Brandeis University, the Fogg Art Museum, and MIT; and Max Wasserman's service on the MIT Art Committee which acquired major outdoor sculptures for the campus.
Among the nearly 140 artists represented in the 180 Beacon St. Collection are: Hannes Beckmann, Jim Dine, Friedel Dzubas, Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Gyorgy Kepes, Kenneth Noland, Otto Piene, Larry Rivers, Varujan Boghosian, Louise Nevelson, George Rickey, Al Held, Lucas Samaras, Christo, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collectors; Boston, Mass. Jeanne (1915- ) was a curator; Max (1913-1986), a businessman. The 180 Beacon St. Collection of Contemporary Art was assembled in the 1960s by the Wassermans, with the advice of a committee consisting of Dorothy Miller of the Museum of Modern Art, H. Harvard Arnason of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, curator Sam Hunter, and Jeanne Wasserman, for the 17-storey apartment building built by the Wasserman Development Corporation. The committee's selections were primarily works by living artists done from the late fifties; slightly more than half were American. In 1975, the Development Corp. went bankrupt and the approximately 160 art objects were dispersed, chiefly at auctions. The Wasserman's personal art collection consisted of work by many of the same artists and included as well large-scale outdoor sculpture.
Provenance:
Donated 1995-1998 by Jeanne L. Wasserman. Additions are expected.
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.
Scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings and other printed material relating to Solomon R. Guggenheim and his collection of non-objective art. Topics include: the exhibitions of the collection at the Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, S.C., 1936 and 1938, Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1937, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, 1939; the formation of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1937; the opening of the collection at 24 E. 54th St., June 1939; Guggenheim curator Hilla Rebay; painter Rudolf Bauer; and Guggenheim. Editorials and letters to the editor regarding abstract art are also included.
Biographical / Historical:
Modern art museum; New York, N.Y. Solomon R. Guggenheim's collection of mostly abstract, non-objective painting was largely formed by artist and promotor of non-objective painting, Hilla Rebay. In 1937 it was established as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and in 1939, as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. After Guggenheim's death in 1949 the name was changed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1965 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, Abstract -- United States -- Exhibitions Search this
The papers of New York museum director and independent curator Thomas M. Messer measure 4.6 linear feet and date from 1949-2010. Material includes correspondence, a diary transcript, and printed material that reflect Messer's long career, primarily as director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Correspondence comprises the bulk of the collection and documents the relationships he built with artists, art historians, curators, and others colleagues. Notable correspondents include Francis Bacon, Will Barnet, Larry Bell, Alberto Burri, Pol Bury, Marc Chagall, Chryssa, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Dan Flavin, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Richard Hamilton, Jean Hélion, Grace Knowlton, Rosemarie Koczy, Jirí Kolár, Katharine Kuh, Agnes Martin, Henry Moore, George Rickey, Charles Simonds, Clyfford Still, Jack Tworkov, and many others.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York museum director and independent curator Thomas M. Messer measure 4.6 linear feet and date from 1949-2010. Material includes correspondence, a diary transcript, and printed material that reflect Messer's long career, primarily as director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Correspondence comprises the bulk of the collection and documents the relationships he built with artists, art historians, curators, and others colleagues. Notable correspondents include Francis Bacon, Will Barnet, Larry Bell, Alberto Burri, Pol Bury, Marc Chagall, Chryssa, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Dan Flavin, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Richard Hamilton, Jean Hélion, Grace Knowlton, Rosemarie Koczy, Jirí Kolár, Katharine Kuh, Agnes Martin, Henry Moore, George Rickey, Charles Simonds, Clyfford Still, Jack Tworkov, and many others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as three series
Series 1: Correspondence, 1962-2010 (4 linear feet; Box 1-4)
Series 2: Diary Transcript, 2007-2009 (0.02 gigabytes; ER01)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1949-1987 (0.6 linear feet; Box 5-6)
Biographical / Historical:
Thomas Messer (1920-2013) was a museum director and independent curator in New York, New York. Born and raised in Czechoslovakia, Messer became a United States citizen in 1944 and served in the United States Army in World War II. He earned his bachelor's degree from Boston University and studied at the Sorbonne in France before returning to the United States to study art history and museology at Harvard University. After obtaining his graduate degree, Messer was the director of the Roswell Museum in Roswell, New Mexico and then of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. In 1961, Messer became the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which includes the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Messer retired from his position there in 1988 and became a freelance curator, teacher, writer, and arts consultant.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are two oral history interviews with Thomas Messer conducted by Paul Cummings in 1970 and by Andrew Decker in 1994-1995.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives of American Art in 1995 by Thomas Messer and in 2016 by the Thomas Messer estate via Adam Lehner, executor.
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.
Use of electronic records requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Leon Polk Smith papers, 1921-1997. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Leon Polk Smith Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
