Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943-1975, bulk 1964-1975. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art measure 20.9 linear feet and date from 1943 to 1975, with the bulk of records dating from the period its galleries were in operation, from 1964 to 1975. Over two-thirds of the collection consists of exhibition files, which contain a wide range of documentation including artist files, checklists, correspondence, writings, photographs, interviews, numerous films and videos, artist statements, printed materials, and other records. Also found within the collection are administrative records of the museum, artist files, and papers of the Contemporary Wing's director and curator, Elayne Varian, which were produced outside of her work at Finch College.
Scope and Contents:
The exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art measure 20.9 linear feet and date from 1943 to 1975, with the bulk of records dating from the period its galleries were in operation, from 1964 to 1975. Over two-thirds of the collection consists of exhibition files, which contain a wide range of documentation including artist files, checklists, correspondence, writings, photographs, interviews, numerous films and videos, artist statements, printed materials, and other records. Also found within the collection are administrative records of the museum, artist files, and papers of the Contemporary Wing's director and curator, Elayne Varian, which were produced outside of her work at Finch College.
Administrative records include records relating to the general operation of the Contemporary Wing concerning fundraising, professional associations, budget, contact information for artists, donors, and lenders to exhibitions. Also found are records of the permanent collection of artworks acquired by the museum between 1964 and 1975 from contemporary artists and collectors of contemporary art.
Artist files contain basic biographical information on over 150 contemporary artists, with scattered correspondence, photographs, technical information about artworks, artist statements, and other writings. Artist files also include an incomplete run of artist questionnaires gathered by the New York Arts Calendar Annual for 1964.
Elayne Varian's personal papers include curatorial records, a course schedule and syllabus related to her teaching activities, and various writings. Curatorial projects documented in Varian's papers include three programs produced outside of Finch College, including a juried show at the New York State Fair in 1967, a film series at Everson Museum of Syracuse University, and an exhibition at Guild Hall in East Hampton in 1973. Several of Varian's writing projects involved interviews, which are also found in this series in the form of sound recordings and transcripts. Interview-based writing projects include individual profiles on Brian O'Doherty and Babette Newberger, and interviews conducted for an article on the artist-dealer relationship published in Art in America (January 1970). Dealers interviewed for the latter project include Leo Castelli, Virginia Dwan, John Gibson, Richard Feigen, Arnold Glimcher, Fred Mueller, Martha Jackson, Sidney Janis, Betty Parsons, Seth Siegelaub, and Howard Wise. Artists interviewed include Roy Lichtenstein, Adolph Gottlieb, and Charles Ross.
Exhibition files, comprising the bulk of the collection, document exhibitions held in the Contemporary Wing during its existence from 1964 to 1975. Types of records found in the series include exhibition catalogs, correspondence, loan agreements, lists, contact information, insurance valuations of artworks, photographs, biographical information on artists, clippings, posters, press releases, and other publicity materials. In addition to the rich textual and photographic records found for exhibitions, numerous audiovisual recordings are also found, some of which were made in preparation for an exhibition, some document mounted exhibitions, and others are artworks themselves or components of artworks exhibited in the galleries. Interviews with artists, dealers, and others involved in exhibitions include Alan Sonfist, Mel Bochner, Hans Richter, Ruth Richards, James Brooks and Janet Katz, Margaret Benyon, Irwin Hollander (transcript only), David Anderson, Doris Chase, Will Insley, Michael Kirby, Les Levine, Ursula Meyer, Brian O'Doherty, Charles Ross, Tony Smith, Douglas Davis, Jane Davis, Russ Connor, Les Levine, Michael Mazur, Paul Gedeohn, and physicists Lloyd G. Cross, Allyn Z. Lite, and Gerald Thomas Bern Pethick. Video artworks, recordings of performances, or components of multimedia artworks are found by artists Vito Acconci, Kathy Dillon, Douglas Davis, Dan Graham, Les Levine, Bruce Nauman, Michael Netter, Eric Siegel, and Robert Whitman. A film of the Art in Process: The Visual Development of a Structure (1966) exhibition is found, and video recordings of artists Lynda Benglis, Michael Singer, and Sam Wiener form as part of the documentation for the Projected Art: Artists at Work (1971) exhibition.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 4 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Administrative Records, 1950-1975 (2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 22, OV 23)
Series 2: Artist Files, 1958-1975 (2.4 linear feet; Boxes 3-4, 22, OV 23, FC 27-28)
Series 3: Elayne Varian Personal Papers, 1965-1970 (1.3 linear feet; Boxes 5-6)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1943-1975 (14.9 linear feet; Boxes 6-22, OV 24-25, FC 26)
Biographical / Historical:
The Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, later called simply the "Contemporary Wing," was established in 1964 by the president of Finch College, Roland De Marco, as an extension the Finch College Museum of Art in New York City.
Its mission was to educate art history students at the Manhattan women's college who were interested in working with contemporary art. DeMarco, himself an art collector, hired Elayne Varian as director and curator of the contemporary wing. DeMarco met Varian in the New York office of the prominent international art dealership Duveen Brothers, where she had worked since the mid-1940s, most recently as an art dealer. Varian received her art education in Chicago, where she studied art history and education at the University of Chicago, and took classes in film at the Bauhaus and in fine art the Art Institute of Chicago. Sensitive to emerging art movements in galleries and studios around the city of New York, as the contemporary wing's curator, Varian quickly established a reputation for thoughtfully conceived, cutting-edge exhibitions which were consistently well-received by the press.
Under Varian, the Contemporary Wing carried out a dual mission of showing work of living artists and educating students and the public about the artwork and museum work in general. Varian used the galleries to provide practical training to students interested in a gallery or museum career throughout its existence. For several years, she also maintained an assistantship position for post-graduate museum professionals to gain experience in the field, many of whom went on to careers in museums across New York State.
The Contemporary Wing's best-known exhibitions formed a series of six shows called Art in Process, held between 1965 and 1972. Each of the Art in Process shows took a different medium, including painting, sculpture, collage, conceptual art, installation art, and serial art, and brought the process of art-making into the gallery with the artworks in various ways. For example, for Art in Process V (1972), the show about installation art, the galleries were open to the public for the entire process of its installation, allowing visitors to watch the works take shape. Another show entitled Documentation (1968) exhibited artworks with documentation such as artist's notes, sales records, and conservation records, bringing to light the value of record-keeping in the visual arts. Two exhibitions entitled Projected Art were also innovative, with the first (1966-1967) bringing experimental films from the cinema to the galleries, and the second (1971) showing artists' processes via footage and slides of artists working. Another show, Artists' Videotape Performances (1971), involved both screening of and creation of works in the gallery using a range of experiments with recent video technology. The museum also participated in an experimental broadcast of an artwork entitled Talk Out! by Douglas Davis, in which a telephone in the gallery allowed visitors to participate in its creation while it was broadcast live from Syracuse, NY. Other exhibitions that showcased experimentation in art included N-Dimensional Space (1970), on holography in art, Destruction Art(1968), on destructive actions being incorporated into contemporary art-making, and Schemata 7 (1967), a show about the use of environments in contemporary art, whose working title was "Walk-in Sculpture."
Other popular exhibitions at the Contemporary Wing included shows on Art Deco (1970) and Art Nouveau (1969). Several shows mined the private collections of prominent contemporary art collectors including Martha Jackson, Betty Parsons, George Rickey, Paul Magriel, Jacques Kaplan, Josephine and Philip Bruno, and Carlo F. Bilotti. A number of exhibitions featured contemporary art from overseas including Art from Belgium (1965), Art from Finland (1973), Seven Swedish Painters (1965), and Art in Jewelry (1966), which featured mainly international jewelry artists. Retrospective exhibitions of Hans Richter, Hugo Weber, and James Brooks were also held.
Hundreds of contemporary artists were shown at the Contemporary Wing in the eleven years of its existence, including many who came to be leading figures in contemporary art, and some who already were, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Bochner, Eva Hesse, Lynda Benglis, Bruce Nauman, Robert Morris, Lawrence Weiner, Robert Smithson, Sol Le Witt, Dan Flavin, Philip Pearlstein, and Yayoi Kusama, to name just a few.
The Contemporary Wing and the entire Finch College Museum of Art shut its doors in 1975, when Finch College closed due to lack of funds. The permanent collection was sold at that time, and the proceeds were used to pay Finch College employee salaries. Elayne Varian went on to the position of curator of contemporary art at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. She died in 1987.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with curator Elayne Varian conducted by Paul Cummings, May 2, 1975.
Provenance:
The Archives of American Art acquired these records from the Finch College Museum of Art after it closed permanently in June 1975.
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.
Occupation:
Video artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Museum administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943-1975. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program. Funding for the digitization of two motion picture films was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee, and for the remaining sound and video recordings from the Smithsonian's Collection Care Pool Fund. Funding for the digitization of the collection, not including audiovisual materials, was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
5.4 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 2 reels))
0.2 Linear feet (Addition)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1940-1979
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, printed material, photographs; and "birthday books" containing drawings and writings by artists sent to Neuberger on his 50th and 75th birthdays.
REEL NSM 1: A "Birthday Book," 1953, for Neuberger containing drawings, sketches and written birthday greetings from 38 artists, compiled by Mrs. Neuberger. Contributors include Alexander Calder, Byron Browne, George Constant, Adolph Gottlieb, Jack Levine, Lyonel Feininger, Lee Gatch, Benjamin Kopman, Jonah Kinigstein, Karl Knaths, William Baziotes, Peter Hurd, Walter Quirt, Milton Avery, Ben Shahn, George L. K. Morris, Hans Moller, Guy Maccoy, Irene Rice Pereira, Max Weber, Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Darrel Austin, Philip Evergood, Saul Steinberg, Elliot Orr, and John Marin.
REEL 4588: A scrapbook containing illustrated birthday cards from artists sent to Neuberger on the occasion of his 75th birthday (1978). Included are cards from Nicolas Africano, Abe Ajay, John Baldessari, Romare Bearden, James Brooks, Les Levine, Judith Rothschild, Joan Snyder, and Alan Sonfist, and others.
UNMICROFILMED: Material relating to Neuberger's activities as an art collector, patron, and trustee consisting of: clippings, exhibiton catalogs and announcements; photographs; and correspondence with Leroy Lamis, Sidney Laufman, Paul David Magriel, Larry Rivers, Frank Roth, Jon Rudolf Schueler, Hudson Walker and Frederick Stallknecht Wight.
ADDITION: Correspondence with artists and other prominent people including: Edward Albee, Alexander Calder, Merce Cunningham, Lyonel Feininger, Henry Geldzahler, Henry Moore, Gerald Ford, Robert F. Kennedy, John V. Lindsay, George McGovern and Nelson Rockefeller. Also included are a letter from Mr. and Mrs. John Walker relating to their trip to Europe to return the "Mona Lisa" to the Louvre in 1963; printed material relating to Nelson Rockefeller; and four lists of art related papers remaining with Neuberger.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector, patron; New York, N.Y. Born 1903. A collector of primarily American art. President of the American Federation of the Arts, 1958-1968; a trustee and member of Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art; honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; member of the executive committee of the Council of Friends, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; and many other positions and memberships. A large part of his private art collection was donated to the Roy R. Neuberger Museum of the State University of New York College at Purchase.
Provenance:
"Birthday books" on reels NSM 1 and 4588 lent for microfilming 1963 and 1992 by Neuberger. He donated the unmicrofilmed material in 1975 and 1993.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art patrons -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Art patronage -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Artists and patrons -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The collection is open for research. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Fendrick Gallery records, 1952-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Series contains records documenting the creation and public exhibition of shows at the Contemporary Wing galleries from its inception in 1964 to its close in 1975, as well as records for several exhibitions that were in development but not yet realized when the college closed. Documentation includes artist files, checklists, correspondence, writings, exhibition catalogs, photographs, interviews, films and videos documenting exhibitions or created for exhibition, artist statements, loan documentation, insurance documentation, and publicity in the form of press releases, exhibition announcements, clippings, and posters. A run of exhibition catalogs filed at the beginning of the series represent about half of the exhibitions held in the Contemporary Wing. Catalogs are also found filed under each exhibition's title for most of the exhibitions in the series, often annotated with insurance values or in various drafts.
Unlike the artist files in series 2, artist files specific to exhibitions tend to contain richer documentation, including writings and original correspondence with the artist, artist statements, photographs, or information about particular artworks.
Interviews are found on 9 sound cassettes and 14 sound tape reels scattered in the exhibition files, all conducted by Elayne Varian and relating to the exhibition at hand. They include Alan Sonfist ("Alan Sonfist: Time Landscape"), Mel Bochner ("Art in Process IV), Hans Richter ("Hans Richter Retrospective"), Ruth Richards on Hugo Weber ("Hugo Weber Retrospective), James Brooks and Janet Katz ("James Brooks Retrospective," transcript only), Physicists Lloyd G. Cross, Allyn Z. Lite, and Gerald Thomas Bern Pethick ("N-Dimensional Space), Margaret Benyon ("N-Dimensional Space"), Irwin Hollander (transcript only, "Prints from Hollander's Workshop"), David Anderson ("The Private Collection of Martha Jackson"), Doris Chase ("Projected Art: Artists at Work"), and Will Insley, Michael Kirby, Les Levine, Ursula Meyer, Brian O'Doherty, Charles Ross, and Tony Smith ("Schemata 7"); Douglas Davis, Jane Davis, and Russ Connor ("Talk-Out!"); Les Levine ("The Troubles"); Michael Mazur and Paul Gedeohn ("Two Aspects of An Illusion"). An additional sound recording describing the installation and content of the exhibition "Towers" is found on one sound tape reel.
In addition to the recorded interviews, a number of moving image recordings are found. The video in Artists' Videotape Performances (1971) is a complex mix of recordings, ranging from simple, single-channel video works that were played in the gallery, to components of multi-channel installations, artifacts of interactive sound and video installations, and recordings of performances put on in the gallery. Other motion pictures found in the series include videos of artists Sam Weiner, Lynda Benglis, and Michael Singer working in Projected Art: Artists at Work (1971), and film of the installed exhibition Art in Process: The Visual Development of a Structure (1966). In total, motion pictures in this series are on 19 videoreels (1/2 inch), 2 film reels (16 mm, with VHS and Digital Betacam videocassette access copies).
Other artworks or components of artworks found include original writings by Dan Graham in Art in Series (1967-1968) and mail art by Richard Merkin and Ray Johnson in Art in Process: The Visual Development of a Collage (1967). Artists books found in the series include Statements by Lawrence Weiner and Identikit by Jim Brodey, found in Lynda Benglis' artist file; both of these publications are with records for Art in Process IV (1969-1970). Schematic drawings, floor plans, and installation instructions are found for Robert Morris for Art in Process V (1972) Douglas Davis and several other artists for Artists' Videotape Performances (1971), Michael Kirby for Schemata 7 (1967), Stan Vanderbeek for Projected Art (1966-1967), and various works for N-Dimensional Space (1970).
Arrangement:
Series is arranged alphabetically by exhibition title, with materials for each exhibition arranged by type. Selected exhibition catalogs are also arranged alphabetically at the beginning of the series. The records of each exhibition are arranged slightly differently, and what arrangement was found is retained, with folder headings sometimes changed for clarity. Additional exhibition files for shows curated by Elayne Varian outside of Finch College are found in series 3, Elayne Varian personal papers.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943-1975. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program. Funding for the digitization of two motion picture films was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee, and for the remaining sound and video recordings from the Smithsonian's Collection Care Pool Fund. Funding for the digitization of the collection, not including audiovisual materials, was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
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:
Leo Castelli Gallery records, circa 1880-2000, bulk 1957-1999. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the partial digitization of this collection was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
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:
Leo Castelli Gallery records, circa 1880-2000, bulk 1957-1999. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the partial digitization of this collection was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
Alan Sonfist : autobiography = Autobiografie : [Ausstellung], Stadt Aachen, Neue Galerie, Sammlung Ludwig, 26. März bis 24. April 1977 / [Red., Alan Sonfist, Ulrich Syndram ; Übers., Ulrich Syndram]
Alan Sonfist and Elayne H. (Elayne Hanley) Varian. Interview with Alan Sonfist, circa 1974. Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943-1975. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
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:
Leo Castelli Gallery records, circa 1880-2000, bulk 1957-1999. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the partial digitization of this collection was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
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:
Henri Gallery records, circa early 1900s, 1940-1996, bulk 1957-1995. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care Preservation Fund.
The records of the Nancy Drysdale Gallery measure 9.0 linear feet and span the years 1971 to 1996. The bulk of the collection comprises artist files that document the gallery's relations with 67 artists, many of whom were represented by the gallery.
Scope and Content Note:
This collection measures 9.0 linear feet and dates from 1971 to 1996. The bulk of the collection comprises artist files that document the gallery's relationships with 67 artists, many of whom were represented, or whose work was handled by, the gallery. In addition to artist files, the collection contains exhibition files, printed material, and publishers files.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as four series reflecting the original arrangement imposed by the Gallery.
Missing Title
Series 1: Group Exhibition Files, 1978-1994 (Box 1, 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 2: Fine Art Publishers Files, 1972-1995 (Boxes 1-2, 1.5 linear ft.)
Series 3: Artist Files, 1971-1996 (Boxes 2-9, 7 linear ft.)
Series 4: Miscellaneous Printed Material, 1993-1994 (Box 9, 1 folder)
Historical Note:
When colleague Max Protetch moved to New York City in 1976, his gallery at 2151 P Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., became the Protetch-McIntosh Gallery under his successor, Cincinnati dealer, Nancy McIntosh Drysdale. Drysdale then moved the gallery to 406 7th Street, N.W., and changed the name to the McIntosh/Drysdale Gallery. Several years later, Drysdale vacated the 7th Street address and operated as a private dealer before opening the Nancy Drysdale Gallery at 2103 O Street, N.W., in 1991.
Provenance:
The records of the Nancy Drysdale Gallery were donated to the Archives of American Art by Nancy Drysdale in 1997.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for resesarch. Use requires an appointment.
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.
