The records of Los Angeles Heritage Gallery measure 13.8 linear feet and date from 1944-2000 with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960-1998. The majority of the collection consists of artists' files containing a wide variety of materials documenting the gallery's representation of its contemporary artists and gallery exhibitions, including biographical information, correspondence, and printed materials. About half of the artists' files are related to artist Charles White. Gallery records also include business correspondence, business records and additional printed materials.
Scope and Contents:
The records of Los Angeles Heritage Gallery measure 13.8 linear feet and date from 1944-2000 with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960-1998. The majority of the collection consists of artists' files containing a wide variety of materials documenting the gallery's representation of its contemporary artists and gallery exhibitions, including biographical information, correspondence, and printed materials. About half of the artists' files are related to artist Charles White. Gallery records also include business correspondence, business records and additional printed materials.
The bulk of the collection are artists' files which document the works and careers of Heritage Gallery artists through a wide variety of materials including biographical information, correspondence, scattered financial records, inventory lists and price lists, printed materials, and photographic materials. Especially rich are the folders of correspondence with Social Realist artist William Gropper, and materials related to artists José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiro, Moses Soyer and Raphael Soyer. Additionally, about half of the Artists' Files are related to African-American artist Charles White, for whom Horowitz was the sole representative of his artwork, but also a personal friend to White and his family.
Business correspondence and records contain incoming and outgoing correspondence with clients and galleries regarding artwork sales, consignments and exhibition loans; contracts, many with artists and lithographers; biographical information about Benjamin Horowitz; and other day-to-day business records.
Printed material documents exhibitions held at Heritage Gallery through exhibition announcement, catalogs, clippings, and posters, as well as a handful of printed materials for exhibitions held at other galleries and museums.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 3 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1944-2000, bulk 1960-1998 (11.6 linear feet; Boxes 1-12, 15-16, OV 17)
Series 2: Business Correspondence and Records, 1945-1997 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 12-13)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1960s-1990s (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 13-14, 16)
Biographical / Historical:
Founder Benjamin Horowitz (1912-2004) was born in New York City and moved to Hollywood shortly before the outbreak of World War II. He began a career as a writer of detective fiction but was interrupted by the draft.
Horowitz opened Heritage Gallery in the early 1960s on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. His early dedication to African-American artists, chief among them Charles White to whom he gave more than 51 one-person exhibitions, distinguished the gallery.
Horowitz was the co-founder of the Art Dealers Association of California and also worked as an appraiser.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art holds several collections related to Heritage Gallery and Benjamin Horowitz, including the William Gropper papers and the Charles Wilbert White papers. Also found in the Archives is an oral history interview with Benjamin Horowitz conducted by Molly Saltman as a part of "Art and Artists" interviews, 1965-1966.
Provenance:
The Heritage Gallery records were donated by Benjamin Horowitz, founder of the gallery, in two accessions in 1998 and 2000.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers 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.
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- California
Citation:
Heritage Gallery records, 1944-2000, bulk 1960-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collection Care Preservation Fund.
Researcher may use study prints on file in the Photograph Archives, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Advance appointments are required. Original negatives are stored off-site in cold storage and are not accessible to the public.
Collection Rights:
Copyright to photographs from the Walter Rosenblum Collection is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Requests for permission to reproduce photographs from the collection must be submitted in writing to the Photograph Archives. Certain works of art, as well as photographs of those works of art, may be protected by copyright, trademark, privacy or publicity rights, or other interests not owned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It is the applicant's responsibility to ascertain whether any such rights exist, and to obtain any other permission necessary to reproduce and publish the image.
Collection Citation:
Walter Rosenblum Collection, Photograph Archives, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Sponsor:
Funding for the re-housing, preservation, and digitization of the collection was provided by Smithsonian Research Resource funds, the Smithsonian Womens' Committee and the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Interviews of 72 artists, and transcripts for all but five, conducted by Arlene Jacobowitz, the Associate Curator for the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, between 1965 and 1968. The artists discuss their work in the museum collection. Also included are 38 edited excerpts of the interviews, approximately 2-3 min. in length, used as "audio-labels" in the 1968 "Listening to Pictures" installation at the museum.
Scope and Content Note:
Interviews of 72 artists, and transcripts for all but five, conducted by Arlene Jacobowitz, the Associate Curator for the Department of Painting and Sculpture, between 1965 and 1968. The artists discuss their work in the museum collection. Also included are 38 edited excerpts of the interviews, approximately 2-3 min. in length, used as "audio-labels" in the 1968 "Listening to Pictures" installation.
The artists interviewed are: Lennart Anderson, Stephen B. Antonakos, Marshall Arisman, Walter Barker, Leonard Baskin, Mary Bauermeister, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Robert Brackman, Sydney Butchkes, Edmund Casarella, George Constant, Robert Warren Dash, Jose DeCreeft, Blanche Dombek, Tom Doyle, Jimmy Ernst, Neil Estern, Philip Evergood, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Leon Goldin, Sidney Goodman, Sante Graziani, Balcomb Greene, John Grillo, William Gropper, Chaim Gross, Roy Gussow, Robert Gwathmey, Grace Hartigan, Edward Hopper, Nora Jaffe, Paul Jenkins, Minoru Kawabata, William Kienbusch, Karl Knaths, John Koch, Yayoi Kosama, Jennett Lam, Steven Lang, Robert Laurent, Jacob Lawrence, Jack Levine, Jacques Lipchitz, Seymour Lipton, Boris Margo, Ursula Meyer, Hans Moller, Walter Murch, Louise Nevelson, Toshio Odate, Elliot Offner, Douglas Ohlson, Kenzo Okada, Amanda Palmer, Irene Rice Pereira, Gabor Peterdi, Ad Reinhardt, Bill Richards, Larry Rivers, Emilio Sanchez, Karl Schrag, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Aaron Sopher, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, William Thon, Albert Weinberg, and William and Marguerite Zorach.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as a single series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Interviews, 1965-1968 (Box 1-7; 7 lin. ft.)
Historical Note:
The interview program at the Brooklyn Museum was begun by Arlene Jacobowitz in the spring of 1965 with artists whose works were on exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1968, excerpts from the interviews were incorporated into an exhibition entitled "Listening to Pictures," in which visitors could access the sound recordings using headphones while standing before the painting being discussed. The exhibition opened April 28, 1968, and was gradually disassembled, 1971-1973.
Related Material:
The Brooklyn Museum Archives houses the records of the Departments of European Painting and Sculpture, American Painting and Sculpture, Contemporary Art (1897-2005), which contain records relating to the work of Arlene Jacobowitz.
Provenance:
This collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Dierdre Lawrence of the Brooklyn Museum in 1989.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Researchers may view the original reels for the archival notations on them, but original reels are not available for playback due to fragility.
Rights:
Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from the interviewee. Citations must read:"Interview between [artist's name] and [interviewer's name] from the "Listening to Pictures" program of the Brooklyn Museum. Archives of American Art. Gift of the Brooklyn Museum." 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.
Topic:
Artists -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Interview between [artist's name] and [interviewer's name] from the "Listening to Pictures" program of the Brooklyn Museum. Gift of the Brooklyn Museum. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Chaim Gross conducted 1981 May 26-27, by Milton Wolf Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Gross speaks of his early background and youth in Austria; his family's experiences when the Russian Army invaded Austria in 1914; his experiences in a refugee camp; escaping to Vienna and to Budapest; being imprisoned in Budapest and sent back to Austria; immigrating to the United States in 1921; his education at the Educational Alliance and the Beaux Arts Institute; teaching himself wood carving; selling his first works; coming to work for the WPA and later for the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts; meeting and marrying his wife Renée; influences, and sculptors whose work he admires; Judaic themes in his work; his art collection; and the changes in American culture during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency.
Biographical / Historical:
Chaim Gross (1904-1991) was a sculptor from New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Funding for this interview was provided by the Wyeth Endowment for American Art.
Interview of James Penney, conducted by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Clinton, New York, on August 21 and December 6, 1981.
Penney speaks of growing up in Missouri and Kansas; taking art classes at the University of Kansas; moving to New York during the Depression to pursue his art career; studying at the Art Students League; meeting his first wife, Frances Avery; exhibiting his paintings in New York; visiting museums; mural painting with the WPA; working for the Jordanoff Aviation Corporation during World War II; teaching at Bennington, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, and Hamilton College; and some of his paintings, including An Epidemic Next Year; Workers in the Snow, Central Park; The Bombed City, 1939; and Rock of Versailles. Penney also recalls Karl Mattern, Raymond Eastwood, Albert Bloch, Randall Brubaker, Chris Ritter, Jackson Pollock, Thomas Hart Benton, George Grosz, Moses Soyer, Stuart Davis, Burgoyne Diller, Bill Palmer, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
James Penney (1910-1982) was a painter and educator.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 9 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
An interview of V. V. Rankine conducted 1990 Mar. 2-22, by Liza Kirwin, for the Archives of American Art.
Rankine discusses the evolution of her nickname, V.V.; discovering her dyslexia; growing up in Boston; auditioning for a part in, "The Philadelphia Story"; her art studies with Amedee Ozenfant from 1944 to 1946; her studies at Black Mountain College with Josef Albers and Willem De Kooning in 1947; her friendship with Morris Louis and watching him work; living with her brother-in-law Arshile Gorky, in New York City; her first one-woman show at the David Herbert Gallery in New York in 1962; exhibiting at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York and at the Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, D.C.; Robert Richman and the Institute of Contemporary Arts; the relationship between her painting and her sculpture; favorite shapes and materials; and her summer home in East Hampton and artist friends there. Rankine also recalls Robert Rauschenberg, Jack Youngerman, Manoucher Yektai, Betty Parsons, Ibram Lassaw, Buckminster Fuller, Elaine De Kooning, Arthur Penn, Richard Leopold, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Ken Noland, Morris Louis, Ray Johnson, Kenneth Snelson, David Hare, Frederick Kiesler, Raphael Soyer, Moses Soyer, Jean Renault, Agnes Gorky, Esther Magruder, James Johnson Sweeney, Jim Brooks, John Graham, Phillip Guston, Duncan Phillips, Theresa Helburn, Augustine Duncan, Tom Downing, Gene Davis, Alice Denney, Nesta Dorrance, Kevin Merrill, Sam Gilliam, Dylan Thomas, Kay Halle, Kit Kennedy, Naum Gabo, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Anne Truitt, Wretha Nelson, Franz Bader, Louise Nevelson, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Bonnie Newman, Alexander Russo, Walt Sheridan, Gilbert Kinney, Saul Sherman, Steve Pace, Lee Krasner, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
V.V. Rankine (1920-2004) was a painter and sculptor from Washington, D.C. Variable forms of the artist's name are notably E. R. (Elvine Richard) Rankine, Vivian Scott Rankine, and her married name, Mrs. Paul Scott.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 53 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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.
An interview with Lillian Orlowsky conducted 1996 Aug. 5 and 26, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art, in Orlowsky's home, in Provincetown, Mass.
Orlowsky talks about her childhood in Manhattan, N.Y., including her interest in modern dance, attending art classes at the Educational Alliance in the Lower East Side where she met classmate Louise Nevelson (1932-33); her studies at the American Artists School with Raphael and Moses Soyer and Anton Refregier; creating watercolors with William Freed; her work in the mural and easel divisions of the WPA; Hans Hofmann's classes and her classmates, including Lee Krasner (1937); her return to Provincetown, Mass., in 1944, with husband William Freed; and Forum 49 in Provincetown. Orlowsky also recalls David Alfaro Siqueiros' method of painting.
Biographical / Historical:
Lillian Orlowsky (1914- 2004) was a painter in New York, N.Y. and Provincetown, Mass. Orlowsky was a WPA artist who studied under Hans Hofmann.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 12 min.
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 administrators.
Restrictions:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire audio recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
