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.
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:
Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation. Funding for the digitization of the collection was provided by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative.
The records of Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) measure 64.4 linear feet and 317.43 gigabytes and date from circa 1974-2018. The bulk of the records consist of extensive video and sound recordings of events organized by the group featuring artists, critics, historians, dealers, curators and writers discussing contemporary issues in the American art world in hundreds of panel discussions, open screenings, and dialogues held in New York City. Events began in 1975 and continue to the present; recordings in the collection date from 1977 and 2016. A smaller group of records include administrative files, panel flyers, three scrapbooks, as well as photographs, slides, and negatives of panel discussions and participants.
Scope and Contents:
The records of Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) measure 64.4 linear feet and 317.43 gigabytes and date from circa 1974-2018. The bulk of the records consist of extensive video and sound recordings of events organized by the group featuring artists, critics, historians, dealers, curators and writers discussing contemporary issues in the American art world in hundreds of panel discussions, open screenings, and dialogues held in New York City. Events began in 1975 and continue to the present; recordings in the collection date from 1977 and 2016. A smaller group of records include administrative files, panel flyers, three scrapbooks, as well as photographs, slides, and negatives of panel discussions and participants.
ATOA's recordings chronicle the American art world, covering critical discussions and significant art world issues over five decades. Thousands of artists such as Will Barnet, Louise Bourgeois, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert De Niro, Agnes Denes, Michael Goldberg, Robert Longo, Ana Mendieta, Robert Morris, Elizabeth Murray, Alice Neel, Philip Pavia, Howardena Pindell, Larry Rivers, Sylvia Sleigh, Kahinde Wiley, Hannah Wilke, David Wojnarowicz, and others speak about their work. The original recordings exist in a variety of formats, including U-Matic and VHS videotape, MiniDVs, sound cassettes and sound tape reels. ATOA digitized most of the video and sound recordings prior to donating the collection.
The collection also includes printed histories, board and program committee meeting minutes, financial statements, general correspondence files of the president and chair, attendance statistics, grant files, panel participant release forms, sixteen panel transcripts, a complete set of panel flyers (many are annotated) and other printed materials, three dismantled scrapbooks, as well as photographs, slides, and negatives of panels and panel participants.
Arrangement:
The records are arranged into nine series.
Series 1: Adminstrative Files, 1974-2013 (0.4 linear feet, Box 1)
Series 2: Director's and Chairman's Correspondence, 1977-2006 (0.4 linear feet, Box 1)
Series 3: Grant Files, 1977-2009 (1 linear foot, Boxes 1-2)
Series 4: Panel Release Forms, 1978-2012 (1 linear foot, Boxes 2-3)
Series 6: Printed Materials, 1975-2015 (0.8 linear feet, Boxes 3-4; 0.434 GB, ER02)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1975-1989 (0.2 linear feet, Box 4)
Series 8: Photographic Materials, circa 1975-circa 2000 (1 linear foot, Boxes 4-5)
Series 9: Video and Sound Recordings of Events, 1977-2016 (59 linear feet, Boxes 6-65; 317.43 GB, ER03-ER04)
Biographical / Historical:
Established in 1974 and still active in New York, Artists Talk on Art is the art world's longest running and most prolific aesthetic panel discussion series organized by artists for artists. Founded by Lori Antonacci, Douglas I. Sheer, and Robert Wiegand, the forum has presented 6,000 artists in nearly 1,000 documented panels or dialogues. ATOA held its first panel, "Whatever Happened to Public Art," on January 10, 1975 and it drew a "crowd" of 77 people. In the decades that followed, ATOA presented dozens of panels or dialogues a year, tackling such diverse topics as "What is Happening with Conceptual Art," with Louise Lawler and Lawrence Weiner; "Painting and Photography: Defining the Difference," with Sarah Charlesworth, Jack Goldstein, Joseph Kosuth, Barbara Kruger, and Robert Mapplethorpe; "Organizing Arts Activism," with Lucy Lippard; "The Artist and the Epidemic—an information panel about AIDS"; "Cross-generational Views of Feminism"; and hundreds more.
Provenance:
The Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) records, including digital files of the video and sound recordings, were donated to the Archives in 2016 by Douglas Sheer, Chairman of ATOA.
Restrictions:
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 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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Peter Saul, 2009 Nov. 3-4. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Peter Saul conducted 2009 Nov. 3-4, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art, at Saul's studio, in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Saul speaks of his childhood in San Francisco; boarding school in Canada; his time at the San Francisco Art Institute and Washington University in St. Louis; his travels to and extended stay in Europe: Bergen ann Zee, Netherlands; Paris, France, where he first saw Mad Comics and found his style and became recognized as an artist; and Rome, Italy where he was neighbors to Madame Nhu; his time as a teacher at the University of Texas; his relationship to funk art of the Bay Area, the Chicago imagists and pop art; his thoughts on American popular culture, the ever-shifting concept of being an interesting artist and the contemporary art world; his gallery partnerships with Allan Frumkin and David Nolan; Saul also recalls Max Beckmann, Wally Barker, Fred Conway, James Bishop, Cy Twombly, Peter Selz, Roy De Forest, William T. Wiley, Clayton Bailey, Robert Storr, Robert Crumb, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Peter Saul (1934-) is painter, in New York, N.Y. Interviewer Judith Olch Richards (1947- ) is former Executive director of iCI in New York, N.Y.
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.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for this interview was provided by theTerra Foundation for American Art.
Willem de Kooning, American, b. Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1904–1997 Search this
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
88 x 77 1/16 in. (223.4 x 195.6 cm)
Type:
Painting
Date:
(1981)
Credit Line:
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Partial Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, by exchange, and Museum Purchase, 1982
Bruce Nauman, American, b. Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1941 Search this
Medium:
Wax on cloth
Dimensions:
28 x 10 1/8 x 4 in. (71.1 x 25.7 x 10.2 cm)
Type:
Sculpture
Date:
1967
Credit Line:
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund and Holenia Purchase Fund, in memory of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, and Museum Purchase, 1993
Psychic wounds on art & trauma edited by Gavin Delahunty ; foreword by Cindy and Howard Rachofsky and Allan Schwartzman ; introduction by Gavin Delahunty ; essays by Robert Storr, Beatriz Colomina, Griselda Pollock, Huey Copeland, Hal Foster, Bracha L. Ettinger, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, and Erika Naginski ; catalogue design by Takaaki Matsumoto
