An interview of Anni Albers conducted 1968 July 5, by Sevim Fesci, for the Archives of American Art, in New Haven, Connecticut.
Albers speaks of her educational background; Paul Klee as a teacher; color in weaving; techniques and materials; Peruvian and European textiles; her "sound-absorbing" textile designed for the Bauhaus auditorium; and her weaving workshop at Black Mountain College. She reminisces about the Bauhaus in the 1920s.
Biographical / Historical:
Anni Albers (1899-1994) was a weaver from New Haven, Connecticut.
General:
Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 40 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.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- Connecticut -- New Haven Search this
Biographical materials, correspondence, awards, photographs, and printed materials relating to the career of the noted ceramist and teacher who devoted the last quarter century of her life to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Correspondence consists chiefly of letters received from museums, colleagues (including Charles Eames), friends and former students. Other materials include biographical sketches, resumes, exhibition catalogs and announcements, clippings, scrapbook fragments, a file relating to students and colleagues, a register of funeral visitors, numerous personal and family photographs and five photo albums of Grotell and her work.
Biographical / Historical:
Ceramist and educator. Born 1899. Died 1973. After several years as a textile designer in her native Finland, Grotell immigrated to the United States in 1927. For a short time she studied with Charles Fergus Binns and from 1938 to 1966 she headed the ceramics department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. During this period, the height of her career, she became one of the leaders in the development of ceramics as a medium of artistic expression. In addition, her research on glazes for Eero Saarinen made possible the widespread architectural use of colored glazed bricks.
Related Materials:
Slides of Grotell's work located at the George Arents Research Library for Special Collections, Syracuse University.
Provenance:
Order and arrangement is that of the George Arents Research Library for Special Collections, Syracuse University.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
An interview with Julia Santos Solomon conducted 2021 March 9- 2021 April 15, by Fernanda Espinosa, for the Latino Initiatives Pool 2019, at Santos Solomon's studio in Woodstock, New York.
Biographical / Historical:
Julia Santos Solomon (1956- ) is a teacher, painter, and textile and fashion designer in the Dominican Republic and Woodstock, New York.
Related Materials:
The Archives also holds the Julia Santos Solomon papers and an oral history interview with Santos Solomon conducted 2020 August 26 as a part of the Archives of American Art's Pandemic Oral History Project.
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 interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its Oral History Program interviews available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. Quotation, reproduction and publication of the recording is governed by restrictions. If an interview has been transcribed, researchers must quote from the transcript. If an interview has not been transcribed, researchers must quote from the recording. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
This collection documents Scheeline's work as a textile designer from 1945-1970.The archive material consists of brochures, photographs, sketches, correspondence, scrapbooks, client records, and other related items that document Ms. Scheeline's career from the 1930s to the 1980s (briefly covers 1990s). A majority of the items deal specifically with the projects for textiles and wallcoverings, research on forms in nature, and notes on her travels.
Arrangement note:
Materials are arranged in seven boxes as follows: I. design scrapbooks; sketches of textiles and wallpapers; II. Press (photos, articles and releases); exhibition brochures; financial and legal records; client records; misc. correspondence; III. client designs and records; IV. Cooper-Hewitt correspondence; travel sketchbooks; personal photos and correspondence; box of photos and slides (textiles and papers); V. design scrapbook; drawings and sketches; photocopies; William Katzenbach, Practical Book of American Wallpaper; VI. blocking materials; handblocks scrapbook; and VII. large drawings and design records.
Biographical/Historical note:
American artist and textile designer Lanette Scheeline (1910- ) specializes in textile and wallpaper designs, and does custom block-printing for decorators. Scheeline is a Sausalito native, University of California graduate and former student at the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design. She spent years working in other phases of textile or wallpaper design and all contributed to the background of technique, marketing, public taste and business judgment she needed in her own enterprises. She first gained recognition at the Golden Gate International Exposition (1940). Since then her work has been on view at the de Young Museum, Marin Art & Garden Fair, the Contemporary Gallery in Sausalito, the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, the Mill Valley Outdoor Art Club, the New-York Historical Society, and the Pacific Coast Textile Exhibition (1949, 1950) in the company of Trude Guermonprez and Jack Lenor Larsen among others.
Location of Other Archival Materials Note:
Materials are also available in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Musuem, Drawings and Prints Department.
Provenance:
All materials were donated to the museum by Lanette Scheeline in 1998.
Restrictions:
Unprocessed; access is limited; Permission of Library Director required. Policy.
Project files containmagazine and newspaper clippings, reviews, correspondence, renderings, floor plans, perspective drawings, site plans, sketches, preliminary drawings, patents, stationery, labels, and technical reports. There is an extensive collection of photographs and slides of many of Deskey's packaging designs, interiors, furnishings, and exhibition installations. The files of Donald Deskey Associates include organizational charts, client files, proposals, and financial records. Some of Deskey's personal correspondence, speeches, articles, and family photographs are included. Materials cover the period from 1927-1975.
Arrangement note:
Arranged into six records groups: 1) architecture/interiors projects; 2)Donald Deskey Associates; 3) industrial design projects; 4) reference; 5) Donald Deskey's personal papers; and 6) photographs. A special collection of more than one thousand slides of Deskey's work are boxed separately.
Biographical/Historical note:
Industrial, interior, and packaging designer. Born Blue Earth, Minnesota, November 23, 1894. By 1943, he had established Donald Deskey Associates in New York. Along with Dreyfuss, Bel Geddes, and Loewy, Deskey was one of the great industrial design pioneers in the 1930s.
He is best known for his designs for the furnishings and interiors of Radio City Music Hall in 1932, and for his work for companies such as: Widdicomb Furniture Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan; W & J Sloane, New York; and Estey Manufacturing Company, Owosso, Michigan. Deskey is also known for his familiar packaging designs for Procter & Gamble products, such as Crest toothpaste, Prell shampoo, and Tide detergent.
Donald Deskey Associates also was responsible for lamppost #10, the streetlight still in use today in New York City. Materials from this archival collection were featured in Cooper-Hewitt's 1994 exhibition and accompanying book, "Packaging the New: Design and the American Consumer, 1925- 1975."
Location of Other Archival Materials Note:
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Drawings and Prints Department. Approximately 3,000 drawings for furniture and textile designs.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Applied Arts Department. Two tables, handles, and a glass bottle and box designed by Deskey.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Textiles Department. One textile designed by Deskey.
Other sources of archival information on Deskey include, the Procter & Gamble Archive, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Deskey Associates, New York City.
Provenance:
The Deskey collection was donated to the museum in three installments.
In 1975, Deskey deposited at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum,, hundreds of drawings, 3 four-drawer file cabinets of material, and several oversized packages comprising the bulk of his papers covering the period from 1927-1965. These items were officially donated to the museum in 1988.
In 1992, Deskey Associates of New York made an additional gift consisting of, approximately 1,000 35mm slides that documented projects from the 1960s through 1980s, and focused primarily on designs for packaging.
In 1994, Donald Deskey's nephew, Robert Deskey presented the Museum with, 120 postcards, letters, and family photographs.
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use onsite by appointment. Permission of staff required to photograph materials.
