The Artists' Gallery records measure 6.6 linear feet and date from 1929 to 1967. The collection sheds light on the gallery's operations through adminstrative records, artist files, exhibition files, and printed material.
Scope and Contents:
The Artists' Gallery records measure 6.6 linear feet and date from 1929 to 1967. The collection sheds light on the gallery's operations through adminstrative records, artist files, exhibition files, and printed material.
Administrative records include correspondence, gallery daybooks, inventories, meeting minutes of the gallery's board of directors, and two essay drafts; financial records consist of accounting books, sales records, receipts, invoices, payments, and a ledger; and museum and gallery files include papers and correspondence related to exhibitions, loans of artwork, and shipments of artwork. Several photographs of staff, artists, and the gallery interior are found here as well.
Artist files include biographical information and correspondence between artists, Federica Beer-Monti, and Hugh Stix concerning exhibitions, artwork shipments, prices, and some personal matters. Some files also include photographs, exhibition catalogs and announcements, newspaper clippings, artist books, and price lists.
Exhibition files include price lists, correspondence, drafts of publicity material, visitor guestbooks, and lists of exhibitions and exhibiting artists. Printed material includes Artists' Gallery's brochures, flyers, and other mailings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, as well as gallery scrapbooks comprised of exhibition ephemera, newspaper clippings, and some photographs; an essay published by gallery founder Hugh Stix; exhibition material, newsletters, and miscellaneous publications from other museums and galleries; and books on artists Henri Gaudier and Beauford Delaney.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as four series.
Series 1: Administrative Records, 1936-1965 (Box 1-2, 7; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Artist Files, 1929-1967, bulk 1936-1962 (Box 2-4, 7-8; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, 1936-1962 (Box 4, 7, OV 9; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1931-1967 (Box 5-7; 2.1 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
The Artists' Gallery was established by Hugh Stix in 1936 in New York City. The goal of this non-profit gallery was to provide unknown or little-known artists a space to exhibit their work to gain public notoriety or be taken up by a commercial gallery. Stix hired Federica Beer-Monti, an Austrian socialite who was friends and acquaintances with many European artists, as director of the gallery. The painters and sculptors exhibited by the Artists' Gallery were voted on and selected by a rotating committee. Exhibitions were given without charge to the artist, and artists received the entire sale price of their work if sold. Some notable artists who exhibited at the Artists' Gallery included Josef Albers, Saul and Eugenie Baizerman, Byron Browne, Louis Eilshemius, Ben-Zion, Aristodemos Kaldis, De Hirsh Margules, and Hans Boehler. The gallery discontinued operations in the summer of 1962.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming on reel N737. Included are six letters, 1938-1939, from artist Louis M. Eilshemius to gallery director Federica Beer-Monti. Loaned materials were returned to the donor and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Artists' Gallery records were donated and lent for microfilming in several installments from 1967 to 1998. Material on reels D313 and 79 were donated from 1967 to 1968 by Federica Beer-Monti; and she lent the Louis M. Eilshemius letters on reel N737 in 1968. The unmicrofilmed portion was donated in 1974 by Beer-Monti's niece, Greta Shapiro, who also lent the logbooks on reel 1042 for microfilming in 1976. In 1998, Shapiro's widower, Aaron, donated the material lent on reel 1042.
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.
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.
Artists' Gallery Records, 1929-1967. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
Art work by various artists; photographs of Kopman, his family and one of his works; reproductions of works; and exhibition catalogs.
Art works consist of an oil sketch of mice eating, probably by Claude Buck (1903); prints by Felix Russman, Jennings Tofel, James S. Hulme, Claude Buck, M. Rosenbloom, and unidentified artists; a sketch by Claude Buck of his father, W.R. Buck; an unidentified pencil sketch of a workman using a grindstone and a print of the same subject. Photographs show works by Kopman and an unidentified artist, and Kopman and his family in Haddam, Connecticut (1920). Other materials include reproductions of work by Kopman and Claude Buck, an exhibition catalog, Introspective Art, and an Emil Carlsen Memorial Exhibition catalog.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, etcher, lithographer, illustrator, sculptor, writer; b. Dec. 25, 1887, Vitebsk, Russia; emigrated to U.S. in 1903; d. Dec. 3, 1965, Teaneck, N.J. Kopman's wife, Grace, was the sister of artist Claude Buck. Buck and Kopman were friends and fellow-students at the National Academy of Design. Emil Carlsen was one of their teachers. Kopman, Buck, Abraham Harriton and Jennings Tofel formed the "Introspective" group of subjectivist painters.
Related Materials:
Benjamin Kopman papers also at Syracuse University.
Provenance:
Donated 1990 by Diana V. Link, daughter of Benjamin Kopman.
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.
Tofel's autobiography; correspondence; diary notebooks; writings; and several essays. Correspondents include Federica Beer-Monti, Katherine Dreier, Edith Halpert, Benjamin Kopman, and Maurice Sterne.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1968 by Yivo Institute for Jewish Research.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 66.4957
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 66.4964
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 66.4955
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 66.4956
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 66.4968
Date:
1929
Topic:
Architecture interior--Domestic--House Search this
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 66.4953
