Most of Ruth Landes's papers relate directly or indirectly to Landes's American Indian research, her work in Brazil, and her study of bilingualism. There is also a considerable amount of material that relates to her experiences (sometimes fictionalized) at Fisk University. There is only small amount of material related to her other interests. Her collection also has material of and relating to the Brazilian folklorist and journalist Edison Carneiro. There is also noteworthy material concerning Herbert Baldus, Ruth Benedict, Elmer C. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, and Robert E. Park. There is a large amount of printed and processed materials in the collection, mainly in the form of newspaper clippings and a collection of scholarly papers.
Scope and Contents:
This collection is mainly comprised of the professional papers of Ruth Schlossberg Landes. Included are correspondence, journals, published and unpublished manuscripts of writings, research materials including field notes and reading notes, photographs, drawings, scholarly papers and publications by other scholars, and clippings from newspapers and periodicals.
Landes's field research on Candomblé in Brazil is well-represented in this collection, consisting of her field journals, writings, and photographs. Also present are Maggie Wilson's stories that were the basis for Landes's The Ojibwa Woman. Unfortunately, Landes was unable to locate her journals for her early research with the Ojibwa/Chippewa, Potawatomi, and Dakota. There are, however, field photographs of the Ojibwa/Chippewa and Potawatomi in the collection. There is also a great deal of her research on groups, especially minorities, in multilingual states with particular focus on the French of Quebec, Basques of Spain and the United States, Boers and Blacks of South Africa, the several socio-linguistic groups of Switzerland, and Acadians (Cajuns) of Louisiana. In the collection are several drafts of her unpublished manuscript on bilingualism, "Tongues that Defy the State." There is also a small amount of material about Black Jews of New York and considerable material about Landes's experience among African Americans when she taught briefly at Fisk University, including her unpublished manuscript "Now, at Athens," containing fictional and autobiographical accounts of her time at Fisk.
Reflections of other facets of Landes's professional activities are also included. Some materials concern her teaching activities, and there is also documentation of her work with the Fair Employment Practices Commission (a federal government agency during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt) and a similar private organization which immediately succeeded the FEPA; Gunnar Myrdal's research into the plight of African Americans ("The Negro in America"); the Research in Contemporary Cultures project at Columbia University; and the American Jewish Congress.
Among Landes's correspondents are Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Ralph Bunche, Herbert Baldus, Edison Carneiro, Sally Chilver, Frances Densmore, Sol Tax, Elmer S. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, Robert E. Park, and Hendrik W. van der Merwe.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 6 series: (1) Correspondence, 1931-1991; (2) Research Materials, circa 1930s-1990; (3) Writings, circa 1930s-1990; (4) Teaching Materials, 1935-1975, undated; (5) Biographical and Personal Files, 1928-1988; (6) Graphic Materials, 1933-1978, undated
Biographical Note:
Ruth Schlossberg Landes was born on October 8, 1908 in New York City. Her father was Joseph Schlossberg, an activist in the Yiddish labor socialist community and one of the founders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. She studied sociology at New York University (B.A. 1928) and social work at the New York School of Social Work, Columbia University (M.S.W. 1929). While in graduate school, Landes studied Black Jews in Harlem for her master's thesis, a topic that developed her interests in anthropology.
After graduating in 1929, she worked as a social worker in Harlem and married Victor Landes, a medical student and son of family friends. Their marriage ended after two years when she enrolled in the doctoral program in anthropology at Columbia against her husband's wishes. She kept his surname due to the stigma of being a divorced woman.
At Columbia, Landes studied under Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, her main advisor. Under the guidance of Benedict, Landes moved away from further study of African Americans to focus on Native American communities. Upon Benedict's suggestion, Landes studied the social organization of the Ojibwa in Manitou Rapids in Ontario from 1932 to 1936 for her Ph.D. fieldwork. Her dissertation, Ojibwa Sociology, was published in 1937. Landes also contributed "The Ojibwa of Canada" in Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples (1937), a volume edited by Margaret Mead. In 1938, Landes published Ojibwa Women (1938), a book written in collaboration with Maggie Wilson, an Ojibwa interpreter and informant.
In addition to studying the Ojibwa in Ontario, Landes also conducted fieldwork with the Chippewa of Red Lake, Minnesota in 1933, working closely with shaman or midé Will Rogers. Her book, Ojibwa Religion and the Midéwiwin (1968) was based largely on her research with Rogers and Maggie Wilson. In 1935 and 1936, she undertook fieldwork with the Santee Dakota in Minnesota and the Potawatomi in Kansas. Like Ojibwa Religion and the Midéwiwin, her books on the Santee Dakota and Potawatomi were not published until several years later—The Mystic Lake Sioux: Sociology of the Mdewakantonwan Sioux was published in 1968 while The Prairie Potawatomi was published in 1970. In between her field research in the 1930s and the publication of The Prairie Potawatomi, Landes returned to Kansas to study the Potawatomi in the 1950s and 1960s.
Landes's plan to continue her studies with the Potawatomi in 1937 changed when Benedict invited her to join a team of researchers from Columbia University in Brazil. Landes was to conduct research on Afro-Brazilians in Bahia, Brazil, while Walter Lipkind, Buell Quain, and Charles Wagley studied indigenous people in the Amazons. To prepare for her research, Landes was at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1937 and 1938 to consult with Robert Park and Donald Pierson and to use the university's library collections of African and African American materials. During that time, Landes also held a teaching position at Fisk and lived in the non-segregated women's residence on campus. Landes later wrote "Now, at Athens," an unpublished memoir containing fictional and true accounts of her experiences at Fisk.
From 1938 to 1939, Landes conducted fieldwork on the role of Afro-Brazilian women and homosexuals in the Candomblé religion in Bahia, Brazil. Unable to move freely by herself in Brazil as a single woman, Landes was accompanied by Edison Carneiro, a Bahian journalist and folklorist. With Carneiro as her companion, Landes was allowed access to rituals and people that would have been closed off to her otherwise. Due to her association with Carneiro, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party, Landes was suspected of being a communist and was forced to leave Bahia early. Publications from her research in Brazil include "A Cult Matriarchate and Male Homosexuality" (1940) and City of Women (1947). She returned to Brazil in 1966 to study the effects of urban development in Rio de Janeiro. In 1967, a Portuguese translation of City of Women was published, a project that Carneiro had commissioned as the first director of the Ministry of Education and Culture's Special National Agency for the Protection of Folklore.
Landes returned to New York in 1939, working briefly as a researcher for Gunnar Myrdal's study of African Americans. Unable to obtain a permanent position at a university, she worked in several other short term positions throughout most of her career. During World War II, Landes was a research director for the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs (1941) and consultant for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee on African American and Mexican American cases (1941-44). In 1945, Landes directed a program created by Pearl S. Buck and a group of interdenominational clergy to analyze pending New York anti-discrimination legislation. She moved to California the following year to work for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Welfare Council on a study of race and youth gangs. After her contract ended, she moved back to New York and was hired as a contract researcher for the American Jewish Congress (1948-50). She also participated in Columbia University's Research in Contemporary Cultures (1949-51), studying Jewish families. She coauthored with Mark Zborowski, "Hypothesis concerning the Eastern European Jewish Family." From 1951 to 1952, Landes spent a year in London, funded by a Fulbright fellowship to study colored colonial immigrants and race relations in Great Britain.
After her fellowship ended, Landes returned to the United States and held short term appointments at several universities. She taught at the William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution in New York (1953-54), the New School for Social Research in New York (1953-55), University of Kansas (1957, 1964), University of Southern California (1957-62), Columbia University (1963), Los Angeles State College (1963), and Tulane University (1964). At Claremont Graduate School, Landes helped to develop and direct the Claremont Anthropology and Education Program (1959-62).
It was not until 1965 that Landes obtained a permanent faculty position at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario; she was recruited for the position by Richard Slobodin. Due to Ontario's age retirement law, Landes was forced to retire in 1973 at the age of 65. She continued to teach part-time until 1977, when she became professor emerita.
Landes passed away at the age of 82 on February 11, 1991.
Sources Consulted
Cole, Sally. 2003. Ruth Landes: A Life in Anthropology. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Chronology
1908 October 8 -- Born Ruth Schlossberg in New York City
1928 -- B.A. in sociology, New York University
1929 -- M.S.W., New York School of Social Work, Columbia University
1929-1931 -- Social worker in Harlem Married to Victor Landes
1929-1934 -- Studied Black Jews in Harlem
1931 -- Began graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University
1932-1936 -- Studied the Ojibwa in Ontario and Minnesota (in field periodically)
1933-1940 -- Research Fellow, Columbia University
1935 Summer-Fall -- Studied the Santee Sioux (Dakota) in Minnesota
1935-1936 -- Studied the Potawatomi in Kansas
1935 -- Ph.D., Columbia University
1937 -- Instructor, Brooklyn College
1937-1938 -- Instructor, Fisk University
1938-1939 -- Studied Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil, especially at Bahia
1939 -- Researcher on Gunnar Myrdal's study, "The Negro in America"
1941 -- Research Director, Office of Inter American Affairs, Washington, D.C.
1941-1945 -- Representative for Negro and Mexican American Affairs, Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), President Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration
1944 -- Interim Director, Committee Against Racial Discrimination, New York
1946-1947 -- Researcher, study of Mexican American youth, gangs, and families, Los Angeles Metropolitan Council
1948-1951 -- Researcher, American Jewish Congress, New York
1949-1951 -- Research consultant, study on Jewish families in New York for Research in Contemporary Cultures Project, Columbia University
1951-1952 -- Fulbright Scholar, to study colored colonial immigration into Great Britain
1953-1954 -- Lecturer, William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution, New York
1953-1955 -- Lecturer, New School for Social Research, New York
1956-1957 -- Married to Ignacio Lutero Lopez
1957 Summer -- Visiting Professor, University of Kansas
1957-1958 -- Visiting Professor, University of Southern California
1957-1965 -- Consultant, California agencies (Department of Social Work, Bureau of Mental Hygiene, Department of Education, Public Health Department) and San Francisco Police Department
1958-1959 -- Director, Geriatrics Program, Los Angeles City Health Department
1959-1962 -- Visiting Professor and Director of Anthropology and Education Program, Claremont Graduate School
1962 -- Extension Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Berkeley
1963 -- Extension Lecturer, Columbia University Extension Lecturer, Los Angeles State College
1963-1965 -- Consultant, International Business Machines (IBM)
1964 January-June -- Visiting Professor, Tulane University
1964 Summer -- Field work with Potawatomi in Kansas Professor, University of Kansas
1965-1975 -- Professor at McMaster University
1966 -- Studied urban development in Rio de Janeiro
1968-1975 -- Studied bilingualism and biculturalism in Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, United States, and Canada (in Spain and the United States concentrated on Basques)
1975 -- Became part-time faculty member at McMaster University
1977 -- Professor Emerita, McMaster University
1978 -- Award of Merit from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
1991 February 11 -- Died in Hamilton, Ontario
1991 -- Establishment of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund at Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM)
Related Materials:
Correspondence from Ruth Landes can be found in the William Duncan Strong Papers, the Leonard Bloomfield Papers, and MS 7369. The Ruth Bunzel Papers contains a copy of a grant application by Landes.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Ruth Landes in 1991.
Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in partnership with the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Comments from students and community members at University of California, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Francisco.
Collection 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.
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:
Noah Purifoy papers, 1935-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.
The papers of African American painter, printmaker, and educator Marvin Harden measure 2.2 linear feet and date from circa 1936 to 2005. Found within the papers are biographical materials, correspondence, teaching files, exhibition files, printed material, artwork, and photographs. Correspondents include Joyce Tremain, Judy Chicago, Marion Lerner Levine, Jud Fine, Houston Conwill, Sandy Ballatore-Nelson, Nancy Lee Riegelmen, Eugene Anderson, Connor Everts, Pleter Plagens, Jan Stussy, Caroll Toon, William Wilson, and others. Artwork includes a book of etchings Natural Selections (1991).
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American painter, printmaker, and educator Marvin Harden measure 2.2 linear feet and date from circa 1936 to 2005. Found within the papers are biographical materials, correspondence, teaching files, exhibition files, printed material, artwork, and photographs. Artwork includes a book of etchings Natural Selections (1991).
Biographical material includes papers pertaining to Harden's education and family history, including an essay written by his sister Lura Harden Miller.
Correspondence is with artists, colleagues, and organizations, including Eugene Anderson, Sandy Ballatore-Nelson, William Brice, Judy Chicago, Houston Conwill, Connor Everts, Jud Fine, Marion Lerner Levine, Pleter Plagens, Nancy Lee Riegelmen, Jan Stussy, Caroll Toon, William Wilson, Dobrick Gallery, Eugenia Butler Gallery, Gloria Cortella, Inc., Hank Baum Gallery, Jan Turner Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others.
Teaching files primarily document Harden's career as an art educator at California State University, Northridge. Materials include teaching awards, assignments, course outlines, notes, and miscellaneous writings by Harden about his teaching philosophy. The files also contain correspondence and photographs with students, a student exhibition guest register, committee notes, memorandums, and evidence pertaining to an employment-related grievance with the university.
Exhibition files include announcements, correspondence, exhibition catalogs, floor plans, insurance documents, loan agreements, photographs, press releases, and price lists.
Printed material consists of announcements and invitations, exhibition catalogs, and a loose clippings scrapbook with articles and reviews about Harden's artwork and exhibitions. Also found is a copy of the first volume of the Journal published by the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, which includes a photograph of Harden and references to his involvement in developing the organization.
Artwork includes two sketches and an artists' book entitled natural selections which contains 12 aquatint etchings by Marvin Harden.
Among the black and white and color photographs are portraits and snapshots of Marvin Harden, family members, and colleagues, as well as Harden's home, studio, and land at Inwardness Ranch located near Cambria, California.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1950-1991 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1964-2005 (Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Teaching Files, circa 1964-2003 (Box 1; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1966-2004 (Boxes 1-2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1964-2003 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, 1989-2000 (Box 2; 2 folders)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1936-2001 (Box 2; 7 folders)
Biographical / Historical:
Marvin Harden (1935- ) is an African American painter, printmaker, and educator living and working in California.
Harden received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1963. While there, Harden studied under John Paul Jones, Jan Stussy, and William Brice. He also became friends with UCLA classmate and feminist artist, Judy Chicago.
Harden's first solo exhibition was in 1964 at Ceeje Galleries in Los Angeles, California. His drawings, paintings, and prints have been exhibited widely in museums, galleries, and universities in southern California, and also in New Mexico, New York, and Texas, among other locations. Harden has also been the recipient of artists' fellowships awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.
Harden became a Professor of Art at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 1968, and in 1984 he received a Distinguished Teaching Award and Exceptional Merit Service Award. During his career at CSUN, Harden established the art department's graduate teaching assistant program.
Provenance:
The Marvin Harden papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Marvin Harden in 2005.
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.
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.
The Will to Adorn: African American Diversity, Style, and Identity
Collection Creator:
Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Introduction:
The creative traditions of dress and body arts among people of African descent in the United States reveal continuities of ideas, values, skills, and knowledge rooted in the African continent and in the American experience. They have been shaped by identities born of African heritage; legacies of bondage and resistance; and encounters and alliances between people of African descent, indigenous Americans, Europeans, and more recent African and Caribbean diasporas. They may reflect, for example, shared experiences of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements; group commitments to faith; and the politics of gender.
African Americans "belong" to many communities variously defined by ethnic, class, gender and gender orientation, regional, religious, political, cultural, and other affiliations that exist in complex interrelationship with each other. Accordingly, there is no single African American aesthetic of dress; there are many aesthetics that at times overlap, intertwine, and are juxtaposed in visual dialogues defining difference and belonging.
Style, the art of dress and personal adornment, is a powerful way to assert complex identities, announce solidarity with a cause, proclaim music and dance preferences, uphold cultural pride, and declare belief in a set of religious and moral principles. In all its glorious diversity, African American style is as local as the barbershop on the corner and as global as the influence of hip hop dress culture among young people from Japan to South Africa. The 2013 Festival celebrated the communities, artisans, and exemplars of style who contribute to this distinctive, expressive art form and their creative approaches, processes, and performances.
The Will to Adorn Festival program was part of a multi-year collaborative cultural research and community engagement project initiated by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The project brought together faculty and students at historically (and predominantly) African American colleges and universities, museum and independent scholars, community and student researchers, educators, and cultural practitioners to document and present the wearable art traditions of African Americans from diverse regional, ethnic, occupational, faith, and ideology-based communities. This research focused on urban style centers - Atlanta, metropolitan Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, New York, St. Croix and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and most recently Oakland, California. The project identified and represented a range of traditions of dress and body arts of Americans of African descent across the United States. At the 2013 Festival, this work was highlighted at the Research Tent, where, as part of the Smithsonian's Will to Adorn Youth Access project, teen researchers worked with visitors to create their own sartorial (dress) autobiographies.
Diana Baird N'Diaye was Program Curator, with a Curatorial Team including Olivia Cadaval, Elaine Nichols, and Debora Mack; Sally A. Van de Water was Program Coordinator. Advisors included: Harold Anderson, Mary Jo Arnoldi, Jade D. Banks, Rachel Delgado-Simmons, Tina Dunkley, James Early, Jessica Harris, Monte Oyd Harris, Christine Kreamer, Marsha MacDowell, Maurita Poole, Mark Puryear, Deborah Richardson, Gwendolyn K. Robinson, Pamela Rogers, Nicole Shivers, Pravina Shukla, Deborah Smith-Pollard, Gabrielle Tayac, Patricia Turner, Mary Arnold Twining Baird, and Deborah Willis.
The program was produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and supported by Smithsonian Institution funds from the Youth Access Grants Program, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and other Smithsonian fund sources. It was also supported by AARP. Major in-kind support came from the Smithsonian Office of Mobile Technology, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African Art, the Center for Aesthetic Modernism, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Bowie State University, Frank McClarin High School, University of the District of Columbia, University of Michigan, University of California-Los Angeles, Michigan State University, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center. Research for the program was funded by the Craft Research Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Smithsonian Scholarly Studies, Smithsonian Institution Consortium for Understanding the American Experience and Consortium for World Cultures, and the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts.
Researchers:
Maurita Poole and Spelman College students, Deborah Robinson and McClarin High School Video Production Program, Atlanta researchers; Althea Grey McKenzie, Baltimore researcher; Gwendolyn Robinson, Chicago researcher; Simone Forde, Deborah Smith Pollard, Detroit researchers; Diana Briggs, Malik Stevenson, New Orleans researchers; Jade D. Banks, Madaha Kinsey Lamb, and students of the Beverly Robinson Folk Arts Internship Program, Mind-Builders Creative Arts, New York City researchers; Shukuru Sanders, Oakland researcher; Harold Anderson and students at Bowie State University and Goucher College, Camila Bryce-LaPorte and students, Katherine Hockey, Mark Puryear, James Robinson, Washington, D.C., researchers; Sally A. Van de Water, Januwa Moja, Jade D. Banks, Betty Mahoney, U.S. Virgin Islands researchers; Camila Bryce LaPorte, Olivia Smith-Elnaggar, Deborah Smith Pollard, communities of faith researchers; Rachel Delgado-Simmons, Gabrielle Tayac, Native/African American communities researchers; Keisha Martin, on-line communities of style researcher
Presenters:
Kimberly Brown, Camila Bryce-LaPorte, James Early, Allison J. Hamilton, Elaine Nichols, Mark Puryear, Gwendolyn Robinson, Olivia Smith-Elnaggar, Gabrielle Tayac, Patricia Turner, Derrick Washington
Rosemary Reed Miller, historian and entrepreneur, Washington, D.C.
Lubna Muhammad, 1955-, fashion designer, Pennsauken, New Jersey
Betty Keckley Stratford, family historian, Washington, D.C.
Takoma Park Baptist Church, style exemplars, Takoma Park, Maryland
RESEARCH TENT
Jade Banks, director, Dr. Beverly J. Robinson Community Folk Culture Program, Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center, New York, New York
Monte Oyd Harris, 1966-, Maryland, plastic surgeon, Chevy Chase, Maryland
Yemaya Jones, 1949-, resist dyer, Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
James Pogue, 1993-, Frank McClarin High School student researcher, Atlanta Georgia
Darius Smith, 1993-, Frank McClarin High School student researcher, Atlanta Georgia
Geena Paige Mignon, genealogist, African ancestry
Edmund Asante, 1993-, Mind-Builders student researcher, Bronx, New York
Katherine Blanco, 1995-, Mind-Builders student researcher, Bronx, New York
Marlon Carter, Mind-Builders student researcher
Chennell Christopher, 1984-, Mind-Builders student researcher, Bronx, New York
Phylicia Martin, Mind-Builders student researcher
Debra Robinson, 1953-, videographer, educator, Frank McClarin High School, Atlanta, Georgia
Andrene M. Taylor, 1978-, health activist, CEO of Zuriworks for Women's Health, Washington, D.C.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with James Bassler, 2002 February 11-June 6. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Cindy Kolodziejski conducted 2007 May 5-16, by Frank Lloyd, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the Frank Lloyd Gallery, in Santa Monica, California.
Kolodziejski speaks of moving in her early childhood from Germany to Arizona and finally to California; the divorce of her parents at a young age and her feelings of abandonment; her desire as a young child to be an artist; the early influence of her grandmother, an art teacher; teaching herself how to draw by copying images and creating still-lifes; an influential art teacher in high school who encouraged her to pursue college-level art classes and attend art school after graduation; her decision to enroll at Otis College of Art and Design; her foundation art classes at Otis and increasing interest in ceramics; choosing ceramics as a medium because of its flexibility and of form and potential for imagery; the value of her art education to her career; earning a Master of Fine Arts degree while teaching at California State University, Long Beach; the union of form, function, and imagery in her work, especially seen in a recent exhibition at the Frank Lloyd Gallery titled "Reversal of Fountain"; using the University of California, Los Angeles, libraries to find images at first, and later searching the internet for inspiration; creating pieces which play with and explore gender issues and sexuality; being reviewed and featured in articles which are especially concerned with issues of the body and femininity; the documentation of her art in various periodicals and texts, including a piece she wrote for Ceramics Monthly concerning her own work; gaining exposure through these articles, which helped to advance her career; the painstaking and technical process required to fashion her works of art; showing at the Garth Clark Gallery very quickly after graduation; traveling to Greece, China, Nepal, New York, and Italy, and being influenced by the exposure to the different art and cultures; recent travels with her daughter to Italy and feeling excited and humbled by the beauty of certain works; giving a talk at the Getty Museum about a show entitled "The Royal Menagerie" featuring the Meissen large-scale porcelain animals; participating in group shows in museums, particularly the "Color and Fire" exhibit which showcased important ceramicists from 1950 to 2000; being awarded various grants and feeling that applying for those awards is a very worthwhile experience for many artists; teaching first at the high school level and then in college; her teaching methods; forming friendships with fellow artists and art teachers; integrating the use of technology into her art-making process by finding and manipulating images on the computer; feeling motivated to produce in a positive way for exhibition deadlines; the support and friendships that developed through exhibiting with the Clark Garth and Frank Lloyd galleries; the encouragement and support she has been shown by her family throughout her career; and categorizing herself first and foremost as an artist rather than a craft artist or ceramicist. Kolodziejski recalls, Lita Albuquerque, Jill Giegerich, Peter Lodato, Barbara Thomason, Roy Dowell, Eugene Sturman, Carol Caroompas, Tony Marsh, Ralph Baccera, Adrian Saxe, Ron Nagle, Roseline Delisle, John Mason, Jo Lauria, David Pagel, Garth Clark, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Cindy Kolodziejski (1962- ) is a sculptor and painter from Venice, California. Frank Lloyd (1951- ) is a gallery owner from Santa Monica, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 10 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.
An interview of Merryll Saylan conducted 2006 May 20-June 5, by Glenn Adamson, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, England.
Saylan speaks of her childhood in Los Angeles, California; her early musical education in piano and viola; memories of World War II; her family's political views during the Cold War; meeting her first husband at UCLA; dropping out of school to move to Virginia and Georgia in fulfillment of her husband's military service; experiencing anti-Semitism in Georgia; the challenges of her eldest son's speech problems; traveling to France, Japan, Guatemala, Hong Kong and the Philippines; her interest in Japanese culture; completing her B.A. in design at UCLA and her M.A. in studio art at California State University, Northridge; anti-Vietnam sentiment on campus; early interests in environmental design; her second husband and his friends; her interest in furniture and woodworking; differing approaches to woodworking on the east and west coasts; her views on feminism and working women; her use of color and texture in woodworking; teaching experiences; popular perception of her work; receiving a grant to go to England and her involvement with English and German woodturners; the lack of collector interest in her work; forced absences from working because of illnesses; serving on the boards of the American Association of Woodturners and The Woodturning Center; her involvement in the International Turned Objects Show, the Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Biannual Exposition, and the International Turning Exchange; her thoughts on future work. Saylan also recalls George Foy, Bob Stocksdale, Michael Cooper, Pamela Weir-Quiton, Joanne Rapp, J.B. Blunk, Marvin Lipofsky, Gail Fredell, Wendy Maruyama, Ralph Evans, Del Stubbs, Jerry Glaser, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Merryll Saylan (1936- ) is a wood artist from San Rafael, California. Glenn Adamson (1972- ) is a museum professional, in London, England.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 9 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.
California -- Los Angeles -- Description and Travel
Michigan -- Description and Travel
Date:
2004 August 3
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Gerhardt Knodel conducted 2004 August 3, by Glenn Adamson, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Knodel speaks of his German heritage; his parents each immigrating to Los Angeles; growing up in Los Angeles and being part of the German community; his father building houses; the influence of his childhood environment on his artwork; taking art classes in school; participating in theater and set design; studying art at Los Angeles City College; collecting textiles; transferring to UCLA; teaching high school art; the influence of Abstract Expressionism on his early work; quitting teaching and studying fiber arts at University of California, Long Beach; traveling to numerous countries, and their influence on his artwork; researching and lecturing on fabric as environment; how the fiber art movement has evolved and changed; early exhibitions and the need for more venues; the fiber art community in the 1960s and 70s; the importance of University art programs; moving to Michigan and teaching at Cranbrook; the importance of scale and context in his work; making large scale pieces to fit within an architectural space; working on commission for public projects; working with the community in Pontiac, Michigan on a commissioned piece; the influence of the history of textiles; being director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art; putting figures on to textiles; the decline of the fiber art movement; and the benefits of schools such as Cranbrook. Knodel also recalls Bernard Kester, Mary Jane Leland, Laura Andreson, Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Neda Al-Hilali, Lenore Tawney, Claire Zeisler, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jack Lenor Larsen, Christo, Kiki Smith, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Gerhardt Knodel (1940-) is a fiber artist from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Glenn Adamson is a curator and, art historian from Wisconsin.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 23 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.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Names:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
University of California, Los Angeles -- Faculty Search this
University of California, Los Angeles -- Students Search this
Extent:
125 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
2002 February 11-June 6
Scope and Contents:
An interview of James Bassler conducted 2002 February 11-June 6, by Sharon K. Emanuelli, for the Archives of American Art, as part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America.
Bassler speaks of his early childhood; traveling with his father, a major league baseball catcher; his early interest in fiber through his father's hooked rugs, which he worked on during the off season; his early education; his sister Sally and a course she took from Laura Andreson where they dug for clay at UCLA; working at Douglas Aircraft; drafted into the Army; his travels through Europe while in the Army; his wife Veralee Osborn Bassler; his education at UCLA with professors such as Bernard Kester, Laura Andreson, Cornelia Breitenbach, and fellow student Neda Al Hilali; teaching at Emerson Junior High School; the Egg and Eye Gallery; his siblings, Barbara Bassler Johnson, Sally Bassler Chest, and John Bassler. Bassler also discusses living in Oaxaca from 1970-1975; returning to the U.S. and then moving to Tennessee to teach at Appalachian Center for Crafts; the camaraderie at the Craft Center; his experience with commissions; the impact of the music of John Cage; his teaching techniques; artistic process; political issues that influenced his artwork, such as the Exxon Valdez Oil spill [Shroud] or the Persian Gulf War [Soiled]; his relationships with dealers and galleries, Barbara Okun, Christa Thurman, and currently the Gail Martin Gallery in New York; the spontaneity of Willem de Kooning's artwork and a recent exhibit "Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure" at the Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA], Los Angeles, February 10-April 28, 2002; the Peruvian influence upon his work and experiments with dyeing and batik; a piece he was working on for Jack Lenor Larsen's 75th birthday; exhibitions to which he loaned pieces of his collection; significant books he has read and uses in his classes, such as James Burkes' "Connections," and Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel"; the "Art in Embassy" Program and his exhibit in Poland; the benefits of a university education; the Ann Blinks Research Group; his enjoyment of the weaving process; lack of signatures on his artwork; new technology; visiting the "Andy Warhol Retrospective," MOCA, May 25 - August 18, 2002 and solving his artistic block there; the difficulty in being a perfectionist; important artist friendships with Olga de Amaral, Ruth Asawa, Trude Guermonprez, Dominic Di Mare, and Lenore Tawney; and finally his reactions to Craft in America, a symposium which Emanuelli coordinated the agenda for. Bassler also recalls Ina Conradi-Chavez, Edward Durell Stone, Carol Shaw-Sutton, Roger Herman; Larry Pittman; Judy Mitoma; Victoria Vesna; Robert Brady, Phil Fike, Susan Petersen, Eudora Moore, Edith Wyle, Patricia Anawalt, Ed Rossbach, Mildred Constantine, Mary Kahlenberg, Martin Puryear, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Mary Dusenbury, Robert Rauschenberg, Wayne Thiebaud, Adrian Saxe, Kaye Spilker, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
James Bassler (1933- ) is a fiber artist of San Pedro, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 6 sound cassettes and 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 23 digital wav files. Duration is 10 hr., 7 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:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Neda Al-Hilali conducted 2006 July 18-19, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's home, in Los Angeles, California.
Al-Hilali speaks of her childhood in Czechoslovakia and Bavaria; studying language in London; her experience living in Baghdad, Iraq with her first husband; moving to California and completing her undergraduate and graduate degrees at UCLA; teaching experiences at Scripps College, Claremont Graduate University, California State University Los Angeles, and UCLA; the installation processes of Beach Occurrence with Tongues, Black Passage, the Cassiopeia series, and others; frustrations she encountered with commission work; the rich history of the fiber tradition; travels to Afghanistan, Japan, and Oaxaca, Mexico; achieving gestural and painterly qualities with fiber; the importance of color in textile work in the Middle East; experiences with galleries, including the Hunsaker/Schlesinger Gallery in Santa Monica, California; utilizing a Ouija board for reflection and creative guidance; issues such as global warming and over-development; the status of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule; the gratitude she feels at being a part of the fiber tradition; and plans for the future. Al-Hilali also recalls Bernard Kester, Jim Bassler, Fern Jacobs, Joyce Hunsaker, Alice Simsar, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Neda Al-Hilali (1938- ) is a fiber artist and weaver in Los Angeles, California. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a curator and writer in San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 22 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hr., 46 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.
An interview of Richard Marquis conducted 2006 September 16, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's home and studio, in Freeland, Washington.
Marquis speaks of his childhood spent moving around Arizona, Colorado, and California; his lifelong affinity for collecting objects; attending University of California, Berkeley; the influence of seeing the shows "Abstract Expressionist Ceramics" at the University of California at Irvine in 1966 and "American Sculpture of the Sixties" at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1967; receiving a Fulbright grant to study glassblowing in Murano, Italy; experiences at Venini Fabbrica Glass Factory in Murano; teaching experiences at University of Washington, Seattle and UCLA; traveling throughout Australia to set up glass workshops; working as artist-in-residence at Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia; establishing Marquis Deluxe Studios; large-scale installation collaborations with Therman Statom; the importance of teaching and sharing knowledge; the cyclical progression and diversity of his work; future plans to work less with glass and focus instead on daguerrotypes. Marquis also recalls Peter Voulkos, Ron Nagle, Marvin Lipofsky, James Melchert, Harvey K. Littleton, John Eubanks, John Pearson, Ludovico de Santillana, Lino Tagliapietra, Bob Naess, Fred Bauer, Nick Mount, Les Blakebrough, Jack Wax, Jody Fine, Therman Statom, Kenneth Price, Dante Marioni, Jerry Spagnoli, and Bill Concannon, among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Richard Marquis (1945- ) is glass artist and educator from Freeland, Washington. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a curator and writer from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hrs., 57 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.
An interview of Roland Reiss conducted 1997 Aug. 23-1999 June 11, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Reiss' studio, Los Angeles, Calif.
A fairly lengthy discussion of UCLA included an account of studying with Jan Stussy, a Stanton Macdonald-Wright disciple, and with Macdonald-Wright himself, who took a special interest in Reiss. He also singled out as a major influence Clinton Adams who, with Macdonald-Wright, served as a model of the intellectual artist who embodied rigorous thinking and a search for meaning through critique of language. Additional topics were the difference between the San Francisco and Los Angeles art worlds, the impact of abstract expressionism and of his own paper on the subject delivered to the UCLA faculty, which Reiss remembers as the introduction of abstract expressionism at the university. After a discussion of his teaching experience in Colorado and pioneering work with plastics, Reiss recalled his interaction there with leading artists including Joan Brown, Nancy Graves, David Hockney, Clyfford Still (with whom Reiss had daily conversations), and William T. Wiley. The third session focused on his long teaching career at Claremont and an in-depth discussion of various art programs in the country and the philosophies involved. In effect, this concluding part of the interview was a history of art education and the training of artists in California presented by someone whose entire career has been connected to educational institutions.
Biographical / Historical:
Roland Reiss (1929-) is a painter and sculptor from Los Angeles, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 11 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 3 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. Funding for the transcription of this interview provided by Bente and Gerald E. Buck Collection.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Alexis Smith, 2014 January 24-April 14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of New York, N.Y., and Washington, D.C. painter and muralist Allyn Cox measure 11 linear feet and date from 1856-1982. The collection documents Cox's personal and professional life through biographical material, family and general correspondence, writings and notes, research material, printed material, sketchbooks and loose sketches, and photographs. Photographs are of Cox at work, the Cox family, including Kenyon and Louise Cox, Cox's friends and colleagues, events, and Cox's artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York, N.Y., and Washington, D.C. painter and muralist Allyn Cox measure 11 linear feet and date from 1856-1982. The collection documents Cox's personal and professional life through biographical material, family and general correspondence, writings and notes, research material, printed material, sketchbooks and loose sketches, and photographs. Photographs are of Cox at work, the Cox family, including Kenyon and Louise Cox, Cox's friends and colleagues, events, and Cox's artwork.
Biographical material includes family birth, death, and marriage certificates, and passports for Cox and his wife Ethel, whom he married in 1927; professional membership cards, awards and certificates; records related to sales of furnishings from the Cox family home in Essex, Massachusetts; and an untranscribed interview of Cox by Tony Janak of NBC TV.
Cox's family correspondence is primarily with his mother, Louise Cox. Also found is correspondence with Cox's sister, Caroline Cox Lansing, and his brother Leonard Cox and Leonard's wife, Sylvia, and letters from Ethel Cox to her mother. Additional correspondence relating to the disposition of Kenyon Cox''s artwork and archives to various institutions, can also be found here.
General correspondence documents Cox's career and professional relationships with artists and architects, including John Barrington Bayley, Fabrizio Cassio, Arthur Conrad, Roscoe DeWitt, Stuart Frost, John Harbeson, Francis Keally, Adrian Lamb, Edward Laning, Charles Downing Lay, Deane Keller, Philip Trammell Shutze, and Cliff Young; art institutions and organizations including the Art Commission of the City of New York, the Art Students League, Dumbarton Oaks, the National Society of Mural Painters, and the Smithsonian Institution; federal, state and local government agencies including the American Battle Monuments Commission, the Architect of the Capitol, and the General Grant National Memorial; members of Congress including founder of the United States Capitol Historical Society, Representative Fred Schwengel; and private social clubs in which Cox was active, including the Century Association, the Cosmopolitan Club and the Cosmos Club. Correspondence documents Cox's most well known commissions including work for the George Washington Masonic National Memorial and the United States Capitol, as well as work for many private clients including banks and residences.
Also found are typescripts, manuscripts and notes for Cox's lectures, as well as Ethel Cox's diary from 1923-1936 and her diary excerpt from 1955. Ten folders of research files, consisting primarily of clippings, comprise Cox's source material. Additional printed material provides scattered documentation of Cox's career through announcements and catalogs, and magazine and newspaper articles written by him or about his work. Also found is one folder of clippings about Kenyon Cox.
Four sketchbooks and circa twenty-two loose animal, figure, architectural and landscape sketches comprise Cox's artwork, in addition to two 1943 sketches Cox entered into a War Department mural competition. Also found is an 1873 sketchbook of Kenyon Cox, with sketches of people and scenes in Ohio.
Photographs are of Cox from childhood to the 1980s; his family, including parents, siblings, and grandparents; friends including Philip Trammell Shutze and Warner Bishop; family residences; artist models; events; and artwork, including many of Cox's commissions. In addition to photographic prints, slides, and negatives, the series includes vintage formats such as an ambrotype, 8 tintypes, 2 cyanotypes, and a platinum print. Of particular note are circa 16 photos of Kenyon Cox, one taken by Pirie MacDonald and three of him teaching a class at the Art Students League, and a series of circa 1906 photos taken in a garden, of Louise and Kenyon Cox with their children and others. Also found are 10 glass plate negatives of artwork by Cox.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and are closed to researchers.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1916-1982 (0.33 linear feet; Boxes 1, 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1878-1982 (6.74 linear feet; Boxes 1-7, 12)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1919-1982 (0.58 linear feet; Boxes 7-8)
Series 4: Research Files, circa 1950s-circa 1970s (0.25 linear feet; Box 8)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1920s-1982 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 8-9)
Series 6: Sketchbooks and Sketches, 1873-circa 1978 (0.25 linear feet; Box 9, OVs 13-14)
Series 7: Photographs, 1856-circa 1980 (2.25 linear feet; Boxes 9-12, OV 13)
Biographical / Historical:
New York, N.Y. and Washington, D.C. painter and muralist, Allyn Cox (1896-1982), was born in New York City to artists Kenyon and Louise Cox. Cox first trained as his father's assistant, serving as an apprentice to Kenyon Cox during the painting of the murals at the Wisconsin State Capitol, circa 1912. He attended the National Academy of Design from 1910-1915, and the Art Student's League with George Bridgman in 1915. In 1916 he was awarded the Prix de Rome and subsequently studied at the American Academy in Rome for 2 years before returning to New York City to begin a career in mural painting.
Cox completed numerous murals and decorative paintings for private residences, businesses, churches, and public buildings. Some of his most famous commissions included murals for the Royal Arch Room and Memorial Hall of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia; the Law School at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville; and the William A. Clark Memorial Library at the University of California, Los Angeles; panels for the National City Bank, the Continental Bank, and the Guaranty Trust Company in New York; and glass mosaics and inlaid stone maps for the United States Military Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg.
Cox is best known for his work in the United States Capitol, beginning in 1952 when he undertook a congressional commission to restore and complete the murals in in the Capitol rotunda begun by Constantino Brumidi and Filipo Costaggini in 1878. Over the course of the next two decades Cox, now residing in Washington, D.C., restored the Frieze of American History and the Apotheosis of Washington in the Rotunda, and designed murals for three first-floor corridors in the Capitol's House wing, now known as the Cox Corridors. Assisted by Cliff Young, Cox completed painting for two of these corridors before his death. In 1958 Cox also painted a portrait of Henry Clay for the Senate Reception Room and in 1975 completed a mural depicting the 1969 moon landing in the Brumidi Corridor.
Cox taught at the Art Students League in 1940 and 1941, and was active in professional organizations throughout his career. He served as President of the American Artists Professional League and the National Society of Mural Painters, and Vice President of both the Fine Arts Federation and the New York Architectural League. He was a member of the board of the New York Municipal Art Society and served on the the New York City Art Commission.
Cox retired in March 1982 at the age of 86 and died the following September.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the Allyn Cox papers relating to U.S. Capitol murals, 1970-1974, donated by the Committee on House Administration, via Cindy Szady in 1981. Papers include a resume; a cost estimate by Cox for designing and executing mural decorations in the U.S. Capitol, 1970; a letter, 1974, from the Office of the Architect of the Capitol to the Capitol Historical Society enclosing photocopies of printed material pertinent to the unveiling and dedication of the Capitol rotunda frieze in 1954; miscellaneous printed material, 1971-1974; and 15 photographs of the murals in the Capitol.
Provenance:
The bulk of the Allyn Cox papers was donated in 1977 and 1983 by the Estate of Allyn Cox, Stephen M. Pulsifer, Exectuor, including material that had been loaned for microfiliming in 1969. Two mural sketches were donated by the Essex County Greenbelt Association in 1984.
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. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and are not served to researchers. 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.
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Diaries
Sketchbooks
Sketches
Citation:
Allyn Cox papers, 1856-1982. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The papers of California art historian, writer, instructor, and curator, Melinda Wortz (1940-2002) date from 1958-1992, and measure 17.45 linear feet. The collection includes documentation of Wortz's tenure at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where she specialized in collecting and presenting the California "light and space" artists during the 1970s and 1980s. Wortz's papers include biographical information, personal and professional correspondence, interview transcripts and sound recordings, professional and student writings and notes, diaries of five trips abroad, UCI administrative, dossier, and teaching files, general subject and artist files, printed material, several pieces of artwork; and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of California art historian, writer, instructor, and curator, Melinda Wortz (1940-2002) date from 1958-1992, and measure 17.45 linear feet. The collection includes documentation of Wortz's tenure at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where she specialized in collecting and presenting the California Light and Space artists during the 1970s and 1980s. Wortz's papers include biographical information, personal and professional correspondence, interview transcripts and sound recordings, professional and student writings and notes, diaries of five trips abroad, UCI administrative, dossier, and teaching files, general subject and artist files, printed material, several pieces of artwork; and photographs.
Wortz's biographical material includes annotated appointment books and calendars, resumes, and some family, financial, and legal records.
Correspondence files document Wortz's activities beyond her work at UCI, including scattered correspondence with artists such as Eleanor Antin, Daniel Barber, Christo, Craig Kauffman, Cork Marchesi, Martha Rosler, Eve Sonneman, Hap Tivey, and Elsa Warner. Correspondence also relates to arrangements for lectures, juries, panels, symposiums, and other professional activities in which Wortz participated.
Interviews include transcripts of four interviews conducted by Wortz with subjects including Peter Lodato and Dewain Valentine, and a sound recording of an interview with Nina Wiener.
Writings and notes include drafts, and some published copies, of articles and essays written for journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogs; Wortz's dissertation and thesis; notes; student essays and class notes; and scattered writings by others. Included in the published works are copies of Artweek containing articles by Wortz, and drafts and published copies of essays on Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Jasper Johns, Jay McCafferty, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Rauschenberg, Klaus Rinke, Beth Ames Schwartz, and James Turrell.
Diaries document five separate overseas trips to locations including Asia in 1977, Paris in 1978, and the U.S.S.R., where Wortz delivered a paper on Robert Irwin, in 1989.
University of California, Irvine, records include Wortz's administrative files documenting her work on various committees, her directorship of the Fine Arts Gallery, including budget and exhibition records, her work as Chair of Studio Art, and her collaborations with other faculty, including Judy Baca, Sandy Ballatore, Tony Delap, Craig Kauffman, and Rena Small. Wortz's dossier files provide a thorough record of her accomplishments from the late 1970s-1990, and her UCI teaching files document the content of core art courses which she taught at UCI in the 1970s and 1980s.
Subject files provide additional documentation of Wortz's interest in particular artists and subjects, and include scattered correspondence with artists, as well as additional correspondence, reports, printed material, index card files, sound cassettes, and photographs, documenting her interests in art and politics, feminism, religion and spirituality, museum management and training, and other subjects.
Printed material includes announcements, catalogs, journals, newsletters, and material specifically documenting Wortz's activities.
Artwork includes a piece of floor covering from a Jim Dine exhibition, a booklet by Daniel Barber, Flams by Rena Livkin, and several pieces of unidentified artwork.
Photographs include photos of Wortz with her family and with UCI faculty including Tony DeLap, Craig Kauffman, and Ed Moses; photos of events with friends and family, including Hap Tivey's wedding to Liza Todd with Elizabeth Taylor in attendance; photos of artists including Frederick Eversley, Bill Harding, Jack Ox, and Stephen Zaimo; and photos of artwork by artists including Tony DeLap, Barbara Smith, Marc Van Der Marck, and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as ten series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1966-1988 (0.25 linear feet; Boxes 1, 19)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1967-1992 (1.25 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 18)
Series 3: Interviews, 1971-circa 1980s (6 folders; Boxes 2, 18)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, 1958-circa 1990 (4.25 linear feet; Boxes 2-6, 19)
Series 5: Diaries, 1977-1989 (6 folders; Box 6)
Series 6: University of California, Irvine, 1960-1991 (4.8 linear feet; Boxes 6-11, OV 20)
Series 7: Subject Files, circa 1960-1990 (4.25 linear feet; Boxes 11-15, 18)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1960s-1980s (1.8 linear feet; Boxes 15-16, 19)
Series 9: Artwork, circa 1960s-circa 1980s (3 folders; Boxes 17, 19)
Series 10: Photographs, 1960s-1980s (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 17, 19)
Biographical / Historical:
California art historian, writer, instructor, and curator, Melinda Wortz (1940-2002), taught at the University of California, Irvine, from 1975, serving as Director of UCI's Fine Arts Gallery and Chair of the Department of Studio Art. Wortz's special area of interest was the work of the California "light and space" artists emerging in Los Angeles in the 1970s.
After attending Stanford University and graduating from Radcliffe College with a bachelors degree in art history, Wortz received her masters degree in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her doctorate in theology and the arts from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. Wortz taught at California State University and the University of California Extension in the early 1970s. At UCI her colleagues included Judy Baca, Sandy Ballatore, Tony Delap, Craig Kauffman, and Rena Small.
Wortz married Edward C. Wortz in the early 1970s, following her divorce from her first husband, Thomas G. Terbell, Jr. Edward Wortz's first career was as a research scientist working on NASA contracts in the air research industry in Colorado and California. Later he was involved in the arts and participated in collaborations with artists including Robert Irwin, Coy Howard, and James Turrell. He worked with Melinda Wortz to develop their personal collection of contemporary art.
Melinda Wortz was a prolific writer who wrote extensively for national art periodicals, including Arts Magazine, and Art News. She also wrote, and served as editor, for the California periodical Artweek from the 1960s to 1990s. She wrote numerous catalogs for artists including Larry Bell, Cork Marchesi, Doug Moran, Beth Ames Schwartz, and James Turrell; and published articles on Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and others. She lectured at Brown University, the Center for Art, Salt Lake City, Contemporary Art Museum, La Jolla, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the San Diego Museum, Wellesley College, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and many other institutions. In 1989 she traveled to the U.S.S.R. to deliver a paper on Robert Irwin at the International Art Critics Association annual meeting.
In addition to her curatorial work at the UCI Fine Arts Gallery, where she organized exhibitions for artists including Alice Aycock, Jonathan Borofsky, Audrey Flack, Jack Ox, and Dennis Oppenheim, Wortz curated exhibitions for University of California sister colleges, Pasadena Art Museum, and others.
Wortz received UCI and National Endowment for the Arts grants in support of her writing, and served on advisory boards of the Contemporary Arts Forum, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, Robert Rauschenberg's foundation, Advisory Board of Change, Inc., the Pasadena Art Museum, and others.
Wortz was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease at the age of 50 and died in 2002.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Edward C. Wortz, Melinda Wortz's husband, in 1994.
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:
Art historians -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
An interview with Alexis Smith conducted 2014 January 24 and April 14, by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, for the Archives of American Art at Smith's studio, in Venice, California.
Ms. Smith discusses growing up in Southern California and her early years living with her parents on the grounds of Metropolitan State Hospital, a mental institution in Norwalk, California; her mother's death when Ms. Smith was 11; the family's time in Whittier and Palm Springs and being raised as an only child by her father; her early interest in French studies and travel to France as a student; her interest in studying art beginning with a John Coplans class at UC Irvine; her time at at UC Irvine in the early days of the university and her growing attraction to the life of an artist; the origin of her name Alexis Smith; and the encouragement of her fellow artists to continue pursuing her cut-up collages from literature, photos, magazines, and Hollywood ephemera. Ms. Smith also describes her time with her artist women's group in the 70s; her husband Scott Grieger; working for Frank Gehry; her showing with the Nicholas Wilder Gallery; her relationship with Chris Burden and her time with him during his period of performance pieces in the 70s; the Riko Mizuno Gallery; her work with terrazzo and its use for installations at the LA Convention Center, Ohio State University, and other installations; the appropriation of text and the assistance of Jerry Solomon utilizing custom frames in her artwork; the impact of women from history, media and literature on her art; her relationship with Coy Howard; the Holly Solomon Gallery; her Jane series; her On the Road series; her installation Snake Path at UC San Diego; her piece for SITE Santa Fe Red Carpet; teaching at UCLA; her installation of the piece Scarlet Letter at Las Vegas Central Library and its subsequent removal; her associations with Margo Leavin Gallery and Honor Fraser gallery; and the loss of her long-time studio space and the challenges of storing her artwork. Ms. Smith also recalls Judy Chicago, Robert Irwin, Vija Celmins, Larry Bell, Barbara Burden, Richard Sedivy, Avilda Moses, Craig Krull, and Allen Ruppersberg among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Alexis Smith (1949- ) is a collage, multimedia, and installation artist in Los Angeles, California. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp is an art critic and writer from Beverly Hills, California.
General:
Originally recorded as 5 sound files. Duration is 3 hr., 11 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:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
