Interview of James Penney, conducted by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Clinton, New York, on August 21 and December 6, 1981.
Penney speaks of growing up in Missouri and Kansas; taking art classes at the University of Kansas; moving to New York during the Depression to pursue his art career; studying at the Art Students League; meeting his first wife, Frances Avery; exhibiting his paintings in New York; visiting museums; mural painting with the WPA; working for the Jordanoff Aviation Corporation during World War II; teaching at Bennington, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, and Hamilton College; and some of his paintings, including An Epidemic Next Year; Workers in the Snow, Central Park; The Bombed City, 1939; and Rock of Versailles. Penney also recalls Karl Mattern, Raymond Eastwood, Albert Bloch, Randall Brubaker, Chris Ritter, Jackson Pollock, Thomas Hart Benton, George Grosz, Moses Soyer, Stuart Davis, Burgoyne Diller, Bill Palmer, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
James Penney (1910-1982) was a painter and educator.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 9 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
The papers of influential blacksmith, sculptor, metalsmith and educator, L. Brent Kington, measure 9 linear feet and date from 1944 to 2012. The collection provides a valuable overview of Kington's career through correspondence relating primarily to exhibitions, subject files, drawings, photographs of Kington and his artwork, printed matter and audiovisual material. An additional 5.2 linear feet of papers was accessioned from 2007 to 2012 and remains unprocessed.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of influential blacksmith, sculptor, metalsmith, and educator, L. Brent Kington, measure 9 linear feet and date from 1944 to 2012. The collection provides a valuable overview of Kington's career through correspondence, subject files, drawings, photographs of Kington and his artwork, printed matter and audiovisual material.
Correspondence in Series 1 relates primarily to exhibitions in the United States at institutions such as the the American Craft Museum, the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, and the National Ornamental Metal Museum, in which Kington's work was represented.
Kington's education at Cranbrook Academy of Art, his career at Southern Illinois University, his involvement with various professional organizations, his appearances at conferences and workshops, and his relationships with individual galleries, are more fully represented in Series 2: Subject Files.
The collection also includes printed matter, including exhibition announcements and catalogs for group and solo exhibitions in which Kington's work was featured, and publications containing articles about Kington.
Photographs in the collection include images of Kington's artwork and also picture Kington at various stages throughout his career. Audiovisual material includes an oral history interview with Kington from 2001, and two video recordings of a blacksmith workshop and a program entitled Brent Kington: Image of an Artist.
An additional 5.2 linear feet of papers was accessioned from 2007 to 2012 and remains unprocessed.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into six series. Original arrangement has generally been maintained throughout the collection, with some merging of chronological correspondence in Series 1 to facilitate access.
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1955-2004, undated (box 1; 0.8 linear ft.)
Series 2: Subject Files, 1956-2005, undated (box 1-3; 1.6 linear ft.)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1952-2003, undated (box 3-4, OV 5; 0.9 linear ft.)
Series 4: Photographs, circa 1944-2001 (box 4; 0.4 linear ft.)
Series 6: Unprocessed Addition to the L. Brent Kington Papers, 1956-2012 (boxes 6-12, OV 13; 5.2 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
L. Brent Kington was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1934. He received a BFA from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, in 1957 and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1961. Kington began his career primarily as a silversmith working with small-scale objects such as jewelry, silverware, and toys, and then became interested in using forged iron to create sculpture. He sought the help and instruction of the few blacksmiths he could find working in a "traditional" style and began working with large-scale sculptures forged in iron and steel, weathervanes, and other kinetic sculpture. Kington's subsequent research, such as his exploration of forge welding techniques of iron and his experimentation with laminated, non-ferrous alloys, constituted an important contribution to the resurgence of traditional blacksmithing and was highly influential in the fields of blacksmithing and metalsmithing in general.
Kington served as Director of the School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale from 1981 to 1994. He was a lecturer at SIU from 1961 to 1962, assistant professor from 1962 to 1967, associate professor from 1967 to 1972, professor from 1972 to 1996, and is currently professor emeritus. A committed educator and an avid spokesman for the arts, he has been honored many times as a guest lecturer, visiting artist, exhibit juror, workshop demonstrator, and panelist in the United States and abroad. In 1987 he spent a summer in Cortona, Italy as guest professor in the University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program.
Since 1962, Kington's sculpture and metalwork has been shown in more than 350 group and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada, Mexico, and South America. Over the years Kington has served in various professional organizations. He has been a Trustee of the American Craft Council, Director of the Artist-Blacksmith Association of North America (ABANA), and President of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG). In 1978 he was elected to the American Craft Council's Academy of Fellows and has been the recipient of two Artist Fellowship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Kington continues to work from his home and studio in Makando, Illinois.
Related Material:
The Archives also has a transcribed interview of L. Brent Kington, conducted May 3-4, 2001 by Mary Douglas for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. The interview was conducted in Kington's home and studio in Makando, Illinois.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art in installments by L. Brent Kington from 2001 to 2012. Materials donated from 2007 to 2012 remain unprocessed.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
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 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:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and 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 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:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and 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 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:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and 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.
Found here is Andrew Dasburg's extensive correspondence which spans over seventy years, documenting both his personal and professional life. One third of the correspondence is between Dasburg and his first wife, Grace Mott Johnson. most of which was written during their marriage. These candid letters discuss daily activities, social events, travels, including Dasburg's time in Paris in 1910 and trip to Europe in 1914, news of mutual friends, artwork, and problems with their relationship.
Also found is Dasburg's correspondence with his second wife, Nancy Lane around the time of their marriage in 1928, and correspondence with his third wife, Marina Wister Dasburg during the periods that she visited her family in Pennsylvania; most of these letters are written by Marina. Dasburg's correspondence with his son, Alfred, consists of brief letters sharing news of their travels, family, and personal matters.
General correspondence primarily consists of Dasburg's correspondence with other family members, friends, colleagues, scholars, universities, and galleries. Where they exist, Dasburg's outgoing letters are interfiled with letters he received in a chronological arrangement. Dasburg was friends with many artists who, like him, were part of regional art colonies in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Woodstock, New York. He also maintained friendships with artists he met in Europe and other travels and at the Art Students' League. Correspondents includes Kenneth Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, George Biddle, Dorothy Brett, Alexander Brook, Lucienne Chinard Clemens, Howard Cook, Russell Cowles, Vida Hunt Francis, Lewis Garrison, Marsden Hartley, Norbert Heerman, Richard Hollander, Lila Wheelock Howard, Charles Kassler, Mary Aubrey Keating, Carl Eric Lindin, Ward Lockwood, Erle Loran, Hayes Lyon, Henry Lee McFee, John Gaw Meem, Loren Mozley, Dickson Reeder, Louis Ribak, Paul Rohland, Alfred Stieglitz, Earl Stroh, Carl Van Vechten, Alice Morgan Wright, and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, among many others. Dasburg also corresponded with many former students including Edwin Gamble, Willard Nash, Alice Naylor, and Earl Stroh. Also found are letters from writers John Howard Griffin, Witter Bynner and Miriam Hapgood De Witt as well as art critics and historians such as Robert M. Coates, Oliver Larkin, and Stanley Lothrop. Dasburg maintained extensive correspondence with close friend, art patron and Taos resident, Mabel Dodge Luhan.
A small amount of correspondence with galleries, universities, museums, curators, and scholars concerns exhibitions, sales, or research. Additional topics found within his correspondence are American Indian rights in New Mexico and his medical treatment for Addison's disease.
See Appendix A for a list of correspondents from Series 1.2.
Appendix A: Correspondents from Series 1.2: Andrew Dasburg Papers, General Correspondence:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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:
Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers, 1833-1980 (bulk 1900-1980). Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. Collection, Acc. 1992.0023, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. Collection, Acc. 1992.0023, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Wounded Knee (S.D.) -- History -- Indian occupation, 1973
Date:
1970-1973
Summary:
The majority of Pearse-Hocker's momentous negatives give eyewitness account to two weeks of both the mundane and brutal reality of daily life during the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The takeover of the town and the conflict between about 200 members of AIM (American Indian Movement, the Native American civil rights activist organization begun in the 1968) and the United States Marshals Service began on February 27 and lasted for 71 days, resulting in tragedy on both sides of the conflict. Members of AIM along with some local Oglala (Lakota) Sioux from the local reservation took over the town in protest against the United States Government's history of broken treaties with various Native groups, the poverty and maltreatment of Native populations, as well as in defiance against the corruption and paternalism within the local subsidiary of the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs). The siege finally came to an end on May 5 when members of AIM and the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the US Justice Department Harlington Wood Jr. settled on a ceasefire. Kent Frizzell served as Chief Government Negotiator in the capacity of Assistant Attorney General (Land and Natural Resources Division, U. S. Department of Justice) and later as Solicitor, U. S. Department of the Interior. Among those pictured both during and post-conflict are AIM activists Dennis Banks, Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt, Ted and Russell Means, Frank Clearwater, Wallace Black Elk and Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. A small number of negatives also document AIM's takeover of the BIA building and the AIM Powwow both in Minneapolis in 1970.
Arrangement note:
Negatives: organized in binders; arranged in sleeves by strip and image number, interspersed with relevant applicable contact sheets
Biographical/Historical note:
Anne Pearse-Hocker is a photojournalist who first encountered the American Indian Movement while a student on assignment for a journalism class at the University of Kansas. Her photographs document some very important moments in the early history of the American Indian Movement (AIM).
Pearse-Hocker was scheduled to interview the area director of the BIA in Minneapolis in the spring of 1970 as part of an Investigative Reporting class, and walked into the middle of an AIM occupation of the building, which she documented on film and with taped interviews. She stayed well past her spring break plans to use this opportunity to develop contacts with AIM leaders Clyde Bellecourt and Dennis Banks.
Her connections came in handy in 1973 during the occupation of Wounded Knee. Pearse-Hocker sneaked into the compound with a CBS news crew at night, and was allowed to remain due to her acquaintance with Banks, who remembered her from Minneapolis. She had strategically arrived the evening before the standoff was supposed to end, but when the settlement negotiations fell through, she remained in the compound for an additional few weeks, documenting the daily events including the firefight that claimed Frank Clearwater's life.
Pearse-Hocker returned to Wounded Knee in 1998 to revisit the site on the 25th anniversary of the occupation, and documented the experience for the journal 'Native Americas' (Spring 1998 issue) with new photographs of some of the survivors of the event.
After a career of news photography in broadcast journalism, she is retired and living in Montana.
Restrictions:
Access is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the Archive Center to make an appointment.
Rights:
Copyright: Anne Pearse-Hocker, 1973. Researchers must contact copyright holder for permissions, reproductions, and use.
Lecture on zadruga for course at Umass; lecture on rural revolution in Yugoslavia at University of Kansas
Collection Restrictions:
All except Series 9. Photographs is stored off-site. Advance notice must be given to view off-site materials.
Access to materials containing social security numbers; Halpern's students' graded materials; and manuscripts and grant applications sent to Halpern for review is restricted. Additional materials have also been restricted at Halpern's request.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Please note that some of the materials in the collection are copies made by Joel M. Halpern; the originals are most likely deposited at other archives. For these materials, permission will need to be obtained from the repositories where the originals are held. See Related Collections for a list of repositories.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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:
Palmer C. Hayden papers, 1920-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
-Terry Bruckhart (Florida State University), "From goddess to god: whatever happened to the Great Mother?," 1979
-James Walter (University of Kansas), "The social significance of silence," 1962
Collection 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.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 22, Folder 1
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1937 March 28-1938 September 11
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
