The papers of sculptor, writer, and earthworks artist Robert Smithson and his wife, sculptor, filmmaker, and earthworks artist Nancy Holt measure 19.1 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from 1952 to 1987. Also included is Smithson's personal library of books, vinyl records, and magazine, measuring 48.2 linear feet. The papers consist of Smithson's biographical material; business and personal correspondence, much of it with artists; interview transcripts; extensive writings and project files; financial records; printed material; a scrapbook of clippings; holiday cards with original prints and sketches; photographic material; and artifacts. Also found are project files related to Nancy Holt's motion picture film Pine Barrens and her seminal environmental work of art Sun Tunnels, including a video documentary about Sun Tunnels.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of sculptor, writer, and earthworks artist Robert Smithson and his wife, sculptor, filmmaker, and earthworks artist Nancy Holt measure 19.1 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from 1952 to 1987. Also included is Smithson's personal library of books, vinyl records, and magazine, measuring 48.2 linear feet. The papers consist of Smithson's biographical material; business and personal correspondence, much of it with artists; interview transcripts; extensive writings and project files; financial records; printed material; a scrapbook of clippings; holiday cards with original prints and sketches; photographic material; and artifacts. Also found are project files related to Nancy Holt's film Pine Barrens and her seminal environmental work of art Sun Tunnels, including a video documentary about Sun Tunnels.
Biographical material includes Robert Smithson's curriculum vitae, personal identification and medical documents, eight engagement/day planners Smithson and Holt maintained from 1966 to 1973, and Smithson's funeral register.
Correspondence is primarily with Smithson's family, friends, fellow artists, and business associates discussing personal relationships, proposed art projects, and exhibitions. Correspondents of note include Carl Andre, the Dwan Gallery (Virginia Dwan), Dan Graham, Will Insley, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy Kepes, Sol Lewitt, Lucy Lippard, and Dennis Wheeler. There is also substantial correspondence received by Holt upon Smithson's death in 1973, and between Holt and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art regarding Smithson's retrospective exhibition in 1982.
There are nine interview transcripts with Smithson discussing his works and his general philosophy on art, and one transcript of the Andrew Dickson White Museum's Earth Art Symposium (1969) featuring the following artists: Mike Hiezer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Neil Jenney, Gunther Uecker, Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, and Hans Haacke.
Writings are substantial and include 73 drafts of published and unpublished essays by Smithson on art, artists, and works in progress. The series also includes poems by Smithson, six notebooks containing notes and sketches by Smithson, and drafts of writings sent to Smithson and Holt by friends and colleagues, including Carl Andre, Terry Atkinson, Dan Flavin, Dan Graham, and Jack Thibeau.
Project files contain correspondence, project instructions, diagrams and sketches, research materials, photographic material, and maps related to over 50 of Smithson's artworks. These include concepts, proposed projects, sculptures, non-sites, and earthwork projects, including Spiral Jetty, Broken Circle, and Spiral Hill.
Personal business records include gallery related loan arrangements and receipts for miscellaneous art supplies. Financial records include tax forms and preparation documents, including cancelled checks, receipts, statements, and related correspondence.
Printed materials include books, clippings, and periodicals related to Smithson, either containing writings or sketches by him, or containing articles reviewing his work. There are also exhibition announcements and catalogs of Smithson's group and solo shows from 1959 to 1985.
The scrapbook contains clippings of Smithson's published articles from 1966 to 1973 with annotated shorthand notes.
Artwork consists of Christmas cards collaged by Smithson, and sketches by Smithson and Leo Valledor.
Photographic materials include prints and negatives of Smithson with friends, promotional Hollywood movie stills, and original prints and copyprints of other artists' artwork.
Artifacts consist of a paper bag silkscreened with a Campbell's soup can (Warhol), promotional buttons (N.E. Thing Co.), various organic materials, and two art kits.
Nancy Holt's papers consist of correspondence, a grant application, printed materials, and project files and audio visual material related to her motion picture film Pine Barrens (1975) and her seminal environmental work of art Sun Tunnels (1975).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 14 series:
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1905-1974 (Box 1; 14 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1959-1987 (Boxes 1-2, OV 21; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Interview Transcripts, 1966-1973 (Box 2; 11 folders)
Series 4: Writings, 1959-1975 (Boxes 2-3; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Project Files, circa 1950s-1982 (Boxes 4-5, Boxes 17-18, OV 20, OV 22-26, OV 36, RD 28-30, RD 32-35; 6.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, circa 1967-1970s (Box 5; 4 folders)
Series 7: Financial Records, 1962-1972 (Box 6; 1 linear foot)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1955-1985 (Boxes 7-11, Box 18, RD 31; 5.6 linear feet)
Series 9: Scrapbook, 1966-1973 (Box 11, Box 16; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1950s-1970s (Box 11; 4 folders)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1950s-1970s (Box 11, Box 18; 5 folders)
Series 12: Artifacts, circa 1950s-1970s (Box 11, Box 14, OV 19; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 13: Nancy Holt Papers, circa 1960s-1980s (Box 12-13, 15, OV 27, FC 37-38; 1.9 linear feet)
Series 14: Robert Smithson Personal Library (Boxes 39-86; 48 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Robert Smithson (1938-1973) was the pioneer of land and earthworks art. He was also a noted sculptor, painter, writer, and lecturer working primarily in New York City. Smithson's wife, Nancy Holt (1938-) was a noted sculptor and filmmaker and also worked as an earthworks artist.
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Smithson expressed an early interest in art, enrolling in classes at the Brooklyn Museum School and the Art Student's League in New York while still attending high school. Smithson's early works were primarily paintings, drawings, and collages. In 1959, he exhibited his first solo show of paintings at the Artists' Gallery in New York and had his first solo international show in Rome with the Galleria George Lester in 1961.
During the early to mid-1960s, Smithson was perhaps better known as a writer and art critic, writing numerous essays and reviews for Arts Magazine and Artforum. He became affiliated with artists who were identified with the minimalist movement, such as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Nancy Holt, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris and others. In 1963, Smithson married sculptor and filmmaker Nancy Holt and a year later started to create his first sculptural works. In 1966, Smithson joined the Dwan Gallery, whose owner Virginia Dwan was an enthusiastic supporter of his work.
Smithson's interest in land art began in the late 1960s while exploring industrial and quarry sites and observing the movement of earth and rocks. This resulted in a series of sculptures called "non-sites" consisting of earth and rocks collected from a specific site and installed in gallery space, often combined with photographs, maps, mirrors, or found materials. In September 1968, Smithson published the essay "A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" in Artforum that promoted the work of the first wave of land art artists. Soon thereafter, he began creating his own large scale land art and earthworks.
From 1967 to 1973, Smithson's productivity was constant as he wrote, lectured, and participated in several solo and group shows a year, both at home and abroad. He explored narrative art as essay in "The Monuments of Passaic" and fully committed to his idea of visiting sites and using them as the basis for creating non-sites, Non-Site, Pine Barrens, (1968); incorporated and documented the use of mirrors at sites in Mirror Displacement, Cayuga Salt Mine Project (1968-1969); and created his first site-specific works through liquid pours of mud, asphalt, and concrete, including Asphalt Rundown (1969). In 1969, he also completed his first earth pour at Kent State University with his project Partially Buried Woodshed. Later that year, he created the sculptural artwork for which he is best known, Spiral Jetty (1969) on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. This was the first of his pieces to require the acquisition of land rights and earthmoving equipment, and would be followed two years later by Broken Circle and Spiral Hill in 1971.
On July 20, 1973, while surveying sites in Texas for the proposed Amarillo Ramp, Smithson died in a plane crash at the age of 35. Despite his early death, Smithson's writings and artwork had a major impact on many contemporary artists.
Nancy Holt began her career as a photographer and video artist. Today, Holt is most widely known for her large-scale environmental works, Sun Tunnels and Dark Star Park. Holt has also made a number of films and videos since the late 1960s, including Mono Lake (1968), East Coast, West Coast (1969), and Swamp (1971) in collaboration with her late husband Robert Smithson. Points of View: Clocktower (1974) features conversations between Lucy Lippard and Richard Serra, Liza Bear and Klaus Kertess, Carl Andre and Ruth Kligman and Bruce Brice and Tina Girouard. In 1978, she produced a film about her seminal work Sun Tunnels.
Related Material:
The Archives also holds several collections related to Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt, including an oral history interview with Robert Smithson conducted by Paul Cummings in 1972; an interview with Robert Smithson conducted by Tony Robbin in 1968; Robert Smithson letters to George B. Lester, 1960-1963; and oral history interviews with Nancy Holt conducted by Scott Gutterman in 1992 and Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz in 1993.
Provenance:
The papers of Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt were donated by Nancy Holt in several accretions between 1986 and 2011.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Periodicals, and phonographs from Robert Smithson's personal library are currently stored offsite. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: two holiday cards found in box 11, folders 23-24.
Topic:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Carlos Villa conducted 1995 June 20-July 10, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
Villa discusses his "progress" from Filipino background to his art world identity; the phenomena and individuals who contributed to the new awareness in the mid-1970s: "El Movimiento," Chicano "Rasquache," Rupert Garcia, Amalia Mesa-Baines; the idea of "recuperation," and the sense of Asian-American identity and community as a basis for his art. Villa recalls growing up in San Francisco; his early life; living in the Tenderloin district and his exposure to racism; the influence of his cousin, artist Leo Valledor; growing up Filipino in California and the difficulties that accompanied it. Villa discusses popular (black) culture, jazz "guapo," zoot-suit style as role models and basis for aesthetic/art; his admiration for black self-esteem; his aesthetics; viewing art as a way out of the ghetto and an escape from racism.
Villa discusses his introduction to the California School of Fine Arts (soon thereafter the San Francisco Art Institute); his need to be part of the artist community; CSFA and other students and teachers; and his self-conception as a modernist. He discusses the technical aspects of his art; the influence of various Bay Area artists on his work; his investigation of Filipino art history and his role models; the role of the women at the CSFA and women as role models. Villa recalls his first show at Pointdexter in New York; his associations with minimalists and the Park Place Gallery group; his New York minimalist phase and his need to escape the New York environment after six years. He discusses his return to the Bay Area and his use of identity/politics as subjects for his art.
Villa recalls or mentions Rupert Garcia, Leo Valledor, Manuel Neri, Joan Brown, Bill Morehouse, David Stone Martin, Wallace Berman, William Wiley, Bob and Dona Hudson, Bill Allen, Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Ralph DuCass, Walter Kuhlman, Wally Hedrick, Bruce Conner, Alvin Light, Claire Falkenstein, Bob McFarlane, Hayter, Tapies, Fred Martin, Nathan Oliveira, Jennifer Bartlett, Dick Maclean, Elizabeth Murray, Alfred Neumeyer, Mark Rothko, Kenneth Noland, Sol Lewitt, Mark di Suvero, Robert Grovesnor, Tom Seligman, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Rauschenberg, Angela Davis, and Moira Roth.
Biographical / Historical:
Carlos Villa (1936-2013) was a Filipino American painter, curator, and educator in San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 8 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 15 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hr., 40 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Session I: The Artists' and Family's Perspective: Looking Toward the 21st Century, moderated by Dr. Paul J. Karlstrom. Panelists include Kimi Kodani Hill, Chiura Obata's granddaughter and Obata family historian; Li-lan, Yun Gee's daughter and artist; Mayumi Tsutakawa, daughter of George Tsutakawa and curator/writer; and Carlos Villa, Leo Valledor's cousin and artist.
Session II: Issues in Interpreting, Documenting and Presenting Asian American Art was moderated by Vas Prabhu; panelists include Bert Winther- Tamaki, Karin Higa, Elaine Kim, and Dennis Reed.
Biographical / Historical:
A symposium co-sponsored by the Archives of American Art, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Duration is 5 hrs.
Funding for the digital preservation of these recordings was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Photographs of artists, many from the San Francisco Bay Area, taken by Mimi Jacobs.
Artists photographed: Ansel Adams, Robert Arneson, Ruth Asawa, Billy Al Bengston, Fletcher Benton, Robert Bechtle, J. B. Blunk, William Brice, Joan Brown, Imogen Cunningham, Jay De Feo, Eleanor Dickinson, Richard Diebenkorn, Laddie John Dill, Archeliat Esherick, Sam Francis, David Gilhooly, Joseph Goldyne, Robert Graham, Henry Hopkins, Robert B. Howard, John Ihle, Robert Irwin, Allen Jones, Alvin Light, Lee Mullican, Isamu Noguchi, Howard Paris, Joseph Raffael, Fred Reichman, Ed Ruscha, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Richard Shaw, Louis Siegriest, Nell Sinton, Wayne Thiebaud, DeWain Valentine, Leo Valledor, Carlos Villa, Peter Voulkos, William T. Wiley, Emerson Woelffer.
Photographs of Mark Adams, William Allan, Jeremy Anderson, Ruth Armer, Charles Arnoldi, Dennis Beall, Bruce Beasley, Tony Berlant, Elmer Bischoff, Vija Celmins, Judy Chicago, Bruce Conner, Roy de Forest, Tony DeLap, Guy Dill, Claire Falkenstein, Gerald Gooch, Russell Gordon, Wally Hedrick, Tom Holland, Robert Hudson, Robert Emory Johnson, Frank Lobdell, Robert Craig Kaufman, Richard McLean, Bill Martin, Manuel Neri, Bruce Nauman, Nathan Oliveira, Mel Ramos, Sam Richardson, Michael Todd, Julius Wasserstein, Paul Wonner and Norman Zammitt.
In 1999, additional photographs were donated including many duplicates of the previous donations. These include 50 mounted photographs of West Coast artists, twenty-four of which were exhibited in 1980 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and published in 50 West Coast Artists: A Critical Selection of Painters and Sculptors (1981, Chronicle Books). Photographs are of Ansel Adams, Robert Arneson, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Bechtle, Fletcher Benton, J. B. Blunk, William Brice, Joan Brown, Imogen Cunningham, Jay De Feo, Eleanor Dickinson, Richard Diebenkorn, Laddie John Dill, Archeliat Esherick, Sam Francis, David Gilhooly, Joseph Goldyne, Robert Graham, Henry Hopkins, Robert Howard, John Ihle, Robert Irwin, Allen Jones, Alvin Light, Lee Mullican, Isamu Noguchi, Howard Paris, Joseph Raffael, Fred Reichman, Ed Ruscha, Betye Saar, Richard Shaw, Louis Siegrist, Nell Sinton, Wayne Thiebaud, De Wain Valentine, Leo Valledor, Carlos Villa, Peter Voulkos, William Wiley, and Emerson Woeffer.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographer; Kentfield, Calif.; b. 1911; d. April 1, 1999. Known in the San Francisco Bay Area for her portraits of prominent local figures, many of whom were artists. She eventually expanded her scope beyond Northern California to included artists in the Los Angeles region as well. These images were widely reproduced in books and in exhibitions and in many cases became the portraits by which the individuals were best known. Among her subjects were Ed Ruscha, Robert Graham, Peter Voulkos, Joan Brown, Isamu Noguchi, Jay DeFeo, Wayne Thiebaud, Imogen Cunningham, and Richard Diebenkorn. Several exhibitions were devoted to the photographs as independent works of art, an acknowledgement of their pictorial qualities as well as their value as documents.
Provenance:
Donated 1976-1992 by Mimi Jacobs. Additional photos, many of them duplicates of previous donations, were donated in 1999 by Leslie Fleming, Jacobs' daughter, for the Estate.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The records of the New York artist-cooperative Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. and the Soho contemporary art gallery Paula Cooper Gallery measure 50 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from 1961 to 2006. The collection documents the founding of the Park Place Gallery and its artists through correspondence, artists' files, photographic materials, financial records, printed and digital materials, and scattered business records. The bulk of the collection is Paula Cooper Gallery records; nearly two-thirds of which are artists' files containing a variety of materials such as correspondence, printed materials, and photographic materials. Also found is additional business correspondence, business records, financial records, and printed materials for Paula Cooper Gallery, as well as a handful of records from Paula Johnson Gallery.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the New York artist-cooperative Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. and the Soho contemporary art gallery Paula Cooper Gallery measure 50 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from 1961 to 2006. The collection documents the founding of the Park Place Gallery and its artists through correspondence, artists' files, photographic materials, financial records, printed and digital materials, and scattered business records. The bulk of the collection is Paula Cooper Gallery records; nearly two-thirds of which are artists' files containing a variety of materials such as correspondence, printed materials, and photographic materials. Also found is additional business correspondence, business records, financial records, and printed materials for Paula Cooper Gallery, as well as a handful of records from Paula Johnson Gallery.
The collection is divided in three series, one series for each gallery represented in this collection. The records in each series are not comprehensive and do not represent the full scope of operations at each gallery. Due to the original arrangement of materials, some records related to Park Place Gallery are found in Series 3, and scattered records related to Paula Cooper Gallery are found in Series 2. Researchers are encouraged to reference both series.
Series 1, Paula Johnson Gallery records, contains six folders and includes an artist file for Bob Thompson; two ledger pages of accounts receivables; scattered exhibition announcements and flyers; two photographs of artwork by Vernon Lobb; tax records, and a handful of legal organizational records.
Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. records are filed in Series 2 and is arranged in five subseries: correspondence, business files, artists' files, financial records, and printed materials. The correspondence is between gallery employees and clients, museums, and other galleries regarding artwork inquiries, sales and exhibitions. Business files are limited in scope and include documents related to the founding of the gallery, a guest book, and one folder of legal and financial records. Artists' Files for eight of the ten Park Place Gallery artists are found: Dean Fleming, Peter Forakis, Tony Magar, Tamara Melcher, Forrest Myers, David Novros, Edwin Ruda, and Leo Valledor. Not present in this collection are files for Mark di Suvero and Robert Grosvenor. Artists' Files contain a variety of materials including artists' statements, bibliographies, biographies, correspondence, exhibition flyers, interview transcripts, clippings and other printed materials, and photographic materials. Financial Records include check ledgers, a general ledger, paid bill receipts, sales invoices, tax forms, and other miscellaneous financial and banking records. Printed Materials include newspaper clippings, gallery announcements, an interview transcript, a handwritten gallery floor plan, and a poster for the 1964 Park Place Invitational Show drawn by Mark di Suvero with artists' names handwritten by Robert Grosvenor.
The bulk of the collection is the records of Paula Cooper Gallery, Series 3. This series contains similar materials as Series 2 and is arranged in the same five subseries. Correspondence includes responses to appraisal requests (1968-1997) and copies of outgoing gallery correspondence from 1985-1999. Business Files contain documentation related to advertising and renovations to the gallery, as well as an artwork inventory book from the early years of the gallery's operation. The bulk of this series is comprised of Artists' Files which contain varied materials such as correspondence with artists, museums, and galleries regarding installations, artwork fabrication, and other business; biographies and bibliographies; exhibition files; printed materials; and photographic materials of artwork and installations. There is considerable documentation for artists Jennifer Bartlett, Peter Campus, Zoe Leonard, Elizabeth Murray, Alan Shields and the estate of Tony Smith. Sales invoices, consignment records, payment ledgers, cancelled checks and other financial materials are found in Financial Records. Printed Materials are comprised of some newspaper and magazine clippings, an interview transcript, and a copy of a manuscript.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 3 series:
Series 1: Paula Johnson Gallery, 1963-1967 (Box 1; 6 folders)
Series 2: Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc., 1961-1973, 1989 (Boxes 1-4, 50-51, OV 52; 4.1 linear feet)
Series 3: Paula Cooper Gallery, 1962-2006 (Boxes 4-49, 51; 45.7 linear feet, ER01; 0.001 GB)
Historical Note:
The artists' cooperative Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. opened in November 1965 at 542 West Broadway, showing the work of ten young contemporary artists. The cooperative did not represent an art movement, but frequently exhibited large-scale, non-figurative, geometric paintings and sculptures.
Many of the gallery's artists had attended art school in California and shared similar ideas about art, community, and collaboration. Since 1962, they had been informally exhibiting together at 79 Park Place and other various New York City locations under the name Park Place Gallery. With the successes of their informal exhibitions, and the loss of their lease at 79 Park Place, the group formalized their cooperative under the umbrella non-profit, Art Research, Inc. in 1965.
The cooperative was comprised of five sculptors, five painters, and five collectors. Members included sculptors Mark di Suvero, Peter Forakis, Robert Grosvenor, Tony Magar, and Forrest Myers; painters Dean Fleming, Tamara Melcher, David Novros, Edwin Ruda, and Leo Valledor; and collectors Virginia Dwan, Allen and Betty Guiberson, J. Patrick Lannan, Vera List, and John and Lupe Murchison. The collectors each donated an artwork by one of the artists for sale in the gallery, as well as financed the gallery's annual operating budget. As compensation, each collector was given one major work of art by each artist every year.
Paula Cooper (nee. Johnson) joined Park Place Gallery in 1966 and she became director in late 1966-early 1967. Previously, from 1964-1966, she ran Paula Johnson Gallery, showing artwork by Bob Thompson and other young artists.
Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. had its first group show in February 1966. In addition to showing art, the gallery occasionally held jazz sessions and other art-related gatherings. The gallery physically closed at the end of July 1967. However, Paula Cooper continued managing the sale of artwork and organized exhibitions at various locations. The final exhibition of Park Place Gallery artists was held at M.I.T. in late spring of 1968.
Paula Cooper opened Paula Cooper Gallery in Soho at 96 Prince Street in 1968. Her gallery is often credited as being the first gallery in Soho and thus paved the way for the migration of uptown galleries to the neighborhood. From the beginning, the gallery showed primarily conceptual and minimalist art and she continued representing some of the Park Place artists. Artists represented by Paula Cooper Gallery and found in this collection include Jennifer Bartlett, Dara Birnbaum, Peter Campus, Michael Hurson, Zoe Leonard, Robert Mangold, Elizabeth Murray, Cady Noland, Adrian Piper, Ulrich Rückriem, Edwin Ruda, Alan Shields, the estate of Tony Smith, Joseph White, Chris Wilmarth, Kes Zapkus, and many others. The gallery continues to operate in Chelsea on West 21st Street.
Sources consulted include "Reimaging Space: the Park Place Gallery Group in 1960s New York" by Linda Dalrymple Henderson, published by Blanton Museum of Art, 2008; and, "Art and Space: Park Place and the beginning of the Paula Cooper Gallery," by Liza Kirwin, 2007 (http://www.aaa.si.edu/exhibitions/paula-cooper).
Related Material:
Related collections found among the holdings of the Archives of America include a sound recording of a lecture given by Paula Cooper (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston sound recordings, May 18, 1983-February 8, 1984); audio tapes which include Paula Cooper (Bruce D. Kurtz video and audio recordings and papers, 1966-1995); and two silent 16mm films by Kenny Schneider (Park Place Gallery artists films, 1967.)
Provenance:
Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. records and Paula Cooper Gallery records were donated by Paula Cooper, director of the galleries, in two accessions in 2006 and 2009.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
All collection material except photographs: Permission to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission from Paula Cooper. Contact Reference Services for more 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.
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- New York (State) -- New York
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Transcripts
Photographs
Citation:
Park Place, The Gallery of Art Research, Inc. records and Paula Cooper Gallery records, 1961-2006. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collection Care Preservation Fund
An interview of Dean Fleming conducted 2013 August 6 and 7, by Elissa Auther, for the Archives of American Art's, Stoddard-Fleischman Fund for the History of Rocky Mountain Area Artists, at Libre artist community, Libre, Colorado.
Fleming speaks of his personal history and education; development of drawing style; world travels; living as a part of Drop City in New Mexico, later starting his own community in Libre comprised of geodesic domes; teaching at various institutions including Carnegie Tech and the San Francisco Art Institute; iterations of the Park Place Gallery; his experiences in the Korean War; life and experiences with the Native American communities of the Southwest. Fleming also recalls Mark di Suvero, Chuck Denefer, Leo Valledor, Peter Forakis, wife Linda Fleming, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Dean Fleming (1933- ) is a painter in Libre, Colorado. Elissa Auther (1966- ) is an associate professor of contemporary art in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
General:
Originally recorded as 6 sound files. Duration is 4 hr., 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.
