The papers of Hermine Benhaim Freed measure 0.01 linear feet (7 items) and date from 1945 to 1966. The collection mostly consists of material Freed gathered about New York gallery owner Howard Putzel, such as Benhaim's paper on Howard Putzel, "Howard Putzel and the Beginnings of Abstract Expressionism," written for a Modern Art Seminar at New York University. Also included are letters to Freed, 1966, about Putzel from Joseph Allen, Peggy Guggenheim, Kenneth MacPherson and Gordon Onslow-Ford; and a typescript and a clipping of reviews of the exhibition "A Problem for Critics," 1945, organized by Putzel.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Hermine Benhaim Freed measure 0.01 linear feet (1 folder) and consists of 7 items and date from 1945 to 1966. The collection mostly consists of material gathered about New York gallery owner Howard Putzel, such as Freed's paper on Howard Putzel, "Howard Putzel and the Beginnings of Abstract Expressionism," written for a Modern Art Seminar at New York University. Also included are letters to Freed, 1966, about Putzel from Joseph Allen, Peggy Guggenheim, Kenneth MacPherson and Gordon Onslow-Ford; and a typescript and a clipping of reviews of the exhibition "A Problem for Critics," 1945, organized by Putzel.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection, the papers are arranged as one series.
Series 1: Hermine Benhaim Freed papers relating to Howard Putzel, 1945-1966 (Folder 1; 7 items)
Biographical / Historical:
Hermine Benhaim Freed (1940-1998) was a painter and video artist in New York City. Freed studied painting at Cornell University and New York University, where she taught starting from the late 1960s.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 1972 by Hermine Benhaim Freed.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning 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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of artist Jesse Amado measure 1.3 linear feet and date from circa 1970 to 2016. The collection is comprised of biographical material, writings and notes, professional files, printed material, photographic material, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of artist Jesse Amado measure 1.3 linear feet and date from circa 1970 to 2016. The collection is comprised of biographical material, writings and notes, professional files, printed material, photographic material, and artwork.
Awards, greeting cards, license, and a resume are found in biographical materials. The papers also include early writings, notes, and fifteen notebooks. Professional files consist of agreements, exhibition and project files, a teaching file, and source material.
Printed materials consist of clippings, ephemera, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and an exhibition wall description. Photographs and negatives are of Amado, works of art, and personal subjects. Artwork includes a few drawings, a sketchbook, and portraits of Amado drawn by his students.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as six series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1983-2011 (Box 1; 4 folders)
Series 2: Writings and Notes, circa 1970-2016 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Professional Files, 1990-2016 (Boxes 1-2; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, circa 1983-2016, undated (Boxes 1-2; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographic Material, circa 1970-circa 2000 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 2010-2015 (Boxes 1-2; 3 folders)
Biographical / Historical:
Jesse Amado (1951- ) is an artist active in San Antonio, Texas.
In his youth Amado had aspirations to become an architect but lost interest later in high school. Amado joined the Navy at 17 becoming an east coast communications operator. He left the Navy after five years and moved to New York City. There, he visited art museums and became interested in art though he did not consider a career as an artist at this time. Instead, he studied English in college and graduated in 1977 from the University of Texas in Austin. He returned to San Antonio and became an English teacher in the public school system, but left this position a short time later. Following the suggestion of a friend, Amado joined the San Antonio fire department where he worked until retiring in 2002. Upon gaining a steady income, Amado began taking art classes at San Antonio College studying under Chicano artist Mel Casas. Amado continued to study fine art at the University of Texas in San Antonio in the 1980s. He earned another bachelor's degree as well as a master's degree in fine art in 1990. During this time he began exhibiting his artwork. He has since held numerous solo and group exhibitions of his work.
Amado completed residencies at San Antonio's Artspace, South Korea's City Gallery of Kwangju, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, N.E., and for the National Endowment for the Arts' Visual Arts Organization Grant at the Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia. His major projects include memorials for the San Antonio fire department and Days, an art installation in honor of Linda Pace at the San Antonio Central Library.
Related Materials:
Also at the Archives of American Art is an interview of Jesse Amado conducted May 31 and June 7, 2004 by Cary Cordova at the artist's studio, in San Antonio, Texas.
Provenance:
The papers were donated by Jesse Amado in 2017.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Three video interviews (on four DVDs) with Paul Ryan, Frank Gillette, and Ira Schneider, founders of the Raindance Corporation, conducted in 1992 by John Giancola, regarding a history of the Raindance Corporation. Interviews include discussions on the early video movement in New York, the formation of the Raindance Corporation, critical issues in considering video as an art form, and the publication of the collective's magazine Radical Software. DVD formats contain embedded indexes.
Biographical / Historical:
The Raindance Corporation, currently the Raindance Foundation, was a collective founded in 1969, dedicated to using video as a means of cultural education.
Provenance:
Donated 2010 by Frank Giancola.
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 donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own.
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:
Video artists -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Project files, exhibition files, teaching/workshop files, correspondence, and printed material relating to Sato's career as a video artist and printmaker and her involvement in professional video and artist organizations mainly in the Seattle, Washington area.
Project files contain letters, reports, notes and printed material concerning Sato's Comprehensive Employment Training Act award, a National Endowment for the Arts media grant, the Seattle Art Commission, Soho Television, the Center for Contemporary Art Talk, the Seattle Bumbershoot Arts Festival, the King County Arts Commission, the U.S. Film and Video Festival, the Focal Point Media Center, and others. Exhibition files contain printed material, notes and letters regarding Sato's exhibitions at various institutions, among them the Philadelphia Print Club, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Guggenheim Museum; a file of catalogs and announcements, 1974-1990; and a file of exhibition entries with acceptance/rejection cards.
Lecture/workshop files relate to Sato's position as a lecturer for the Seattle Printmakers Services Association and the Centrum Foundation. Correspondence, 1975-1980, 1990-1991 (20 items) is mainly regarding sales and exhibitions of work, and includes a group of letters from Margo Dolan, director of the Associated American Artists. The collection also includes a few writings by Sato, printed material, and Sato's annotated resume.
Biographical / Historical:
Norie Sato (1949- ) is a Japanese American video artist and printmaker in Seattle, Washington. Sato was born in Japan, and is the founder of the Center for Contemporary Art (COCA) in Seattle and member of the Seattle Arts Commission.
Provenance:
Donated 1991 by Norie Sato.
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.
The State of the Arts videorecordings measure 2.4 linear feet and consist of 30 videocassettes (U-matic) and three sets of handwritten notes, all created during the production of a pilot episode for a broadcast television documentary series on contemporary art in 1979. Four stories were produced for the pilot: a staged debate on modern art at the Museum of Modern Art; an investigation into the economics of the contemporary art market, a collaboration between video artist Nam June Paik and sound artist Liz Phillips, and an extended interview with sculptor George Segal on the occasion of his 1979 retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Video footage includes raw footage for each segment and edited versions of the economics of art story, the Nam June Paik and Liz Phillips story, and the George Segal story. The reporter and interviewer for the program was Barry Nolan.
Scope and Contents:
The State of the Arts videorecordings measure 2.4 linear feet and consist of 30 videocassettes (U-matic) and three sets of handwritten notes, all created during the production of a pilot episode for a broadcast television documentary series on contemporary art in 1979. Four stories were produced for the pilot: a staged debate on modern art at the Museum of Modern Art; an investigation into the economics of the contemporary art market, a collaboration between video artist Nam June Paik and sound artist Liz Phillips, and an extended interview with sculptor George Segal on the occasion of his 1979 retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Video footage includes raw footage for each segment and edited versions of the economics of art story, the Nam June Paik and Liz Phillips story, and the George Segal story. The reporter and interviewer for the program was Barry Nolan.
Although the program never aired, the video shot for the pilot documents significant artists and gallerists of its time, with profiles of O.K. Harris Works of Art and its founder, Ivan Karp, as well as art dealer Holly Solomon and critic Barbara Rose, Marcia Tucker in the early days of the New Museum, and footage of artists like Nam June Paik, Liz Phillips, and George Segal in their studios, describing their work in detail. The sound and video piece created by Paik and Phillips with the dancer Robert Kovich was commissioned by the State of the Arts producers for the pilot program, and the four hours of video documenting their collaboration and its product may therefore be unique.
Interview subjects for the economics of art story include Ivan Karp, Tom Drysdale, Rick Derman, Cosmo Campoli, Joan Thorne, Holly Solomon, Marcia Tucker, and Barbara Rose. The Marcia Tucker interview takes place at the New School, which was at the time the home of the New Museum. Footage also includes a gallery opening at O.K. Harris Works of Art. Extended interviews with Liz Phillips, Nam June Paik, and George Segal are found in the footage of their respective stories.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as one series.
Series 1: -- State of the Arts -- Production Video, 1979 (2.4 linear feet; boxes 1-3)
Biographical / Historical:
State of the Arts was planned as a broadcast television magazine program on the subject of contemporary art. The pilot was produced in 1979 by Lawrence P. Fraiberg Productions with funding provided jointly by IBM and the National Endowment for the Arts. Fraiberg and Tom Cavanau served as executive co-producers, Rick Derman as field producer, and Barry Nolan as interviewer. The program never aired.
Lawrence P. Fraiberg was a longtime television documentary veteran when the pilot was produced. He graduated from the University of California in 1949 and began his career at television station KPIX in San Francisco. He became vice president and general manager of WNEW-TV in New York in 1965, and was named president of Metromedia Television in 1977. In 1980 he was appointed president of the Television Station Group for Westinghouse Broadcasting. An active member in community and industry organizations, he is a recipient of an honorary degree (1978) from St. John's University, New York, a Peabody Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Broadcasting Industry (1986), and a Trustees Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (1990). He died in 2011.
Barry Nolan, the interviewer for State of the Arts, went on to a career as a television magazine host and producer, with credits including Evening Magazine, Hard Copy, Extra!, and Nitebeat, and in 2012 produced the documentary No Way Out But One with his wife, Garland Waller.
Provenance:
Donated 1979-1980 by Lawrence P. Fraiberg.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from Ted Cavanu, Rick Derman and Barry Nolan. 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.
Occupation:
Art museum directors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Women museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Video recordings
Citation:
State of the Arts Videorecordings, 1979. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.
Material gathered by Berkson in preparation for exhibitions on sculptors Ronald Bladen and Les Levine.
The Bladen material, compiled for a retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1991, includes: biographical material; an unpublished artists' statement, 1946; interviews of Bladen; material from the California School of Fine Art's archives, and the Whitney Museum of American Art; Bladen correspondence, 1931-1956; Berkson correspondence, 1990-1991; a painting checklist; writings by and about Bladen; photographs of Bladen's paintings and sculptures; exhibition announcements 1941-1983; and clippings and reviews, 1941-1987.
Files on Les Levine include photographs, slides, correspondence, articles, announcements, and clippings. Included are information on his media projects Subway Project (1989) and Diamond Mind.
Biographical / Historical:
Berkson is an art historian, curator; San Francisco, Calif. Bladen, a painter and sculptor, worked in San Francisco in the mid-1950s, and later moved to New York. Levine, a conceptual and video artist, and a curator, works in New York.
Related Materials:
Papers of Bill Berkson, 1960-1988, are also located at the University of Connecticut's Archives & Special Collections.
Provenance:
Donated 1991 and 1995 by Bill Berkson.
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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
The papers of the artist Gene Davis measure 17.7 linear feet and date from 1920-2000, with the bulk of materials dating from 1942-1990. Papers document Davis's personal life and his career as an artist and educator, as well as his career as a journalist in the 1940s and 1950s, through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, business records, estate records, writings by and about Gene Davis, printed materials concerning Davis's art career, personal and art-related photographs, and artwork by Davis and others.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of the artist Gene Davis measure 17.7 linear feet and date from 1920-2000, with the bulk of materials dating from 1942-1990. Papers document Davis's personal life and his career as an artist and educator, and to a lesser degree his early career as a journalist in the 1940s and 1950s, through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, business records, estate records, writings by and about Gene Davis, printed materials concerning Davis's art career, personal and art-related photographs, and artwork by Davis and others.
Correspondence is mainly of a professional nature, and correspondents include gallery and museum curators, private art collectors, publishers, fellow artists, art educators, academics, and students. Letters document exhibitions, sales, book projects, teaching jobs, visits to studios, local art community events in the Washington, D.C. area, and other projects. Significant correspondents include Gene Baro, Douglas Davis, Clement Greenberg, Gerald Nordland, William Seitz, Alma Thomas, and Donald Wall. Interviews and lectures include sound recordings and transcripts. Many of the interviews were broadcast or published. Also found is a single lecture by Davis given in 1969 at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, entitled "Contemporary Painting." Sound recordings are found for three of the interviews and for the lecture, on 4 sound reels and 1 sound cassette.
Business records include artwork documentation, price lists, sales records, contracts, financial and legal records, gallery and museum files documenting sales and exhibitions, records related to the construction of Davis's home studio in 1970, and a few teaching records. Estate records mainly reflect Florence Davis's efforts to document the works of her husband, and to manage their exhibition, promotion, and sale after his death in April 1985. Estate records include an inventory of artworks, documentation of gifts to museums, correspondence, legal, and financial records. Writings include notes, drafts of essays, artist statements, and articles by Davis, and many articles by others about Davis. Several of Davis's articles reflect specifically on the Washington, D.C. art scene. Also found are drafts of monographs on Davis including one by Donald Wall (1975) and one by Steven Naifeh (1982). Records of Naifeh's book also include photographs of all black and white and color plates from the published book. Among the writings are also notes and research files of Percy North, who worked on an update to Naifeh's 1982 bibliography after Davis's death.
Printed materials include annual reports of museums, published arts-related calendars, auction catalogs, brochures from organizations with which Davis had some affiliation, exhibition announcements and invitations, exhibition catalogs, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, newsletters, posters, press releases, and other published material. Photographs include personal photographs of Gene and Florence Davis and their families, portraits of Gene Davis, photographs of Gene Davis with artworks and working in the studio, Davis' art classes and students, installations of site-specific works, conceptual and video works, exhibition openings, and photographs of artwork, both installed in exhibitions and individually photographed. Found among the photographs are also four videocassettes documenting the Gene Davis retrospective as installed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in 1987.
Artwork includes photographs, drawings, moving images, and documentation of conceptual art. Works by Davis include documentation of the 1969 "Giveaway" with Douglas Davis and Ed McGowin, "The Artist's Fingerprints Except for One which belongs to someone else," documentation of his "Air Displacement" happening, a short film entitled "Patricia," and a video entitled "Video Puzzle." Other moving images include four reels of film of Davis's stripe paintings, and other experiments with motion picture film and photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1930-1987 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 1, 17)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1943-1990 (1.7 linear feet; Boxes 1-3)
Series 3: Interviews and Lectures, 1964-1983 (0.3 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 4: Business and Estate Records, 1942-1990 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 3-5, 17, OV 20)
Series 5: Writings, 1944-1990 (2 linear feet; Boxes 5-6, 17, OV 19)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1942-1990 (5.5 linear feet; Boxes 7-11, 17-18, OV 20, FC 35-37)
Series 7: Photographs, 1920-2000 (3.8 linear feet; Boxes 11-15, 17, OV 19)
Series 8: Artwork, 1930-1985 (2.2 linear feet; Boxes 15-16, 18, FC 21-34)
Biographical / Historical:
Gene Davis (1920-1985) was a Washington, D.C.-based artist and educator who worked in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, collage, video, light sculpture, and conceptual art. Davis is best known for his vertical stripe paintings and his association with the Washington Color School.
Davis was born in 1920 in Washington, D.C. and began his career as a writer. In his twenties he wrote pulp stories and worked as a journalist, reporting for United Press International and serving as a White House correspondent for Transradio Press Service during the Truman administration. Later, he worked in public relations for the Automobile Association of America. A self-taught artist, Davis began painting while still working full-time as a writer, influenced by the prevailing abstract expressionist artists of the time, his frequent visits to the Corcoran Gallery and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and by his friend and mentor, Jacob Kainen. His first one-man show was held in the lobby of the Dupont Theater in Washington in 1952. He had a drawing accepted in the Corcoran Area Show in 1953, and won several local art prizes in the 1950s. He began showing work regularly in galleries around Washington, such as the Watkins Gallery at American University, the Gres Gallery, and the Henri Gallery, and had solo exhibitions at Jefferson Place Gallery in 1959 and 1961. Many of the painters who made up what became known as the Washington Color School also showed there, including Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring, and Sam Gilliam. In 1965, the Washington Gallery of Modern Art held a seminal exhibition entitled Washington Color Painters, which included Davis, Noland, Mehring, Morris Louis, Thomas Downing, and Paul Reed.
Davis began showing outside of Washington regularly in the 1960s, including the Poindexter and Fischbach galleries in New York City, and in several important group shows at museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He had three works shown in the 1964 exhibition Post-Painterly Abstraction, organized by the influential art critic Clement Greenberg at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In the late 1960s, he began teaching art classes at the Corcoran School, and spent the summer of 1969 as artist in residence at Skidmore College's "Summer in Experiment" program.
Davis experimented with form continuously throughout his career, including a period of conceptual work in the late 1960s. In 1969 he participated in the "Giveaway," organized by Douglas Davis and Ed McGowin, in which multiple copies of a Davis painting were given away to invited guests in a gesture intended to subvert the art market. Davis also began experimenting with scale, creating a series of tiny paintings he called "Micro-paintings," which were exhibited at Fischbach Gallery in 1968. Around this time he also began working with film and video, recruiting models from his art classes to enact tightly choreographed movement pieces that played with rhythm and interval. Convinced by a lawyer that his videos were a liability without having obtained releases from the models, Davis destroyed all but one of his video works. The surviving video, "Video Puzzle," shows a foreshortened view of a model on the floor of a gallery spelling out a statement by Clement Greenberg at predetermined intervals.
Davis made several large-scale site-specific works using the stripe motif in public places. The first of these was created in the Bal Harbour, Florida, Neiman Marcus department store in 1970. Later works included Franklin's Footpath, executed in the road leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1972, and Niagara (1979) at ArtPark in Lewistown, NY, promoted at the time as the largest painting in the world. Interior large-scale works were created twice at the Corcoran Gallery, with Magic Circle (1975) and Ferris Wheel (1982), both executed in the museum's rotunda. Black Yo-Yo was created for the Cranbrook Academy in 1980, and Sun Sonata (1983), an illuminated wall of colored liquid-filled tubes, was created as an architectural feature of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia. Plans for an unexecuted work called "Grass Painting," for a site near the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., were exhibited in the 1974 "Art Now" festival.
In the late 1970s and 1980s Davis consistently exhibited his work in several solo gallery shows a year, and also had numerous solo exhibitions in major museums. A major exhibition, Recent Paintings, was organized by the Walker Art Center in 1978, and traveled to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1979. A drawing retrospective was held at the Brooklyn Museum of art in 1983, and the same year the Washington Project for the Arts organized an exhibition entitled Child and Man: A Collaboration, featuring drawings Davis made in response to childrens' drawings. Davis died suddenly in April 1985 at the age of 65, and a major retrospective of his work was held at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in 1987.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Gene Davis conducted by Estill Curtis Pennington on April 23, 1981. A transcript is available on the Archives of American Art website.
Provenance:
Donated 1981 by Gene Davis and 1986 by his wife, Florence. Additional material donated 1991 and 1993 from Smithsonian American Art Museum via a bequest to them from the Gene and Florence Davis estate. Much of the 1993 addition was assembled by art historian Percy North at the request of Florence Davis. An additional folder of photographs of Davis taken in 1969 but printed in 2000 was later added to the collection.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. 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.
Occupation:
Reporters and reporting -- Washington (D.C.) Search this
Gene Davis papers, 1920-2000, bulk 1942-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.
The papers of Los Angeles photo and video artist Eileen Cowin measure 14.7 linear feet and 29.56 GB and date from 1961 to 2015. The papers include biographical materials, correspondence, writings, teaching files, project files, exhibition files, printed and digital material, video artwork and sketchbooks, sound and video recordings, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Los Angeles photo and video artist Eileen Cowin measure 14.7 linear feet and 29.56 GB and date from 1961 to 2015. The papers include biographical materials, correspondence, writings, teaching files, project files, exhibition files, printed and digital material, artwork and sketchbooks, sound and video recordings, and photographic material.
Biographical material consists of diplomas, passports, rolodexes, faculty identification cards, legal papers, interview transcripts, and miscellaneous documents in hard copy and digital formats.
Personal and professional correspondence is with family, friends, artists, collectors, gallery owners, museums, and universities. Notable correspondents include Carl Chiarenza, Darryl Curran, Maria Gonzalez, Robert Heinecken, Ellen Korsower, William Larson, and Aaron Siskind.
Writings include notebooks, annotated appointment calendars and wall calendars, lectures, essays, drafts and notes, artists statements, guest registers, and some writings by others. A few lectures and one essay are on sound and digital video recordings.
Teaching files are mostly related to material from California State University, Fullerton. There are a few documents from Franconia College and other universities where Eileen Cowin taught workshops or had faculty appointments. The files include student evaluations, promotion notifications, and limited correspondence.
Project files include professional files, such as grant applications, artist residencies, and symposiums. Also found are art project proposals, publication agreements for art projects, and commissions,. Files contain correspondence, printed and digital material, application forms, research notes, and photographic material.
Exhibition files include announcements, catalogs, reviews, correspondence, price lists of artwork, and assorted material for Eileen Cowin's group and solo shows.
Printed material consists primarily of clippings, exhibition catalogs, announcements, books, periodicals, and clippings.
Artwork includes 26 videocassettes of Cowin's artwork, 1 sketchbook, drawings, 4 digital audio recordings, and a few college art projects.
Photographic material includes press prints, digital photographs, proofs, contact sheets, slides, negatives, transparencies, and test shots. There are photographs of installations and artwork as well as images for exhibition mock-ups. There are also batches of "research photographs" which were used for reference. There is one folder of photographs of Eileen Cowin.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1961-2015 (0.8 linear feet; Box 1, ER01; 0.016 GB)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1969-2015 (3 linear feet; Boxes 1-4, ER02-ER03; 0.199 GB)
Series 3: Writings, 1963-2014 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 4-6, ER04-ER06; 11.88 GB)
Series 4: Teaching Files, 1974-2008 (0.3 linear feet, Box 6, ER07; 0.171 GB)
Series 5: Project Files, 1979-2010 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, ER08; 9.35 GB)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1979-2011 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, ER09; 0.001 GB)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1966-2014 (2.6 linear feet; Boxes 8-10, 17, OV 20, ER10; 0.011 GB)
Series 8: Artwork and Sketchbooks, 1964-2003 (3.2 linear feet; Boxes 10-13, 17, ER11; 0.076 GB)
Series 9: Photographic Material, 1968-2015 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 13-16, 18-19, OV 21, ER12-ER13; 7.86 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Eileen Cowin (1947-) is a photographer and video artist who lives in Los Angeles, California.
Eileen Cowin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1947. She graduated from the State University of New York, New Paltz in 1968 and received her master's degree in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago in 1970. At IIT, she studied with Aaron Siskind and Arthur Siegel.
Cowin was involved in the L.A. experimental photography scene that began in the mid-1970s led by Robert Heinecken and Darryl Curran. In the early 1980s, Cowin gained initial prominence with staged photographs of family and friends in various roles, work in keeping with The Pictures Generation emerging at the same time on the East Coast.
From 1971-1975, Cowin taught photography at Franconia College in New Hampshire, and later became a professor at California State University, Fullerton, where she continued to teach until retiring in 2008.
Cowin's artwork has been featured in over 40 solo exhibitions and over 165 group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. She has received numerous awards for her art and worked on many public art projects.
Provenance:
The Eileen Cowin papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Eileen Cowin in 2015.
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. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
One box of correspondence with Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich and one box of correspondence with Robert Fichter are ACCESS RESTRICTED; use requires written permission.
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.
Resumes and other biographical material; miscellaneous printed material, and photocopies of news clippings, magazine articles, press releases, and photographs regarding Chase's work in sculpture, film and dance; photographs and 21 slides of works of art.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor, video artist, filmaker, dancer; New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Donated 1980 and 1997 by Doris Chase.
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.
Occupation:
Filmmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Video artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Women sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of sculptor and educator, Athena Tacha, measure 36.1 linear feet and date from 1960-2019. Material primarily relates to Tacha's public projects and research files compiled by Tacha, related to her publications and involvement on various committees, panels, and symposia. Included are proposals; correspondence; meeting minutes; sketches; financial material; research material; photographs and slides of Tacha, travel, and images used as source material; and printed material about individual commissions. Also included are files on women artists and modern sculptors, each arranged alphabetically, and files on individual artists Eli Nadelman, Auguste Rodin, and Constantin Brancusi, video artists, performance artists, and film artists, and her Ph.D. thesis on light in sculpture; and files on Oberlin College visiting artists, 1973-1997.
Biographical / Historical:
Athena Tacha (1936-) is a sculptor, and educator from Oberlin, Ohio.
Provenance:
Donated 1998 and 2019 by Athena Tacha. Tacha donated her teaching files, as well as her research files relating to Ellen Johnson's Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oberlin, Ohio, to Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and her early and student writings to the Balch Institute of Ethnic Studies, Philadelphia, Pa. Tacha was also the executor of Ellen Johnson's estate, and worked with the Archives in donating Johnson's papers in 1994 (cataloged separately under Johnson).
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.
