The papers of Los Angeles art historian, art critic, and writer Merle Schipper measure 12.1 linear feet and date from circa 1930s to 1999. The papers include biographical material, correspondence, writing and research project files, printed material, writings by others, photographs, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Los Angeles art historian, art critic, and writer Merle Schipper measure 12.1 linear feet and date from circa 1930s to 1999. The papers include biographical material, correspondence, writing and research project files, printed material, writings by others, photographs, and artwork.
Biographical material consists of a notebook planner and professional contact addresses, as well as Schipper's resume and bibliography. Scattered correspondence is both personal and professional with family and colleagues.
Over one-half of the collection consists of Schipper's writing, research, project, and exhibition files. There are drafts, essays, manuscripts, notes, and research documentation about California art and artists, an exhibition of craftsman William Spratling curated by Schipper, Schipper's dissertation and additional projects on Jean Helion, the exhibition Americans in Paris in the 1950s (1997), additional exhibitions, as well as transcripts of interviews with artists. The research files on Helion include an interview transcript with Willem de Kooning about Helion and correspondence with artists about Helion, including Charles Biederman, Alexander Calder, Philip Guston, Carl Holty, Jack Tworkov, and others. Additional exhibition files are found for Visions of Inner Space (1988) and Marmo: The New Italian Stone Age (1989). Artists interviewed by Schipper include Billy Al Bengston, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Laddie John Dill, Kenneth Noland, Eric Orr, and others.
Extensive printed materials include clippings and copies of journals and periodicals containing Schipper's writings.
There are a few scattered writings by others about art and artists. Photographs are of Schipper, artists, artwork, and places, including Paris. Artwork includes one original poster print by Kiki Smith and one drawing by Matt Mullican.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1970s-1998 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: General Correspondence, 1944-circa 1998 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writing and Research Project Files, circa 1930s-1999 (7.8 linear feet; Boxes 1-9)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1933-1997 (3.1 linear feet; Boxes 9-12, OV14-16)
Series 5: Writings By Others, circa 1944-1991 (0.2 linear feet; Box 12)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1960s-circa 1992 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 12-13)
Series 7: Artwork, 1982-1992 (0.1 linear feet; Box 13, OV16)
Biographical / Historical:
Merle Schipper (1922-2001) was an art historian, writer, and art critic active in Los Angeles, California.
Born in Toronto, Canada, Merle Solway Schipper was naturalized in Los Angeles in 1950 and received a PhD in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1974. Schipper was a familiar figure on the Los Angeles art scene. Her primary scholarly focus grew out of her dissertation research on Jean Helion, but much of her writing attention was devoted to Los Angeles artists and art world events. She was a regular contributor to many art periodicals, including ArtScene, Images and Issues, Artweek, ARTnews, and the Los Angeles Daily News.
As an independent curator, Schipper's research interests led to several exhibitions, including Americans in Paris: the 50s (1979) at California State University, Northridge, Visions of Inner Space (1988) co-curated with Lee Mullican at UCLA's Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, Marmo: the New Italian Stone Age (1989), Being There/Being Here: Nine Perspectives in New Italian Art (1991), traveling exhibition sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute, and an exhibition of William Spratling for the Craft and Folk Art Museum in 1997. Schipper also taught and lectured at UCLA, USC, CSU Northridge, and Claremont Graduate School.
Merle Schipper died in 2001.
Provenance:
The Merle Schipper papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2002 by the Merle Schipper Estate via Schipper's daughter Amy Schipper Howe.
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.
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 critics -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Art historians -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
The Griffith Family papers, which dates from 1907 to 1950 and measures 4.21 linear feet, documents the personal lives of three generations in the Griffith family: Sarah Thomas, Delaphine and Jacqueline Griffith. The papers are comprised of personal and professional correspondence, receipts, bills, newspaper clippings, photographs, record albums, and legal documents.
Scope and Contents note:
The collection which dates from 1907 to 1950, bulk dates 1913-1945, documents the lives of three generations of the Griffith family: Sarah Thomas, Delaphine Griffith, and Jacqueline Griffith, while primarily focused on Delaphine (Della) Griffith. The papers document Mrs. Griffith's relationships with friends and family through extensive correspondence, as well as, her experiences as a domestic servant and federal employee. It also documents daily life in Washington D.C. through receipts and bills of sales. Mrs. Griffith and Ms. Griffith also retained a large phonograph record collection comprised of jazz, swing band, and rhythm and blues music.
Arrangement note:
The papers are arranged into three series one of which contains four subseries. Folders are arranged alphabetically within series, while documents are organized chronologically. Undated material appears in the front of folders. Oversized material appears in the series: Music Collection and Photographs. In box 7 of Oversized the folder entitled "Allen Griffith, 1915" appears before the phonograph record booklet covers because of the fragile nature of the portrait's frame.
Series 1: Biographical
Subseries 1.1: Correspondence
Subseries 1.2: Financial Records
Subseries 1.3: General
Subseries 1.4: Miscellaneous
Series 2: Music Collection
Series 3: Photographs
Biographical/Historical note:
Delaphine (Della) Griffith was born in Washington, D.C. on December 13, 1896 to Sarah Thomas. She lived in D.C. with her mother until 1916 when she moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey for work. Later that year she moved on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Griffith moved back to Washington, D.C. and met and married Alan Griffith in 1919. Together they had a daughter whom they named Jacqueline.
Throughout her adult life, Mrs. Griffith lived with her mother and family on the northwest side of Washington, D.C. She worked for the federal government during two different periods: the early 1930s and during World War II. On November 19, 1950, Mrs. Delaphine Griffith died at the age of 54. Jacqueline Griffith continued to live in the family home until her death in the early 1990s.
Provenance:
The Griffith Family papers were donated to the Anacostia Community Museum in May 1995 by June Brown.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for unrestricted research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Griffith Family papers are the physical property of the Anacostia Community Museum. Literary and copyright belong to the author/creator or their legal heirs and assigns. Rights to work produced during the normal course of Museum business resides with the Anacostia Community Museum. For further information, and to obtain permission to publish or reproduce, contact the Museum Archives.
India -- Social life and customs -- Pictorial works
India -- Description and Travel -- views
India -- Union Territory
Date:
[1840?]
Scope and Contents:
A series of watercolor pictures depicting Tamil men and women of various trades and castes. These ethnographic studies may have been rendered for a French official or merchant as identification aides by a local Indian artist in Pondicherry, as the area was under French control as part of the French Indian Territories during this time. The name "Company School" has been attached to suggest the similarity between these drawings and those typically commissioned by the East India Company, especially during the early 18th century.
The format generally consists of a drawing of an individual with information identifying the subject's caste and the activity depicted. Not all drawings are accompanied by identifying information. It may be notable that, while not all of the male subjects are identified in the above manner, none of the female subjects are identified by caste or activity. The regularity of size and shape and numbering of the sheets would seem to indicate that these drawings may have been used to illustrate a bound monograph. Captions are in French. Several sheets are watermarked "J. Whatman. Balston & Co." with dates 1822-1825.
Arrangement:
Organized by subject.
Biographical / Historical:
Thomas L. Hughes was a prominent official in the U.S. Department of State and visited India during the 1960s; he also maintained collegiate relations with Chester Bowles, a former U.S. Ambassador to India and an influential advocate for Third World aid programs in Washington.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1993.10
Provenance:
The collection was donated to Sackler Gallery Study Collection in 1984 by Thomas L. Hughes and moved to the Archives on December 13 and 22, 1993.
French India Company School Drawings, FSA.A1993.10. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Thomas L. Hughes, 1984-1985.
Identifier:
FSA.A1993.10
Archival Repository:
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
Buckaroos in Paradise : cowboy life in northern Nevada : publication for an exhibition at the National Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 1, 1980-March 31, 1981 / Howard W. Marshall, Richard E. Ahlborn
The Myron Bement Smith collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. It contains substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime. The Islamic Archives was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture.
Scope and Contents:
The Myron Bement Smith Collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. The papers include some biographic material about Myron but little about his wife. Information on his academic and professional experience is sketchy and his diaries and appointment books often contain only sporadic entries. The papers contain substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Correspondence comprises the largest and most potentially useful part of the papers. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester, NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime.
The Islamic Archives, formally entitled The Archive for Islamic Culture and Art, was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Most of the latter consists of photographs and slides. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture. The core collection of the Archives consists of Smith's original photographs and architectural sketches of Iranian Islamic monuments made during his field research in the 1930s. He meticulously photographed the interior and exterior of monuments, including their decorative detail. Some of the photographic materials subsequently loaned, purchased, or donated to the Archives may enable scholars to document sites over time but in many cases the materials are poorly preserved or reproduced. A notable exception to this is the glassplate negatives and prints of 19th century Iranian photographer Antoin Sevruguin.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 2 major series with further subseries. A third series inventories the outsized and miscellaneous materials.
Series 1: Papers
Subseries 1.1: Biographic Materials
Subseries 1.2: Professional Experience
Subseries 1.3: Notebooks, Journals and Appointment Books
Subseries 1.4: Correspondence
Subseries 1.5: Published and Unpublished Materials
Subseries 1.6: Italy Research 1925, 1927-1928
Subseries 1.7: Iran Research 1933-1937
Subseries 1.8: Katharine Dennis Smith Papers and Correspondence
Series 2: The Islamic Archives
Subseries 2.1: Islamic Archives History, Collection Information
Subseries 2.2: Resource Materials Iran
Subseries 2.3: Resource Materials Other Islamic World and General
Subseries 2.4: Myron Bement Smith Architectural Sketches, Plans and Notes, Iran, 1933-1937
Subseries 2.5: Myron Bement Smith Iran Photographs, Notebooks and Negative Registers
Subseries 2.6: Country Photograph File
Subseries 2.7: Lantern Slide Collection
Subseries 2.8: Myron Bement Smith 35 mm Color Slides
Subseries 2.9: Country 35 mm Color Slide File
Subseries 2.10: Myron Bement Smith Negatives
Subseries 2.11: Country Photograph Negatives
Subseries 2.12: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs
Series 3: Outsize and Miscellaneous Items
Subseries 3.1: Map Case Drawers
Subseries 3.2: Rolled Items
Subseries 3.3 Items in Freezer
Subseries 3.4 Smithsonian Copy Negatives
Biographical Note:
Myron Bement Smith was born in Newark Valley, New York in 1897 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He died in Washington D.C. in 1970. He showed an early interest in drawing, and after graduation from high school, he worked as a draftsman for a Rochester architect. He served in the US Army Medical Corps in France during World War I and on return again worked as an architectural draftsman. He studied at Yale University from 1922 to 1926, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. During summer vacations, he worked as draftsman or designer for architectural firms in New York City. After graduation, he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant and spent two years in Italy doing research on northern Italian brick and stone work. He used photography as an tool for his research and published several well-illustrated articles. On return he joined an architectural firm in Philadelphia and in 1931 became a registered architect in New York. He enrolled in Harvard University graduate school in 1929 pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree.
In April 1930, Smith was appointed Secretary of the newly created American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology founded by Arthur Upham Pope and located in New York City. He had no prior academic or work experience in Islamic art or architecture, and his job entailed designing publications, arranging lectures, organizing exhibitions and fund raising. That summer he arranged an independent study course at Harvard University on Persian art and subsequently studied Persian language at Columbia University and attended graduate courses at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His work and academic credentials enabled him to compete successfully for a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1933 to study Iranian Islamic architecture.
Accompanied by his new bride Katharine Dennis, Smith left for Iran in 1933. They suffered a horrendous motor vehicle accident in Iraq en route and required a lengthy recuperation in Lebanon and Cyprus. The Smiths eventually arrived in Isfahan, Iran, where they established their "Expedition House," as Smith called it, in a rented faculty house at Stuart College. Smith's research consisted of meticulous photographic documentation of Islamic monuments and architectural sketches and drawings of many of them. He concentrated on the Isfahan area but also documented monuments elsewhere in Iran. Smith outfitted his station wagon as a combination camper and research vehicle in which he and his staff traveled widely. Katharine sometimes traveled with him but generally she remained in Isfahan managing the household and logistics for the "expedition." The Smiths left Iran in 1937.
Smith published several articles about Iran's Islamic monuments based on his field research and in 1947 completed his PhD thesis for The Johns Hopkins University on the vault in Persian architecture. His professional career from 1938 until his death in 1970 consisted of a series of temporary academic positions, contract work and government or academic sponsored lecture tours and photographic exhibits. He had a long lasting relationship with the Library of Congress where he served as an Honorary Consultant from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1948 to 1970; from 1943 to 1944 he was Chief of the Iranian Section at the Library. Despite his lack of published material, Smith was well-known among academic, government and private citizens who worked, traveled or were otherwise interested Iran and the Islamic world.
Smith developed an extensive network of professional and social contacts that dated from his early student days and increased markedly during his time at the Persian Institute and later in Iran. He kept in touch with them and they touted him to others who were interested in Iran or Islamic art and architecture. This network served him well in realizing his ambition of creating a resource for scholars that relied on photographs to document Islamic architecture. The Islamic Archives began with his own collection of photographs from his Iran research and grew to include all manner of photographic and other materials not only on the Islamic world but also other areas. Creating and managing the Archives became the main focus of Smith's professional life and career. In 1967 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to revise his PhD thesis as a publishable manuscript but died before he could complete it.
Related Materials:
The Antoin Sevruguin Photgraphs
Ernst Herzfeld Papers
Lionel B. Bier Drawings
Lionel D. Bier and Carol Bier Photographs
Provenance:
Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, transfered from National Anthropological Archives.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
The Myron Bement Smith Collection, FSA A.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith.
The Curt Maury papers, dating from 1953 to circa 1985, measure 12.7 linear feet and include writings and notes for planned and published books; travel files and expense ledgers for trips to India; photograph ledgers; and extensive photographs and slides of India.
Scope and Contents:
The Curt Maury papers, dating from 1953 to circa 1985, measure 12.7 linear feet and consist of writings and notes for planned and published books; travel files and expense ledgers for trips to India; photograph ledgers; and extensive photographs and slides of India.
The collection was created by Maury primarily in preparation for an unpublished book to be titled, "India's Folk
Tradition as the Mirror of Mankind's Religious History." Materials include manuscript and typescript drafts
and notes for this book, as well as for published book, Folk Origins of Indian Art (1969). Travel files include printed maps of India, Maury's sketched map outlines of cities in India, and five travel expense ledgers. Photographic materials consist of black and white prints and slides depicting Indian folk art, including religious artifacts and structures, and Indian cultural activities and surroundings. Nine photograph ledgers describe images and locations of photographs and slides with roll and image number.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 3 series.
Series 1: Writings and Notes, circa 1960s-circa 1970s [3.7 linear feet; Boxes 1-5, 7-11]
Series 2: Travel Files, 1953-1975 [0.4 linear feet; Box 5, 1 OV Folder]
Series 3: Photographic Material, circa 1960-circa 1985 [8.5 linear feet; Boxes 6, 12-44]
Biographical note:
Curt Maury (1909-1989) was a writer, social services administrator, and scholar of Indian art. He was born in Germany, earned a PhD in German Literature from the University of Vienna in 1935, and immigrated to the United States in 1939. While pursuing a literary career through the publication of novels, plays, and poems, Maury developed an interest in India, which he visited many times from the 1950s through the 1970s. He conducted research on Indian folk art, and kept extensive photographic records.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the Archives after Curt Maury's death in 1989 by his brother, Hans Tischler.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Due to cold storage requirements, digital surrogates are prefered for access. One week's notice is required prior to access originals.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions Department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
