The papers of African American sculptor Chakaia Booker measure 2.3 linear feet and date from 1981 to 2018 with the bulk of the collection dating from 1994 to 2010. The collection consists primarily of printed material, but also includes selected correspondence and professional files, including a portfolio.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American sculptor Chakaia Booker measure 2.3 linear feet and date from 1981 to 2018 with the bulk of the collection dating from 1994 to 2010. The collection consists primarily of printed material, including exhibition announcements; exhibition and auction catalogs; magazines; and newspapers. Also included are three folders of correspondence, including selected correspondence from artist Jack Whitten, and professional files, which includes a portfolio of Booker's work.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as three series.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1995-2013 (3 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Professional Files, 1999-circa 2001 (3 folders; Box 1)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1981-2018 (2.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-3)
Biographical / Historical:
Chakaia Booker (1953- ) is an African American sculptor in New York, New York. In an artist's statement, Booker refers to herself as a "narrative environmental sculptor." She is known for large-scale sculptures incorporating recycled rubber tires and stainless steel. Booker's works are included in more than 40 public collections and have been exhibited across the United States and internationally. She has also served on the boards of International Sculpture Center and Socrates Sculpture Park.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2018 by Chakaia Booker as part of the Archives' African American Collecting Initiative funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
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 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:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Jack Whitten, 2009 December 1-3. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Jack Whitten conducted 2009 December 1 and 3, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art, at Whitten's studio, in Woodside, N.Y.
Whitten speaks of his childhood in Bessemer, Alabama; being an African-American in the segregated South; his time at the Tuskegee Institute and Southern University; his participation in a civil rights march; the influence of jazz; his time at Cooper Union in New York, the abstract expressionists of New York including Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Phillip Guston; his teaching at Cooper Union and School of Visual Arts; his 9/11 experience and the memorial that it led him to create; how his work varies between his summers in Greece and his studio time in New York; movement of his work from figurative expressionism to process painting and experimentation and how it fits between form and meaning; the concepts of horizontality, non-relational abstraction, and third-wave modernism; the galleries of the Horodner Romley, Daniel Weinberg, Alexander Grey, Thomas Flor, and other spaces; Whitten also recalls Leo Amino, Bob Blackburn, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Wayne Theibaud, Bob Thompson and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Jack Whitten (1939-2018) was an American abstract painter in Woodside, N.Y. Interviewer Judith Olch Richards (1947- ) is former Executive director of iCI in New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 memory cards. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 25 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.
Jack Whitten. Photograph of Alma Thomas and Ruth Kainen at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1972. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Jack Whitten. Photograph of Alma Thomas at Whitney Museum of American Art exhibition opening, 1972. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Jack Whitten. Photograph of Alma Thomas and unidentified man at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1972. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Jack Whitten. Photograph of Alma Thomas at the opening of her exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1972. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Jack Whitten. Photograph of Alma Thomas at the opening of her exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1972. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Odyssey : Jack Whitten sculpture 1963-2017 / edited by Katy Siegel ; co-curated by Kelly Baum and Katy Siegel ; with contributions by Aleesa Alexander, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Meredith Brown, Kellie Jones, Courtney J. Martin, Richard Shiff, Jack Whitten, and Karli Wurzelbacher
