The Smithsonian Institution Archives began its Oral History Program in 1973. The purpose of the program is to supplement the written documentation of the Archives'
record and manuscript collections with an Oral History Collection, focusing on the history of the Institution, research by its scholars, and contributions of its staff. Program
staff conduct interviews with current and retired Smithsonian staff and others who have made significant contributions to the Institution. There are also interviews conducted
by researchers or students on topics related to the history of the Smithsonian or the holdings of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Cynthia Adams Hoover, Curator of Musical Instruments at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History from 1961 to 2004, was interviewed in 1986 by Richard Binfield,
a student in an oral history seminar at the University of Maryland, to document her long and distinguished career as a scholar of American music and her role in engaging the
scholarly community at the Smithsonian.
Descriptive Entry:
Cynthia Adams Hoover was interviewed in 1986 by Richard Binfield, a student at the University of Maryland, as part of a seminar project that focused on interviews of
Smithsonian staff members, taught by Smithsonian Institution Archives Historian Pamela M. Henson. This interview of Hoover covers her youth, education, and career at the Smithsonian,
including the development of a musical instruments division, her special interest in the keyboard collection, her work on various publications, programs, and exhibits, and
reminiscences of colleagues and administrators. The collection consists of 1.5 hours of audio recordings and 28 pages of transcript
Historical Note:
Cynthia Adams Hoover (1934- ) received her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1957, the M.A.T. from Radcliffe College in 1958, and the M.F.A. from Brandeis University in
1961. She was appointed an Assistant Curator of Musical Instruments in the Division of Cultural History, National Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum
of American History) in 1961. In 1964, she advanced to Associate Curator and in 1975 she advanced to Curator of Musical Instruments. Upon her retirement in 2004, she was named
Curator Emeritus. Hoover was instrumental in creating the Yale-Smithsonian Seminar Series which focused on material culture research, was the founder of the Material Culture
Forum at the Smithsonian Institution, and was involved in several professional societies, including the American Musicological Society. Her research specialties include the
cultural, social, and technological history of musical instruments, especially the piano, made and used in America; music in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American life;
and interpretation of American material culture. Her work has resulted in exhibitions and publications on such subjects as Music in Early Massachusetts, Nineteenth-Century
American Ballroom Music, 1840-1860; Music Machines-American Style, and PIANO 300: Celebrating Three Hundred Years of People and Pianos. Hoover received a
Guggenheim Fellowship to research the changing intersections of technology, culture, and commerce of the piano, work that resulted in the PIANO 300 exhibition and related
programs in 2000 2001.
Rights:
Restricted. Contact SIHistory@si.edu to request permission.
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.
Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.
There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.
Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.
Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.
Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.
Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.
Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.
Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.
Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.
Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.
Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)
Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.
After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.
In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.
After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.
In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.
A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.
Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.
Provenance:
The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional 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.
REELS 2906-2907: Papers, 1979-1981, compiled by Vander Lee, symposium coordinator of "Fiber in the 80's: Current and future issues in the textile arts," held October 3-4, 1980, at the Alfred J. Glassell, Jr. School of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tex. Included are correspondence with participating panelists and grants organizations; artists' resumes; contracts; income and expenditure lists; mailing lists; meeting minutes of the Contemporary Handweavers of Houston, a sponsor of the symposium; and 3 clippings.
REEL 3362A: Material regarding the exhibition, "American Fiber: A New Aesthetic," including resumes and printed biographical information on the participants; correspondence; checklists; loan agreements; writings including Vander Lee's notes regarding the planning of the exhibition, and her draft for the text of the catalog; printed material; and photographs of the installation.
Biographical / Historical:
Museum curator; Houston, Tex.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1981 & 1984 by Jana Vander Lee.
Microfilmed as part of the Archives of American Art's Texas project.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
The papers of curator and museum director Marcia Tucker measure 2.4 linear feet and date from 1973-1994. The collection documents Tucker's tenure as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York through artists' files, correspondence, project files, printed material, and photographs. The papers also reflect Tucker's activities as an advocate for women in the arts.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of curator and museum director Marcia Tucker measure 2.4 linear feet and date from 1973-1994. The collection documents Tucker's tenure as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York through artists' files, correspondence, project files, printed material, and photographs. The papers also reflect Tucker's activities as an advocate for women in the arts.
Artists' files include correspondence, artists' statements, exhibition lists, press releases, printed material, and photographs of artwork. There is extensive correspondence with Richard M. Allen, James W. Johnson, Bruce Melamid, and Earl and Suzanne Staley.
Correspondence consists of a mix of professional and personal letters between Tucker and artists, business colleagues, and friends. Correspondence relating to the founding of the New Museum includes draft versions of the mission statement. Among the notable correspondents are: Louise Bourgeois, Joan Brown, Howardena Pindell, Markus Raetz, Joan Snyder, and Idelle Weber. Project files reflect Marcia Tucker's activities as an educator, writer, and advocate for women's role in the arts.
Photographs include an inscribed photograph to Marcia Tucker from Raymond Lark.
Arrangement note:
The collection is organized into 5 series. The papers are arranged by material type and chronologically thereafter.
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1976-1994 (Boxes 1-2; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1976-1994 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files, 1973-1990 (Boxes 2-3; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1984-1994 (Box 3; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, 1985-1994 (Box 3: 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Curator and museum director Marcia Tucker (1940-2006) lived and worked in New York.
In 1961, Marcia Tucker received her Bachelor of Arts from Connecticut College. She then went on to earn a Masters of Art from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts in 1965. In 1969, Tucker became curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Influenced by the political ferment of the 1960s, Marcia Tucker directed her curatorial efforts to organizing exhibitions that reflected the political and social currents of the day. An early exhibit that she co-curated with James Monte, "Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials," was one of the first major exhibitions dedicated to Process Art or Post Minimalism. She curated major surveys for the work of Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, and Jack Tworkov. Some of Marcia Tucker's curatorial choices were critically received by colleagues and others in the artistic community. In 1977, she left the Whitney Museum to take on the role of founding director at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. At the time, the New Museum was one of the few experimental centers for contemporary and emerging artists working in graphic arts, video, and film, serving as a venue for artists outside the mainstream, gay artists, and members of radical Hispanic and feminist groups. During her tenure at the New Museum, Tucker directed a number of major exhibitions, such as "Bad Girls," 1994; "A Labor of Love," 1996; "The Times of Our Lives," 1999, among others.
Marcia Tucker's interests extended to writing and teaching. She was the series editor for the New Museum's Documentary Sources in Contemporary Art. Tucker was also a freelance art critic; her criticism appeared in such publications as Art in America, Artforum, and ArtNews. Tucker also taught and lectured at academic institutions and art schools, including the School of Visual Arts, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Cornell University, and Colgate University.
In 1999, Marcia Tucker left her post as Director of the New Museum, though she continued to be engaged in the contemporary art scene. In recognition of her innovative practices as a curator, Tucker received a number of awards, including the Skowhegan Governors Award for Lifetime Services to the Arts, 1988; Bard College Award for Curatorial Achievement and the Art Table Award for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts, 2000. She was also the recipient of three Yaddo fellowships from 2003-2005.
In 2006, Tucker died in Santa Barbara, California. She is survived by her husband, Dean McNeill, an artist and their daughter, Ruby Tucker.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Marcia Tucker conducted by Paul Cummings, August 11-September 8, 1978.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Marcia Tucker to the Archives of American Art in 2000.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
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.
Topic:
Museum directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Women museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Marcia Tucker papers, 1973-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
