An interview with Rosamond Forbes Pickhardt conducted 1995 Feb. 13, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Pickhardt recalls her childhood as the daughter of Edward Waldo Forbes, long-time director of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University (1909-1944) and Margaret Laighton; her early schooling and early interest in art; her family's 11-month stay in Europe in 1922, with the young Daniel Varney Thompson acting as her father's understudy, and during the time her father studied painting with Alexander Iacovleff in Paris; spending several weeks at the Villa Curonia, near Florence, where many art world figures visited. Pickhardt remembers Paul Sachs who, upon coming to the Fogg, encouraged her to go into museum work; Eric Schroeder, a specialist in Near Eastern art and a life-long friend; Frederick "Ted" Grace, a scholar of classical art who had been groomed by Edward Forbes and Paul Sachs to succeed them as director of the Fogg but who was killed during World War II; Jakob Rosenberg, a German refugee scholar; Deman Ross; Harold Zimmerman with whom she studied drawing; Langdon Warner, a scholar of Asiatic art and one of her father's oldest friends; Kingsley Porter; and Mark Tobey with whom she studied. Pickhardt talks about her third marriage to Carl Pickhardt in 1953 and their life-long ties with the Forbes family.
Biographical / Historical:
Rosamond Forbes Pichardt (1908-2004) was a writer from Sherborn, Mass.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 28 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:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire audio recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Authors -- Massachusetts -- Sherborn -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Sachs, Paul J. (Paul Joseph), 1878-1965 Search this
Extent:
0.2 Linear feet ((on one microfilm reel))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
l930-1954
Scope and Contents:
An etching by Zimmerman; photographs of Zimmerman, his wife, Spanish gypsies used as models, and of artwork by Zimmerman and Hyman Bloom; and newspaper clippings, 1933. Other material includes sympathy letters received by Mrs. Zimmerman after Harold Zimmerman's death in 1941; letters referring to sales of artwork and a possible exhibition of Zimmerman's work at the Fogg Art Museum, 1941-1954; typescript of "An Experiment in Art Teaching" by Denman W. Ross with illustrations and captions describing Zimmerman's experimental teaching method of drawing to the young Hyman Bloom and Jack Levine; and an incomplete edited typescript with a draft of a letter by Ross to Paul J. Sachs about Zimmerman's teaching experiment, 1930.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, art instructor; Cambridge, Mass. Zimmerman developed an experimental method of teaching drawing from memory or the "visual imagination." He was the first drawing teacher of Boston Expressionists Hyman Bloom and Jack Levine in ca. 1928-1929. Denman Ross, an influential educator, art collector and painter, became the instructor and patron of Bloom and Levine shortly after he wrote his essay on Zimmerman's experiment in art teaching.
Provenance:
Donated 1991 by Richard Derby, who received the papers from his mother, Mrs. Hasket (Elizabeth) Derby, the widow of Harold Zimmerman.
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.
An interview with Mischa Richter conducted 1994 September 27-28, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Richter tells of his life as the only child of a prosperous Jewish family in Kharkov, Ukraine, where he showed early precocity in drawing. He remembers the Russian Revolution, being taken to Poland in 1921, and then in 1922 to New York and Boston. He discusses his education in Boston, including drawing lessons with Harold Zimmerman at which he got to know Hyman Bloom and Jack Levine; and classes at the Museum School in Boston from 1929 to 1930.
He speaks of his long-time friendship with Will Barnet, attending Yale School of Fine Arts, 1930-1934, and painting a WPA mural for the Boston Boys Club in 1935. He remembers meeting Will Steig, deciding to become a cartoonist, and selling enough drawings to leave the WPA to work as art editor for "The New Masses," where he became close friends with Ad Reinhardt. He discusses becoming a contract cartoonist in 1940 for "The New Yorker;" his avoidance of art dealers, because they demand steady production yet have no known goals, unlike a magazine; his abhorrence of taking himself, or others, too seriously; the perils of early success and the pettiness of many matters in the art community of Provincetown, Mass.; and the nature of his paintings.
Biographical / Historical:
Mischa Richter (1910-2001) was a painter and cartoonist from New York, N.Y. and Provincetown, Mass. Richter was born in the Ukraine. He came to the United States in 1922, attending special art classes for gifted students at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and subsequently graduating from the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1934. After working on the WPA art project as a mural painter in New York, he turned to cartooning, doing editorial and humorous cartoons for the daily newspaper, PM, and then becoming art editor for the New Masses. In 1941 he began his longtime affiliation with the New Yorker, as well as producing daily panels, "Strictly Richter" and "Bugs Baer" for King Features. In the 1970s and 1980s, Richter did numerous drawings for the OpEd page of the New York Times. Died March 23, 2001, at age 90.
General:
Sound quality is poor.
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 43 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.
Occupation:
Cartoonists -- Massachusetts -- Provincetown -- Interviews Search this
Letter from Zimmerman to Pickhardt, 1936; 2 photographs of Zimmerman; 9 pencil drawings by Zimmerman, ca. 1930s-1941, and photographs and negatives of drawings by him; xerox of a typescript of notes on Zimmerman's teaching by Rosamond Forbes Pickhardt, 1936-1938; 9 drawings by Jack Levine and 3 drawings by Hyman Bloom, both students of Zimmerman's, and a charcoal drawing of a male nude by Denman Ross.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter Carl Pickhardt (b.1908) and his wife, Rosamond were students of Zimmerman. Rosamond's father, Edward Waldo Forbes, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was a collector and Zimmerman patron. Zimmerman developed an experimental visual method of teaching drawing. When Jack Levine and Hyman Bloom were teenagers, he was their first drawing teacher. His teaching procedures were recorded in detail by Denman Ross, an influential educator, art collector and painter who taught Bloom and Levine after they studied with Zimmerman.
Provenance:
Donated 1992 by Carl E. and Rosamond Forbes Pickhardt. The drawings were given to the Pickhardt's from Zimmerman and from Rosamond's father, Edward Waldo Forbes, who received them from Mrs. Zimmerman.
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.
Thal, Samuel, 1903-1964 -- Photographs Search this
Zimmerman, Harold K., 1905-1941 -- Photographs Search this
Extent:
9 Items (photographic prints, b&w, 18 x 13 cm. and smaller)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
ca. 1925
Scope and Contents:
Included are photographs of Charles Mahoney with Sanford B. D. Low and Happy Horrigan; Low, at Student Auction at Museum School, Boston; Low and Happy Horrigan on Museum Road, Boston; and Low with ukelele among a group of students at Museum School, Boston, photographer(s) unknown; four of students clowning around in front of a car and in a cafeteria, including Mahoney, Low, Horrigan, Burt Coughlin, Tucker Curry, Elliot Laucks, and George Runyon. (Photographer(s) unknown.) Also included is a group photo of Men's Life class at the School, 1925-1926, photographed by Mahoney including Freeman Garniss, Walter Heffron, Laurence Hobbs, Alphonse Shelton and Vitale Terletsky, Charles Richenberger, Brown, Sanford B.D. Low, Weiss, Harold K. Zimmerman and Samuel Thal, Elliot Laucks and Benjamin Lanza.
Biographical / Historical:
Charles A. Mahoney was a student at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston School. Fellow students included Sanford B. D. Low. Mahoney went on to become president of the Boston Society of Water Color Painters; Low, the director of the New Britain Museum of American Art.
Provenance:
Donated 1968 by Charles A. Mahoney.
Topic:
Art students -- Massachusetts -- Boston -- Photographs Search this
Art schools -- Massachusetts -- Boston -- Photographs Search this
