Winthrop, Grenville Lindall, 1864-1943 Search this
Extent:
3.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sketches
Etchings
Photographs
Date:
1862-1967
bulk 1920-1967
Summary:
The papers of New York art dealer, critic, and author Martin Birnbaum measure 3.2 linear feet and date from 1862-1967, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920-1967. The papers document Birnbaum's association with the firm of Scott & Fowles, the lives and activities of his friends and colleagues, and his literary work, through biographical material, correspondence, writings and notes, business records, printed material, a scrapbook, scattered artwork, and photographs of Birnbaum, friends and colleagues, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York art dealer, critic, and author Martin Birnbaum measure 3.2 linear feet and date from 1862-1967, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920-1967. The papers document Birnbaum's association with the firm of Scott & Fowles, the lives and activities of his friends and colleagues, and his literary work, through biographical material, correspondence, writings and notes, business records, printed material, a scrapbook, scattered artwork, and photographs of Birnbaum, friends and colleagues, and artwork.
Correspondence, primarily letters received by Birnbaum in New York, and throughout Europe from 1917-1960s, reflects Birnbaum's association with Scott & Fowles, particularly Stevenson Scott, and includes many details about the lives and activities of his correspondents, among them: artists Edward Bruce, Cecilia Beaux, Beniamino Bufano, Stephen C. Clark, Louise Dillingham, William Hunt Diedrich, Luis Fernandez, Herbert Haseltine, Jan Hoowij, Malvina Hoffman, Leonebel Jacobs, Lenard Kester, Lois Mailou Jones, Paul Manship, Gari Melchers, Maxfield Parrish, Charles S. Ricketts, William Rothenstein, John Singer Sargent, Janet Scudder, Carl Sprinchorn, Maurice Sterne, Albert Sterner, Carl N. Wertz, and Stanley Wilson. Also found is correspondence with art collectors and patrons including Mabel Choate, Edmund Davis, Reginald Davis, Henry P. McIlhenny, James Parmalee, Edith Wetmore, and Grenville Windall Linthrop, and museums including the Fogg Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then curator Gisela Marie Augusta Richter, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Correspondence with scholars, writers, and publishers including George Coedes, Edmund Dulac, Joseph Francis Charles Rock, Upton Sinclair and others, documents aspects of Birnbaum's literary and scholarly work.
Writings include drafts of The Last Romantic, including Upton Sinclair's revision, and some of Birnbaum's early published and unpublished writings, as well as notes on Aubrey Beardsley.
Business records include financial records such as bills, receipts, canceled checks and statements for sales of artwork, and scattered legal records.
A small amount of printed material primarily consists of programs for musical events which evidence Birnbaum's early success as a violinist, as well as scattered news clippings, 2 exhibition catalogs, and announcements for the publications of Angkor and the Mandarin Road and The Last Romantic. Additional printed material about Birnbaum can be found in the dismantled scrapbook, 1960-1961.
Artwork includes 2 etchings and a sketch by Birnbaum, bookplates by various artists, circa 10 sketches by other and unidentified artists, and 3 cards with original artwork.
Photographs include snapshots and portraits of Birnbaum and artists and friends, among them: Robert Chanler, Charles Despiau, Norman Douglas, Luis Fernandez, Herbert Haseltine, Augustus John, Paul Manship, Gari Melchers, Elie Nadelman, Albert Sterner, Stevenson Scott, and Grenville Lindall Winthrop. Also found is a photo of Birnbaum with Edward Bruce, Alfred Potterton, Leon Stein, and Maurice Sterne, circa 1915-1916, and photographs proposed for use in The Last Romantic, travel snapshots, and photos of artwork.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1890-1950s (0.3 linear feet; Box 1, OVs 4-5)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1862-1967 (1.7 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1890-circa 1960 (0.45 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 4: Business Records, 1918-1967 (0.15 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1895-circa 1960 (0.15 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 6: Scrapbook, 1960-1961 (1 folder; Box 3)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1890-circa 1960 (0.15 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1900-circa 1960s (0.3 linear feet; Box 3)
Biographical / Historical:
New York art dealer, critic, and author Martin Birmbaum (1878-1970) was the manager of the American branch of the Berlin Photographic Company in New York City from 1910–1916, and a longtime partner in the art firm Scott & Fowles. He spent the later part of his career building the Grenville Lindall Winthrop Collection, now at the Fogg Museum.
Birnbaum immigrated to the United States from Hungary as a child. He was an accomplished violinist who studied at City College of New York, and graduated with a law degree from Columbia University in 1901, but developed a life-long interest in art during visits to Europe. As manager of the Berlin Photographic Company he had great success in staging art exhibitions at the company's New York galleries, which led him to a junior partnership in the Fifth Avenue firm of art dealers, Scott & Fowles. Birnbaum traveled widely and built relationships with many of the prominent artists and art collectors of his day and, in addition to the Grenville Lindall Winthrop collection, was influential in developing other important art collections including those of Edward Davis, Reginald Davis, and Henry P. McIlhenny.
Birnbaum wrote widely about his experiences and encounters in the world of wealthy socialites, literary salons, artists, art patrons, and collectors in publications such as Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (Berlin Photographic Co., 1911), Oscar Wilde: Fragments and Memories (J.F. Drake, Incorporated, 1914) , Vanishing Eden:Wanderings in the Tropics (New York: William E. Rudge's Sons, 1942), Angkor and the Mandarin Road (Vantage Press, 1952), and The Last Romantic (Twayne Publishers, 1961). He died in 1970 at the age of 92.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels N698, N698A-N698B) including correspondence, bookplates, sketches, newspaper clippings, and a list of books containing ornamental drawings and illustrations. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Material on reels N698, N698A-N698B were lent for microfilming by Martin Birnbaum in 1967. The rest of the collection was donated in an anonymous gift in 1970 and by Martin Birnbaum's great-nephew, Jerome Ziegler, in 1975.
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 -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Virginia Cuthbert, 1995 August 28. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The artists' files of commercial New York art gallery Scott & Fowles measure 2.5 linear feet and date from 1904 to 1946. The majority of the collection contains photographs of artwork, biographical writings on the artists, and notes regarding sales transactions, artwork descriptions, and history of the ownership of artworks by artists such as Augustus John, Peter Lely, and Thomas Rowlandson. Also included in smaller amounts are letters, financial records, and clippings.
Scope and Contents:
The artists' files of commercial New York art gallery Scott & Fowles measure 2.5 linear feet and date from 1904 to 1946. The majority of the collection contains photographs of artwork, biographical writings on the artists, and notes regarding sales transactions, artwork descriptions, and history of the ownership of artworks by artists such as Augustus John, Peter Lely, and Thomas Rowlandson. Also included in smaller amounts are letters, financial records, and clippings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as one series.
Series 1: Scott & Fowles Artists' Files, 1904-1946 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-4)
Biographical / Historical:
Scott & Fowles was a commercial art gallery in New York, N.Y. The gallery was in operation from approximately 1905 to 1943.
Related Materials:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are the Stevenson Scott papers relating to Augustus John, 1923-1949.
Separated Materials:
A scrapbook lent by Wildenstein & Co. in 1956 was microfilmed onto reel D8. The scrapbook was returned to the donor and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Scott & Fowles artists' files were donated to the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1980 by Mathilda Boelscher, a former employee of Scott & Fowles. The Cincinnati Art Museum donated the files to the Archives of American Art in 1981, through Pat Rutledge, librarian at the museum. Some files were removed by a curator at the Taft Museum in Cincinnati before being received by AAA.
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.
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- New York (State)
Citation:
Scott & Fowles artists' files, 1904-1946. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
Letters from British artist Augustus John to his dealer, Stevenson Scott of Scott & Fowles, and related clippings. Included are three letters, 1929, discussing John's painting, "Chrysanthemum," which Scott had to send back to John before it could be included in his show in New York; one letter, 1942, referring to his portrait of Trelawney Dayrell-Reed, a British archaeologist, and a neighbor, and mentioning that his London studio was hit by a German land-mine; and a letter, 15 June 1943, describing having to interrupt work on the portrait of Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), consort of King George VI, due to the blitzing of Buckingham Palace. Clippings include two reviews of a 1949 retrospective of Augustus John at Scott & Fowles; one review is by Henry McBride, writing for the New York Sun.
Biographical / Historical:
Stevenson Scott, of Scott & Fowles, was a dealer for British painter Augustus John.
Provenance:
Donated 1999 by Stevenson Scott Kaminer of Washington, D.C., grandson of Stevenson Scott, through Elizabeth Oustinoff of Adelson Galleries, New York.
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.
An interview of Virginia Cuthbert conducted 1995 August 28, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art, in Cuthbert's home, Buffalo, New York.
Virginia Cuthbert discusses her family background in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area; and her father's love of art and acquaintance with Homer Saint-Gaudens, Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art; her very early art education and, later, her study in Europe on a Syracuse University fellowship; her brief study with Felice Carena in Florence and critiques of her work in London by Augustus John and Colin Gill; her study and friendship in New York with George Luks and the beginning of a long friendship with the composer, Virgil Thompson; graduate study in fine arts at the University of Pittsburgh; her engagement to the future museum director, Andrew Ritchie, its breaking-off, and her marriage to Philip Elliott; her further study at the Carnegie Institute with Alexander Kostellow; and a sketching trip to France and Spain.
Biographical / Historical:
Virginia Cuthbert (1908-2001) was a painter from Buffalo, New York and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
General:
Due to a stroke in 1994, Ms. Cuthbert's voice is not clearly audible.
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 26 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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- Buffalo Search this
Illustrators -- New York (State) -- Buffalo Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- Buffalo Search this
Biographical material; letters; business records; writings; notes and notebooks; printed material; photographs.
Included are a biographical sketch; letters, 1924-1958, from Louis Anquetin, Raoul Dufy, Roger Fry, Augustus John, Gerald Kelly, and Sure Toudu; letters from Henri Verne of the Louvre Museum regarding Maroger's appointment as technical director of conservation for the Louvre, 1930-1939; business records, 1948-1962, containing correspondence and receipts from galleries, museums, and publishers regarding Maroger's paintings and his book The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the Masters, among them Galerie Louis Carre & Co. (Paris), Grand Central Art Galleries (New York City), Studio Publications, and Thomas Y. Crowell publishers; a typescript of a speech delivered by Maroger at the "Conference de Londres"; typescript chapters from his book; writings by unidentifed authors on the preparation of heated oil for painting, 1923 and paint mediums, 1949; notes, undated and 2 notebooks, 1923-1937, containing research on paint mediums, pigments, techniques and the artists who used them; a scrapbook of clippings, 1930-1935 mainly from French newspapers regarding his research, and one, 1941-1949, from Baltimore and New York papers about his students at the Maryland Institute, College of Art and exhibitions of his paintings; loose clippings, 1950-1964; exhibition announcements and catalogs, 1947-1962, from Maroger's group and one-man shows at Ferargil Galleries, the Grand Central Art Galleries, including the Maroger Baltimore Group of Painters which showed there, Evergreen House Foundation, Sagittarius Gallery, the Six Realists Gallery, and elsewhere; miscellaneous printed material, 1948-1966; and photographs, 1962, 1990 and undated and a photo album, 1953-1971, of Maroger, his wife Olga, Evergreen House, and works of art (annotated with size and price); of Harry Ladew and a painting of Ladew by Maroger; and of painted furniture, possibly examples for Maroger's painted furniture designs of the Goblins Tapestries.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, conservator; Paris, France, New York, N.Y., and Baltimore, Md. In the 1930s, Maroger was technical director of the laboratories of the Louvre Museum, a professor at the School of the Louvre, and President of the Association of French Restorers. He received the Legion of Honor in 1937. Maroger came to the U.S. in 1939 and taught at the Parsons School of Design and for 20 years at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore. He studied the paint mediums of the masters, and outlined them in his book, The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the Masters (New York: Studio Publications, 1948).
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1992 by Simone LeFaivfre, sister of Maroger's widow Olga.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
