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Catalog Data

Creator:
Vidor, King, 1894-1982  Search this
Names:
Associated American Artists  Search this
Big parade (Motion picture)  Search this
Metaphor: King Vidor meets with Andrew Wyeth (motion picture)  Search this
Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975  Search this
Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this
Sheets, Millard, 1907-1989  Search this
Wood, Grant, 1891-1942  Search this
Wyeth, Andrew, 1917-2009  Search this
Extent:
2.1 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Motion pictures (visual works)
Video recordings
Typescripts
Date:
1936-1982
Summary:
The papers of King Vidor measure 2.1 linear feet and include correspondence, printed material, and a variety of materials related to the documentary Metaphor: King Vidor Meets Andrew Wyeth (1980) written and directed by Vidor, including production notes, photographs, and motion picture film.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of King Vidor measure 2.1 linear feet and include correspondence, printed material, and a variety of materials related to the documentary Metaphor: King Vidor Meets Andrew Wyeth (1980) written and directed by Vidor, including production notes, photographs, and motion picture film. Correspondence is mainly between Vidor and multiple galleries and artists whose artworks Vidor collected, and includes single letters from artists Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and Andrew Wyeth. Lengthy correspondence with Associated American Artists is found among other correspondence with galleries. Loan requests from museums borrowing from Vidor's painting collection, and image requests for reproduction rights for paintings owned by Vidor from various publishers are also found, as well as a few sheets of notes related to valuation of paintings. Printed material includes exhibition catalogs for Millard Sheets and Diego Rivera, clippings on a variety of subjects, including a long article about his film project Metaphor published in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and periodicals with articles about the artist Grant Wood. Scattered slides are mostly of unidentified artwork. Material related to Metaphor, Vidor's film project with Andrew Wyeth include photographs of Wyeth and Vidor in Pennsylvania, stills from Vidor's 1925 film The Big Parade, and a still from Metaphor. Production notes include detailed footage and edit notes as well as typescripts of draft narration. Some production notes are arranged as a group, and others are arranged with documentation of the original film containers in which they were found. Motion picture film found in the collection includes a print of the final version of the film, edit master film material (A and B rolls), outtakes, and trims.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 4 series. Digital photographs of original film containers are filed in Series 4. Series 1: Correspondence, 1941-1982 (Box 1, 1 folder) Series 2: Printed Material, 1936-1980 (Box 1, 3 folders) Series 3: Slides, 1964 (1 folder; Box 1) Series 4: -- Metaphor: King Vidor Meets Andrew Wyeth -- (1980), 1976-1980 (1.9 linear feet; Box 1, FC 1-17)
Biographical / Historical:
King Vidor was an American film director whose prolific career began in 1913, during the silent era, and continued through 1959 when he stopped directing large scale film projects. In addition to his prolific film career, Vidor was an avid collector of American Art who owned works by Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, among others. Vidor's final film, Metaphor: King Vidor Meets Andrew Wyeth (1980), is a documentary in which he and Wyeth discuss the impact of Vidor's most celebrated film of the silent era, The Big Parade, on Wyeth's painting. The project began when Wyeth wrote a lengthy letter to Vidor crediting his film, which Wyeth claimed to have watched over a hundred times, with having had a direct impact on the compositions of his paintings, which he only noticed after the fact when his wife, Betsy, pointed it out to him. When Wyeth contacted Vidor for permission to use clips from The Big Parade in a documentary project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to accompany a 1976 exhibition of these works, Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth: Kuerners and Olsons, instead of lending his film to that effort, Vidor went to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania to film Wyeth himself. Together, the two set out to make a documentary telling the story of the aesthetic relationship between their work, with Vidor directing. The film was completed in 1980 but was never commercially released. Vidor died in 1982.
Related Materials:
There is an oral history interview with King Vidor held by Columbia University.
Provenance:
Donated 1985 by the King Vidor Trust.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Pennsylvania  Search this
Topic:
Filmmakers -- California -- Los Angeles  Search this
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting  Search this
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- California -- Los Angeles  Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Motion pictures (visual works)
Video recordings
Typescripts
Citation:
King W. Vidor papers, 1936-1982. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.vidoking
See more items in:
King W. Vidor papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9b3a1f770-e016-4f3e-995d-081b5eac2c55
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-vidoking