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Catalog Data

Creator:
Lippard, Lucy R.  Search this
Subject:
Chicago, Judy  Search this
Andre, Carl  Search this
Stevens, May  Search this
Pearson, Henry  Search this
Darboven, Hanne  Search this
Henes, Donna  Search this
Hammond, Harmony  Search this
LeWitt, Sol  Search this
Edelson, Mary Beth  Search this
Judd, Donald  Search this
Johnson, Ray  Search this
Art Workers Coalition  Search this
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Alliance for Cultural Democracy  Search this
Studio International (Firm)  Search this
University of Colorado  Search this
Political Art Documentation/Distribution (Organization)  Search this
Printed Matter, Inc.  Search this
Addison Gallery of American Art  Search this
Women's Caucus for Art  Search this
Heresies Collective, Inc.  Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Photographs
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
88.9 Linear feet; 0.454 Gigabytes
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as nine series: Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1960s-circa 1980s (Box 1; 2 folders) Series 2: Correspondence, 1950s-2006 (Boxes 1-28, 51, OVs 54-63; 28.8 linear feet) Series 3: Writings, 1930s-1990s (Boxes 28-41, 51-52, OVs 64-66; 13.24 linear feet, ER01; 0.454 GB) Series 4: Teaching Files, 1966-1993 (Boxes 41, 52; 0.76 linear feet) Series 5: Exhibitions, 1960s-1990s (Boxes 42-45, 52, OVs 67-68; 4.2 linear feet) Series 6: Printed Material, 1940s-2007 (Boxes 45-49, 52, OVs 69-77; 5.3 linear feet) Series 7: Artwork and Ephemera, circa 1960s-circa 1990s (Boxes 50, 53; 4 folders) Series 8: Photographs, 1950s-circa 1990s (Boxes 50, 53, OV 71; 1.0 linear foot) Series 9: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1965-2010, (Boxes 78-113; 35.4 linear feet)
Access Note / Rights:
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.
Summary:
The papers of New York and New Mexico writer, art critic, and curator, Lucy R. Lippard, measure 88.9 linear feet and 0.454 GB and date from the 1930s to 2007, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1960s to the 1990s. Over half of the collection consists of correspondence files documenting Lippard's professional relationships with artists, writers, galleries, art institutions, and political organizations, and her interest in conceptual and minimalist art, feminism and political activism. Also found are Lippard's notes and writings including sound recordings and interviews, teaching and exhibition files, printed and digital material, several works of art, and photographs of artwork and artists. Scattered throughout the collection are a small number of records concerning Lippard's personal life. An addition of 3.0 linear feet donated 2015 includes subject files on feminist and conceptual art as well as land use, development, and local politics and history in New Mexico. There is a 35.4 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2015, 2021 and 2023 that incudes research files (press clippings, notes, correspondence, ephemera) related to the publications 'Lure of the Local' and 'Undermining' are a significant portion. In addition there are approximetley numerous notebooks ranging from 1965-1996, containing notes and daily tasks. Printed material and ephemera includes promotional materials for talks and public engagements, as well as press clippings of reviews and other news items featuring Lippard. Another significant portion of the addition is labeled "miscellaneous professional correspondence." Materials date from circa 1965-2010.
Citation:
Lucy R. Lippard papers, 1930s-2010, bulk 1960-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Funding:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Use Note:
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.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Lucy Lippard conducted in 2011 March 15, by Sue Heinemann, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, funded by a grant from the A G Foundation.
Biography Note:
New York and New Mexico writer and art critic, Lucy R. Lippard, is the curator of numerous exhibitions and the author of over twenty-four books and other writings that trace the emergence of minimalist and conceptual art and document Lippard's commitment to feminism and political activism.
Born in New York City in 1937, Lippard earned a B.A. from Smith College in 1958 and an M.A. in 1962 from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. In the 1960s she began writing art criticism for the journals Art International and Artforum . In 1966 she curated the landmark exhibition Eccentric Abstraction at the Fischbach Gallery in New York City. Lippard then curated the first of four defining conceptual art exhibitions that became known as her "numbers" shows, each titled after the populations of the cities in which they took place, with catalogs in the form of a set of 10 x 15 cm index cards. Opening at the Seattle Art Museum in 1969, 557,087 was followed by 955,000 in Vancouver, Canada, a few months later. 2,972,453 was held at the Centro de Arte y Comunicacíon in Buenos Aires in 1971 and c.7500 opened in Valencia, California, in 1973-1974 before traveling to several other venues in the United States and Europe.
Lippard's first book, The Graphic Work of Philip Evergood was published in 1966, followed by Pop Art the same year, and a collection of her early essays, Changing , in 1971. Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object (1973) and From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art (1976) documented the emergence of conceptual art and the early years of feminist art respectively. In 1976 Lippard published her seminal book on the life and work of Eva Hesse.
Between 1977 and 1978 Lippard lived on a farm in Devon, England, and worked on a novel, The First Stone , about the role of politics in the lives of three generations of women. During her walks across the English countryside she became interested in landscape art and conceived of her book Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory which was subsequently published in 1983. Other books include Get the Message?: A Decade Of Art For Social Change (1984), Ad Reinhardt (1985), and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (1990). Lippard has also written regular columns on art and politics for the Village Voice , In These Times and Z Magazine , and has been a contributing editor of Art in America .
Lippard was radicalized during a trip to Argentina in 1968 when she was invited to be a juror at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. On her return to the United States she became heavily involved in anti-war activities and the Art Workers Coalition. She is a co-founder of several feminist and artist organizations including the feminist collective Heresies, which produced Heresies: A Feminist Journal on Art and Politics from 1977-1992, Ad Hoc Women Artists, Alliance for Cultural Democracy, Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, Women's Action Coalition, and Women's Art Registry. In 1976 she was a founder of Printed Matter, a New York nonprofit dedicated to producing artists' publications. She also worked closely with Franklin Furnace, an artist-run space devoted to the promotion of artists' books, installation art, and video and performance art, and served on the organization's International Committee.
Lippard has been a visiting professor at the School of Visual Arts, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of Queensland, Australia, and was Eminent Artist in Residence at the University of Wyoming Department of Art in 2015. She has received honorary doctorates in fine arts from Maine College of Art, the Massachusetts College of Art, Moore College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, and others, and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants in criticism, the Smith College Medal, the ArtTable Award for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts, and the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Excellence.
Lippard has lived in New Mexico since 1992 and works as a freelance writer and speaker.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
Lucy R. Lippard donated her papers in several increments between 1972-1995, 2006, 2015, 2021 and 2023.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching  Search this
Artists -- Political activity  Search this
Art criticism  Search this
Feminism and art  Search this
Women authors  Search this
Women art critics  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century  Search this
Conceptual art  Search this
Minimal art  Search this
Women museum curators  Search this
Women educators  Search this
Theme:
Women  Search this
Research and writing about art  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)7895
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)210062
AAA_collcode_lipplucy
Theme:
Women
Research and writing about art
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_210062