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Catalog Data

Interviewee:
McChesney, Mary Fuller  Search this
Interviewer:
Landauer, Susan  Search this
Subject:
Corbett, Edward  Search this
De Kooning, Willem  Search this
Diebenkorn, Richard  Search this
Kees, Weldon  Search this
MacAgy, Douglas  Search this
Mandelman, Beatrice  Search this
Marca-Relli, Conrad  Search this
Martin, Agnes  Search this
McChesney, Robert  Search this
Park, David  Search this
Reinhardt, Ad  Search this
Ribak, Louis  Search this
Smith, Hassel  Search this
Spohn, Clay Edgar  Search this
Still, Clyfford  Search this
Vicente, Esteban  Search this
Women in the Arts in Southern California Oral History Project  Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Place of publication, production, or execution:
California
Physical Description:
145 Pages, Transcript
General Note:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 58 min.
Access Note / Rights:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Summary:
An interview of Mary Fuller McChesney conducted 1994 Sept. 28, by Susan Landauer, for the Archives of American Art, Women in the Arts in Southern California Oral History Project, at the artist's home, on Sonoma Mountain, Calif.
Fuller McChesney discusses her childhood and growing up during the Depression; her student days at the University of California, Berkeley; the political response on the campus to WWII and the Japanese interment; her experience working as a welder in the shipyards which she considers her introduction to sculpture; her introduction to the art community in San Francisco through the cooperative Artists' Guild Gallery; her association with the Abstract Expressionists at the California School of Fine Arts in the 1940s; her foray into writing fiction and her success as a mystery writer; her work on the Archives of American Art's oral history project documenting the WPA art project in California; her first significant publication on the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, Period of Exploration, and the interviews she conducted in the mid-late 1960s for the project.
She describes her attitudes and philosphies about art; living at Point Richmond with her husband Robert McChesney, Edward Corbett, Hassel Smith, and poet Weldon Kees during the late 1940s; her impressions of the Cedar Bar and New York artists during the mid-late 1960s; her own artistic evolution and career as a sculptor; the intellectual and artistic sources of her work; her subjects and techniques; her public commissions; her audience and market; and her experiences and perspectives as a woman artist and feminist. She recalls Edward Corbett, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Weldon Kees, Douglas MacAgy, Bea Mandelman, Conrad Marca-Relli, Agnes Martin, Robert McChesney, David Park, Ad Reinhardt, Louis Ribak, Hassel Smith, Clay Spohn, Clyfford Still, and Esteban Vicente.
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Mary Fuller McChesney, 1994 Sept. 28. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Available online.
Funding:
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.
Biography Note:
Mary Fuller McChesney (1922-2022) was a sculptor and art historian in San Francisco and Petaluma, Calif.
Language Note:
English .
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. Funding for this interview was provided by the Margery and Harry Kahn Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund of New York.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Women artists  Search this
Abstract expressionism  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- California -- San Francisco  Search this
Women sculptors  Search this
Women art historians  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)12498
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)215789
AAA_collcode_mcches94
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_oh_215789