The papers of New York City photographer, conceptual artist, and musical composer Cosmos Sarchiapone measure 49.2 linear feet and 0.367 GB and date from circa 1860-2011, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1940-2011. The collection includes biographical material and personal business records; correspondence; extensive writings, including written and recorded music compositions; teaching files; printed material and published sound and video recordings; photographic material; artwork; artifacts; and unpublished sound recordings and born-digital material. Highlights of the collection are more than 40,000 photographic images documenting New York's avant-garde art scene of the 1970s, along with celebrity parties, concerts, exhibition openings and other occasions in the art, music, and theater world. Extensive and somewhat rare printed materials offer users a visual chronical of the downtown art world in the form of posters from the 1970s, including a number of Milton Glaser's, and hundreds of exhibition announcements, theater programs, and playbills.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York City photographer, conceptual artist, and musical composer Cosmos Sarchiapone measure 49.2 linear feet and 0.367 GB and date from circa 1860-2011, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1940-2011. The collection includes biographical material and personal business records; correspondence; extensive writings, including written and recorded music compositions; teaching files; printed material and published sound and video recordings; photographic material; artwork; artifacts; and unpublished sound recordings and born-digital material. Highlights of the collection are more than 40,000 photographic images documenting New York's avant-garde art scene of the 1970s, along with celebrity parties, concerts, exhibition openings and other occasions in the art, music, and theater world. Extensive and somewhat rare printed materials offer users a visual chronical of the downtown art world in the form of posters from the 1970s, including a number of Milton Glaser's, and hundreds of exhibition announcements, theater programs, and playbills.
Biographical material and personal business records include address books, calendars, legal paperwork, life documents, resumes, and other material. Correspondence is both personal and professional in nature. Personal correspondence is between Cosmos and friends, family, and pen pals. Professional correspondence is with curators, publishers, and estates and mostly concerns Cosmos's artwork, photographs, or objects he lent for exhibition or publication.
Writings include general writings and notes, including a book layout for a book never realized; fifteen notebooks containing Cosmos's writings about projects, dreams, and miscellany; music compositions in both written form and on sound recordings; and scattered writings by others, including manuscripts and theater scripts.
Teaching files document photography courses taught by Cosmos at the School of Visual Arts in 1974-1976, and the Parsons School of Design in 1980.
Printed materials and commercially published sound and video recordings in the collection are extensive and reflect Cosmos's unique interests and inspirations, and his tendency to save and collect material discarded or rejected by others. There are books and periodicals featuring Cosmos's work, annotated by Cosmos, or of special significance to Cosmos. There is also a list of books in Cosmos's library. Some of the periodicals concern Push Pin Studios and Milton Glaser. There is a large group of ephemera, such as announcements, catalogs, press releases, programs, playbills, posters, and assorted items covering several decades of New York exhibitions, events, concerts, and performances. There are posters for exhibitions, events, performances, film screenings, and concerts. Some of the clippings and other ephemera may have been removed from scrapbooks or other compilations, and some remain collated and mounted on mat board. Some of the printed materials may have been used by Cosmos as source materials.
Photographic material makes up a significant portion of the collection (14.5 linear feet), and illustrates the breadth of Cosmos's documentation of New York City, capturing the avant-garde art and theater worlds, the people and streets, self-portraits, and numerous other subjects. There are images of named people and people at parties, of exhibitions and performances, of New York City streets and buildings, of a more personal and family nature, of artwork, and of miscellaneous subjects. There are also collected photographs, some of which are vintage. There is a large group of unidentified and unsorted negatives, slides, and contact sheets. Where they existed, labeling and descriptive notes have been preserved with the unidentified materials.
Artwork is also quite extensive (10.5 linear feet) and found in a variety of genre, format, and media. There is also a small subseries of artwork by others. One group of artwork consists of titled or named art projects and series, often executed in the form of series that spanned decades. This group includes Cosmos's Reciprocal project that incorporated his photographic work. For this project, he would photograph notable figures, including John Cage, Robert Scull, and others, and ask them to photograph him. There are also several folders of Cosmos's work focusing on photographer Diane Arbus.
A group of artwork identified as "compilations" consist primarily of photocopies of compiled presentations of documents, photographs, fragments, writings, drawings, printed materials and ephemera, and bits and pieces of Cosmos's titled work. These compilations were prepared by Cosmos for individuals in the art world to whom he was close. The original compilations were then photocopied and presented to the intended receiver. The subseries of compilations contains both originals and photocopied versions that do not always correlate with one another. Also found among the artwork are drawings, illustrations, a few paintings, collages, and sketchbooks by Cosmos. Artwork by others includes an artist book, drawings, a sketchbook, and prints by Milton Glaser, Alex Hay, Douglas Huebler, Marvin Israel, Ray Johnson, Ellsworth Kelly, and Eve Sonneman.
Found within the collection are three dimensional artifacts, including eight cameras and other items Cosmos saved and collected to incorporate into his photographs.
There is a large series of unpublished sound recordings and born-digital material, some of which is clearly identified and labeled, and some of which is unidentified. When known, labeling has been incorporated into the folder titles in the container inventory. Users should note that sound recordings that were clearly identified and associated with other projects were arranged in context with those related materials.
Printed material (series 5), photographic material (series 6), and artwork (series 7), include many photocopies. Cosmos used the photocopy process to make copies of his work to share with others, and as a creative form of art in itself, experimenting with tonality, collage, and the degeneration of images from repeated copying. Photocopies were also made of articles, newspapers, and various source material and ephemera that he collected. Many photocopies have descriptive labeling on the back. For some photographs and projects, photocopies are the only form of documentation located in the collection.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as nine series
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material and Personal Business Records, circa 1949-2011 (1 linear foot; Box 1, 44, OV 49)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1940s-2011 (.7 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1947-2000s (4.2 linear feet; Box 2-6, 44, OV 50-51)
Series 4: Teaching Files, 1970s-1980s (1.9 linear feet; Box 6-8, 44, OV 52)
Series 5: Printed Material, Published Sound, Video Recordings, 1894-2000s (8.3 linear feet; Box 8-13, 44-45, OV 53-73, RD 105)
Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1860-2000s, bulk 1970-2010 (14.5 linear feet; Box 14-26, 46-47, OV 74-80)
Series 7: Artwork, 1947-2000s (10.5 linear feet; Box 27-34, 47-48, OV 81-104)
Series 8: Artifacts, 1960s-2000s (1.5 linear feet; Box 34-35)
Series 9: Sound Recordings and Born-Digital Material, 1950s-2000s (6.6 linear feet; Box 36-43, 0.367 GB; ER01-ER02)
Biographical / Historical:
Cosmos Andrew Sarchiapone (1931-2011) was a documentary photographer, musical composer, and conceptual artist who worked in New York City.
Cosmos Andrew Sarchiapone was named Cosime Sarchiapone at birth, and was also known as Cosmos, Cosmos Savage, and Richard Savage. His parents, Lois and Aldo, had seven children, including twins Cosmos and Damian. Born in Manhattan, Cosmos graduated from the La Guardia High School of Music and Art in New York City in 1948 and from Syracuse University in 1958 with a concentration in music composition and studio art. After college, he studied musical composition with John Cage at the New School in 1961, art history with Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University from 1963-1965, illustration with Marvin Israel from 1966-1971, design with Milton Glaser from 1968-1973, and photography with Diane Arbus from 1970-1971. He taught photography at the School of Visual Arts from 1974-1976, and at Parsons School of Design in 1980. In the early 1970s, he led experimental theater workshops at Columbia-Barnard University.
Between 1968-1969, Cosmos worked with Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast at their Push Pin Studios, a graphic design and illustration studio.
Sometime between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Cosmos began photographing New York City, capturing the art and theater worlds, the people and streets, self-portraits, and numerous other subjects. As a freelance photographer for New York magazine (founded by Milton Glaser) and other mass-market publications, Cosmos photographed Andy Warhol and his circle, Halloween parties at the Waldorf, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon convention, the Jesus Joy Jubilee at Carnegie Hall, the Beat Poets' reunion and private parties attended by Hollywood actors and directors, often capturing the overlapping worlds of art, movies and music. Cosmos's photographs have been published in numerous books and publications. His work was featured in several exhibitions in the 1970s, including shows at the Jamie Gallery, the Fine Arts Building, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. But he created the bulk of his work for himself and much of it remains unpublished.
Throughout the 1970s, Cosmos documented the avant-garde art scene in New York City. He captured performances at The Kitchen and La Mama, the offices of New York magazine and Push Pin Studios, Tom O'Horgan's Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, and much more. He photographed performances and installations at 112 Greene Street in SoHo, an interdisciplinary art space that nurtured the experiments of a number of now significant American artists, dancers and musicians, including Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, Suzanne Harris and Phillip Glass, all of whom were photographed by Cosmos. He also photographed numerous images of 112 Greene Street's sister space, Matta-Clark's FOOD, an artist-run eatery at the corner of Prince and Wooster Streets where exotic meals were offered up as both performance art and nourishment. Cosmos used his camera as a way to get close to artists he admired, including Diane Arbus, Milton Glaser, and Marvin Israel.
According to Milton Glaser, "Cosmos was a brilliant photographer who was never without a camera….He was always everywhere. In terms of documentation of that period, there was no one like him."
Cosmos often incorporated aspects of his photography into conceptual art pieces, including two serial works that Cosmos made from fragments of Diane Arbus' discarded photographs, transforming her iconic work. Many of Cosmos's conceptual art pieces often took the form of a series, and were continuously revisited. In Reciprocal, Cosmos photographed figures—including those he admired like John Cage, Meyer Schapiro, Robert Scull, and others—then asked each to photograph him. Many of Cosmos's art projects were based in photographic documentation of his "performances", as in Sheet Music, where he is seen tearing a white sheet outside Bloomingdale's during the 'white sale.' Cosmos's convictions about smoking, its hazards, and the nefarious actions of tobacco companies led to several related projects, among them, Photo Arrest, where Cosmos captured on camera people smoking illegally in hospitals, classrooms, grocery stores, and elevators.
Cosmos created scores for plays and dance performances, including Churchyard by the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1970, and numerous Off-Off Broadway theater productions in the 1960s. He wrote an opera, Vox Humana #3. The opera is about three heroines of history: Antigone, Joan of Arc, and Patty Hearst, and synthesizes a variety of media, including music composition, stage direction, and video (Patty Hearst in Chains), into a four hour performance that was staged at La Mama in 1976 and The Kitchen in 1977.
Cosmos lived at Westbeth Artists' Community from 1970-2011, but had largely withdrawn from the world by the 2000s. Cosmos Sarchiapone died in 2011.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives of American Art in 2015 by Tom Sarchiapone, Cosmos Sarchiapone's brother, via Catherine Morris, curator and friend of Cosmos.
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 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:
Composers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Conceptual artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
N-95: Marked "Sasanidische Stoffe." Material for a study of Sasanian textiles, including drawings, photographs, notes and two original water-colors (D-1212--1213),
- In Finding Aid, Joseph Upton's caption for N-95 reads, "Marked "Sasanidische Stoffe." Material for a study of Sasanian textiles, including drawings, photographs, notes and two original water-colors."
Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Series 3: Notebooks; Various Sassanid Textile Design (N-95)
Arrangement:
In the original arrangement of the Ernst Herzfeld Archive, Notebooks were included in a larger body of diverse material acknowledged by Ernst Herzfeld as his study collection. In the early 1970s, Joseph Upton, for research purpose, rearranged the collection and created a specific series (Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Series 3: Notebooks, 1904-1946, 1957, n.d.) for 131 notebooks, including four ledgers and eight travel journals. Upton has given this notebook an accession number, N-95, related to the series he created for the notebooks, probably following Herzfeld's original organization.
Local Numbers:
Ernst Herzfeld Papers; N-95
FSA A.6 03.095
General:
- Title is provided by Xavier Courouble, FSg Archives cataloger, based on Joseph Upton's Catalogue of the Herzfeld Archive.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
N-96: "Sasanidische Sculptur." Notes, drawings, tracings, photographs dealing with Sasanian sculpture, especially costumes and head-dresses, much of it published
- In Finding Aid, Joseph Upton's caption for N-96 reads, ""Sasanidische Sculptur." Notes, drawings, tracings, photographs dealing with Sasanian sculpture, especially costumes and head-dresses, much of it published."
Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Series 3: Notebooks; Various Sassanid Relief Sculptures (N-96)
Arrangement:
In the original arrangement of the Ernst Herzfeld Archive, Notebooks were included in a larger body of diverse material acknowledged by Ernst Herzfeld as his study collection. In the early 1970s, Joseph Upton, for research purpose, rearranged the collection and created a specific series (Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Series 3: Notebooks, 1904-1946, 1957, n.d.) for 131 notebooks, including four ledgers and eight travel journals. Upton has given this notebook an accession number, N-96, related to the series he created for the notebooks, probably following Herzfeld's original organization.
Local Numbers:
Ernst Herzfeld Papers; N-96
FSA A.6 03.096
General:
- Title is provided by Xavier Courouble, FSg Archives cataloger, based on Joseph Upton's Catalogue of the Herzfeld Archive.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Biographical material consists of resumes and biographical sketches, as well as a 1951 blueprint for the Eero Saarinen and Associates Office Building in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Correspondence documents Saarinen's personal and professional life through letters to and from Eero Saarinen and other family members, including six letters from Loja Saarinen; correspondence with artists and architects, including Merle Armitage, Charles and Ray Eames, Carl Koch, Henry Kreis, Carl Milles, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Robert Venturi, and Harry Weese; and friends and colleagues at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Knoll Associates. Also documented is Saarinen's business relationship with Midtown Galleries and Caresse Crosby, and publishers and publications including Child Life, Interiors, Otava Publishing Company, and Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc.
Writings and Notes document Saarinen's work on several children's publications, including Picture Book Zoo (1935) and Who Am I? (1946), through correspondence, notes, manuscript drafts, and extensive sketches. This series also includes Saarinen's ideas for other publications and incorporates some early writings and notes, as well as typescripts of her reminiscences about Eliel Saarinen, the Saarinen family, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Diaries consist of bound diary volumes, loose-leaf journal entries, and heavily annotated engagement calendars, documenting Saarinen's personal life, artistic aspirations, and career development from the 1930s-1970s. This material provides a deeply personal view of the emotional landscape of Saarinen's life, her struggles to balance her identity as a working artist with the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker, and the complex, and often competing, relationships within the renowned architectural family into which she married.
Project files document Saarinen's work on book cover designs, federal and post office commissions in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, reliefs for the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, and other important commissions including the Harbor National Bank Clock in Boston, Massachusetts, the KLM Airlines installation at JFK Airport, the Fountain of Noah sculpture at the Northland Center in Detroit, Michigan, and the interior of Toffenetti's restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Also documented is her role in designs for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, with Eero Saarinen.
Teaching files document Saarinen's "Language of Clay Course" which she taught at Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Financial records document exhibition and sales expenses for two exhibitions, including her show at G Place Gallery in 1944.
Printed material consists of clippings about Saarinen and her family, exhibition announcements and catalogs for herself and others, and reference files from the 1930s-1940s, primarily comprising clippings of animals.
Additional printed material documenting Saarinen's career can be found in one of two scrapbooks found in the collection. An additional scrapbook consists of clippings relating primarily to Saarinen's parents.
Artwork comprises extensive sketches, particularly animal and figure sketches, in graphite, crayon, ink, pastel, and watercolor. The sketches demonstrate in particular Saarinen's developing interest in and skill with animal portraiture from her childhood to the 1960s.
Photographs are primarily of artwork and Saarinen's 1944 exhibition at G Place Gallery. Also found are one negative of Saarinen, probably with Eero Saarinen, and a group photo including Lilian, Eero, and Eliel Saarinen with the model for the Detroit Civic Center, circa 1940s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1930s-1960s (3 folders; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1974 (1.9 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 8, OV 12)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1920s-1973 (1.3 linear feet, Boxes 2-3, 8, OVs 13-16)
Series 4: Diaries, 1930-1973 (1.4 linear feet, Boxes 3-5, 8)
Series 5: Project Files, 1931-1966 (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 5-6, 8, OVs 17-19)
Series 6: Teaching Files, 1966-1970 (3 folders, Box 6)
Series 7: Financial Records, 1940s-1970s (2 folders, Box 6)
Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1930s-1970s (0.2 linear feet, Box 6)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, circa 1909-1974 (2 folders; Boxes 6, 9)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1920s-circa 1960s (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 6-7, 9-10, OVs 20-27)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1940s, 1977 (0.5 linear feet, Boxes 7, 11, OV 27)
Biographical / Historical:
Cambridge artist and sculptor, Lilian Swann Saarinen (1912-1995), studied at the Art Students League with Alexander Archipenko in 1928, and later with Albert Stewart and Heninz Warneke from 1934-1936, before moving to Michigan where she studied with Carl Milles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1936-1940. Saarinen was an accomplished skier and a member of the 1936 US Olympic ski team.
At Cranbrook, Swann met architect Eero Saarinen, whom she married in 1939. She subsequently worked with Saarinen's design group on a variety of projects, including the Westward Expansion Memorial, which later became known as the "Gateway Arch" in St. Louis. Lilian and Eero had a son, Eric, and a daughter, Susie, before divorcing in 1953.
Saarinen, who had developed an affinity for drawing animals in childhood, specialized in animal portraits in a variety of sculptural media. In 1939, she exhibited her sculpture Night, which depicted Bagheera the panther from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, at the World's Fair. The sculpture was placed in the Boston Public Garden in 1986. In the 1930s and 1940s Saarinen was commissioned to work on a variety of architectural projects, including reliefs for post offices in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, and the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois. She also executed commissions for the Harbor National Bank in Boston, KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) at JFK Airport, the Northland shopping Center in Detroit Michigan, and Toffenetti's Restaurant in Chicago.
Saarinen was a contributing author and illustrator for a variety of publications, including Child Life, Interiors and Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly. In 1935 she illustrated Picture Book Zoo for the Bronx Zoo and in 1946 Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. published Who Am I?, a children's book which Saarinen wrote and illustrated.
Saarinen taught ceramic sculpture to soldiers for the Red Cross Arts and Skills Unit rehabilitation program in 1945, served on the Visiting Committee to the Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1959-1964, where she taught ceramics, and later taught a course entitled "The Language of Clay" at the Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of Saarinen's private students at Cambridge was her cousin, Edie Sedgwick.
Saarinen died in Cohasset, Massachusetts, in 1995 at the age of 83.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels 1152 and 1192) including a scrapbook containing clippings, copies of letters and telegrams received, and reproductions of Saarinen's work. There is a copy of Saarinen's book, "Who Am I?", and three albums containing photographs of Saarinen, photographs and reproductions of her work, a list of exhibitions, quotes about her, and writings by her about sculpture. Lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Lilian Swann Saarinen donated the collection in 1975. She lent additional materials for microfilming in 1976.
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.
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:
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge Search this
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers, circa 1909-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation; and John R. & Barbara Robinson and Deborah Schmidt Robinson & Dr. R. Perry Robinson, The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation.
