Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Charles Rand Penney Papers, 1923-1994, bulk 1945-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Charles Rand Penney Papers, 1923-1994, bulk 1945-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund.
Kootz Gallery (New York, N.Y.). The Intrasubjectives, 1949 Sept. 14 - Oct. 3. Kootz Gallery records, 1923-1966. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
The earliest documentation from 1895 to 1909 concerns the organization's history and founding and is located in Series 1: Board of Trustees. Also found in this series are meeting minutes, 1909-1963 and 1968. Interfiled with the board meeting minutes are minutes of the executive committee and other special and ad hoc committees, reports to the board, financial statements and reports, and lists of committee appointments and board membership. This series also contains the scattered correspondence and subject files of various officers. Although not a complete set of officers' files, Presidents' Frederick Allen. Whiting (1931-1936), Lawrence M.C. Smith (1948-1952), Thomas Brown Rudd (1952-1954), Daniel Longwell (1954-1956), James S. Schramm (1956-1958), and Roy R. Neuberger (1958-1961) are represented. Leila Mechlin served on AFA's board as secretary from its founding to 1929, and her files are a particularly rich resource for AFA's activities during its early years. Lawrence M.C. Smith's files documenting his years as board treasurer are also arranged in this series. Additional officers' correspondence is interspersed throughout the Alphabetical Files and other series.
General information about the scope of AFA's programs, affiliations, founding, functions, and proceedings are arranged in Series 2: Administrative Records. The first subseries, Alphabetical Files, houses a wide variety of subject files that contain memoranda, correspondence, printed materials, lists, reports, and other papers. These files document the AFA's general history and founding, organizational affiliations, buildings and moves, grants, federal and state government art programs, auctions and other fund-raising efforts, publicity and public relations, publications, and fiftieth anniversary celebration. The subject headings by which these files are arranged are, for the most part, the ones designated by the AFA. The second subseries, Staff Records, houses the scattered files of AFA's director, assistant director, registrar, and special state representative, Robert Luck.
During its most active period, the AFA sponsored or participated in several special programs and Series 3: Special Programs houses the files that document many of them. The first subseries consists of the files for the Artists in Residence program that was funded by the Ford Foundation. Awarded in 1963, the grant sponsored short-term teaching residencies for artists in museums throughout the United States. The host museums were encouraged to hold exhibitions of the artists' works. This subseries contains both the general files of the program, as well as individual files on the participating artists. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the AFA and the Ford Foundation also sponsored additional programs for artists, including Grants in Aid, Purchase Awards, and the Retrospective Exhibitions Program. The files documenting these three programs are also arranged in Series 3, under the subseries Ford Foundation Program for Visual Artists. In the late 1950s, the AFA implemented the Museum Donor Program with benefactors and philanthropists Audrey Bruce Currier and Stephen Richard Currier. Through the administration of the AFA, the Curriers donated funds to selected institutions specifically for the purchase of contemporary American art. The Curriers preferred to remain anonymous throughout the program. Files documenting this program include correspondence, applications from the accepted institutions, rejections, a summary report, and clippings about the untimely deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Currier in 1967.
Also found in Series 3 are the files documenting AFAs working relationship with the first state arts council, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). In 1961, AFA and NYSCA implemented a traveling exhibition program in New York State. Found here are files for possible itineraries, proposals, publicity, loans, budgets, and the actual exhibition files. Additional AFA special programs documented in Series 3 include the Picture of the Month program of the mid-1950s and the Jean Tennyson Foundation Color Slide Lecture Program.
AFA Annual Convention files constitute Series 4. Beginning with the Third Annual Convention in 1912 and continuing through the 1963 Annual Convention, the files contain official proceedings, speeches, programs, clippings, correspondence, and press releases. Files are missing for 1913, 1915, 1918, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1931, 1936-1949, 1952, 1956, 1958, 1960, and 1962. There are also audio recordings in the form of reel-to-reel tapes for the 1951 Annual Convention.
Series 5: Exhibition Files forms the bulk of the collection at circa 62 linear feet and is arranged into twenty subseries. The first subseries, Exhibitions, General, houses primarily the records of the Board of Trustees Exhibition Committee and documents the AFA's earliest involvement with traveling exhibitions. These files contain reports, budgets, correspondence, memoranda, scattered exhibition catalogs, and photographs. They are primarily the files of the chair of the Exhibition Committee and include the files of Juliana R. Force, Eloise Spaeth, and Mrs. John Pope. Also found in this series is a subseries of Mrs. John Pope's records documenting circulating exhibitions from 1934 to 1955, arranged by state.
The remaining nineteen subseries of the Exhibition Files reflect either specific exhibition programs, many of which have unique numbers assigned by AFA to individual exhibitions, or other exhibition-related files, such rejected, canceled, and suggested exhibitions and miscellaneous installation photographs. The Annual Exhibitions files constitute the largest of the subseries and are numbered according to the system assigned by AFA, following a typical chronological order. Although the documentation for each exhibition varies widely by both type and amount, most of the files contain contracts and legal agreements, correspondence, memoranda, itinerary information, condition reports, publicity materials, catalogs, announcements, price lists, and other such information arranged into one or more files. The files were labeled "documentation files," "dispersal files," "report form files," "loan agreement files," and "publicity files" according to the filing system devised by AFA. Many of the files also house a significant amount of correspondence with museum officials, lenders, and artists.
Additional subseries document AFA's exhibition venues and partnerships with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the New York State Council on the [UNK] Life magazine, and Addison Gallery. A complete list of all of the subseries, including specific exhibition programs, follows in the Series Outline.
The final three series of the collection are small: Printed Material, Miscellaneous Files, and Oversized Material. The printed material was donated much later to the Archives and dates from 1990 to 1993. Found here are scattered press releases, annual reports, and an exhibition program. Miscellaneous Files contain scattered records, 1926-1962, of the Architectural League of New York relating to national award programs. It is not clear why this small group of Architectural League records was found mixed with the AFA records but perhaps the collaboration between the two organizations on several special projects provides an explanation. Also found in Miscellaneous Files is a group of black and white lantern slides from a lecture series, "New Horizons in America." Oversized Material includes a portfolio, a work of art, and posters.
See Appendix for a list of artists exhibiting with the American Federation of Arts
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eight primary series based primarily on administrative units or program areas. Several of the series are further subdivided into subseries. While processing, it became clear that the two filing systems were redundant and overlapped in both subject area and type of material. Most of these files were subsequently merged into the now broader Alphabetical Files or into separate series. Oversized material may be found at the end of the collection arranged in a separate series.
In most cases, files related to one another by subseries or subject areas (in the case of the Alphabetical Files) or by individual name (in the case of officers and staff files) are arranged in chronological order. The entire subseries of Alphabetical Files in Series 2 is arranged by subject heading, as assigned by the AFA, or individual name. The Alphabetical Files originally formed two broad filing systems as established by the AFA: one for general correspondence arranged by subject; and one for director's and other staff correspondence, also arranged by subject.
Series 1: Board of Trustees, circa 1895-1968 (Boxes 1-3)
Series 2: Administrative Records, 1910-1966 (Boxes 4-8)
Series 3: Special Programs, 1950-1967 (Boxes 9-13)
Series 4: Annual Conventions, 1912-1963 (Boxes 14-16)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1934-1969 (Boxes 17-78)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1990-1993 (Box 78)
Series 7: Miscellaneous Files, 1926-1962, undated (Box 79)
Series 8: Oversized Materials, 1890, undated (Boxes 80-85)
Historical Note:
Founded in 1909 by Elihu Root, the American Federation of Arts (AFA) exists today as a national nonprofit museum service organization striving to unite American art institutions, collectors, artists, and museums. Elihu Root, then secretary of state in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, spoke of his idea at the first meeting of the AFA held in New York at the National Academy of Arts. He envisioned an organization that would promote American art most often seen only by the elite in the major cities of the East and upper Midwest by sending "exhibitions of original works of art on tour through the hinterlands across the United States."
The American Academy in Rome, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Metropolitan Museum of Art were influential organizing member institutions. Individual members included such notables as William Merritt Chase, Charles L. Freer, Daniel C. French, Charles L. Hutchinson, Henry Cabot Lodge, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Walters. The founding of the AFA provided the American art world with a forum for communication and participation among artists, cultural institutions, patrons of the arts, and the public.
To accomplish its mission, the AFA established volunteer committees for membership, exhibitions, and publications. During its first year, the AFA began publishing Art and Progress (later changed to Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual (now the American Art Directory). In 1909, the AFA also organized its first traveling exhibition, Paintings by Prominent American Artists, which was shown at museums in Fort Worth, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and New Ulm, Minnesota.
By the end of the first year, the headquarters of the organization moved to Washington, D.C., to facilitate lobbying the federal government for favorable art legislation. In 1913, the AFA lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on foreign art entering the United States. In 1916, the Federation met with the Interstate Commerce Commission to protest prohibitively high interstate taxes on traveling art exhibitions.
Throughout the next fifteen years, the AFA continued to grow in membership and influence. By 1919, membership included 438 institutions and 2,900 individuals. The AFA's annual conventions were held in major national art centers and were attended by members, chapter delegates, and the public. At the conventions, scholars, patrons, and curators lectured on and discussed subjects of national interest, thereby fostering an exchange of ideas. The AFA also sponsored periodic regional conferences to promote institutional cooperation and to discuss mutual problems and needs. To facilitate exhibition venues west of the Mississippi River, in 1921 the AFA opened regional offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University. The AFA produced and circulated slide programs and lecture series to museums and educational institutions that fostered art education. By 1929, the Federation had developed forty-six slide-lecture programs that covered American mural painting, European and American contemporary art, and textiles.
During the 1930s, the Federation expanded its services by providing schools with teaching guides, student workbooks, slides, and films about art. In 1935, the AFA began publishing Who's Who in American Art, later publishing The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists and Films on Art reference guides. To reach an even larger audience, the AFA began collaborating with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to organize national circulating exhibitions to "bring the museum to the people."
One of AFA's priorities was to make American art more visible abroad. The Federation focused on encouraging the representation of American artists in foreign exhibitions, and in 1924 it lobbied successfully for additional American participation in the Venice Biennale. The AFA's focus on exhibiting American art abroad continued to expand, particularly following World War II. In 1950, recognizing that the AFA could assist in promoting American culture, the State Department awarded the AFA a grant for a German "re-orientation program" consisting of educational exhibitions shown in German museums. Additional government funding further enabled the AFA to organize American participation in exhibitions in India, Japan, Paris, Switzerland, and Rotterdam between 1950 and 1970. Later, the AFA collaborated with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program which permitted donations of American art to foreign institutions on a restriction-free, tax-deductible basis. During the 1950s, the AFA was a very active member of the Committee on Government and Art, a national committee with members from across the art and museum world concerned with government sponsorship of and legislation affecting art sales, commissions, and trade.
In 1952, the headquarters of the AFA returned to New York, sparking a period of innovation and expanded of programs. Throughout the 1950s, the AFA distributed films about art and co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York. The AFA also introduced its Picture of the Month Program in 1954, renting original works of art to small American art and educational institutions. In 1956, the AFA organized the Art Collectors Club of America to provide fellowship for art collectors through meetings and activities. The club disbanded in the 1970s.
The Federation's exhibition programs continued to flourish during the 1950s and 1960s. Private and public financial support allowed the AFA to achieve many of its goals. In 1958, the Ford Foundation awarded an important grant to organize a series of traveling one-person shows and a series of monographs devoted to contemporary American artists. Milton Avery, Andrew Dasburg, José DeCreeft, Lee Gatch, Walter Quirt, Abraham Rattner, and others were among the artists who participated. Private foundation support for the AFA's Museum Donor Program provided an annual allowance that was distributed to regional museums for the pourchase of contemporary American art. Cooperative programs and joint venues also became popular during this period. For example, public support from the New York State Council on the Arts allowed the AFA to circulate exhibitions to small New York State communities, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts provided the AFA with five exhibitions for national tours.
Throughout its history, the American Federation of Arts has concentrated on its founding principle of broadening the audience for contemporary American art. Through its numerous exhibition and film programs, the AFA has succeeded in "breaking down barriers of distance and language to broaden the knowledge and appreciation of art." Annual exhibitions such as New Talent in the USA and Art Schools USA, organized by the AFA, brought before the public the most contemporary American artists and craftspeople, genres, and artistic forms of experimentation, exposing viewers to new ways of thinking and expression. In 1965, AFA produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films created to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
A vital part of American art history, the AFA was one of the first organizations to develop successfully the concept of traveling art exhibitions on a national and international level. The AFA was instrumental in assisting museums with circulating important juried exhibitions of contemporary art, such as the Whitney Annual and Corcoran Biennial. The AFA also recognized the importance of the exchange of cultural ideas, and it brought exhibitions of the European masters to the American public as well as exhibitions focusing on foreign contempoorary art, photography, and architecture. Many organizations and museums have followed the AFA's precedent, and traveling national and international venues are now commonplace.
Since 1909, women have served as officers and members of the Board of Trustees. Leila Mechlin was a founding participant and served as secretary from 1909 to 1933. Juliana R. Force and Eloise Spaeth both chaired the Exhibition Committee in the late 1940s. Women and artists of diverse backgrounds and nationalities were widely represented in the AFA's exhibition programs, most notably during the 1960s. In 1960, the AFA organized, with financial support from the Ford Foundation, a major Jacob Lawrence retrospective. Additional culturally diverse exhibitions included Contemporary Jewish Ceremonial Art (1961), The Heart of India (1962), 1,000 Years of American Indian Art (1963), and Ten Negro Artists from the United States (1966).
The AFA also had an impact on patronage in the arts. AFA exhibitions of contemporary art provided collectors with knowledge of new artists and avant-garde art forms, creating a broader demand and market for this type of work. Museums and collectors began purchasing work by new or obscure American artists whom they learned about through AFA exhibitions and programs.
The historical records of the American Federation of Arts offer the researcher a unique opportunity to study the development of American art and artists in the twentieth century as well as providing insight into trends in American culture.
Missing Title
1909 -- Founded in New York City. Began publishing Art and Progress (later retitled Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual.
1910 -- Moved headquarters to Washington, D.C.
1913 -- Lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on art entering the United States.
1915-1916 -- Lobbied successfully against the Cummins Amendment and the Interstate Commerce Commission's prohibitively high interstate tax on traveling art.
1920 -- Organized a lobbying campaign for the development of a national gallery of art at its national convention.
1921 -- Opened two new offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University.
1924 -- Arranged American participation in the Venice Biennale exhibition.
1927 -- Closed office at Stanford University.
1929 -- Organized American participation in exhibitions in France and Germany.
1933 -- Closed office at the University of Nebraska.
1935 -- Began publishing Who's Who in American Art.
1948 -- Published The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists.
1949 -- Collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to circulate exhibitions from its collections.
1950 -- Participated in the U.S. government's German re-orientation program.
1951 -- Joined forces with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program. Published the reference guide Films on Art. Co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York, through 1957.
1952 -- Moved headquarters to New York City.
1953 -- Magazine of Art liquidated.
1954 -- Introduced the Picture of the Month Program.
1956 -- Founded the Art Collectors Club of America.
1958 -- Received a Ford Foundation grant to finance a series of one-person shows of contemporary American artists.
1960 -- Created the Museum Donor Program.
1961 -- Received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to circulate exhibitions to small New York state communities.
1963 -- Received a grant from the Ford Foundation for the Artists in Residence program.
1964 -- Introduced the List Art Poster Program.
1965 -- Produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films that attempted to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
Appendix: List of Artists Exhibiting with American Federation of Arts:
The following is an alphabetical list of artists who exhibited with the American Federation of Arts; many are obscure. The alpha-numeric codes and numbers appearing with the artist's name represent specific AFA exhibition programs and, most often, AFA's exhibition numbering system. In cases where the AFA did not assign an exhibition number, Archives' staff have done so.
The primary reference source for the names and name variants is the American Federation of Arts Records. The names are documented in handwritten notes and lists, typed lists, and exhibition catalogs and announcements. The Archives of American Art name authority file was also consulted in questionable cases. The majority of names, however, were not found in either the AAA name authority file or standard bibliographic resources, and only in the AFA records.
Examples:
55-1: AFA annual exhibitions program
AD-1: Addison Gallery exhibitions
L-1: Life Magazine Exhibitions
ME-1: Misceallaneous exhibitions (numbers assigned by AAA staff)
NMA-1: Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions
NE-96: Contemporary Color Lithography
NY-1: New York State Council on the Arts exhibitions
VA-1: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions
Missing Title
A. Quincy Jones, Frederick E. Emmons & Assoc: 62-34
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) were donated to the Archives of American Art (AAA) over a thirteen-year period, with the bulk of the material arriving between 1964 and 1966. In 1979, Preston Bolton donated his letters and those from John de Menil, Ann Drevet, Lee Malone, and others regarding planning for the 1957 AFA annual convention held in Houston, Texas; convention committee minutes from 1956; and AFA newsletters. This material, as well as a 1979 gift from Louise Ferrari of transcripts from a panel discussion from the 1957 AFA convention in Houston, was microfilmed on AAA Reel 1780. All material previously microfilmed on Reel 1780 has been fully integrated into the collection and arranged within proper series and subseries. The provenance of the 1990-1993 printed material is unknown.
Restrictions:
Use requires an appointment.
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.
This series forms the core of the collection and comprises files relating to more than three hundred artists whose work the gallery represented or handled at some point. The main types of material that can be found here include correspondence with artists and clients interested in borrowing, consigning, or purchasing their work; printed material documenting exhibitions of individual artists at the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery and related events; general reference material about gallery artists; photographic images of works of art dealt with by the gallery; and photographs of artists. Items of particular interest are noted in parentheses after the folder title.
Individual artists are represented by groups of material ranging from a single file to several linear feet of files, depending on the gallery's level of involvement with their work. Groups of files of particular interest are described in greater detail below. A list of all known group and one-person exhibitions held at the gallery is provided as an appendix and can be used to identify the dates of exhibitions for specific artists.
Relations with many of the gallery's contemporary artists are particularly well documented in this series. The gallery's interest in figurative painting that incorporated elements of allegory, myth, fantasy, and dreams is evinced in files relating to artists such as Milet Andrejevic, Bruno Civitico, Martha Mayer Erlebacher, and David Ligare. Gabriel Laderman, another artist who worked extensively with allegorical themes, is also well represented in this series, and of particular interest are his letters describing his experiences living and working in Malaysia. Correspondence files relating to the painter Caren Canier contain personal letters from the artist that detail her attitude to her work and her relationships with her husband, artist Langdon Quin, and their two children. Paul Wiesenfeld, a realist painter who specialized in portraits and finely detailed interiors, also wrote to the gallery from Germany disclosing aspects of his personal life that affected his work. Correspondence with sculptor Isabel McIlvain contains detailed explanations by the artist of her attitudes to her work and her sculpting methods. McIlvain's files also chronicle her commission to produce a sculpture of John F. Kennedy that was unveiled in Boston in 1990.
Files relating to William Bailey record many aspects of his relationship with the Schoelkopfs. Correspondence files primarily comprise letters to and from clients interested in Bailey's work but are interspersed with correspondence with Bailey and his wife that often details personal aspects of their lives as well as providing insight into Bailey's artistic development and his experiences living in Italy, where he and his family resided much of the time. Consignments and sales of Bailey's work are well documented here, as is the gallery's role in the compilation and publication of three books about the artist. An extensive collection of news clippings records various stages of his career and the growth of his commercial success.
Two substantial groups of files document the gallery's representation of painter Louisa Matthiasdottir and her husband, Leland Bell. Correspondence with Bell includes mention of his time spent in Europe and his teaching experiences, and reveals his sardonic wit.
Several files of correspondence with Miyako Ito offer rich insight into a short period during the artist's life. The bulk of the material comprises letters written by Ito to Robert Schoelkopf in 1960 and 1961, occasionally on a daily basis and often of a very poetic and deeply reflective and emotional nature.
Folders relating to Joseph Cornell contain some correspondence with the artist that offers insight into his personality. They also record Schoelkopf's bid, albeit in vain, to represent the artist's estate following his death in 1972 and the gallery's commitment to Cornell through continued consignment of his work.
Files concerning Manierre Dawson document the gallery's representation of the artist's estate and arrangements for the first one-person exhibition of his paintings in New York only a few months before his death in the summer of 1969. The files include correspondence with Dawson in which he discusses preparations for the exhibition, supplies information concerning dates and locations of his paintings, and expresses concerns about his illness. Letters from Dawson's wife, Lillian, written immediately after his death, can also be found here as well as several marked-up copies of the catalog for the 1969 exhibition that includes an introduction written by the artist. The Dawson files document the activities of the partnership formed by Frank J. McKeown, Jr., Dr. Lewis Obi, and Lefferts L. Mabie, Jr., to purchase paintings from the Dawson estate and provide details of how the partnership worked with Schoelkopf as the sole gallery agency for Dawson's paintings. The files also record the distribution of loans and gifts from the partnership to various art institutions.
More than two feet of records offer detailed coverage of Robert Schoelkopf's interest in Gaston Lachaise and his involvement in the administration of the Lachaise Foundation. Correspondence files chronicle relations among Schoelkopf, John B. Pierce, Jr. (trustee of the foundation), and Felix Landau and record decisions taken regarding publications about the artist, policies for casting and limiting editions of his sculpture, and strategies for promoting Lachaise through exhibitions. The traveling exhibition that opened in September 1967 and was still circulating in 1991 is well documented here, as are other practical concerns such as maintaining accounting and storage records of the artist's work.
Files relating to Ethel Myers include correspondence with the artist's daughter, Virginia Downes, and document Schoelkopf's handling of Myers's estate and his involvement in exhibitions to promote her work. The files include one undated letter and one copy of a letter from Myers to Downes, dated 1941, and a copy of a letter from Henry McBride to Myers from 1913. Copies of autobiographical notes written by Myers about her childhood, artists she knew, her marriage to Jerome Myers, and the outbreak of war in Europe can also be found here.
Several files document the appointment and activities of Robert Schoelkopf and Felix Landau as exclusive agents for the sale of works of art from the estate of Elie Nadelman.
A substantial group of files relating to Joseph Stella chronicle Schoelkopf's involvement with Michael and Sergio Stella, trustees of Joseph Stella's estate, and his representation of the estate from 1963 until 1971, when he withdrew from the position following a dispute over commissions. The gallery continued to consign work from the Stella estate until 1991, and these files contain details of those consignments and reflect Schoelkopf's lifelong commitment to promoting Stella's work.
Files relating to John Henry Bradley Storrs document Schoelkopf's relationship with the artist's daughter, Monique Storrs Booz, who designated Schoelkopf as the new agent for works of art from her father's estate when her contract with the Downtown Gallery was terminated in 1969. Schoelkopf continued to represent Storrs's work when Monique Storrs Booz died in 1985, leaving the estate in the hands of two of the artist's grandchildren. Details of the gallery's relationship with Noel Frackman, who conducted important research on Storrs, can also be found here. Of additional interest are two sets of photographs attributed to John Storrs: a group of eleven platinum prints (apparently there were originally thirteen), primarily portraits of children, and a group of twenty-seven silver gelatin prints of rural and coastal scenes.
Another significant component of this series is the number of files documenting the gallery's relationship with various contemporary photographers. Files of correspondence concerning Brassaï contain substantial correspondence with the photographer himself, who frequently wrote to the gallery in French. Records relating to Walker Evans detail Evans's consignments to the gallery and include some letters from him of a more personal nature, such as one describing his observations during a trip to London in 1966. Photographer Giséle è wrote regularly to the gallery, and her letters include detailed descriptions of the processes she employed in printing her work.
Correspondence relating to Julia Margaret Cameron contains several items of interest including a letter from Cameron dated August 10, 1873, to a Mrs. Way concerning photographs of Way's daughter, and an article on Cameron by Charles Harvard with notes containing biographical details about the photographer.
Within its artist files the gallery retained a group of files marked "Miscellaneous." These files contain small amounts of material, often only one or two pieces, relating to various artists for whom an individual file was not maintained or who were unidentified. These records are placed at the end of the alphabetical files and contain primarily copy prints, transparencies, and slide transparencies. Material is arranged alphabetically by name of artist, with records relating to unidentified artists placed at the beginning. To retain the alphabetical arrangement various media formats are filed together and dated material is interfiled with undated material, which forms the bulk of the contents.
The gallery tended to group various types of paper records together with correspondence in a single file. The term "correspondence" in this series, therefore, refers not only to incoming and outgoing letters but also to accounting and consignment records, reports (such as inventory lists), artists' résumés, exhibition lists, price lists, and other miscellaneous notes. In cases where a certain type of "correspondence" was originally filed separately from other material of this kind, and represents a significant amount of material, that material is filed in a separate folder (e.g., Accounting and Consignment Records).
Generally, arrangement of photographs in this series follows the system outlined under Organization and Arrangement, with some notable exceptions. Photographs of works of art by Gaston Lachaise and Elie Nadelman were originally arranged in a numbering system that is fairly consistent, and this basic original order has been retained. Also, for large groups of photographs of works of art, such as those by Gaston Lachaise, Joseph Stella, and John Henry Bradley Storrs, the gallery filed photographs by media in which the work of art was created; such delineations are reflected in the final arrangement.
The gallery maintained a collection of negatives, primarily of works of art by artists found in Series 1: Artist Files, in addition to other artists not represented there. There is also a small number of negatives of installation shots. The negatives are arranged alphabetically by artist name, with unknown artists at the beginning, and are stored, for preservation reasons, in containers separate from other records in the series. Negative numbers found on the original sleeves have been transcribed onto the paper enclosures now housing the negatives, so that they may be matched to prints in Series 1: Artist Files, in cases where prints exist. An appendix provides an alphabetical list of artists whose work is represented in the negative collection. In some cases, names of artists are incomplete because of insufficient information on the original negative sleeves.
See Appendix A for a list of artists represented in the negatives of works of art found in Series 1.
Appendix A: Artists Represented in Negatives of Works of Art:
Albright, Ivan
[Allston]
Anderson, Lennart
Andrejevic, Milet
Anshutz, Thomas Pollock
Aponovich, James
Bailey, William
Ballaine, G.
Balthus
Barye
Bazelon, Cecile Gray
Beauchamp
Beckwith
Bell, E.
Bell, Leland
Bellows, George
Benton, Thomas Hart
Bernard
Birch, Thomas
[Blauvelk]
Bluemner, Oscar
Blythe, David Gilmour
Bolles, Jesse H.
Bouvier, August
Bradford, William
Branchard, Emile Pierre
Brassaï
Bratby, John
Breckenridge, Hugh H.
Bricher, A. T.
Brook, Alexander
Brown, John George
Burchfield, Charles
Burra, Edward
Carles, Arthur B.
Carlsen
Cartier-Bresson, Henri
Charkow, Natalie
Chase, William Merritt
Chiriani, Richard
Civitico, Bruno
Clark, Alson Skinner
Codman, Charles
Cohen, Frederick
Cole, Thomas
Coleman, Glenn O.
Conrad, Kramer
Cornell, Joseph
Cropsey, Jasper Francis
Currier, [J. Frank]
Dallman, Daniel
Dalou, Jules
Dasburg, Andrew
Daugherty, James Henry
[Davidson]
Davidson, Jo
Davies, Arthur B.
Davis, Stuart
Dawson, Manierre
Degas, Edgar
De Kooning, Willem
Demuth, Charles
Dewing, Thomas Wilmer
Dickinson, Preston
Diederich, William Hunt
[Dix, Otto]
Du Bois, Guy Péne
Duchamp, Marcel
Duveneck, Frank
Eaton
Edmonson, Will
[Eilshemius]
Epstein, [Sir Jacob]
Erlebacher, Martha Mayer
Evans, Walker
Fellini
Fisher, M.
Fiske, Gertrude
Flannagan, John Bernard
Forbes, Charles
Frazier, John Robinson
Freckelton, Sondra
Frieseke, Frederick C.
Gallatin, A. E.
Gay, Walter
Gifford, R. Swain
Gifford, Sanford Robinson
Gignoux, R.
Glackens, William J.
Gleizes, Albers
Goodnough, Robert
Goodwin, Arthur Clifton
Gorky, Arshile
Gorsline
Graham, John
Graham, William
Grant
Grausman, Philip
Graves, Morris
Groz
Guglielmi, Louis
Guillaume
Halsall
Han, Raymond
Hardy, DeWitt
Hart, William
Hartley, Marsden
Hartman, Bertram C.
Harvey, Anne
Hatke, Walter
Hawthorne, Charles Webster
Heade, Martin Johnson
Henri, Robert
Hill, T.
Hirst, Claude R.
Hitchcock
Hohwiller, L. M.
Hopper, Edward
Horton, William S.
Johnson, David
Johnson, Eastman
Johnson, Lester
Jones, Bern
Kane, John
Karfunkle, David
Kelly, L.
Kensett, John Frederick
Klee, Paul
Klimt, Gustav
Kline, Franz
Knaths, Karl
[Kresch]
Kruger, Louise
Kuhn, Walt
Kuniyoshi, Yasuo
Lachaise, Gaston
Laderman, Gabriel
Lawrence, Jacob
Lawson, Ernest
Lechay, Myron
Leibowitz, Leonard
Leutz
Levinson, Abraham F.
Ligare, David
Lipchitz
Luks, George
MacDonald-Wright, Stanton
MacMonnies, Frederick William
Manolo
Manship, Paul
Manzu
Marin, John
Martin, Homer D.
Matthiasdottir, Louisa
Matulka, Jan
Maurer, Alfred Henry
McFee Henry
McIlvain, Isabel
Melchers
Metcalf, Willard Leroy
Mills
[Morandi, Giovanni]
Muybridge, Eadweard
Müller, Jan
Muller, Lisa
Myers, Jerome
Nadelman, Elie
Nakian, Reuben
Nevelson, Louise
Newman, A. L.
Nick, George Bentley
Of, George F.
O'Keeffe, Georgia
Orozco, José Clemente
Peterson, Jane
Peto, John Frederick
Pfreim, Bernard
Picasso, Pablo
Piccolo, Richard
Pollet, Joseph
Pollock, Jackson
Poor, H.
Powers, Hiram
Prendergast, Maurice Brazil
Price
Prior, William Matthew
Quin, Langdon
Raiselis, Richard
Ream, C. P.
Reid, Robert
Richards, William Trost
Rimmer, William
Robinson, T. W.
Rodin, Auguste
Romero, Orozco
Rummelspacher
Russell, Morgan
Ryan, Richard
[Ryder, Albert Pinkham]
Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
Salemme, Antonio
Salemme, Attilio
Sargent, John Singer
Schamberg, Morton L.
Schiele, Egon
Schmidt, Edward
Schultz, E. N.
Scott, J. W. A.
Shahn, Ben
Shaw, Sidney Dale
Sheeler, Charles
Shinn, Everett
Sklarski, Bonnie
Sloan, John
Smith, Hope
Staples, W. L.
Steene
Steichen, Edward
Stella, Joseph
Storrs, John Henry Bradley
Stuart, Frederick, T.
Suba, Miklos
Tamayo, Rufino
Tanguy, Yves
Tanner, Henry Ossawa
Taylor, Henry Fitch
Tillim, Sidney
Touster, Irwin
Turner, Helen
Twachtman, John Henry
Urness, Scott
[V., F.]
Van Beest
Van Everen, Jay
Vedder, Elihu
Vespignani
Vonnoh, Robert William
Walcutt, William
[Wall]
Weber, Max
Weir, Julian Alden
Weiss, George
Whistler, James McNeill
Whittredge, Worthington
Wiesenfeld, Paul
Woking
Wood, Thomas Waterman
Wyant, A. H.
Wyeth, Andrew
Zorach, [William]
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery records, 1851-1991, bulk 1962-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Charles Rand Penney Papers, 1923-1994, bulk 1945-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund.
The records of the Catherine Viviano Gallery measure 11.6 linear feet and date from 1930-1990, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1949-1978. Established in New York City in 1949, the gallery specialized in contemporary painting and sculpture primarily by American and European artists. The collection consists of artists' files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, museum directors, curators, and publishers; business records; printed material; and photographs of artwork and artists. Also included are records relating to Catherine Viviano's activities as a private dealer and consultant after she closed the gallery in 1970.
Scope and Contents note:
The records of the Catherine Viviano Gallery measure 11.6 linear feet and date from 1930-1990, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1949-1978. Established in New York City in 1949, the gallery specialized in contemporary painting and sculpture primarily by American and European artists. The collection consists of artists' files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, museum directors, curators, and publishers; business records; printed material; and photographs of artwork and artists. Also included are records relating to Catherine Viviano's activities as a private dealer and consultant after she closed the gallery in 1970.
Artists' files include biographical material; artists' statements; correspondence; sales and expense reports; lists and notes; guest lists; writings by others; receipts, invoices, and statements; printed material, including press releases, exhibition announcements, brochures, catalogues, clippings; and photographs of artwork and artists. Included are extensive files on Afro Basaldella, Renato Birolli, Robert Broderson, Anselmo Franesconi, Joseph Glasco, Manabu Mabe, César Manrique, Luciano Minguzzi, Ennio Morlotti, Bernard Perlin, Daniel Rice, and Bernard Rosenthal. There are also files on Jan Cox, Kay Sage, and Kazuo Wakabayashi.
Correspondence comprises the largest series in the collection and consists of general correspondence; correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions in the United States; and correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions abroad. Letters focus on routine business matters, e.g., appraisals and sales, acquisitions, and organizing exhibitions at the Catherine Viviano Gallery and other venues.
General correspondence includes letters between Catherine Viviano and artists and their family members. Among the correspondents are: Mary Callery, Bernard Chaet, Piero and Virginia Dorazio, Jean Dubuffet, Dallas Ernst, Karl Fortress, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Sage Goodwin, Morris Graves, José Guerrero, Earle Ludgin, Joan Miro, Alfonso Ossorio, Dorothea Tanning, Stuyvesant Van Veen, Adja Yunkers and his wife, Dore Ashton, among others. Also found is Viviano's correspondence with clients, many of whom were prominent collectors, e.g., Richard Brown Baker, Carl and Joan Fisher, Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, Joseph Hirschhorn, Marc Moyens, Vincent Price, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Nelson Rockefeller, Stanley Seeger, and Frederick and Dorothy Zimmerman. Of interest, are letters from Elizabeth Bishop inquiring about the purchase of a work of art from the gallery. Included are letters from art historians, museum directors, curators, representatives at other art-related institutions, and publishers including Walter Bareiss, Walter Barker, Dominque De Menil, Valentine Dudensing, William Eisendrath, S. Lane Faison, Emily Genauer, Bertram Goodhue, Erhard and Barbara Göpel, James Laughlin, Porter McCray, Abram Lerner, Doris Meltzer, Stephen Robson Miller, John Bernard Myers, Perry Rathbone, Belle Krasne Ribicoff, Meyer Shapiro, George Stout, and Curt Valentin.
Correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions in the United States contains letters between Viviano and museum directors, curators, dealers, artists, and collectors pertaining to loans, shipping and delivery of artwork, appraisals and sales, and acquisitions. Files include substantive correspondence with the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Federation of the Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, Arts Club of Chicago, the Barnes Foundation, Bristol Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Bundy Art Gallery, Carnegie Institute, City Art Museum of St. Louis, Cleveland Museum of Art, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Denver Art Museum, Des Moines Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Art Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Museum of Modern Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, University of Nebraska Art Galleries, University of Virginia, Mary Washington College, Wadsworth Atheneum, Walker Art Center, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Atkins Museum of the Fine Arts, World House Gallery, and Yale University Art Library.
Correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions abroad primarily concerns the lending of artwork for exhibitions, acquisition and sales; also included are letters requesting biographical information on artists. Letters between Catherine Viviano and representatives of Max Beckmann Gesellschaft Archiv and Galerie Gunther Franke contain provenance-related information on Beckmann's work.
Business records document the routine business operations of the gallery. Printed material includes an incomplete run of Catherine Viviano Gallery exhibition catalogues; invitations and announcements from other galleries and institutions; and miscellaneous printed material.
Photographs include three images of miscellaneous artwork used for art reference.
Arrangement note:
Records are generally arranged by material type and in chronological order thereafter. Artists' files and correspondence files are arranged in alphabetical order and materials within the folders are arranged chronologically
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1945-1986 (Boxes 1-3; 3.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1939-1985 (Boxes 3-6; 5.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1949-1972 (Boxes 10-11; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1930-1990 (Boxes 11-13; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs (1948-1954), undated (Box 14; 1 folder)
Biographical/Historical note:
Catherine Viviano (1889-1992) opened her gallery in 1949 on 42 East 57th Street in New York City. Specializing in contemporary American paintings and sculpture, the gallery featured younger American and European artists, e.g., Robert Broderson, Carlyle Brown, Jan Cox, Joseph Glasco, Peter Lanyon, Manabu Mabe, César Manrique, Bernard Perlin, Joseph Rollo, Bernard Rosenthal, and Kay Sage, among others. The gallery was also notable for introducing the work of Italian artists, who had been cut off from the American art scene during World War II, including Afro Basaldella and his brother Mirko Basaldella, Renato Birolli, Leonardo Cremonini, and Luciano Minguzzi.
Born in Italy in 1899 and raised in Chicago, Catherine Viviano came to New York in the early 1930's to work at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, where she remained for sixteen years before founding the Catherine Viviano Gallery.
In 1970, Catherine Viviano closed the gallery, though she continued to work from her home as an art dealer and consultant. She died of a stroke at the age of ninety-two in 1992.
Related Archival Materials note:
Among the other resources relating to Catherine Viviano Gallery in the Archives of American Art are the Kay Sage papers, 1925-circa 1985, bulk 1950-1965.
Provenance:
The Catherine Viviano Gallery records were donated in 2003 on behalf of Margaret Viviano, Catherine Viviano's sister, by her grandnephew, Peter C. Salerno, who had Power of Attorney for Margaret Viviano.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
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.
