1 Linear foot ((partially microfilmed on 3 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Video recordings
Date:
1941-1978
Scope and Contents:
Photographs of artists; letters; printed material; and a motion picture film.
REEL D284: Exhibition catalogs, 1941-1952, from the Valente Gallery, and clippings; a letter and a sketch from Henry Miller; and a scrapbook containing photographs by Valente of 41 artists, their art work and clippings. Photographs of artists include Boris Aronson, Milton Avery, Arbit Blatas, David Burliuk, Mario Carreño, Joseph DeMartini, Alexander Dobkin, Philip Evergood, Jose Ferrer, Adolph Gottlieb, Marion Greenwood, William Gropper, Chaim Gross, George Grosz, Robert Gwathmey, Lily Harmon, Marsden Hartley, Frederick Haucke, Frank Kleinholz, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ben Lassen,Sigmund Menkes, Jose Clemente Orozco, Abraham Rattner, Iver Rose, Sally Ryan, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Margaret Stark, Sabina Teichman, Anthony Toney, Nahum Tschacbasov, Abraham Walkowitz and Ben Wilson.
REEL 2802: A letter from the National Gallery of Art regarding Valente's film "Art Discovers America"; exhibition catalogs on and written by Valente; clippings; and 30 photographs by Valente of 20 artists.
REEL 3480: Two letters from Henry Miller, dated 1943 and 1945. The letters refer to a "watercolor pad and brushes", and Miller also thanks Valente for a portrait of Abe Rattner.
UNMICROFILMED: Photographs by Valente of artists, each accompanied with the artists' self-portrait. Included are Milton Avery, Arbit Blatas, David Burliuk, Mario Carreño, Alexander Dobkin, Philip Evergood, Chaim Gross, Lily Harmon, Frank Kleinholz, Ben Lassen, David Lax, Lawrence H. Lebduska, Jean Liberte, Jose Orozco, Harold Rome, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Margaret Stark, Sabina Teichman, Anthony Toney, Nahum Tschacbasov, Abraham Walkowitz, and Ben Wilson and 4 photographs of composer Eugene Ormandy which are on the back of the Blatas portraits.
UNMICROFILMED: "Art Discovers America" (MGM shorts), ca. 1945, a 16mm b&w, 400 ft. film regarding the "new public interest" in American art. The film traces the trend back to the exhibition of The Eight, and shows various artists at work, including John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, Reginald Marsh, and Abraham Walkowitz. The film was produced by Regency Pictures. Valente was the photographer and co-director along with Hal Frater.
REEL 439-441 AND SCANNED Photos of artists, previously microfilmed under Photos of Artists I, have subsequently been scanned and returned to the Valente papers.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographer; New York City.
Provenance:
Material on reel D284 lent for microfilming by Valente, 1966; Mrs. Valente subsequently donated the scrapbook, 1979. Material on reels 2802, and 3480 donated by Mr. & Mrs. Valente, 1966 through 1979. Unmicrofilmed material donated by Harold Rome, 1988. An additional 35 photos of artists were donated by Valente ca. 1966, and microfilmed on reels 439-441 with AAA's Photographs of Artists Collection I; search under Valente for more information. Many of the photographs are duplicates.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Art and photography -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Artists -- United States -- Photographs Search this
Portrait photography -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Video recordings
Sponsor:
Funding for the preservation of the motion picture film "Art Discovers America" provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Files relating to a series of traveling art exhibitions sponsored by the AAUW, 1949-1952, containing material on artists Walter Anderson, Marsden Hartley, Jacob Lawrence, John Rood, David Smith and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Based in Washington, D.C.
Related Materials:
American Association of University Women papers also at Syracuse University.
Provenance:
Donated 1960-1962 by the American Association of University Women.
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.
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.
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.
American artists in expressionist Berlin : ideological crosscurrents in the early modernism of America and Germany, 1905-1915 / Patricia Joan McDonnell
Soichi Sunami and Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). An installation view of Marsden Hartley's Museum of Modern Art exhibition, 1945. Elizabeth McCausland papers, 1838-1995. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of painter Andrew Dasburg and his wife and sculptor Grace Mott Johnson date from 1833 to 1980 (bulk 1900 to 1980), and measure 8.8 linear feet. The collection documents each artist's career and personal lives, including their brief marriage and their friendships with many notable artists in the New Mexico and New York art colonies during the early twentieth century. The papers of Dasburg (6 linear feet) and Johnson (2.8 linear feet) include biographical materials; extensive correspondence with family, friends, and fellow artists, such as John F. Carlson, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Marsden Hartley, Henry Lee McFee, and Ward Lockwood; writings by Dasburg, Johnson, and others; scattered legal, financial, and business records; clippings; exhibition materials; numerous photographs of Johnson and Dasburg, friends, family, and artwork; and original artwork, including two sketchbooks by Johnson.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter Andrew Dasburg and sculptor Grace Mott Johnson date from 1833 to 1980, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1900 to 1980, and measure 8.8 linear feet. The collection is divided into the papers of Andrew Dasburg (6 linear feet) and the papers of Grace Mott Johnson (2.8 linear feet), and documents each artist's career and personal lives, including their brief marriage, and friendships with many notable artists in New Mexico and New York art colonies during the early twentieth century. Found are scattered biographical, legal, and financial materials. Extensive correspondence (particularly in Dasburg's papers) is with family, friends, and fellow artists, such as John F. Carlson, Florence Ballin Cramer, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Marsden Hartley, Henry Lee McFee, Vera Spier Kuhn, and Ward Lockwood. Dasburg's papers also include letters to Johnson and his two later wives.
Johnson's correspondence is also with numerous artist friends and others, including John F. and Margaret Carlson, Florence Ballin Cramer, Jo Davidson, Florence Lucius, Walter Frankl, Lila Wheelock Howard, Henry Lee McFee, Mary Riley, Lee Simonson, Lindsey Morris Sterling, Alice Morgan Wright, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Vera Spier Kuhn. Letters to her son Alfred are quite detailed and revealing. Writings are by Dasburg, Johnson, and others. Johnson's writings include a very brief diary and her poetry. Writings by others are about the Taos and New Mexico art communities. Printed materials about both artists include clippings and exhibition catalogs. There are numerous photographs of Dasburg and Johnson, individually and together, and with friends and family. Of note are a group photograph of Birge Harrison's art class in Woodstock, New York, which includes Johnson and Dasburg, and a photograph of Dasburg with friends Konrad Cramer and John Reed. Dasburg's papers also include snapshots of Florence Lucius, Konrad and Florence Ballin Cramer, Frieda and D. H. Lawrence, and Mabel Dodge Luhan. Original artwork by the two artists include two sketchbooks by Johnson and three prints and two drawings by Dasburg.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 2 series of each artist's papers:
Missing Title
Series 1: Andrew Dasburg Papers, circa 1900-1980 (Box 1-7; 6.0 linear feet)
Series 2: Grace Mott Johnson Papers, 1833-1963 (Box 7-10; 2.8 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Andrew Michael Dasburg (1887-1979) was born in Paris, France, to German parents. After his father died and when he was five, Dasburg and his mother moved to New York City. In 1902 Dasburg started attending classes at the Art Students' League and studied with Kenyon Cox and Frank Du Mond. He also took night classes with Robert Henri. In 1907 he received a scholarship to the Art Students' League summer school in Woodstock, New York and spent three summers studying there in Birge Harrison's painting class. While in school he became friends with many young artists, including Morgan Russell and his future wife, Grace Mott Johnson.
Grace Mott Johnson (1882-1967) was born in New York City. She began drawing when she was four years old, and when the family moved to a farm in 1900 she enjoyed sketching horses and other farm animals. At the age of 22 she left home to study at the Art Students' League with sculptors Gutzon Borglum and James Earle Fraser, and also attended Birge Harrison's painting class in Woodstock. Throughout her career she would sculpt animals from memory, and would often attend circuses and farms for inspiration.
In 1909 Johnson and Dasburg went to Paris and joined the modernist circle of artists living there, including Morgan Russell, Jo Davidson, and Arthur Lee. During a trip to London that same year they were married. Johnson returned to the United States early the next year, but Dasburg stayed in Paris where he met Henri Matisse, Gertrude and Leo Stein, and became influenced by the paintings of Cezanne and Cubism. He returned to Woodstock, New York in August and he and Johnson became active members of the artist community. In 1911 their son Alfred was born. Both Dasburg and Johnson showed several works at the legendary Armory Show in 1913, and Dasburg also showed at the MacDowell Club in New York City, where he met the journalist and activist John Reed who later introduced him to Mabel Dodge (Luhan), a wealthy art patron and lifelong friend. In 1914 Dasburg met Alfred Stieglitz and became part of his avant-garde circle. Using what he had seen in Paris, Dasburg became one of the earliest American cubist artists, and also experimented with abstraction in his paintings.
Dasburg and Johnson lived apart for most of their marriage. By 1917 they had separated and Dasburg began teaching painting in Woodstock and in New York City. In 1918 he was invited to Taos, New Mexico by Mabel Dodge, and returning in 1919, Johnson joined him there for a period of time. Also in 1919, Dasburg was one of the founding members of the Woodstock Artists Association with John F. Carlson, Frank Swift Chase, Carl Eric Lindin, and Henry Lee McFee. In 1922 Dasburg and Johnson divorced, and also at that time he began living most of the year in Santa Fe with Ida Rauh, spending the rest of the year in Woodstock and New York City. Dasburg became an active member of the Santa Fe and the Taos art colonies, befriending many artists and writers living in these communities, and remaining close friends with Mabel Dodge Luhan. Here he moved away from abstraction, and used the southwestern landscape as the inspiration for his paintings.
In 1928 he married Nancy Lane. When that marriage ended in 1932, he moved permanently to Taos, and with his third wife, Marina Wister, built a home and studio there. Dasburg periodically taught art privately and at the University of New Mexico. In 1937 he was diagnosed with Addison's disease, which left him unable to paint again until 1946. In 1945 he and his wife Marina separated. Dasburg was recognized for his career as an artist in a circulating retrospective organized by the American Federation of Arts in 1959. He also had retrospectives in Taos in 1966 and 1978. His artwork influence several generations of artists, especially in the southwest, and he continued creating art until his death in 1979 at the age of 92.
Grace Mott Johnson lived in the Johnson family home in Yonkers, New York during the 1920s and later moved to Pleasantville, New York. In 1924 she went to Egypt to study ancient Egyptian sculpture. During the 1930s she became a civil rights activist. She produced very little art during the last twenty years of her life.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are two oral history interviews with Andrew Dasburg, July 2, 1964 and March 6, 1974. Additional related collections at other repositories include the Andrew and Marina Wister Dasburg Papers at the New Mexico State Archives, the Andrew Dasburg Papers at Syracuse University Library, and the Grace Mott Johnson Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel 2803 contains photocopies of ten Morgan Russell letters to Dasburg. Reels 4276-4278 include biographical material, subject files, photographs, correspondence, writings, and exhibition material. The photocopies on reel 2803 were discarded after microfilming, and the items on 4276-4278 were returned to the lender. This material is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers were donated by their son, Alfred Dasburg, in 1980. Syracuse Univresity lent materials for microfilming in 1978 and 1989.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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.
The papers of sculptor Arnold Rönnebeck and painter Louise Emerson Ronnebeck measure 4.24 linear feet and date from 1884-2002. The collection contains biographical material, family and professional correspondence, sketches and drawings, writings, a scrapbook, and printed material. There are also numerous photographic prints, copy prints, negatives, and 7 glass plate negatives of the Rönnebecks and their artwork, travels, family, and friends, including Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Stieglitz, and Tony Luhan.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of sculptor Arnold Rönnebeck and painter Louise Emerson Ronnebeck measure 4.24 linear feet and date from 1884-2002. The collection contains biographical material, family and professional correspondence, sketches and drawings, writings, a scrapbook, and printed material. There are also numerous photographic prints, copy prints, negatives, and 7 glass plate negatives of the Rönnebecks and their artwork, travels, family, and friends, including Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Stieglitz, and Tony Luhan.
Biographical materials include articles on the Rönnebecks by Betsy Fahlman, curriculum vitae, and documentation on the Emerson family. Correspondence is primarily between Arnold Rönnebeck to Louise, and also includes letters in German to Arnold's sister Irmgard Rönnebeck. Among the professional and personal correspondence from friends and family to both of the Rönnebecks are letters from Kenneth Hayes Miller to Louise Ronnebeck.
Writings include essay drafts, notes, and poetry by the Rönnebecks, including Arnold Rönnebeck's "Paint-As-You-Go Plan." There is a scrapbook of clippings covering Louise Ronnebeck's work. Additional printed material includes Christmas cards, clippings, and exhibition announcements and catalogs of both the Rönnebecks' work. Artwork consists of drawings and sketches by Arnold Rönnebeck.
Photographic materials include photographs of the Rönnebecks and their travels to Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, and Europe. The series also contains photos, copy prints, negatives, and 7 glass plate negatives of artist friends, and formal and informal documentation of their works of art and public and private art commissions.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1926-2002 (9 folders; Box 1, OV 7)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1909-1998 (0.6 linear feet; Box 1, 5)
Series 3: Writings, 1920-1944 (6 folders; Box 1, 5)
Series 4: Scrapbook, 1926-1966 (1 folder; Box 1)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1923-1999 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 6: Artwork, 1915-1950 (2 folders; Box 2, 5)
Series 7: Photographic Materials, 1884-1976 (2.6 linear feet; Box 2-6)
Biographical Note:
Sculptor Arnold Rönnebeck (1885-1947) was part of the "Stieglitz circle" and settled in Denver where he served as director of the Denver Art Museum from 1926-1931. Rönnebeck married Louise Emerson (1901-1980) in 1926. Emerson was a painter and muralist who worked on New Deal mural commissions in Colorado and Wyoming.
Arnold Rönnebeck was born in Nassau, Germany and was a noted sculptor and lithographer. From 1905 to 1907, Rönnebeck studied architecture at the Royal Art School in Berlin and spent a year studying sculpture in Munich. In 1908, he moved to Paris where he furthered his studies in sculpture under Aristede Maillol and Emile Bourdelle. From 1914 to 1918, Rönnebeck served as an officer in the German Imperial Army during World War I. In 1923, he emigrated to the United States where he became part of the Stieglitz circle.
In 1925, Rönnebeck visited Mabel Dodge Luhan at her ranch in Taos, New Mexico, where he met his future wife, the painter Louise Emerson, born Mary Louise Harrington Emerson in 1901. After their marriage, the Rönnebecks lived in Denver where Arnold Rönnebeck worked as director of the Denver Art Museum and continued to execute commissioned works, including bas reliefs, portrait busts, and sculptures. He died in Denver, Colorado in 1947. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck continued to receive commissions for frescoes and murals in Colorado and Bermuda and died in Denver, Colorado in 1980.
Related Material:
Correspondence between Arnold Rönnebeck and Alfred Stieglitz and Marsden Hartley is located at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Provenance:
The papers were donated in 2001 by Ursula Moore Works and Arnold Rönnebeck, the artists' daughter and son.
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.
Arnold Rönnebeck and Louise Emerson Ronnebeck papers, 1884-2002. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
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.
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.
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:
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.
Inventory cards track artwork entering and leaving the gallery. Each card lists a work's artist, title, date, media, and measurements. Most cards include a photograph of the artwork, and most cards further list the ultimate action taken regarding the work (sold, returned to artist or gallery, consigned, etc.), the list price or paid price, exhibition and catalog history, and the history of price quotes given for the work. The gallery used a number of abbreviations for the transactions on the inventory cards:
NFS - Not For Sale
RTA - Returned to Artist
o/c - On Consignment (from)
o/a - On Approval
OOG - Out of Gallery
O/L - On Loan (from)
TGF - Top Gallant Farm
There are no inventory cards tracking pre-Columbian art and artifacts in the collection. The cards represent works from both the New York gallery and Zurich gallery.
The cards are arranged into ten overlapping groups established by the gallery representing transactions, such as sales and consignments, loans, returns, and other general art movement. Within each category, most of the cards are alphabetized by artist and thereafter by title, but occasionally an artist's work is divided into categories (for example by media) before being arranged alphabetically by title:
Returned to Artist
Sold (pre-1993)
Sold
Sold and/or Returned to Artist
Returned to Artist
Sold
Old Top Gallant Farm Sculptures
Emmerich Private Sold
Last Active Inventory and Sales
Additional Cards
See Appendix for a list of artists' names represented by the Artist Inventory Cards in Series 8.1.
Appendix: Artists' Names Represented in Artist Inventory Cards in Series 8.1.:
Aakre, Richard
Abbott, Berenice
Abercrombie, Douglas
Adams, Ansel
Adams, Robert
Africano, Nicholas
Albers, Josef
Alechinsky, Pierre
Altoon, John
Amerine, Wayne
Andre, Carl
Annesley, David
Appel, Karel
Arakawa
Arbus, Diane
Arman
Arp, Jean (Hans)
Ashbaugh, Dennis
Atget, Eugene
Atkins, Anna
Audubon, J.J.
Avery, Milton
Bacon, Francis
Bailey, William
Baldus, Edouard
Ball, Lillian
Balthus
Bannard, Walter Darby
Barlett, Jennifer
Barth, Frances
Barth, Wolf
Bartolini, Luciano
Basquiat, Jean-Michel
Baziotes, William
Beasley, Barth
Bireline, George
Bleckner, Ross
Blossfeldt, Karl
Bocklin, Arnold
Boisseu
Boisson, L.
Bolotowsky, Ilya
Bolus, Michael
Bonnard, Pierre
Bonnet, Phi
Bradley, Peter
Beasley, Bruce
Becher, Bernd and Hillar
Bellocq, E.J.
Benazzi, Raffael
Benton, Fletcher
Best, Mary Ellen
Beuys, Joseph
Bill, Max
Boepple, Willard
Bogart, Bram
Borofsky, John
Boxer, Stanley
Botero, Fernardo
Boudin, Eugene
Bourke-White, Margaret
Brach, Paul
Brancusi, Constantin
Braque, George
Brassaï
Breed, Charles
Brui
Brush, Daniel
Buchwald, Howard
Buckley, Stephen
Bucklow, Christopher
Bush, Jack
Butterfield, Deborah
Calder, Alexander
Callahan, Harry
Cascella, Andrea
Caracciolo, Roberto
Caro, Anthony
Cezanne, Paul
Chadwick, Lynn
Chagall, Marc
Chamberlain, John
Chase, Louisa
Chillida, Eduardo
Christensen, Dan
Christo
Clifford, Charles
Close, Chuck
Cohen, Elaine Lustig
Conlon, William
Contino, Leonard
Crile, Susan
cummings, e.e.
Dahl-Wolfe, Louise
David, Michael
Davis, Gerald
Davis, Lynn
Davis, Ronald
de Amaral, Olga
de Chirico, Giorgio
de Clercq, Louis
de Kooning, Willem
Degas, Edgar
Dehner, Edgar
Delaunay, Robert
Delaunay, Sonia
Dembiczak, J.G.
de Valdivia, Marco
di Suvero, Mark
Diebenkorn, Richard
Dill, Guy
Dill, Lesley
Diller, Burgoyne
Dine, Jim
Disderi
Dorazio, Piero
Downes, Rackstraw
Drapell, Joseph
Drentwett
Dubuffet, Jean
Duchamp, Marcel
Duck-Hyun, Cho
Dufy, Raoul
Du Maine, H.
Durandelle, Louis-Emille
Durrant, Jennifer
Dzubas, Friedel
Edgerton, Dr. Harold
Egger, Marc
Eggleston, William
Embry, Norris
Ellis, Stephen
Emmerich, Tobias
Ernst, Max
Evans, Walker
Fautrier, Jean
Feeley, Paul
Feist, Harold
Ferber, Herbert
Ferrara, Jackie
Fessler, Cristina
Fischl, Eric
Flavin, Dan
Fleming, Linda
Fontana, Corsin
Fontana, Lucio
Ford, Hermine
Fornier, Paul
Foster, John
Fournier, Paul
Francis, Sam
Francis, Sherron
Franck
Frank, Robert
Frankenthaler, Helen
Freud, Lucian
Friedberg, Richard
Freres, Henry
Friedlander, Lee
Fuger
Funakoshi, Katsura
Fuss, Adam
Galanin, Igor
Giacometti, Alberto
Gibbons, Arthur
Gilliam, Sam
Ginnever, Charles
Giordani, Patrice
Glarner, Fritz
Gliko, Carl
Gonzalez, Julio
Goodnough, Robert
Gorchov, Ron
Gordon, Harry
Gorky, Arshile
Gossweiler, Christoph
Gottlieb, Adolph
Graffin, Daniel
Graham, John
Graubner, Gotthard
Graves, Nancy
Green, June
Greenleaf, Ken
Griefen, John Adams
Grill
Gris, Juan
Groover, Jan
Guston, Philip
Gutman, John
Hacklin, Alan/Allan
Hagemeyer, Johan
Hall, Lee
Hantai, Simon
Haring, Keith
Harman, Maryann
Hartley, Marsden
Hartung, Hans
Hatcher, Brower
Held, Al
Hendler, Raymond
Hennessy, Richard
Hepworth, Barbara
Herdeg, Christian
Hide, Peter
Highstein, Jene
Hirschfeld
Hitch, Stewart
Hockney, David
Hodgkin, Howard
Hoenigsberg, Helga
Hofmann, Hans
Hollega, Wolfgang
Honegger, Gottfried
Hope, Polly
Hopper, Edward
Horne, Bernard Shea
Hosiasson, Philippe
Hoyland, John
Hoyningen-Heune, George
Hughto, Darryl
Hughto, Margie/Marjorie
Humphrey, Ralph
Hutchinson, Jay
Hutchinson, Jaqueth
Indiana, Robert
Isherwood, Jon
Jenkins, Paul
Jensen, Bill
Johns, Jasper
Johnson, Meredith
Jorn, Asger
Kandinsky, Wassily
Kelly, Ellsworth
Kertesz, Andre
Keskeny, George
Kiesler, Frederick
Kisling
Klee, Paul
Klein, Yves
Klett, Mark
Kline, Franz
Knoop, Guitou
Koekoek, B.C.
Krasner, Lee
Kupka, Frantisek
Kuwayama, Tadaaki
Lack, Stephen
Landfield, Ronnie
Lange, Dorothea
Langlois and Martens
La Noue, Terence
Laurens, Henri
Leger, Fernand
Le Gray, Gustave
Lehman, Wendy
LeRoy, Jeanette
Letellier, B.
Lettron, J.
Levee, John
Levinson, Moss
Levitt, Helen
Lewitt, Sol
Liberman, Alexander
Lichtenstein, Roy
Lindner, Richard
Lipschitz, Jacques
Lipski, Donald
Lipsky, Pat
Lissitsky, El
Lipsky, Pat
Lohse, Richard Paul
Long, Richard
Longobardi, Nino
Louis, Morris
Lüthi, Bernhard
Lüthi, Urs
Lutz
Lydis, Mariette
MacWhinnie, John
Maillol, Aristide
Mairwöger, Gottfried
Mapplethorpe, Robert
Marden, Brice
Maril, Herman
Marin, John
On Consignment from Peter Marks
Martin, Agnes
Martins, Maria
Marx, G.L.
Maryan
Masullo, Andrew
Mathieu, Georges
Matisse, Henri
Matta, Roberto
McDermott & McGough, Messrs.
McDonnell, Joseph Anthony
McLaughlin, John
McLean, John
Meadmore, Clement
Megert, Christian
Miller, Robert
Milton, Peter
Miró, Joan
Misrach, Richard
Mitchell, Joan
Model, Lisette
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo
Monet, Claude
Moore, Henry
Morandi, Giorgio
Moses, Ed
Motherwell, Robert
Mulder, George
Muller-Brittnau, Willy
Murray, Elizabeth
Muybridge, Eadweard
Nadar, (Felix Tournachon)
Nadelman, Elie
Nakian, Reuben
Natkin, Robert
Nemont, G.
Neugass, Fritz
Nevelson, Louise
Newman, Arnold
Newman, Barnett
Nezhdanov, Alexander
Nicholson, Ben
Nickson, Graham
Nixon, Nicholas
Noel, Georges
Noguchi, Isamu
Noland, Kenneth
Nolde, Emil
Offord, J. Milton
Oldenburg, Claes
Olitski, Jules
Olmec
Ono, Yoko
Orr, Eric
O'Sullivan, Timothy
Otterness, Tom
Outerbridge, Paul
Paik, Nam June
Parodi, Filippo
Penn, Irving
Pepper, Beverly
Perless, Robert
Perlman, Joel
Pettet, William
Pfaff, Judy
Picabia, Francis
Picasso, Pablo
Pissarro, Camille
Pollock, Jackson
Pomodoro, Arnaldo
Poons, Lawrence
Porter, Fairfield
Porter, Katherine
Poulos, Basilios
Press, Naomi
Quaytman, Harvey
Quigley, Edward
Quisgard, Liz Whitney
Rainer, Arnulf
Raush, Mark
Rauschenberg, Robert
Ray, Man
Recanati, Dina
Reddinger
Reinhardt, Ad
Richter, Gerhard
Rickey, George
Ridenhour, William
Rivers, Larry
Robb, Charles
Robbins, Bruce
Robert, Louis
Rockburne, Dorothea
Rodin, Auguste
Rosan, Larry
Rosen, Felix
Rosenthal, Tony
Rosenquist, James
Rossi, Rosalie
Rothko, Mark
Row, David
Rozen, Feliz
Rutherford, Louis M.
Ryan, Anne
Ryan, Kevin
Ryman, Robert
Saba, Richard
de Saint Phalle, Niki
Saito, Kikuo
Salemme, Attilio
Samaras, Lucas
Sander, August
Sander, Ludwig
Sanders, John
Santomaso, Giuseppe
Schapiro, Miriam
Schlemmer, Oskar
Schlesinger, Mark
Schumacher, Emil
Scott, Robert
Scott, Tim
Scott, William
Seery, John
Segal, George
Seligmann, Kurt
Sellers, Daniel
Serra, Richard
Shapiro, Joel
Shields, Alan
Signac, Paul
Simpson, David
Sisley, Alfred
Slone, Sandi
Smith, David
Smith, Hassel
Smith, Kimber
Smith, Tony
Sohanievich, Oleg
Sommer, Frederick
Sommer, Giorgio
Southall, Derek
Spence, Andrew
Stamos, Theodoros
Stankiewicz, Richard
Steichen, Edward
Steiner, Michael
Stella, Frank
Stephan, Gary
Stettheimer, Florine
Stevens, Peter
Still, Clyfford
Stoltz, David
Stone, Sylvia
Strand, Paul
Sugarman, George
Sugimoto, Hiroshi
Sultan, Donald
Sutton, Carol
Sutton, Pat Lipsky
Tajiri, Shinkichi
Talbot, William Henry Fox
Tanger, Susanna
Tatafiore, Ernesto
Thiebaud, Wayne
Thorne, Joan
Tillyer, William
Torres-Garcia, Joaquin
Truitt, Anne
Twombly, Cy
Tworkov, Jack
Unger, Mary Ann
Upton, Ann
Wagner, Merrill
Van Dongen, Kees
Van Gogh Manuscript
Van Stalbent, Adrien
Van Velde, Bram
Vasarely, Victor
Venet, Bernar
Verna, Germaine
Vicente, Esteban
Vuillard, Edouard
Waid, Mary Joan
Walsh, James
Ward, Cora Kelly
Warhol, Andy
Warren, Catharine
Wells, Lynton
Watkins, Charlton E.
Wegman, William
Wessel, Henry
Wesselman, Tom
Westfall, Stephen
Wiegmann, Jenny
Willette, Adolph
Williams, Neil
Williams, Roger
Willis, Thornton
Wilmarth, Christopher
Winogrand, Garry
Witkin, Isaac
Witkin, Joel-Peter
Woelfli, Adolf
Wofford, Philip
Wolfe, James
Wols, Alfred Otto Wolfgang
Wonner, Paul
Woodman, Betty
Woolf, Paul
Wotruba, Fritz
Yokoi, Teruko
Youngerman, Jack
Yunkers, Adja
Zerbe, Karl
Zimmerman, Daniel
Zox, Larry
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
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.
Chronological professional and personal letters received by Ben Benn relating to exhibitions, affiliations with various artists' groups, and relationships with other artists and friends. Found are letters from Alfred Barr, Holger Cahill, Juliana Force, Sidney Geist, Kaj Klitgaard, Rowan and Irene LeCompte, Audrey McMahon, Elie and Viola Nadelman, Samuel Rosenblum, Harry Salpeter, and Hugh Stix, and various art galleries and museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newark Museum, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Walker Art Center Also found is correspondence from containing letters from Hudson Walker and others, relating to Benn's one-man exhibition; included are price lists of Benn's paintings.
See Appendix for list of notable correspondents from Series 2.1. and 2.3.
Appendix: Notable Correspondents from Series 2.1. and 2.3.:
Abbott, Jere, (See The Museum of Modern Art)
American Artists' Congress, 1936 (1 letter)
American British Art Center, 1944 (1 letter
American Federation of the Arts, 1959 (1 letter)
American Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers, 1935-1936 (3 letters)
American Society for Technion, Women's Division, Israel Institute of Technology, 1958 (4 letters)
Anderson Galleries, The, 1922 (2 letters)
Arden Studios, Inc., 1931 (1 letter)
Art Appreciation Movement, 1942
Art For Living, 1949 (1 letter)
Art USA, 1959 (2 letters)
Artists Equity Association, 1951 (1 letter)
Artists' Gallery, The, 1937-1956 (11 letters)
Artists' and Sculptors' Division, Joint Distribution Committee, 1938 (1 letter)
Artists for Victory, 1943 (1 letter)
Artists Welfare Fund, Inc., 1973 (1 letter)
Associated American Artists, 1942 (1 letter)
Avery, Milton, 1930 (1 letter)
Barr, Alfred A., 1953-1956 (2 letters): See also The Museum of Modern Art
Baziotes, William, 1942 (1 letter)
Beer-Monti, Federica, (See The Artists' Gallery)
Bender, William H., 1968 (1 letter)
Benton, Tom, undated (1 letter)
Benton, Rita and Tom, 1925 (1 letter)
Benton, Rita, 1926-1928, undated (2 letters)
Biddle, George, 1949-1950 (3 letters)
Bluemner, Oscar, 1918-1932 (2 letters)
Blume, Peter, (See The National Institute of Arts and Letters)
Board, Brewster, (See First Municipal Art Exhibition)
Bourgeois Galleries, 1917-1918 (5 letters)
Bourgeois, P., (See Bourgeois Galleries)
Bourgeois, S., (See Bourgeois Galleries)
Breckinridge, Mrs. Henry, (See City of New York, Municipal Art Committee)
Brooklyn Museum, 1931-1932 (4 letters)
Brown, George Lippincott, 1922 (1 letter)
Brownell-Lamberston Galleries, 1930 (1 letter)
Bruckel, Fred H., (See Montross Gallery)
Bry, Edith, (See Artists' and Sculptors' Division, Joint Distribution Committee)
Bummell, Peter, (See The Museum of Modern Art)
Burck, Jacob, (See New Masses)
Cahill, Holger, (See First Municipal Art Exhibition): See also Works Progress
Administration/Federal Art Project
Carmel, Hilda, (See Artists Welfare Fund)
Chidsey, Alan C., 1937 (1 letter)
City of New York, Municipal Art Committee, 1936 (3 letters)
Coady, R.W., 1915-1918 (5 letters)
Codry, Patrick, (See New Masses)
Coffey, Katherine, (See The Newark Museum)
Cohen, Mildred, (See College Art Association)
College Art Association, 1932-1936 (5 letters; 1 press release)
Committee of Five/League for American Citizenship, 1928 (1 letter)
Corcoran Gallery of Art, The, 1938 (1 letter)
Dasburg, Andrew, 1921, undated (2 letters)
Educational Art Alliance, 1944 (1 letter)
The Day, 1935 (1 letter)
Egan, Charles, (See Egan Gallery)
Egan Gallery, 1946 (1 letter)
Elliott, James H., 1954 (1 letter)
Fair Lawn Art Association, The, 1950 (1 letter)
Ferargil Galleries, 1934 (1 letter)
First Municipal Art Exhibition, 1934 (2 letters)
Fisher, William, 1917-1925 (5 letters)
Fitzgerald, Eleanor M., The Studio Theatre, 1941 (2 letters)
Force, Juliana, (See Whitney Museum of American Art)
Ford Foundation, The, 1958-1960 (7 letters)
Forum Exhibition Committee, The, 1916 (6 letters)
Fraser, Joseph T., (See The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)
Frueh, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred, 1916 (1 invitation)
Frueh, Alfred, 1917 (1 invitation)
Frueh, Giuliette, 1923 (1 letter)
Geist, Sidney, 1939-1959 (35 letters)
Gerdts, William H., (See The Newark Museum)
Glassgold, C. Adolph, (See Whitney Museum of American Art)
Goff, Carleton, (See Providence Art Club)
Gollomb, Joseph, 1931, undated (2 letters)
Goodyear, A. Conger, (See The Museum of Modern Art)
Hale, Robert Beverly, (See The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Hamlin, Elizabeth, (See Brooklyn Museum)
Hanna Ray, (See John Wanamaker New York)
Harris, Ruth F., (See The New York Times)
Hartley, Marsden, 1934 (1 postcard)
Hellman, George, 1926-1927 (2 letters): See also The New Gallery
Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1974 (1 letter)
Horch, Louis L., (See Roerich Museum)
Irvine, Rosalind, (See Whitney Museum of American Art)
Johnston, E.M., (See Bourgeois Galleries)
Katz, Harry, The Library of Congress, 1993 (1 letter)
Kent, H.W., (See The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Klitgaard, Georgina and Kaj, 1920 (1 letter)
Klitgaard, Kaj, 1921-1936, undated (8 letters)
Korzenik, Lillian, (See American Society for Technion, Women's Division, Israel Institute of Technology
Krasne, Bell, 1954-1955 (2 letters)
Kruse, Alexander Z., 1941 (1 letter)
Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, (See American Artists' Congress)
LaGuardia, Fiorello, 1941 (1 letter)
Lambertson, Dorothy, (See Brownell-Lambertson Galleries)
Lang, Gladys V., (See The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Laurent, Robert, 1920 (1 letter)
Lechay, James, 1971 (1 letter)
LeCompte, Rowan, 1949-1953 (12 letters)
LeCompte, Irene and Rowan, 1952-1967 (12 letters)
LeCompte, Irene, 1951-1953 (4 letters)
Lerner, Abram, (See Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden)
Lewis, Robert, 1950-1952 (5 letters)
Lowry, W. McNeill, (See The Ford Foundation)
McBride, Henry, 1932 (1 letter)
McCausland, Elizabeth, 1951 (1 letter)
McKinney, Roland, (See Pepsi-Cola's Fifth Annual Art Competition): See also The Metropolitan Museum of Art
McMahon, Audrey, (See College Art Association)
Mallette, Alice, (See The Museum of Modern Art)
Marantz, Evelyn, (See Art For Living)
Marvel, Josiah P., The Springfield Museum of Art, 1932 (2 letters)
Meeting Place, The, 1931, (2 letters)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The, 1939-1957 (8 letters)
Miller, Ann, (See The Fair Lawn Art Association)
Minnigerode, C. Powell, (See The Corcoran Gallery of Art)
Montross Gallery, 1930 (1 letter)
More, Hermon, (See Whitney Museum of American Art)
Museum of Modern Art, The, 1931-1951, undated (5 letters)
Musgrove, Louis, 1935-1954, undated (4 letters)
Musgrove, Nonnie, 1963 (1 letter)
Nadelman, Elie, 1915 (1 letter): in French
Nadelman, Elie and Viola, 1921-1947, undated 6 letters)
Nadelman, Viola, 1925-1929 (4 letters)
National Society of American Art, 1934 (2 letters)
Nestor, Bernard and Dudley Pratt, (See Seattle Art Museum)
New Gallery, The, 1926-1927 (2 letters)
New Masses, 1933 (3 letters)
Newark Museum, The, 1958 (4 letters)
New York Times, The, 1938-1957 (2 letters)
Nordness, Lee, (See Art USA)
Ostrowsky, Abbo, (See Educational Art Alliance)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The, 1942-1965 (3 letters)
Pepsi-Cola's Fifth Annual Art Competition, 1948 (3 letters)
Phillips Memorial Gallery, 1929 (1 letter)
Providence Art Club, 1965 (3 letters)
Rickey, George, 1936 (1 letter)
Ritchie, Andrew C., (See The Museum of Modern Art)
Robinson, Eleanor, (See Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.)
Rockefeller, Mrs. John D., 1940 (1 letter)
Roerich, Horch L., (See Roerich Museum)
Roerich Museum, 1936 (1 letter)
Rogovin, Howard, 1956 (4 letters)
Rollins, Lloyd L., 1944 (3 letters): See also Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project
Ross, Sidney, (See Theatre in Art Exhibition)
Rowan, Edward B., (See Treasury Department, Section of Painting and Sculpture)
Saarinen, Aline B., (See The New York Times)
Salpeter, Harry, (See Harry Salpeter Gallery, Inc.)
Harry Salpeter Gallery, Inc., 1956-1961 (11 letters)
Seattle Art Museum, 1933 (1 letter)
Shahn, Ben, 1949 (1 letter)
Slatkin, Charles E., (See Charles E. Slatkin Galleries)
Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, Inc., 1959 (1 letter)
Society of Independent Artists, The, 1923 (1 letter)
Marie Sterner Fine Arts, 1930 (1 letter)
Stix, Hugh, 1930-1960 (6 letters): See also The Artists' Gallery
Theatre in Art Exhibition, 1932 (2 letters)
Treasury Department, Section of Painting and Sculpture, 1934 (1 letter)
Tschudy, Herbert B., (See Brooklyn Museum)
Usher, Elizabeth, (See The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Van Deventer, S., Kröller-Müller Museum, 1924 (1 letter)
Varian , Dorothy, 1937 (1 letter)
Von Groschwitz, Gustave, (See Ferargil Galleries)
Walker Art Center, 1953-1954 (17 letters)
Walker, Hudson, 1948-1958 (6 letters): See also Hudson Walker Art Center
Walkowitz, Abraham, 1928 (1 letter)
John Wanamaker New York, 1934 (1 letter)
Wehle, Harry B., (See The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Weichsel, John, The People's Guild, 1915 (1 letter)
Whitney Museum of American Art (pre-1930: Whitney Studio Club), 1927-1950, undated (16 letters)
Woodstock Artists Association, 1977 (1 letter)
Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project, 1935-1936 (2 letters)
Wright, Willard Huntington, (See The Forum Exhibition Committee)
Yiddisher Kultur Farband, 1951 (1 letter)
Zorach, William, 1916 (1 letter)
Notable Correspondents from Series 2.3: Velida Benn Correspondence, 1906-1963
Art Foundation, The, 1943 (Page proof of advertisement for Art News)
Hitchings, Elisabeth J., College Art Association 1935 (1 letter)
Kelly, Anne, (See Mrs. John D. Rockefeller)
Klitgaard, Kaj, undated (1 note)
LeCompte, Irene, 1951-1953, (2 letters)
LeCompte, Rowan and Robert Lewis, 1949 (1 letter)
Mora, Luis F., 1911 (1 letter in Spanish)
Nadelman, Viola, 1942 (1 letter)
Osma, Julio, 1923-1924 (4 letters: 2 letters in Spanish)
Rockefeller, Mrs. John D., 1931 (1 letter)
Rollins, Lloyd, 1944 (2 postcards)
Salpeter, Betty and Harry, 1956 (1 letter)
Salpeter, Harry, 1960 (1 postcard)
Sanger, William, 1915 (1 letter)
Stella, Joseph, 1918 (1 letter)
Stieglitz, Alfred, 1925 (1 letter)
Weber, Max, 1918 (1 letter)
Weischel, Mr. and Mrs., 1915 (1 postcard)
Zorach, Marguerite, 1915-1916 (2 letters)
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
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:
Ben Benn papers, 1905-1993. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.