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.
Records of four of Nathan Halper's Provincetown galleries measure 4.2 linear feet and date from 1952-1979. The records relate to Kootz Gallery, H-C Gallery, HCE Gallery, and Sun Gallery - all based in Provincetown. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence with artists, estate executors, collectors, galleries, and museums. There are also scattered business and financial records documenting operations and sales, photographs and slides, printed materials, and one poem. Correspondents include Milton Avery, Anthony Caro, John Murray Cuddihy, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hofmann, Samuel Kootz, Robert Motherwell, David Smith, Richard Stankeiwicz, and many others.
Scope and Contents note:
Records of four of Nathan Halper's Provincetown galleries measure 4.2 linear feet and date from 1952-1979. The records relate to Kootz Gallery, H-C Gallery, HCE Gallery, and Sun Gallery - all based in Provincetown. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence with artists, estate executors, collectors, galleries, and museums. There are also scattered business and financial records documenting operations and sales, photographs and slides, printed materials, and one poem. Correspondents include Milton Avery, Anthony Caro, John Murray Cuddihy, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hofmann, Samuel Kootz, Robert Motherwell, David Smith, Richard Stankeiwicz, and many others.
Biographical material consists of one literary poem.
The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence with many artists, estate executors, gallery partners, collectors, galleries, and museums regarding works of art, sales, account balances, requests for information, and general updates.
Scattered business records are found for all four galleries and include a Kootz Gallery guest register, address books, corporation and partnership agreements for the Kootz, H-C, HCE, and Sun galleries, insurance policies, and a Kootz Gallery employee file. Both the guest register and address books were also used as general business related notebooks.
Financial material consists of inventory stock books, price lists and sales, checkbook registers, and general expense invoices/receipts for the four galleries. The undated stock books list artists' names, general artwork identification information, and prices. Additional sales information is found in price lists, correspondence, sales notebooks, and checkbook registers. Invoices and receipts also document general operating expenses.
Printed material includes newspaper clippings on the Provincetown art scene and major artists represented by Halper, three exhibition catalogs, and an event calendar from the National Association of Women Artists.
Photographic material consists of prints and slides of the Kootz, H-C, and HCE galleries; black and white and color prints of exhibitions by Harry Botkin, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, and Hans Hofmann; and black and white prints, color slides, and transparencies of select works of art shown at the galleries.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged as 6 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1953-1970 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1952-1979 (Boxes 1-2; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1953-1970 (Box 2; .7 linear feet)
Series 4: Financial Material, 1953-1970 (Boxes 3-4; 2 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1952-1976 (Box 5; 3 folders)
Series 6: Photographic Material, 1953-1969 (Box 5; 11 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
Nathan Halper (1907-1983) worked in Provincetown, Massachusetts as a contemporary American art dealer, writer, and James Joyce scholar.
Nathan Halper first moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1936 where he met and eventually married his wife, Helen Marjorie Windust Halper. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, their circle of friends included artists, writers, and academics drawn to the Provincetown art colony. Through friendships with Adolph Gottlieb and Fritz Bultman, Halper was introduced to Hans Hofmann, his students, and other abstract expressionist artists.
In 1949, Halper was invited to give a talk on James Joyce at Forum 49, a Provincetown summer lecture series on the future of art organized by Weldon Kees and held in a gallery at 200 Commercial Street. Speakers ranged from Jackson Pollock to poet laureate Howard Nemerov, and the series also presented one of the first major exhibitions of abstract expressionism in America. In 1952, Halper became the treasurer of the Provincetown Art Association (est. 1914), an influential social nexus that connected artists, galleries, patrons, and the public through memberships and annual events.
In 1953, he entered into a partnership with New York art dealer Sam Kootz and helped establish the Kootz Gallery in Provincetown. Their stable initially consisted of abstract expressionists Kootz represented in New York: Robert Motherwell, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Fritz Bultman, and William Baziotes. Halper and Kootz mutually agreed to dissolve their partnership in 1954 and Halper opened the H-C Gallery with John Murray Cuddihy in 1955. After Cuddihy's departure at the end of the 1956 season, Halper opened the HCE Gallery (1957-1967), a name inspired by Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. In 1962, Halper entered into a one year partnership with Noah Goldowsky to help finance and run the Sun Gallery.
After the dissolution of the Kootz Gallery, Halper continued to represent Motherwell and, for a short time, Gottlieb in the Provincetown area, but quickly added other artists to the HCE stable. Through its relationship with New York dealers, such as Martha Jackson Gallery, Andre Emmerich Gallery, and Waddington Galleries, HCE was able to exhibit and sell works by Milton Avery, Gandy Brodie, Anthony Caro, Edwin Dickinson, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hoffman, Wolf Kahn, William King, Jan Muller, Elie Nadelman, David Smith, Richard Stankiewicz, Tal Streeter, and Anthony Vevers, among others.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the Kootz Gallery records and oral history interviews with Nathan Halper conducted by Dorothy Seckler, July 17, 1963 and by Robert Brown, July 8-August 14, 1980. Columbia University also holds Nathan Halper's papers concerning his literary scholarly work.
Provenance:
The Nathan Halper business records were donated by Nathan Halper in 1979. Additional materials were donated in 1983 and 1984 by his wife Helen Marjorie Windust Halper.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Use of original material requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact References Services for more information.
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:
Edgar P. Richardson papers, 1814-1996, bulk 1921-1996. 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 papers of curator, art historian, and author Judith Zilczer measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1910-1995, with the bulk of material dated 1973-1995. The papers contain project files and related correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, photographs, and printed material documenting her research as an independent art historian.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of curator, art historian, and author Judith Zilczer measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1910-1995, with the bulk of material dated 1973-1995. The papers contain project files and related correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, photographs, and printed material documenting her research as an independent art historian.
This collection documents the correspondence and research of Judith Zilczer pertaining to her doctoral dissertation, The Aftermath of the Armory Show, 1913-1918, where she examines the arguments of both artists and critics over the question of abstraction in art during the early period of the twentieth century. Research files include information on Sadakichi Hartmann, Thomas H. Benton, Manierre Dawson, Andrew Dasburg, John Quinn, Alfred Stieglitz, Michael Brenner, Robert J. Coady and Gorham Munson. Project files document Synchromism, the Forum Exhibit and the Hartley Symposium at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Richard Lindner Exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum. Written transcripts include "Robert J. Cody, Man of the Soil" and "Musical Analogy". Researchers should note that this collection does not include a copy of her doctoral thesis.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 2 series.
Series 1: Project Files, 1910-1995 (Box 1; 21 folders)
Series 2: Writings, circa 1980s (Box 1; 3 folders)
Biographical / Historical:
Judith Zilczer (1948-) was an art historian, author, and Curator Emerita of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. She organized more than two dozen exhibitions in her twenty-nine years at the museum, where she served as Historian, Curator of Paintings, and Acting Chief Curator. Her exhibition publications include Willem de Kooning from the Hirshhorn Museum Collection (1993), Richard Lindner: Paintings and Watercolors, 1948-1977 (1996), and Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900 (2005). A 1975 graduate of the doctoral program of the University of Delaware, she wrote her thesis on The Aftermath of the Armory Show 1913-1918. She has received numerous awards, including the 2006 George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award of the Art Libraries Society of North America. Dr. Zilczer has written and lectured widely on modern and contemporary art and is a leading authority on the art of Willem de Kooning.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Paul Allen Reed conducted by Judith Zilczer, April 29, 1994.
Additionally, Papers relating to art commissioned for the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1992-1998, donated by Judith Zilczer, can be found at Archives of American Art.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives in Washington, D.C. holds a large collection of Judith K. Zilczer Papers, 1975-2003.
Provenance:
Creator Judith Zilczer donated her papers to the Archives of American Art in 2014.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Independence Avenue at 8th Street, S.W Washington District of Columbia 20560 Accession Number: 72.148
