Artists' letters and documents collected by Zalesch and letters written to him in response to inquiries concnering autographs and biographical information.
REEL 3097: Twenty-six letters (1845-1973) written by George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Frederick Stuart Church, Thomas Doughty, Ernest Fenollosa, Ben Foster, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, John La Farge, Homer Dodge Martin, Joseph Pennell, Edward Willis Redfield, John Rogers, John Singer Sargent, Richard Stankiewicz, Thomas Sully, and Elihu Vedder. Also included are a Harvard University bond for William Wetmore Story's tuition signed by Franklin H. Story (1834) and a biographical questionnaire completed by John La Farge for The Cyclopedia of American Biography (1925).
UNMICROFILMED: Letters written by Roy Lichtenstein, William Gropper, Gluyas Williams, Ordway Partridge, Frederick Burr Opper, James Wells Champney, C. Gray Parker, Ben Foster, Louis Betts, Cyrus Le Roy Baldridge, Richard Lippold, Romare Bearden, Isabel Bishop, Thomas Hart Benton, Richard Stankiewicz, and others; a brochure for a work of art by Robert Indiana; a certificate from The Brooklyn Art Association for one share of capital stock in the name of William Potter Lage; one page of correspondence documenting a decision made for the Society of American Artists containing a note from Francis D. Millet to J. Alden Weir, followed by a note from Weir to Frederic Church, signed "O.K." by Church.
Vol. XXVI, no. 5, Feb. 1924 periodical, Old Hughes, published by the students of Hughes High school in Cincinnati, Ohio containing a published exchange of letters between principal C. M. Merry and Josephine W. Duveneck, daughter-in-law of painter Frank Duveneck about the Hughes High School purchasing a painting by Duveneck, and a reminiscence of Duveneck by William P. Teal, head of the art department at Hughes High School.
Biographical / Historical:
Saul Zalesch, an art historian, began collecting artists' letters around 1981.
Provenance:
This collection of letters was lent for microfilming by Zalesch in 1984 (reel 3097). Zalesch donated an additional three letters in 1993, twenty-five in 1999, one letter in 2008, and a publication in 2009.
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.
0.01 Linear feet (ca. 900 items (on 3 micofilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1842-1969
Scope and Contents:
Printed material and letters to Evans from collectors, dealers, and artists. Letters discuss business matters including the Munich International Art Exposition 1883, the American Watercolor Society, the Salmagundi Club, the Lotos Club, and Evans loaning work from his private collection for exhibitions, requests from artists wanting Evans to comment on and handle their work, thank you notes and invitations to openings and dinners. Significant correspondents include George Inness, Childe Hassam, Thomas W. Dewing, Worthington Whittredge, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Frederic Edwin Church, Joseph Pennell, Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, Rembrandt Peale, Hobart Nichols, John George Brown, William A. Coffin and Eastman Johnson.
Biographical / Historical:
Art patron and collector. Born in Ireland, he came to the United States as a child. He gave collections of paintings to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Montclair Museum.
Provenance:
Letters on reels 4054-4055 were lent to the Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture, National Collection of Fine Arts in 1970 by Robert Price who acquired them along with paintings from Evans' estate and elsewhere. They were photocopied and the copies were given to the NCFA-PG Librarian, who transferred them to the Archives of American Art in 1979. In 1988 the copies were microfilmed by the Archives and discarded. The original letter on reel 2804 was transfered from NMAA, 1981.
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.
5 Microfilm reels (800 items on 5 microfilm reels)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Microfilm reels
Date:
1864-1942
Scope and Contents:
The microfilmed American Academy of Arts and Letters records consist of artists' papers containing correspondence, notes, biographical material, exhibition catalogs, and other published material. Included is a volume of notes, drawings, and calculations made by George Bellows for a study of Jay Hambidge's theory of Dynamic Symmetry, as well as correspondence and biographical and critical material on George de Forest Brush, Childe Hassam, Francis D. Millet, Joseph Pennell, Elihu Vedder, and J. Q. A. Ward. The Hassam papers include letters from John Taylor arms, E. H. Blashfield, William Merritt Chase, Royal Cortissoz, J. Alden Weir, and Charles Erskine Scott Wood. All groups contain official Academy correspondence from its secretary Robert Underwood Johnson.
Lent to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in 1965. This is a collection of miscellaneous papers representing a gathering over the years of unsolicited documentary resources on American art given or addressed to the Academy.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Function:
Arts organizations -- New York (State)
Learned institutions and societies -- United States
Correspondence, printed material, writings, and other personal papers collected by Carl Zigrosser and Leila Mechlin and later added to by others, all relating to American art.
REELS P10-P11 and P14: Letters to Leila Mechlin, Henry Schnakenberg and Hudson Walker. Correspondents include Robert Abbe, John Taylor Arms, Cecelia Beaux, Paul Bartlett, Gifford Beal, Paul Cadmus, Charles Curran, Royal Cortissoz, Kenyon Cox, Philip Evergood, John David Graham, Reginald Marsh, Joseph Pennell, John Sloan and many others. Some letters include printed material and photographs. Mechlin material includes writings, photographs and letters from Mary Augusta Mullikin describing her life and travels in China, 1933. Also included are letters from Adolph Dehn and Jose de Creeft to Juliana Force; from Ernest Haskell and Kenneth Hayes Miller to Carl Zigrosser; miscellaneous letters from Marc Chagall, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Louis Eilshemius and Childe Hassam; an autobiography of William Sartain; and material on Thomas Eakins, including letters, a list of expenses, 1867, and motion study material,including writings, sketches and photographs taken with a camera invented by Eakins.
REEL 4547: Charles Burchfield letters; Susan and Thomas Eakins material; Jacques Lipchitz correspondence; Henry McCarter letters; and Carl Zigrosser correspondence. The Burchfield letters consist of 41 items, 1929-1947, from Burchfield regarding exhibitions, sales, and his paintings. The Eakins material includes letters from Susan Eakins to the Milch Galleries, 1933-1935, regarding the sale of Thomas Eakins' work, receipts from the Milch Galleries, Thomas' expense book, ca. 1866, for daily living in Paris and Switzerland and an autographed account of expenses while at school in Paris, April 12, 1867, a photograph of Susan Eakins by Carl van Vechten, a photograph of Eakins, and 71 engraved portraits from the collection of Thomas Eakins.
The Lipchitz correspondence is with R. Sturgis Ingersoll regarding Lipchitz's commission for the sculpture "Prometheus." Also included are 8 letters from Curt Valentin to Ingersoll regarding Lipchitz. The McCarter material includes 66 letters, 1933-1942, some containing sketches, from McCarter to Mrs. George B. Roberts regarding paintings, frames, exhibitions, and offering painting advice. The Zigrosser correspondence is regarding the purchase of prints from the regional projects of the WPA for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and later included in the exhibition "Between Two Wars" at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Included are invoices and inventories of the prints from the various offices.
Provenance:
Material on reels P10-P11 and P14 lent for microfilming, 1954, by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Additional material on reel 4547 was microfilmed in 1991 as part of AAA's Philadelphia Arts Documentation Project. The idea for the archives originated with Carl Zigrosser, who donated material, solicited it from others (mainly Henry Schnakenberg, Leila Mechlin and Hudson Walker), or pulled it from the files of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Museum continues to add to the collection. It is not connected to the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
Papers relating to Gallatin's art collection, the Museum of Living Art, and other museums and activities.
REELS 507-508: Mainly correspondence. Letters pertain to the Museum of Living Art at New York University; Gallatin's work on the New York Mayor's Committee on National Defense, including many letters from artists regarding war work, 1918-1919; research for bibliographies; family matters; and business affairs. Correspondents include: Oscar Bluemner, Alexander Calder, Warrington Dawson, Robert Delaunay, Charles Demuth, Charles Freer, Walter Gay, William Glackens, Julio Gonzalez, Childe Hassam, Henry McBride, C. R. W. Nevinson, Ben Nicholson, Maxfield Parrish, Joseph & Elizabeth Pennell, Leonce Rosenberg, William Rothenstein, Allan Wade and Elizabeth Wharton.
The Bluemner material includes four letters, a sketch, and a note from Oscar Bluemner to Gallatin. Bluemner writes about the 1932 Whitney Museum show, French and American painters, architecture, and painting.
REEL 1293: 3 scrapbooks which include official press releases and clippings of artists about the opening of the Gallery of Living Art at NYU, and its subsequent acquisitions, exhibitions, change of name to Museum of Living Art, and discontinuance of the Museum and transfer to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Also included are reproductions of some of the works found in the collection, reproductions of photos taken by Gallatin of artists whose works are in this collection, a 1935 Gallery of Living Art Bulletin, and clippings and a portion of the Catalog of the Gallery of Living Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector; New York, N.Y. Gallatin formed one of America's earliest modern art collections, and displayed it as Gallery of Living Art (later Museum of Living Art) at NYU from 1907-1943, when he moved it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gallatin was also a painter.
Provenance:
Material on reels 507-508 lent for microfilming in 1973; reel 1293 lent by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Transcripts and handwritten drafts of interviews of 86 artists and architects associated with the National Academy of Design, conducted by Lockman. Also included are a few biographical sketches.
Interviewees include: Mrs. Edwin Austin Abbey, Wayman Adams, Robert I. Aiken, Ernest Albert, Alonzo R. Beal, Edward A. Bell, Edwin H. Blashfield, Roy H. Brown, George E. Browne, Arnold Brunner, Alexander S. Calder, Carleton T. Chapman, Benjamin West Clinedinst, Alphaeus Cole, Timothy Cole, Irving E. Couse, Robert B. Crane, Charles C. Curran, B. Franklin De Haven, William R. Derrick, Louis P. Dessar, Thomas W. Dewing, Frederick I. Dielman, Edward Dufner, John W. Dunsmore, Jared B. Flagg, John G. Flanagan, August R. Franzen, Daniel C. French, Sherry E. Fry, Edward Gay, Cass Gilbert, Walter Granville-Smith, Chester Harding, Childe Hassam, Charles W. Hawthorne, William H. Howe, Henry S. Hubbell, William H. Hyde, William S. Jewett, Francis C. Jones, Dora Wheeler Kieth, William Fair Kline, Jonas Lie, Louis Loeb, Will H. Low, Edward McCartan, Frederick MacMonnies, Herman A. MacNeil, Gari Melchers, Francis Luis Mora, H. Siddons Mowbray, Raymond P. R. Neilson, George G. Newell,Robert H. Nisbet,
Ivan G. Olinsky, Willard Dryden Paddock, Walter L. Palmer, Arthur Parton, William McGregor Paxton, Ernest C. Peixotto, Joseph Pennell, Edward H. Potthast, Henry Prellwitz, Wilhelm F. Ritschel, Henry Rittenberg, Frederick Roth, Carl Rungius, Emily Sartain, John Sartain, William Sartain, Henry B. Snell, Robert Spencer, Egerton Swartwout, Douglas Volk, Bessie & Robert Vonnoh, Horatio Walker, Harry Watrous, Adolph Weinman, Charles D. Weldon, William Whittemore, Irving Wiles, Frederick B. Williams, and Cullen Yates.
Biographical / Historical:
DeWitt Lockman was a portrait painter, New York, N.Y. He studied in Europe, 1891-1892 and 1901-1902; a pupil of James H. Beard, Nelson N. Bickford and William Sartain; and was president of the National Academy of Design and records secretary of the New York Historical Society.
Provenance:
Lent 1973 by the New York Historical Society.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Artists -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Architects -- United States -- Interviews Search this
