The Smithsonian Institution

The Oral History ProgramAuthor(s): Paul CummingsSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1976), pp. 21-22Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1556893 .

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The Curator's

Report Arthur Breton

During the period April through June 1976, papers or microfilms of the follow- ing persons or organizations were re- ceived in the Washington office of the Archives. This list includes both gifts and loans. Edwina Albright Elise Asher Joseph Baird John Barber Norman Barr Arabella Chandler McClintock Bellamy Mrs. James H. Beal Dorothy Block Micahel Brenner Nick Brigante William T. Brown Charles Burchfield Arthur Carles C. K. Chatterton Thomas Casilear Cole Committee for Fair Representation in

Art Exhibitions Bruce Conner Joseph Cornell Francis J. Costa Arthur Wesley Dow Lily Ente Ralph Fabri Federation of Modem Painters and

Sculptors Mark Freeman Ken Friedman Martin Friedman Eugenie Gershoy Lena Gurr May Heiloms Charles B. Hosmer Robert B. Howard Robert Bruce Inverarity Robert Isaacson Katharine Livingston Bayard Johnson

family Philip Kappel Henry Keller Greta Kempton Maurice Kish Leon Kroll Herb Kruckman Renee Lahm Edward Landon Harold M. LeRoy Samuel Lev-Landau Longacre family Will H. Low Louis Lozowick Lilian MacKendrick Moissaye Marans Francis Davis Millet Henry Mosler Charles Austin Needham Lee Nordness

William Paxton Carl E. Pickhardt, Jr. Tina Prentiss Walter Quirt Edward Willis Redfield Frederick F. Reinert Bernard Rosenquit Martin Rosenthal Concetta Scaravaglione Victor Schreckengost Vickery, Atkins, & Torrey, Inc. Samuel Wagstaff Robert A. Weinman Harry Wickey Charlotte Willard Sara Winston Emerson Woelffer

During the period April through June 1976, microfilms of papers of the fol- lowing persons or organizations were distributed to all branch offices of the Archives. Herbert Barnett Charles Baskerville Mrs. James H. Beal Arabella Chandler McClintock Bellamy Boston Museum of Fine Arts Charles H. Caffin Arthur Carles Joseph Cornell Arthur Wesley Dow Katharine Livingston Bayard Johnson

family Elizabeth Kom Lucien Labaudt Art Gallery Macbeth Gallery Francis Davis Millet Francis V. O'Connor Walter Quirt Benjamin Rowland Vickery, Atkins, & Torrey, Inc. Julian Alden Weir Joseph Weichsel John Whorf Harry Wickey Emerson Woelffer

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HP A constant, steady turmoil. In this period did many of those who were experiment- ing in the abstract way change their style to become social realists or more representational? BD Very few. Getting the sort of murals that we did for them it wasn't necessary be- cause in one sense the more abstract they became the farther removed they became from criticism because then we could just say "it is decoration." So in that sense I didn't find occasion to have any- body temper what they did except in the case of Gorky, when we first wanted to do one of the first places. One of the first jobs we got was where I could not go out and ask for a wall at the time. This was prior to the housing development, prior to WNYC, but it seemed that an airport was a very contemporary activity and a place that could stand a good contempo- rary painter's work. But even then I did temper, in that case, by having Wyatt Davis, Stuart Davis' brother, photograph planes and parts and so on, and then hav- ing them blown up, and then Gorky co- ordinating them into a design. It cer- tainly had a good deal of formal value, but at the same time it had enough of the objects-particularly, you know, recog- nizable, discussible by people concerned with aviation and so on. There wasn't too much of a debate on it before we pre- sented it to the mayor for his approval because Floyd Bennett Airport was his baby. We felt we really-the Commis- sioner of Docks had approved it, every- body had approved it all along the line, but then we went to see [Mayor] La- Guardia at the opening of the First Fed- eral Art Gallery in New York City. It was on 39th Street. He came in with a group of his commissioners. It was all very impressive. He stood in front of Gorky's mural sketches and said, "Well, this is Tammany Hall politicians." So the Commissioner of Docks called me the next day and he said "You heard him?" I said, "I did." He said, "Well, you know what that means." I said, "Yes, the project is dead, because of LaGuardia's baby."

Then we picked up the pieces, keep- ing the same theme, discarding the idea of using the photographs at all, but hav- ing Gorky utilize the motif, because at the time this was not alien to what he would be interested in doing. He never was completely a nonobjective painter, although he got really interested in this. Then we made preparations hoping to get a mural at Newark Airport, and it was accepted there, in spite of LaGuardia, and we put it up in a more forward-look- ing environment, in Newark, next to that old reactionary situation in New York City.

The Oral

History Program Paul Cummings

The year's second quarter began with a short interview with Lydia Winston Malbin about her activities with the De- troit Artists' Market to be used on a Detroit television program marking the anniversary of that organization. This was followed by a day spent with Betty Benton, sister of Joseph Comell. The conversation focused on family history,

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Benton's studies with Edward Hopper, the influence the various towns in which the family lived had on her brother's work, and a discussion of several of Comell's friends whom she had come to know. The interview provides some in- sight into the close family life that served as a stimulus for the development of Comell's work.

If not the first then certainly among the first to receive a Ph.D. in American art history was Milton Brown. Currently executive officer of the Graduate Cen- ter at CUNY, he was the subject of a series of interviews begun this spring. A graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts, Brown studied with the emigrant Euro- peans, who, knowing nothing of Ameri- can art and culture were thus incapable of supporting or studying it. Brown de- scribes his self-motivated research for and the writing of his dissertation, American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression, which was be- gun before World War II and published in 1955. With considerable candor he dis- cusses attitudes toward American art in the academic world of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, and offers grateful acknowledgement of the encouragement and understanding of Paul J. Sachs, Wal- ter W. S. Cook, Walter Friedlaender, and Robert J. Goldwater. Brown's commen- tary on World War II art-related activities and his years of teaching at Brooklyn College culminates with a discussion of the organization of the art history de- partment at the Graduate Center.

Stylish design has always been of great interest at the Museum of Modem Art, and an interview with Mildred Constan- tine describes some of the people and their concepts of this subject. Her ac- count of staff changes, exhibition organi- zation, and the development of collec- tions and acquisitions reflects the attitudes of the Museum over several years.

A special interview was conducted with Charles Biederman at his studio in Red Wing, Minnesota, under a grant from the Matilda Wilson Foundation. During several days and many hours of taping, he discussed his development of structuralism, the writing of several books, their reception in America and Europe, and the development of his own art.

In early summer Bemrnard Reis was in- terviewed. Accountant and financial ad- visor to many New York art dealers, he is also a friend of many artists including Mark Rothko. An art and book collector, Reis has been a prominent figure in the art world since the 1920s. His comments on the financial side of the art business present views on an interesting but often unspoken of influence.

Two interviews were held in mid- summer in Paris. Dorothea Speyer, for

fifteen years director of the USIS gallery in Paris and now an art dealer there, talks about the post-World War II GIs who studied in Paris, their exhibitions at the USIS gallery, the organization of their own galleries, and their part in the Paris art scene. The interview relates the beginnings of the now substantial in- fluence of American art in Europe. Sev- eral of the exhibitions Speyer sponsored were held at the Musee d'Art Modeme, Paris. John Franklin Koenig, a painter from Seattle, has resided in Paris since the late 1940s. His association with both Gallery Arnaud and Cimaise magazine, and his wide acquaintance with the offi- cial French art world suggest a well de- served recognition of his talent, as well as an ability to assimilate a new culture.

Regional Office

Reports

Boston

Robert Brown

A small but important addition to the papers of John Robinson Frazier, painter and long-time instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design and its president from 1955 to 1962, was received during the second quarter of 1976. Frazier's abil- ity to bridge the controversies of the 1930s and 1940s between traditionalists and modemists without compromising his own principles led to his being se- lected for successively more important administrative tasks and, finally, to his appointment as president of the school. Two manuscripts included in this dona- tion, "Painting as a Fine Art" and "Pic- torial Composition," indicate his en- compassing view and judicious approach in the practice of art.

An unpublished biographical essay of Francis Davis Millet, a prominent painter and muralist and a leading mem- ber of govemmental art commissions, some of which include the World's Co- lumbian Exhibition, the Fine Arts Com- mission for Washington, and the Ameri- can Academy in Rome, was microfilmed earlier this year. Written by his name- sake and grandson, the essay comple- ments the voluminous research notes and family papers given earlier by Mil- let's son and is especially valuable in its use of interviews with contemporaries of Millet.

The fame of Katherine Liningston Bayard Johnson, a contemporary artist

who, like Millet, resided in Europe dur- ing most of her career, never grew beyond favorable reviews of her paintings shown at provincial exhibitions in France. Her letters home, however, beginning in the 1870s, are significant for their detailed comments on people and events, which pertain mostly to the American art com- munity in Paris.

Philip Kappel, etcher and author, has given the Archives a sizeable group of letters, manuscripts, and other written material spanning his entire professional life. Kappel acquired an early reputation among print connoisseurs for his etch- ings of nautical themes. John Marquand, with whom he collaborated as illustrator, John Taylor Arms, and A. Hyatt Mayor are among his correspondents.

In 1971 the Archives microfilmed the extensive exhibition records of Bos- ton's Institute of Contemporary Art, one of the country's oldest modem art muse- ums. This year the records of the meet- ings of ICA's Trustees have been loaned for filming. The minutes and memo- randa, dating from the founding of the museum in 1936 and continuing through 1965, trace the development of the op- erational philosophy of an organization that, though often threatened by serious financial difficulties, frequently man- aged to make important contributions both nationally and regionally. These documents are available to researchers only by special arrangement.

Detroit

Dennis Barrie

Of the many collections acquired during 1976, the Edwin C. Shaw Papers are, per- haps, the most fascinating. In 1910, Shaw, founder of the Akron Art Institute and its second president, began to collect paintings of contemporary American art- ists. For the most part he chose the works of individuals well established in the American art world of the early 20th century, such as Chase, Daingerfield, and Frieseke, and occasionally those of American Impressionists such as Has- sam and Twachtman. Shaw's purchases, while not very experimental, were often the solid works by major names of the period.

Shaw liked to thoroughly research both the paintings he purchased and the artists who painted them. Interested, of course, in establishing the authenticity of the works, he wanted also to know about the artists, what they looked like and what they were trying to express. He corresponded with the painters repre-

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