the oral history program

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The Smithsonian Institution The Oral History Program Author(s): Paul Cummings Source: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1977), pp. 16-17 Published by: The Smithsonian Institution Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557445 . Accessed: 13/06/2014 20:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Smithsonian Institution is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Archives of American Art Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:56:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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The Smithsonian Institution

The Oral History ProgramAuthor(s): Paul CummingsSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1977), pp. 16-17Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557445 .

Accessed: 13/06/2014 20:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Smithsonian Institution is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Archives ofAmerican Art Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:56:46 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

16

Bulletins

From April 3 to April 6, 1978, the Royal Microscopical Society will hold a series of meetings pertaining to microscopy in art and archaeology. Dorothy Catling, as- sisted by Joyce Plesters of the National Gallery, London, is in charge of the pro- gram. Among the scholars scheduled to speak are: Dr. Hermann Kuhn, Deutsches Museum, Munich: Microscopy as an Aid for the Detection of Forgeries in Art; Dr. Lorenzo Lazzarini, Le Gallerie per le Opere d'Arte, Venice: 1) The Application of Microscopical Methods to Stone Con- servation; 2) Microscopical Examination of Ancient Ceramics; Dr. R. F. Tylecote, Newcastle University; Dr. J. A. Charles, Cambridge University; Dr. J. A. Swift, Unilever Research Laboratory; W. A. Oddy, the British Museum, London.

For further information please con- tact Miss D. M. Catling, Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory, 109 Lambeth Road, London, SE1 7LP. Regis- tration forms and reservations may be obtained from The Administrator, Royal Microscopical Society, 37/38, St Clem- ents, Oxford.

The Curator's

Report Arthur Breton

During the period October through De- cember 1977, papers or microfilms of the following persons or organizations were received in the Washington office of the Archives. This list includes both gifts and loans. Lee Adler William Allen William G. Anthony Architectural League of New York Burt Barnes Donald Bear Max Beckmann Leonid Berman Ethelwyn Bradish Mary Bradish Call Victor Candell Richard Dane Chanase Robert W. Chanler Michael Church Thomas Casilear Cole Joseph Cornell Allyn Cox Alfred D. Crimi Doll and Richards Gallery Dorothy Dehner Francis William Edmonds F. A. R. Gallery

Lorser Feitelson Kenneth Friedman Gladys Gazarian Eugenie Gershoy Arthur Getz Deborah Goldsmith Aaron Goodelman Chaim Gross Eric Gugler Dorothy Heller Herman Herzog Aldro T. Hibbard Charles Hoffbauer William M. Ivins C. Paul Jennewein Ethel Katz Robert D. Kaufmann Helen Keen Louis Keila Karl Knaths Katharine Kuh Lucy Lippard Richard Lippold Helen Lundeberg Russell Lynes Mary Fuller McChesney Lilian MacKendrick Peppino Mangravite Phyllis Mark Jeanne Miles William Milliken Leah Nolan Elizabeth Olds Fairfield Porter Tina Prentiss Josef Presser San Francisco Art Institute Laurence Schmeckebier Ben Shahn Aaron Siskind Skowhegan School of Painting and

Sculpture Joseph Lindon Smith Eloise Spaeth Austa Densmore Sturdevant Frederick A. Sweet Allen Townsend Terrell Curt Valentin Hanny VanderVelde Waddell Gallery Herman C. Wechsler Wesley Wehr Harold Weston Charlotte Willard Howard Willard

During the period October through De- cember 1977, microfilms of papers of the following persons or organizations were distributed to all branch offices of the Archives.

Jozef G. Bakos Lucile Blanch Herman Cherry Henri de Kruif Arthur Wesley Dow Henry Famy Ferargil Gallery Howard M. Gibbs, Jr. Henry and Frances Boott Greenough

Horatio Greenough Frederick Garrison Hall Wilson Irvine Irving & Casson; A. H. Davenport Co.;

Dotendunton Desk Co. Gaston Lachaise Isabelle N. Lachaise Ellen Lanyon Stanton Macdonald-Wright Oxbow Summer School of Painting Abbott Pattison Charles Rosen William T. Smedley Marie Sterner Irma Whitney Frank Wilcox Womanspace Beatrice Wood Charles H. Woodbury WPA Historical Records Survey.

American Portraits Survey-New England

The Oral History Program Paul Cummings The final quarter of 1977 drew to a close with the conclusion of the Porter Mc- Cray interview and the start of several new interviews with a critic, a histor- ian, and three artists. McCray ends his discussion with comments on the JDR 3rd Fund and the effects of his travels on his cultural awareness. His social and cultural knowledge provided the back- ground for the development of his ex- traordinary career as an executive.

Three painters, Edward Giobbi, Buf- fie Johnson, and Wolf Kahn, began being interviewed this quarter. Giobbi, who chose to study abroad, spent many years in Italy. The influences on him during that period differ greatly from those exerted on artists who visited Paris or remained in New York during the 1950s. Buffie Johnson, for many years asso- ciated with modemrnistic tendencies, re- cently returned to figurative painting. The literary and social influences of her life are as provocative as those of the vis- ual arts. The years she spent in Paris prior to World War II and the hectic period in New York during the war from which emerged the abstract expres- sionists are subtly portrayed. Directly affected by the events of World War II, Wolf Kahn tells of growing up in the Germany of the 1930s, his escape to Eng- land, and his eventual arrival in the United States. His interest in art was unopposed by his music-loving family, and he studied in several schools includ- ing Hans Hofmann's, where he was a monitor.

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A curator become writer and edi- tor, Marshall B. Davidson recounts a fascinating history of the 1930s and early 1940s at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The effect of the war on that institution is crisply detailed as are his verbal portraits of the museum's more illustrious individuals. Because there were so few scholars, collectors, dealers, and exhibitions pertaining to American decorative arts in those days, Davidson's interest in that field devel- oped slowly. This interview is an ex- ample of how little we, as a nation, are aware of the rich variety of our cultural heritage.

A writer of a different background, Nicholas Calas, surrealist, critic, teach- er, provocateur, began, in his words, "as a member of what could be called the Blue Train set, the precursor of the jet set." Shuttling between Greece and Paris during the 1930s Calas soon became known as a talented poet, a youthful fig- ure among the surrealists, and a socio- political activist involved in radical un- derground activity. Though trained in law, he chose to pursue a literary career and has published a considerable body of work. The critical points he makes are frequently at odds with other schools of thought, but they retain a vitality the others often lack. These five interviews continue.

Regional Office

Reports

Boston

Robert F. Brown

The dying craft of designing traditional stained glass is now represented in the Archives by the personal papers of the three principal 20th-century designers in Boston: Charles J. Connick, Wilbur H. Burnham, and Joseph G. Reynolds. Re- cent additions to the papers of Burham and Reynolds include photographs of Burnham at work in his studio and a massive group of watercolor designs and cartoons by Reynolds. Reynolds' class- room notes, studies from nature and de- signs for wallpaper and other decorative work, executed while a student at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1905 to 1908, are also included in this latest gift.

Paolo Abbate was a monument and portrait sculptor popular in New York through the 1920s. Thereafter he re- sumed an earlier career as a Protestant minister to Italian-Americans, simul-

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Joseph G. Reynolds, Common Mullein. c. 1905-1908, black-and-white ink on paper (11 x 15 in.). Joseph G. Reynolds Papers, Ar- chives of American Art.

taneously devoting a great deal of time to a quixotic attempt to create an artis- tic center at his hilltop farm near Tor- rington, Connecticut. A portion of the papers lent by his heirs consist of vol- uminous writings that argue for a blend- ing of art, religion, and nature into a har- monious whole.

Perry T. Rathbone has begun to do- nate the records of his career as a mu- seum director and art consultant. Per- sonal correspondence, extensive research notes, and his correspondence (1942- 1954) with art dealer Curt Valentin com- prise the major portion of this gift.

An exhibition documenting the de- velopment of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the microfilming of the rec- ords of the Archives' Boston office opened at the museum in November for two months. "'The Second Greatest Show on Earth': The Making of a Mu- seum," organized by Archives staff members Joyce Tyler and Robert Brown, juxtaposed works of art representing milestones in the growth of the museum with pertinent documents. The exhibi- tion was the most elaborate of several undertaken in conjunction with regional institutions. Through the efforts and re- search of our New England Committee Chairman, Frederic A. Sharf, a compre- hensive exhibition of the American im- pressionist painter John W. Mansfield, whose papers we acquired in 1976, was mounted at the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. Another exhibit, dis- playing photographs of American artists, was held at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut, during Oc- tober and November.

Talks on the Archives were given during both exhibitions by the area di-

17

rector. The New England Committee, working with Joyce Tyler, presented a lecture series from October through De- cember with topics ranging from late 19th-century American art to the pres- ent. The speakers were Richard J. Boyle, James Thomas Flexner, Dore Ashton, Milton W. Brown, Walter Darby Bannard, and Barbara Rose.

Detroit

Denmis Bame

The Midwest center is now actively col- lecting in eight Midwestern states. Late in 1977 the center began for the first time to gather documentation from art- ists and art institutions in Iowa. visits were made to Iowa City and Cedar Rap- ids, the region of the state most closely associated historically and at present with some of the Midwest's most signif- icant art movements.

Iowa in the 1930s saw the develop- ment of a strong regionalist school un- der the leadership of Grant Wood. Work- ing closely with him was the Cedar Rapids painter Marvin Cone, a lifelong friend of Wood's, whose papers came to the Archives in December. In 1920, Wood made his first painting trip abroad with Cone, who later served on the staff of the short-lived Stone City Colony and Art School, founded by Wood in 1932. Cone, a member of the faculty at Coe College for more than thirty years and one of the Midwest's most influential art teachers, exhibited at the Walker Art Center, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Biennial, and the Carnegie Intemational, among others.

Much of the information in the Cone papers is concerned with Cone's association with both Wood and Ed Rowan, who operated the experimental Little Gallery of Cedar Rapids in the late 1920s. Of particular interest is a play titled Strings, written by Cone and Wood while they were students at Washington High School, Cedar Rapids, 1908-1910.

Ulfert Wilke figures prominently in the current art history of Iowa. For sev- en years ending in 1975, Wilke was di- rector of the University of Iowa Museum of Art; he continues to live and work in Iowa. Among his friends are many lead- ing 20th-century American artists, and his papers, which have been loaned to the Archives for filming, include letters from Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Mark Tobey, and George Rickey, to name but a few. Wilke's correspondence, 1960-1976, with sculptor George Rickey discusses at length such topics as up- coming exhibitions, dealers, Rickey's

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