The Smithsonian Institution

The Oral History ProgramAuthor(s): Paul CummingsSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 14, No. 4 (1974), p. 13Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557128 .

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13

The Curator's

Report

Arthur Breton

During the period October through De- cember 1974, 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. Artists' Equity Lester Bridaham William T. Brown Alexander Calder Arthur B. Carles Samuel Chamberlain Cornelia Chapin College Art Association Adelaide Deming Anson Dickinson James Budd Dixon Karl Kasten Bernard M. Keyes Richard Kozlow Chet LaMore Jules Langsner Glen Michaels Lee Mullican Louise Nevelson Elliott Orr George Demont Otis Charles Sarnoff Paul Travis Bessie and Herman Wessel

During this same period microfilms of papers of the following persons or or- ganizations were distributed to all branch offices of the Archives.

Mary Ascher Edward Biberman Alexander Calder Samuel Colman Corcoran Gallery correspondence

(1860-74) Corcoran Gallery correspondence

(1906-07 exhibition) Dorothy Dehner Adelaide Deming Anson Dickinson Maynard Dixon Mollie Garfield Karl Kasten Ethel Katz Bernard M. Keyes Rembrandt Lockwood Family J. Louis Lundean Meyer Matzkin Jerome Milkman John D. Morse Charles Willson Peale Peter Pollack

Esther Rolick Barbara Swan Dorothy Varian Helen Joy Weinberg

The Oral

History Program Paul Cummings

During the last quarter of 1974, fewer than the usual number of interviews were conducted. In New York, art dealer Terry Dintenfass discussed her introduc- tion to art, how it led to her becoming a dealer, and her first gallery in Atlantic City, which she moved later to New York City. She describes her association with Edith Halpert, other dealers, many of the artists in her gallery, and the de- velopment of the art market during the 1960s. Robert Osborn, interviewed in his home in Connecticut, commented on his education, travel, and development as a painter, which both aided and hin- dered his eventual emergence as an illus- trator. Finally recognizing his innate talent as an illustrator, he overcome the conflicts presented by his former career as a painter. His association with Alex- ander Calder and other art world figures is also examined. Interviews were con- ducted in Philadelphia with Henry McIl- henny, George Culler, and Meyer Potam- kin. McIlhenny, a student of Paul J. Sachs, recalling the creation of his col- lection and his family's long affiliation with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, offers considerable insight into Philadel- phia cultural life. In contrast to what is essentially the decorative arts and Euro- pean painting collection of McIlhenny, Potamkin tells of assembling his collec- tion of American paintings and drawings, most of them dating from the early dec- ades of the twentieth century, many having specific associations with Phila- delphia. He, too, comments on his asso- ciation with the Philadelphia Museum, as well as other civic and cultural insti- tutions. Culler, former director of the Philadelphia College of Art, reviews his life as an arts administrator and educator. He studied with Thomas Munro and maintains a high regard for his teachings. Comparisons are made between the vari- ous institutions with which he was affil- iated (Cleveland Museum of Art, Akron Art Institute, San Francisco Museum of Art) and his decade at the College of Art,

where he acquired for that institution the largest corporate gift ever donated to an art school, a multimillion-dollar building in center city, Philadelphia.

In addition to the transcribed inter- views listed in Volume 14, Number 2 of the Journal, the following completes the transcripts made under a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: Carl Andre, Ward Bennett, Robert Broner, John Clem Clarke. Susan Crile, Willard Cummings, David Daniels, Walter De Maria, B. H. Friedman, Nancy Graves, Balcomb Greene, Robert Grosvenor, Bartlett Hayes, Raymond Horowitz, James Leong, Les Levine, Mrs. Lydia Winston Malbin, Brice Marden, Fred Mc- Darrah, Claes Oldenburg, Howardene Pindell, John Rewald, Robert Ryman, Ken Showell, Keith Sonnier, Paul Sutt- man, Paul Travis, Mrs. Burton Tremaine, Robert Zakanych, and Barbara Zucker.

Regional Office

Reports

Boston

Robert F. Brown

In the last quarter of 1974, the New England office acquired the records of Boston artist Francis Davis Millet, an internationally established painter at the turn of the century. "Frank Millet- A Sketch," an unpublished biography by a grandson of the history painter and muralist, especially valuable for its first- person recollections of the artist, de- scribes Millet's close friendship with John Singer Sargent, Henry James, and Edwin Abbey, with whom he established an artists' colony in the village of Broad- way, Worcestershire. It also recounts Millet's role in the founding of the American Federation of Arts, his exten- sive involvement in the World Colum- bian Exposition, and his work on the Fine Arts Commission in Washington, D. C., during the terms of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

The career of William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941), one of the finest of the "Boston School" of painters, was fol- lowed devotedly by his family. Their

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