Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture,
(Show Bio)Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture records, 1946-2007
ca.33.0 linear ft. (partially microfilmed on 9 reels)
Reel(s): N68-27-N68-30, N68-78-N68-80, and N68-96- N68-97
Institutional records, including lectures given at the school; correspondence, and printed material.
REELS N68-27-N68-30, N68-78-N68-80, and N68-96-N68-97: Student application forms; school catalogs; publicity and publications covering 1946-1968; and artists' files arranged alphabetically, containing exhibition catalogs, announcements, and clippings.
UNMICROFILMED: Publicity materials; financial records; correspondence with artists, including George Biddle, Peter Blume, Willard W. Cummings, Robert Motherwell, Henry Varnum Poor, Ben Shahn, David Smith and others; biographical and critical information on visiting instructors; catalogs, newsletters and annual award dinner programs; and photographs used in various institution publications. Also included are several motion picture reels showing the school and artists and students associated with it (of which four have been transferred to videotape; color, no sound, 62 min. total playing time).
Also included are the Skowhegan Lecture Archives (named by Skowhegan) consisting of CD fomatted audio copies(1952-2007) of lectures given by artists speaking at the school between 1952 and 2007, the original reel-to-reel audio recordings (1952-1999 only) and several original cassette audio recordings from 2000 and 2002; and transcripts (on three formatted CDs) of 386 lectures through 2006. A majority of the lectures refer to slides shown during the lectures; these are not available at the Archives of American Art.
Location of Originals: Microfilmed materials: Originals in Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Duplicate audio CDs also available at Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, Calif.; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Calif.; Colby College, Waterville, Me.; Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y.; Tate Library and Archive, London and Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Portions of the collection were lent for microfilming and portions donated 1968-1977 by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture via Willard Cummings and Jack Eastman and in 2002-2006 via Executive Director. Skowhegan received funding to transfer all of their open-reel audiotape lectures to gold-backed compact discs and preserve the originals. Originals and compact disc copies (audio and transcripts) were given to the Archives of American Art. Additional lecturers consist of Edwin Dickinson, 1958, and Robert Cronbach, 1959, Jack Levine, 1959 (on a casette with the 1954 lecture) and a cassette of the College Art Association Skowhegan seminar, 1960 (on a cassette with the William Zorach 1959 lecture), donated to AAA 1968- 1977. These cassettes were returned to Skowhegan to be transferred to CD and obtain release forms.
How to Use this Collection
- Skowhegan Lecture Archives: Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce from the lectures requires the written permission of Skowhegan in addition to the copyright holders. A list of copyright holders is available at the Archives of American Art Washington, D.C. office. Transcripts may not be duplicated.
- Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment.
- Microfilm reels N68-27-N68-30, N68-78-N68-80, and N68-96- N68-97 available at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.
- Selected images of documents in this collection are online.
- For more information on using resources at the Archives of American Art, please visit our Ask Us page