Margaret Merwin Patch papers, 1885-1988
Patch, Margaret Merwin,
b. 1894
d. 1987
Arts administrator
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
Collection size: 11.0 linear ft.
Collection Summary: Biographical material, diaries, photographs, letters, writings, printed material, and subject files concerning crafts organizations document Patch's life and career as a crafts administrator.
Biographical documents and files on family members, 1890-1982, include material on Patch's sister, illustrator Hester Merwin Ayers. Three diaries date from 1912-1926. Photographs include a Patch family album, 1918- 1923, photographs of Patch, 1915-1985, and of family members, friends, residences, 1885-1973, and of various crafts objects. There are miscellaneous letters to Patch, 1928-1986, and correspondent files concerning Dorothy Johnson, Frances and Mary Schimpff, Beatrice Wood, and Aileen Osborn Webb, including photographs of Webb and a copy of her memoir Almost A Century (1977). Miscellaneous writings by Patch, 1903-1979, primarily concern crafts.
Subject files, 1934-1988, contain letters, notes, financial records, printed material, and photographs concerning her travel, and crafts organizations including Aid to Artisans, American Craftsmen's Council, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Canadian Crafts Council, Cranbrook School, Massachusetts Crafts Council, and Shelburne Falls Art Center (including an audio tape). A file on the World Crafts Council contains material concerning crafts administrators Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Kenji and Chika Fujimori, Ake H. Huldt, and James Plaut. Printed material, 1957-1985, includes clippings about Patch, exhibition announcements and catalogs, booklets and books, including The Crafts of The Modern World by Patch, Webb and Rose Slivka.
Biographical/Historical Note: Crafts administrator; Mass. and New Smyrna, Fla. Studied at the Univ. of Chicago Graduate School of Commerce and Administration Columbia University. She married George Patch in 1930 and alternated residence between New York, Shelburne Falls, Mass., and Cranbrook, where she studied painting under Zoltan Sepeshy and Wallace Mitchell.
Her affiliation with the American Craftsmen's Council led to her work with other crafts organizations. In 1960, she made a year-long trip around the world, laying the foundation for the World Crafts Council, which was formally established in 1964, with the aid of her colleague Aileen Osborn Webb.
Donated 1987 by Linda M. Walker as personal representative of Patch's estate.
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