Stuyvesant Van Veen papers, circa 1926-1988

Van Veen, Stuyvesant, b. 1910 d. 1988
Painter, Muralist, Printmaker, Illustrator
N.Y.

Collection size: 2.7 linear ft.
Addition: 1.7 linear feet.

Collection Summary: Biographical material, correspondence, photographs, works of art, diaries, project files, and printed material relating to painter, illustrator, and cartoonist, Stuyvesant Van Veen.

Six photograph albums, 1938-1968, including photographs of work by Van Veen; 2 photographs of Van Veen; and a news release, a clipping, and exhibition announcements.

Biographical information; 39 sketchbooks; letters from Mervin Jules, Jose Clemente Orozco, Marion MacDowell, Marguerite Wyke, Zoltan Sepeshy, Katherine Nash, Philip Evergood, Malcolm McKesson, Charles Salerno, Bunny Weldon, and the U.S. Information Agency about exhibition exchanges with the U.S.S.R.; a scrapbook containing letters, photographs, and clippings; art work, including cartoons, illustrations, posters, Christmas cards, and book jackets; photographs of Van Veen and his work; and exhibition catalogs.

Sketches of artists, writers, musicians, scientists, and celebrities, caricatures and finished works by Van Veen.

A resume, professional and personal correspondence regarding art legislative matters, letters from Henry Roth, Harry Sternberg, Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Lloyd Goodrich, Leon Krull, Paul Manship, Adlai Stevenson, Buckminster Fuller, and Daniel Catton Rich; notes and fragments of writings; photographs of art work; and printed material, including four comic books which contain illustrations by Van Veen under the pseudonymns Joe Lozen, Jack Camden, and Lester Raye.

Biographical material includes curriculum vitae, artist statements and profiles, membership cards, certificates, and awards. Correspondence is with art galleries and letters are from Peggy Bacon, George Biddle, Avery Fisher, Romare Bearden, Philip Evergood, Lorrie Goulet, Chaim Gross, Thomas Hess, Edward Hopper, Bernard Kassoy, Alfonso Ossorio, and hand made greeting cards from Miriam Schorr. Artwork includes 12 sketchbooks (2 on television imagery), sketches, and an inscribed lithograph by Max Beckmann for Artists Equity Masked Ball, 1950.

Diaries,1928-1955, record Van Veen's daily activities. Photographs are of Van Veen and artwork by Frances Avery depicting Stuyvesant and Felicia van Veen, and in-situ murals. Project files include the 1939 New York Worlds Fair mural for Hall of Pharmacy, the mural series Memorial to Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field Apartment Houses, N.Y., 1963, and the New York City public school murals at PS 8, The Bronx, N.Y. Printed material includes 72 photographic postcards featuring murals and sculptures of the 1939 Worlds Fair, catalogs, exhibition announcements, clippings, and off-prints.

Biographical/Historical Note: Stuyvesant Van Veen (1910-1988) was a painter, illustrator, cartoonist, and printmaker in New York, N.Y. He was the illustrator for "The Fairy Fleet"; literary satires, Nation and New Masses magazine, and a WPA muralist.

Material on reel 621 and portions of reels 922-924, lent for microfilming by Van Veen, 1966 and 1973. All other material donated by Van Veen, 1964 through 1986 and in 2010 by The New York Artists Equity Association via Regina Stewart, who found the material in Van Veen's apartment after his death.

How to Use this Collection

  • Microfilm reels 621, 922-924, and 2026 available for use at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.
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