Alan Gussow research material for A Sense of Place, 1956-1994

Collection Information

Size: 2.8 Linear feet

Summary: Research material for Alan Gussow's book, A Sense of Place: the Artist and the American Land, and the related Nebraska Public Television production, symposium, and exhibition at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, measures 2.8 linear feet and dates from 1956 to 1994. Research files include correspondence, photographs and color transparencies, sound recordings of 17 interviews with artists, a draft manuscript, publicity, reviews, and fan mail. Exhibition and symposium related material includes the proposal, correspondence, and printed matter. Public television production material includes correspondence, publicity, transcripts, soundtrack tapes, and film footage.

Biographical/Historical Note

Alan Gussow (1931-1997) was a painter and writer in New York. He studied painting at Cooper Union and at the American Academy in Rome. Gussow honed a visionary blend of abstraction and representation with nature as his primary subject in his art. His book A Sense of Place: The Artist and the American Land , published in 1972, couples works by American landscape artists spanning four centuries with excerpts of their own writing.

Provenance

The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Alan Gussow in 1995.

Funding

The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.