Alexander Archipenko papers, 1904-1986, bulk 1930-1964

Studio and informal portraits of Alexander and Angelica Archipenko are by Frans Fiedlin, A. Elnain, Helen Balfour-Morrison, Cy Harriman, Gus Shroeder, A. Luckwin, Lary Colwell, Li Osborne, H. Tarr, and unknown photographers. They include a portrait of Angelica as a young girl, a contemporary copy print of Angelica with her father and sister, circa 1904, and several studio portraits made in Germany. Other people pictured include friends and possibly relatives, the majority of whom are unidentified; also, Frances Gray Archipenko, the second wife.

Nine photograph albums, 1925-1953, mainly document travel. Vol. 1, May-Nov. 1925, includes photographs and scenic post cards of Niagara Falls, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and Canada; other subjects are friends (many identified), cowboys, Indians, cattle branding, landscapes, camping, and horses. Vol. 2, Aug.-Sept. 1925, contains photographs of a camping trip in Canada, with views of the landscape, friends (many identified), and activities; also included are pictures taken in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Arizona. Photographs of interest in vol. 3, 1925-1953, are Archipenko's first car, 1925; friends (many identified); Woodstock construction, 1930s; studio, kiln, and metal casting facilities, 1940s; Archipenko working with lucite, 1946; fire at Woodstock cottage, 1953; and two self-portraits painted by Angelica. Vol. 4, 1930s mainly records a trip to Bali and includes photographs of Walter Spies; also included are views aboard the Derffling, Suez Canal, Ceylon, Java, China, Japan, Philippines, Hawaii, California, and Archipenko at Mills College. Vol. 5, 1938-1941, consists of photographs taken in Mexico, mainly of San Miguel Allende and the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes where Angelica Archipenko taught sculpture; included are views of classes, faculty, students and student work; also, views of Taxco, Mexico City, and Morelia. A fair number of photographs from the albums were duplicated for various purposes over the years, and these copies are now filed with the appropriate subseries.

There are a large number of slides, transparencies, negatives, and 86 lantern slides, and 80 glass plates. There may be prints of the vast majority of the negatives, though there are not negatives for every photograph in the collection. Most likely, the black and white lantern slides of ancient art, ethnographic objects, and biological and other specimens were used to illustrate a lecture or may have been collected as possible illustrations for a book.

Other photographs can be found with Series 4: Writings, which includes a few photographs collected as research notes or intended as illustrations; Series 5: Teaching, includes a scrapbook of the Archipenko Art School that contains pictures of students, and classes and facilities at Woodstock; and Series 7: Scrapbooks, with photographs of exhibition installations, and groups of people including students at Mills College.

The series is arranged as 9 subseries. Lantern slides and glass plates are housed separately with original folder divisions denoted by dividers; these materials are closed to researchers.

Glass plate negatives have been digitized