Alexander Liberman papers, circa 1912-2003

Biographical materials include awards and honors, biographies and chronologies, a family tree, a copy of Liberman's death certificate, membership cards to various professional and community organizations, retirement information, and other assorted personal items such as an address book and calendar. There are also writings and notes by Liberman's mother Henriette Pascar, a scrapbook about his father Simon Liberman, and a speech written by stepdaughter Francine du Plessix Gray.

Files are arranged in a loose alphabetical order by type of material.

Personal and professional correspondence consists of letters, memos, and telegrams to and from Liberman and his friends, family, colleagues, including artists and photographers, galleries, museums, magazines, and clients. Correspondents include Adam Aronson, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Burt Chernow, Helen Frankenthaler, Anne d' Harnononcourt, Dongwoo Development Co., Francine Gray (née du Plessix), House and Garden Magazine, Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Beatrix Miller of French , Robert Motherwell, Henriette Pascar, Peter Schub, South Bay Construction and Development Co., Viking Press, and many others. Associated documentation such as clippings, photographic materials, reports, invoices, shipping forms, architectural drawings, and notes are often interfiled with the correspondence. Topics covered include commissions, exhibitions, negotiations with contractors, publication of photographs from Liberman's collection, and information requests concerning Liberman or his areas of expertise. Several folders contain exchanges written in French.

Correspondence is arranged alphabetically by name. Some general miscellaneous correspondence is filed at the end of the series. Additional correspondence is found in Series 6: Subject Files.

There are sound recordings and video recordings of interviews, many with transcripts, with Liberman. Most of the interviews were conducted for magazines, television programs, and radio. There are also interviews conducted by Liberman, most notably a 1970 interview of curator Walter Hopps.

Folders containing only interview requests and planning correspondence are filed first; the remainder of the series is arranged chronologically.

Found here are mostly writings by Liberman and a few writings by others about Liberman. There are drafts of Liberman's book Then: Photographs, 1925-1995, essays, plays, poems, short stories, and tributes to colleagues. Several folders contain various iterations of a play by Liberman entitled 2 + 1, which was also titled Inside-Out or Son and Lover. There are also Liberman's notes and several essays about Liberman and his artwork authored by others.

Writings with additional extensive documentation are filed with the Writing Project Files.

Liberman organized files for many writing projects for which he was the author, collaborator, or subject. Files typically contain correspondence, lists, notes, drafts, bank documents, forms, project timelines, contracts, agreements, and royalty statements. Many of the files concern the writing and publication of the books by Barbara Rose, by Liberman, and Vogue History of Photography by Liberman. Other writing projects concern color photography techniques, Marlene Dietrich, the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, and Russian women.

This series is arranged alphabetically by project title.

Subject files were compiled and organized by Alexander Liberman on a wide variety of work projects, activities, topics and entities of interest. These files cover sculpture commissions, the filming and distribution of the 1981 documentary film Alexander Liberman: A Lifetime Burning, gifts of artwork to various institutions, business relationships with various galleries and museums, Liberman's personal art collection, and various events and appearances. Most folders contain a wide variety of materials, including correspondence notes, forms, reports, printed matter, design drawings, photographic materials, and audiovisual media.

This series is arranged alphabetically by subject, project name, or entity name. Project and exhibition related correspondence is also found in Series 2, 5, and 7. The bulk of the photographs of artwork are arranged in Series 11.

Exhibition files are found for solo and group shows of Liberman, including those held at the André Emmerich Gallery, Bennington College, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum, and the World's Fair, among other venues. Files contain a variety of materials, such as correspondence, agreements, contracts, forms, photographic materials, biographical information, announcements, plans and drawings, labels, notes, and invitations to exhibition events.

This series is arranged alphabetically by gallery, and thereunder chronologically by the exhibition date. Exhibition announcements and catalogs are arranged in Series 9: Printed Materials; additional photographic images of exhibition installations are also found in Series 11: Photographic Materials, Subseries 4: Exhibitions.

Multiple inventories, indices, and lists of Liberman's works of art are found in the form of index cards, bound registers, loose pages, computer printouts, and handwritten notes. Numbered photograph index cards of Liberman's paintings, photograph prints, and sculptures are extensive.

Folders are arranged into groupings according to the type of artwork inventoried, representing Liberman's original order. Photographs of many of the sculptures and paintings indexed in the inventory records are arranged in Series 11: Photographic Materials, Subseries 1-2.

Printed materials include exhibition announcements and catalogs, book flyers, books, booklets, brochures, calendars, catalogs, newspaper and magazine clippings, postcards, posters, press releases, reports, reviews, and bound volumes. Some of the subjects covered in these materials include Alexander Liberman's publishing career at and , his career as an artist, exhibitions featuring Liberman's work, and Liberman's wife Tatiana du Plessis. Printed mages of Liberman's paintings, sculptures, and photographs are found in printed magazines and advertisements. Other more general subjects represented among the printed materials include fashion, style, sculptures in public places, models, actresses, designers, artists, art auctions, and book reviews.

Folders are arranged into groupings by type of material, and thereunder chronologically. Additional printed materials are scattered throughout other series.

Artwork includes sketches, drawings, plans, and watercolors. Some early sketches of Liberman's sculptures and paintings also include notes on dimensions, colors, and prices. Many of the drawings are untitled or unidentified.

This series is arranged by genre or format.

Photographic materials comprise nearly one-half of the collection and include photographs, negatives, slides, and transparencies. Images are of Liberman's sculpture, paintings, other artwork, exhibitions, and of Liberman himself. Images of artwork are of both completed pieces and those in process. Not all works are identified: some have titles and/or numbers assigned to them, and others are simply identified by a general topic, location, or photographic format. Indexes to many of the photographs of artwork are also filed with them, although not all of them appear to be complete. Additional inventories of artwork are found in Series 8: Inventory Records.

Series is divided into five subseries.