Athena Tacha papers, 1959-2019

Biographical materials include resumes and CVs, a handwritten will, wedding planning notes, and a designed floor plan for a home. Personal business records relate to the donation of works of art by Tacha to various institutions. Works of art include handmade cards by Tacha, unsigned doodles and sketches, and computer-generated drawings by Tacha.

The bulk of Athena Tacha's correspondence includes letters from artists, art historians, colleagues, and institutions concerning her career as a working sculptor and educator. Notable correspondents include Nimai Chatterji, Jean Cocteau, Jim Dine, Henri Dorra, Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, Franklin Furnace, Ellen H. Johnson, Ray Johnson, György Kepes, Lincoln Kerstein, Les Levine, Jacques Lipchitz, Lucy Lippard, Madame X, Despo Magoni, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Smithson, Edward Steichen, Tom Sudato, Roman Vishniac, Chuck Welch (Cracker Jack King), and Theodore Wolfe. Some letters may include small illustrations, including a letter from Jean Cocteau.

Also, there are a collection of letters written in Greek between Tacha, her parents, and friends in Greece.

Researchers should note additional correspondence concerning commissions, projects, and exhibitions may be found in Series 5 and 6.

Found are drafts of articles and writings on art by Athena Tacha, including her thesis entitled Role of Light in Modern Sculpture (1959). Writings by Ellen Johnson are on Athena Tacha. Also found are sound recordings of a lecture and of an interview with Tacha from 1987.

Files in this series may contain letters, printed material, handwritten and typed drafts, proofs, photographs, and xerox copies of primary sources relating to three works by Tacha: Brancusi's Birds, "The Multiple Styles of Elie Nadelman" from the Allen Art Museum Bulletin, and Rodin Sculpture, a published catalog of an exhibition curated by Tacha at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1967.

Commission and project files may contain the following: proposals and revisions, drawings and plans, governmental and legal communications, materials research, labor deliberations, detailed recommendations on maintenance, drawings and sketches, correspondence, financial records and receipts, contracts, printed material, photographs, and video recordings of Tacha's numerous public art commissions in Ohio, the Washington, D.C. metro region, and throughout the United States. Records include sound and video recordings.

Of note are files on Star Fountain at Muhammad Ali Plaza in Louisville, Kentucky, and Merging at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. General contracts and proposals for works are also found here. Unrealized commission files may be less detailed and are arranged alphabetically by location assigned by Tacha.

This series is arranged alphabetically by state followed by title of the work (if known). In many cases, original titles of files have been maintained. Unrealized commissions may be alphabetized by state or city as originally organized and labeled by Athena Tacha.

This series concerns Tacha's career as a professor of sculpture at Oberlin College from 1973 to circa 2000. Found are records relating to her role within the art department, and her role as the curator of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Also found are copies of recommendation letters, seminar syllabi, outlines, and notes further documenting Tacha's role as an educator, and records of her invitations to visiting artists.

Found are materials relating to Tacha's exhibition of her art, participation with various organizations and other activities. Of note is a reel tape recorded from her exhibition at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio Tape Sculptures (1979) and a file concerning her dual exhibition with Sarah Schuster at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio Fashioning Life and Death (1994). Lecture files include correspondence, travel plans, and possibly transcripts. Also found is material relating to a CD-Rom created by Tacha entitled Human Body as an Ecosystem.

Athena Tacha kept extensive files on various artists and subjects. It is unclear if she used the material in her artwork or during her teaching. Source material includes slides and sound and video recordings. It is likely that the sound and video recordings were used by Tacha to design her sculpture.

Original folder titles have been maintained.

Printed material includes art publications, clippings, and exhibition announcements and catalogs concerning Tacha, the exhibition of her artwork, and public sculpture. Press binders were labeled by Tacha and include clippings and exhibition material arranged in chronological order. Also found is Tacha's personally annotated copy of Yoga For Women by Nancy and Michael Phelan.

Photographic materials include two photo albums of installations and works of art, two vacation video recordings, twenty film reels of images of works of art, and thirty-nine born-digital recordings of works of art, photographs, negatives, and slides. Of note is a project entitled 36 Years of Aging: 1972-2015 consisting of photos of Tacha. Extensive slides are largely unorganized but include labels of works of art. Slides may also have served as source material for Tacha.