Colette Roberts Papers and Interviews with Artists, 1918-1971

This series contains mainly correspondence received by Colette Roberts. It also contains letters received by Jennett Lam, an artist represented by Roberts' gallery, and letters received by Roberts' son, Richard Roberts. Included is correspondence with academic administrators, students, gallery contacts, artists, and charitable organizations for which Roberts worked. Most is of a professional nature, but scattered correspondence with family and friends is also found. Some of the letters are in French.

Letters are filed alphabetically by their authors, with outgoing correspondence filed under Roberts, Colette, and corporate correspondence filed by individual author's name. Therefore, letters related to ongoing business with corporate entities such as New York University, Quakers, Red Cross Committee, etc. tends to be scattered in the series.

Colette Roberts' writings include book-length manuscripts and articles about artists, writings about her own art, personal writings, working notes from interviews and classes, reviews, and translations between English and French. Writings about artists include book manuscripts on Louise Nevelson and Mark Tobey, as well as articles, essays, notes, lectures, reviews, chronologies, and bibliographies. Reviews are mostly in French, probably written for France-Amérique, an American French-language newspaper. Writings by others include articles about artists, a questionnaire about working methods filled out by John Hultberg, a lecture by Chryssa, a play by Allan Kaprow, and a film treatment by Gianfranco Baruchello. Writings are in French and English.

See also printed materials for published articles Roberts wrote for France-Amérique, and see Personal Records and Grand Central Moderns Gallery Records for writings related to teaching and gallery activities.

This series contains personal documents and records of Colette Roberts' work activities. Records include applications for employment and funding, résumés and references, projects and proposals, lists of slides and artwork, contact information and business cards, financial records, a date book, and flyers related to her public appearances. Records of Roberts' charity work include donor lists, draft correspondence, programs for benefits, solicitations of artwork for benefit exhibitions, pamphlets, minutes, newsletters, and other organizational business records. Records of her gallery work for the National Association of Women Artists and the A.M. Sachs gallery are mostly related to exhibitions. Teaching-related records include class rosters, employment agreements, course descriptions, student work, reports, teaching notes, and a staff handbook related to Art History lectures Roberts gave on board the transatlantic ships the Aurelia and the Neptunia.

See Series 4: Grand Central Moderns Gallery Records for professional papers related to her work as that gallery's director.

This series contains records related to Roberts' work as the Gallery Director of the Grand Central Moderns Gallery, which represented and exhibited contemporary artists in New York City 1952 and 1968, when the gallery was closed. Records in this series include reference files such as curricula vitae, biographies, and résumés of artists and a card file for artworks noting loan, sale, price, exhibition, and sometimes creation date and dimensions of artworks. This series also contains exhibition catalogs and announcements, published exhibition listings, and press releases for Grand Central Moderns Exhibitions. Exhibition checklists are mainly annotated typescript lists of artworks for a few of the exhibitions of 1967 and 1968. Other business records in this series include loan agreements for both French and American artists involved in the 1953 exhibition exchange held by Grand Central Moderns Gallery and Galerie Jeanne Bucher in Paris. Also found are receipts for loans, membership lists, price quotes, and sales records. An open letter of support for the Gallery, written when it closed and signed by ten artists, is also found.

Announcements, catalogs, and press releases for exhibitions at other galleries are found in Series 5: Printed Materials. For correspondence with artists and Grand Central Galleries Manager Erwin Barrie, see Series 1: Correspondence. See Series 4: Personal Records for records from Roberts' work with A.M. Sachs Gallery and the Argent Gallery of the National Association of Women Artists.

This series contains published articles by Roberts and other authors, newspaper and magazine clippings, newsletters of organizations with which Roberts was involved, pamphlets, publicity materials, exhibition announcements, catalogs, posters, and press releases. Articles by Colette Roberts are in French and English, clipped and copied from a variety of publications. Roberts' France-Amérique articles are mostly reviews of current exhibitions in New York in French. Articles by others are generally longer writings on art and literature published in journals and magazines by authors including Henry Miller, Philippe Stern, Richard Wright, Dore Ashton, and Dick Higgins, among others. Clippings include reviews of Grand Central Moderns exhibitions, and other happenings in the art world, particularly in New York City and the contemporary art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Also found are clippings about artists of interest to Roberts such as Jennett Lam, Mark Tobey, George Mattieu, and Louise Nevelson.

Newsletters are from the MacDowell Colony, the Peridot Gallery, the Art Students League, and places where Roberts taught. Press releases are mostly for exhibitions of contemporary artists in New York City, at both museums and galleries. Tamarind Lithograph Workshop publications include paper samples, drystamps, and biographies of printmakers. Art-related pamphlets include brochures, publicity, and mailings from cultural organizations in the arts. Non-art-related pamphlets relate to travel, financial, manuals, and other miscellany.

For printed materials related to the Grand Central Moderns Gallery, see Series 4: Grand Central Moderns Gallery Records.

This series contains photographs of Colette Roberts, artists and other unidentified people, art spaces, and works of art. Most of the photographs of people are unidentified, but those that are identified have been filed by name. The photograph of Ad Reinhardt with Roberts' class was taken for her "Meet the Artist" course at New York University, during which she produced many of the interviews in Series 8: Interviews with Artists. The Tamarind Lithography Workshop photographs show fellows at the workshop in the studio in 1962, including Richard Diebenkorn, John Hultberg, Joyce Trieman, Adja Yunkers, among others. Exhibition photographs include a 1965 show at Grand Central Moderns of work by Jennett Lam.

This series contains Fluxus art stamps, a printed picture of Ray Johnson stamped "DOUGHNUT FESTIVAL," sketches of Aaron Copeland made by Jennett Lam, other unattributed sketches, and a pressed tin figure.

This series contains taped interviews with artists, a card index of the interview series, and a few notes and transcripts related to the interviews.

Most of the recordings in this series are interviews with artists that Roberts created during a class she taught at New York University between 1957 and 1971 called "Meet the Artist." In this class, she brought her students to the studios of working artists to interview them about their work, and in the early 1960s, Roberts began recording these interviews on audio reels. Also found is a tape in which Roberts describes her intentions with the "Meet the Artist" program. Other recordings in this series include interviews with Chryssa, Adolph Gottlieb, and Louise Nevelson for a series Roberts called "The Presence of the Artist," for which interviews were transcribed and edited by their subjects. A few of the recordings of Marcel Duchamp were not created by Roberts, including three interviews and various lectures and performances by Duchamp. Miscellaneous recordings of Roberts' own classes and lectures are also found, mostly scattered on the second sides of some of the tapes with artist interviews. Some of the interviews are in French.

The series is arranged as 3 subseries:

• Subseries 8.1: Card Index and Notes, 1964-1970
• Subseries 8.2: Transcripts, 1963-1970
• Subseries 8.3: Sound Recordings, 1959-1971