Dorothy Dehner papers, 1920-1987, bulk 1951-1987

Series consists of scattered material shedding light on different aspects of Dehner's life and work. Included are some student papers dating from her time at Skidmore College in 1951-1952, including an essay on eighteen artists and the Metropolitan Art Museum written for extra credit and notes from a class she took on Oriental Cultures; various notes and lists created by Dehner consisting of information pertaining to her biography and career; the transcript and/or tapes of various interviews, including ones with K--- Osis, Herman Cherry, Judith McCandless, and ---- Rapp; a list of things that Dehner took with her when she left Bolton's Landing in 1951-1952; copies of selected clippings and typescript copies featuring press comments on Dehner's work in the mid- to late-1960s; proofs and copies of her biographical sketch in the publication, Who's Who; a photocopy of the honorary degree she received from Skidmore College; and miscellaneous personal papers, including recipes, notes, and a wedding announcement for her stepdaughter, Abby Mann Thernstrom. Also found here is some material relating to David Smith, including a chronology submitted for Dehner's review and bearing her editing marks, a copy of Smith's last will and testament, a letter of introduction for Smith from Audrey McMahon of the College Art Association (dating from their trip to Europe in the mid-1930s), and a name tag for Smith of unknown origin.

Series is arranged alphabetically by document type.

Series consists of Dehner's personal and professional correspondence, comprised of mostly incoming letters but also some early drafts or copies of outgoing letters in addition to some enclosures such as loan agreements, shipping receipts, manuscripts, and printed material. Correspondents include museums, galleries, art dealers, curators, scholars, students, artists, writers, friends, and relatives. Correspondence largely documents her various personal and professional relationships, her efforts to promote and exhibit her artwork and to facilitate art historical research (on David Smith, herself, and other artists), and her various creative activities.

Personal correspondents include David Smith, his sister, Catherine, and his mother, Golda; Smith's second wife, Jean Smith Pond, and his two daughters, Rebecca and Candida; Dehner's second husband, Ferdinand Mann and stepdaugher, Abby (Mann) Thernstrom; friends and fellow artists, Edgar and Lucille Corcos Levy, Herman Cherry, and Louise Nevelson; and her heart surgeon, Elliott Hurwitt, among others. Dehner often established friendships with individuals who started out corresponding on a professional basis (such as curators, dealers, and students), so personal correspondence can often be found interspersed with professional correspondence.

Professional correspondence typically relates to the loan, exhibition, and sale of Dehner's work and the Smith work that Dehner owned - notably, to the traveling show of her work that Dehner organized in the early-1950s, to various group and solo shows (including ones at the Barbara Feidler Gallery, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Rutgers University, and Storm King Art Center, among others), and to her dealings with Mildred Constantine and Marian Willard (of the Willard Gallery), among others. Correspondence with curators, scholars, and students relates to research inquiries primarily about Smith, but also about Dehner herself and other artists of her era (such as John Graham, Irene Rice Pereira, and Louise Nevelson). Professional correspondence also concerns the editing and publication of the foreword she wrote for the re-issue of John Graham's System and Dialectics of Art, and the publication of her poems in the journal Tracks; certain matters pertaining to David Smith's estate, such as the disposition of certain items belonging to Dehner and the controversial alteration of the painted surfaces of certain Smith sculptures (which was carried out by one of the executors); donations of art works to various institutions, including Dehner's effort to raise funds from Jan Matulka's former students to purchase and donate one of his paintings to the Guggenheim Museum; and the donation of her papers to the Archives, and subsequent permissions to access and publish from them.

Correspondence is typically arranged in alphabetical order according to name of correspondent. Letters from an individual correspondent are then arranged in folders according to the reel on which they were microfilmed or in a folder of "unfilmed" material, as the case may be. Some files contain the letters of various individuals and are arranged according to subject (e.g. "Various, Condolence Letters"). Letters from a correspondent with an unknown surname are arranged in a file according to first name, and unidentified letters and fragments are arranged in files at the end of the series. Related material can be found amongst business and financial papers.

Series consists of papers relating to various art and personal business matters and to certain financial matters. Some material is organized loosely into gallery and exhibition files consisting of lists, loan agreement forms, consignment receipts, shipping paperwork, and related material pertaining to galleries that represented Dehner at various points in time (including the Willard Gallery and A. M. Sachs Gallery), organizers of exhibitions (such as American Federation of Art and Associated American Artists), or particular exhibitions (including ones at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 1962, Editions Alecto, Ltd. in 1964, and the Parsons-Dreyfuss Gallery in 1979). Other material is organized loosely into project files, consisting of printed material and notes pertaining to the Committee for the American Participation in the Triennale and to Dehner's commission for the Great Southwest Industrial Park in Atlanta, Georgia (a project which never ended up happening).

Material relating to more general art business consists of numerous handwritten and typed lists (of works, art sales, prices, exhibitions, art books donated to Skidmore College Library, etc.); visitor books for unidentified exhibitions in 1957, 1959, 1960, and 1963; shipping and delivery receipts; and handwritten documents authenticating certain David Smith works. Material relating to personal business and financial matters includes property and school tax records for Bolton's Landing; a receipt for payment by David Smith, presumably made to Dehner as part of their separation agreement; and an agreement by Dehner to sell certain sculptures by David Smith that she owned to Samuel Dorsky.

Business and financial papers are arranged in rough chronological order. Related material can be found amongst correspondence.

Series consists of the writings of Dorothy Dehner, including articles, poems, lectures and speeches, and other pieces, as well as some writings of others. Writings document some of the influences on Dehner's art, some of her ideas about art in general and certain works in particular, and some of her other creative and more scholarly endeavors, as well as some instances of the scholarly interpretation of her own work by others.

Found is extensive material, including various drafts, proofs, and reprints, relating to her essay on John Graham, which was initially written as a foreword to Graham's Systems and Dialectics of Art re-issued by Johns Hopkins Press in 1971, but was first published as an article in the art journal, Leonardo, in 1968. (Related material can be found amongst correspondence.) Also found are research material (correspondence - mostly copies - and printed material) and drafts of Dehner's essay on David Smith's work, "Medals for Dishonor," which was published as an article in Art Journal in 1977, in addition to a draft of a piece on first meeting Smith for Art in America.

Dehner's other writings on art include notes and copies of various speeches and lectures given at the Artists Club and the Cummer Gallery of Art, among other places; various statements on art, including remarks on the Menorah, a plan of work, and a short piece on the series of paintings, Life on the Farm; and contributions to catalogs for others, including ones for Joel Levy and Joan Paul. Dehner's poems include one she wrote in high school, manuscripts of two that were published in the journal, Tracks, and ones that she wrote for her stepdaughter and granddaughter. Other writings include notes taken during a stay in the hospital in 1933, and later reflective and memoir pieces, written for her granddaughter, upon the death of Marian Willard, and on other occasions.

Writings of others include a copy of a letter by David Smith and a piece he wrote on his work, "Medals for Dishonor" (which could very well be part of Dehner's research material for her essay on this work); a copy of a 1953 speech on "the origins of sculpture" given by David Smith; poems by Herman Cherry; and manuscripts for various essays on Dehner, two of which appeared in catalogs accompanying Dehner exhibitions at Rutgers University in 1984 ("Dorothy Dehner: Life and Work" by Judith McCandless) and Baruch College in 1991 ("Dorothy Dehner" by Joan Marter).

Writings are typically arranged in rough chronological order. The writings of others are arranged in files at the end of the series.

Series consists of printed material collected and accumulated by Dehner, including exhibition catalogs, announcements and invitations, clippings, art catalogs, programs, and miscellaneous printed material, pertaining to her own work, the work of David Smith, and, to a limited extent, the work of others. Clippings on Smith concern his death in 1965 and posthumous alterations to the painted surfaces of some of his outdoor sculptures (at the hands or through the negligence of Clement Greenberg, one of the executors of Smith's estate), which was a source of some controversy in the art world of the mid-1970s.

Printed material is typically arranged in alphabetical order by type.

Art work consists of two undated etchings. One is an abstract by Dehner, which she gave, presumably as a gift, to Garnett McCoy, former Curator of the Archives of American Art. The second one is of portraits of artists done by one another on one etching plate. Artists include Lucille Corcos by Dehner, David Smith by Lucille Corcos, Adolph Gottlieb by Edgar Levy, Edgar Levy by Esther Gottlieb, Dorothy Dehner by Adolph Gottlieb, Esther Gottlieb by David Smit. A cat and alligator were drawn by Edgar Levy in the middle border. The etching is 91/100 and was printed by Michael Kirk on the Charles Brand Press in the Parsons School of Design Studios and seems to have also originally belonged to Garnett McCoy.

Series consists of photographs of Dehner, her friend and mentor John Graham (taken by her in the Brooklyn apartment she shared with David Smith), and her second husband Ferdinand Mann (featured with others, including Fiorello LaGuardia, Arshile Gorky, and Henry Knight, at the opening of the W.P.A. Art Gallery), as well as photographs of Dehner works from the 1950s (assembled in an album or portfolio of "Recent Works") and some later works. Also found is an abstract photograph taken by David Smith circa 1934, one of several he created using the technique of double exposure.

Photographs are arranged in rough chronological order.