Ed Colker papers, 1944-2020

This series includes two letters of commendation from the 349th Infantry Headquarters, diplomas, a resume, and two printed caricatures of Colker by students. Also found are various awards and certificates including The Academy of American Poets membership certificate identifying Colker as a founding member. Several items are photocopies.

Correspondence, mainly professional in nature with a few scattered personal letters, concerns Colker's academic and artistic work, Haybarn Editions, exhibitions, projects, and various interests. It includes arrangements for lectures, artist in residence appointments, jurying exhibitions, and consulting. Among the correspondents are universities, libraries, galleries, museums; poetry, printmaking, and book arts organizations, as well as groups relevant to his work as an artist, educator, and university administrator. Poet correspondents are J. Curtis Johnson, Kathleen Norris, Deborah Pease, and Jeanne Walker; translators include Melvin Konner and others.

Correspondence is arranged by year.

The 1982 interview with Ed Colker was published in The Load, SUNY College at Purchase's student newspaper as part of a feature story about a three-day campus event,"A Celebration of the Book as Art." The interview Irving Sandler conducted with Ed Colker (1 sound cassette) took place in New York City during the summer of 1985 while Colker's exhibition was on view at Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; in 1999, its transcript was published in conjunction with the exhibition Ed Colker: Prints for Poetry and Prose (1990 June 26 – August 3) at the University Art Gallery, State University of New York at Albany. Robert McCamant's interview of Colker was published as "Caxtonians Collect: Ed Colker" in the May 2008 issue of Caxtonian, the club's newsletter.

An interview Colker conducted with Will Barnet (1 sound cassette) was published as "Reflections on Fifty Years of Teaching: An Interview with Will Barnet," part of an article titled "Independent Art Schools: Traditions and Departures," Art Journal (Spring 1982). The Toshiko Takaezu interview (1 videocassette), which Colker conducted for Cooper Union students, took place at her studio/home in New Jersey.

Writings by Colker include: printed versions of articles and the manuscript of an unpublished article about printmaking in the U.S.; two proposed books for students of design and typography; 3 videocassettes of lectures delivered to students at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, Pratt Institute, and University of the Arts, and other venues; miscellaneous writing; panel discussion notes; a videocassete of artists reading from one of Colker's poetry portfolios.

Subject files maintained by Colker document many of his professional interests, activities, projects, and relationships. Files are comprised of correspondence, printed material, writings, photographs and miscellaneous items in varying combinations. Of particular interest is the file concerning the Art Journal Editing Project. Colker was guest editor of an issue on "Education of the Artist." The file includes responses from Pat Adams, Lawrence Alloway, Eleanor Antinova, Grace Hartigan, Vera Klement, Philip Pearlstein, Peter Plagens and Martin Puryear, to the question: "What are you saying or introducing as major currents to students today that have changed from a few years ago and what events or dynamics have generated your reconsiderations? (If you are holding and reinforcing constants, please indicate that, too.)" Other subjects of interest include Haybarn Press; poets Michael A. Anina, Catherine Kasper, and Kathleen Norris; and Dave Brubeck, whose music inspired a Haybarn Edition. This series contains one audiovisual recording titled "National Endowment for the Arts/Getty Art Program Tape," the pilot for a proposed PBS television program on the arts for children and their parents for which Colker served as a consultant.

Subject files are alphabetized by title. Additional material relating to many of the individuals and organizations documented by subject files may be found with correspondence (Series 2) and among the printed material (Series 6).

Almost all printed material is about or mentions Colker, or includes reproductions of his work. Miscellaneous items include press releases, announcements of benefit auctions, notice of an international competition for which Colker was a juror. School catalogs are from years and institutions where Colker was a student, teacher, or administrator. Publications produced by Colker are a photocopy of the first and only issue of Re-Art: A Reflection of Current Ideas on the Arts (1954), published by Colker and Gene Feldman, and Architectural Photographs by Richard Nickel.

Views of Colker and family prior to the 1960s are either color photocopies or prints of scanned images. There is a photograph of Colker in a life drawing class at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and several views of him in Italy with the 349th Infantry, 88th Division during and soon after World War II, and in his studio. He appears alone and with students, colleagues, friends, and wife Elaine Galen. Many photographs record Colker at events related to his artistic, academic, and publishing activities. Other photographs are of artwork by Colker and his work as reproduced in Haybarn Editions. Exterior views of the barn studio and Desjobert Press are digitial prints.