Collection Information

Size: Transcript: 156 pages

Format: Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hrs., 8 min.

Summary: An interview of Lita Albuquerque conducted 1990 July 9-19, by Bonnie Clearwater, for the Archives of American Art.

Albuquerque tells of her Sephardic, Turkish, and Spanish heritage; growing up in Carthage, Tunisia; arrival in the U.S. in 1957; art history studies at UCLA in the 1960s; early influence on her work of James Turrell, Eric Orr, Guy Dill, Larry Bell, and the Los Angeles Woman's Building; later influence of Zen meditation; travel in India; use of figures and abstract symbols in public commissions; second marriage to Carey Peck; teaching at the Art Center College of Design.

Biographical/Historical Note

Lita Albuquerque (1946- ) is a painter from California.

Provenance

This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.

Funding

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Lita Albuquerque, 1990 July 9-19. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.