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Jean Fitzgerald
Scope and Contents
The papers of painter Lily Emmet Cushing date from 1929 to 1972 and measure 4.0 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material; letters from friends including Henri Bernstein, Alfred M. Frankfurter, Katharine Graham, Nancy Kefauver, and Walt Kuhn; personal business records including financial material concerning the Maynard Walker Gallery; notes and writings; art work; printed material; and photographs.
Biographical material consists primarily of address books and lists of addresses, but also includes miscellaneous resumés and a certificate of participation in the Art in the Embassies program. signed by Nancy Kefauver.
Scattered letters received by Cushing are primarily from friends including Henri Bernstein, Alfred M. Frankfurter, Katharine Graham, Nancy Kefauver, and Walt Kuhn. There are also letters concerning the Chinese Women's Anti-Aggression League that benefited the charitable and social welfare organizations of the Chinese Navy.
Personal business records include lists of art work and purchasers, price lists, financial and legal documents, and various receipts, including some for art supplies. Papers concerning the Maynard Walker Gallery include letters discussing sales, invoices, and a ledger listing sales of art work by various artists including Lily Cushing Emmet.
Notes and Writings consist of notebooks containing annotations on miscellaneous topics including household items, painting, plants, and recipes. Miscellaneous notes concern art work, fabric, and furnishings. Typescripts by others concern the genealogy of the Clark family.
Art work consists of a schematic drawing, small oil paintings on masonite, and a commercial printing block of a design by Walt Kuhn.
Printed material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, programs, miscellaneous brochures, picture postcards of scenes in the United States, Europe, and Mexico and of Native Americans.
Photographs are of Cushing, her daughters, her third husband Capt. Alston Boyd, friends and colleagues including Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek, various houses, travel scenes, miscellaneous plants, and of art work. There is also a photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Language
English
Provenance
The Lily Emmet Cushing papers were donated in 1972 by the artist's daughters Alexandra Emmet Schlesinger and Lily Emmet West.
Separated Material
An unrecorded number of exhibition catalogs were removed from the collection and given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Art Library in 1977.
Processing Information
Portions of the collection were microfilmed separately on reels 963 and 1001; these reels are no longer in circulation. The unmicrofilmed papers and previously microfilmed papers were integrated, processed, and described in a finding aid by Jean Fitzgerald in December 2010.