Sarah Mundy and Stephanie Ashley
Scope and Contents
The papers of Uruguayan born Washington, D.C. painter and printmaker Naúl Ojeda measure 5.9 linear feet and date from circa 1960-2004, and circa 2013. The papers document Ojeda's personal and professional life through biographical materials, correspondence, exhibition and gallery files, professional files, financial material, printed and broadcast materials, scrapbooks, artwork and sketchbooks, and a small amount of photographic material.
Biographical material includes immigration records, resumes, and a few certifications and credentials. Correspondence is personal and professional, with correspondents including Ojeda's family, and friends, and some general professional correspondents, including Alicia Haber, Moira Bowers, Ernesto Vila, Eduardo Galeano, Enrique Gomez, Armando Caicedo Garzón, Walter Jesus Gonzalez, Azucena Berrutti, and others.
Exhibition and gallery files document Ojeda's relationship with galleries, museums, and civic and cultural organizations, and include records of specific exhibitions as well as general documentation related to sales and commissions of his artwork. They include records of the exhibition In Honor of Franz Bader (1995), with a related video recording. Professional files document other activities including Ojeda's involvement with community organizations, art contests that he entered, work he was commissioned to do for businesses and organizations, and permissions for use of his work for a variety of publications, events, and media outlets. Financial records include a small but detailed number of records of sales with sales books, price lists and receipts.
Printed and broadcast materials provide a fairly comprehensive overview of Ojeda's career from the 1960s on, with announcements and catalogs for multiple exhibitions, news clippings from foreign and domestic newspapers, and posters, flyers, and other publications with illustrations by Ojeda. Three broadcast video recordings about his work and exhibitions can also be found here. This material is supplemented by two scrapbooks documenting Ojeda's exhibitions and news items about his career, from the 1960s to early 1980s.
The collection contains a substantial amount of artwork, including drawings, sketches, poster mockups, prints including woodcut proofs, and sixteen sketchbooks for various projects.
A small amount of photographic material includes three photos of a 1968 exhibition in Uruguay, photocopies of photos of a family group, and negatives including images of Ojeda in the studio.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Naúl Ojeda papers were donated in 2016 by Philomena "Pennie" Ojeda.
Funding
Sponsor
The processing and digitization of this collection received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Additional funding for the digitization of the papers was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
Processing Information
The collection was processed and a finding aid prepared by Sarah Mundy in 2018. The collection was further processed and prepared for digitization in 2020 by Stephanie Ashley.