Olive Rush papers, 1879-1967

This series contains biographical narratives, bank records, bills and receipts, identification and membership cards, programs, certificates, and other personal printed materials. Many of the biographical narratives were written by Rush herself. Other narratives are by Sylvia Loomis, W. Thetford LeViness, and Gustave Baumann. Personal Documents include identification and membership cards, Rush's 1947 honorary Doctorate degree from Earlham College, and printed invitations to Rush's garden parties. A nineteenth century alphabet picture book is filed here as an artifact. Biographical materials for Ethel Pennewill Brown Leach include undated pen and ink illustrations, biographical narratives, exhibition catalogs, and clippings.

Correspondence includes personal and business letters from Rush's family and friends, clients, galleries, and administrators of the Federal Art Project. Subjects include personal matters, Rush's illustrations for magazines and books, private commissions of portraits and murals, the exhibition and sale of her work at galleries and other venues around the country, Rush's Federal Art Project murals in the 1930s, and her artistic association with and promotion of Native American artists. Sales of artwork are often documented in this series with notes from buyers.

Significant correspondents include Lou Henry Hoover (Mrs. Herbert Hoover); fellow Howard Pyle studio student Ethel Pennewill Brown Leach; Chicago artist Laura van Pappelendam; literary critic Marius Bewley; arts educator Dorothy Dunn; Hilla Rebay of the Guggenheim Foundation; curators Mary Cabot Wheelwright and Florence Bennett; writers Haniel Long, Witter Bynner, and May Sarton; and Brooklyn artist Beulah Stevenson. Federal Art Project administrators with correspondence in this series include Edward B. Rowan, J.L. Nusbaum, Edward Bruce, Holger Cahill, and R. Vernon Hunter. A few brief letters from Georgia O'Keeffe are also found.

Among correspondence are original prints sent as greeting cards from artists the Applegate's, C.W. Ashley, Josef Bakos, Gustav Bauman (1927, 1937, 1944), Kathleen Blackshear, Margaret Britton, Ruth M. Hallock, Edward and Jo Hopper, Marguerite and Charles Kassler (1929), Hannah McCord Rhett, Mary Riley, Will Shuster (1927), and Agnes Tait (1937). (Unless otherwise indicated, these cards are filed with undated correspondence.)

Received letters are sometimes annotated with Rush's detailed notes concerning the business at hand. Outgoing drafts of Rush's replies are also occasionally found. Fragments of letters are common.

Correspondence is arranged chronologically, with undated correspondence arranged alphabetically at the end of the series.

This series contains diaries, notes, transcripts of lectures/talks, and other writings by Olive Rush, mostly about art, aesthetics, and art techniques. Also found are personal writings, creative writing, and writings of others. Rush's early diaries concern her childhood, education, and early career, including her experiences at the Corcoran School in Washington, D.C. and her arrival in New York City, where she studied with Henry Siddons Mowbray and Augustus St. Gaudens. A 1932 diary contains a daily account of her experience creating murals with young Native American artists at the Santa Fe Indian School. Rush's talks and lectures address mostly art-related topics, including art appreciation, modern art, her own art, and Indian art. Essays include a couple of brief, handwritten essays about Indian art.

Notebooks include a book labeled "Analysis" which contains compositional analyses of modern paintings, detailed notes on other art subjects, and sketches. Two other notebooks contain records of her experiments and practices with art materials, particularly frescoes, for which she developed her own techniques suitable to the New Mexican climate. Detailed notes are found concerning Rush's mural project for the Biology Building at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, a Federal Public Works of Art Project, as well as loose notes on a range of art subjects. Miscellaneous Notes contain contact information and other personal notes.

Other writings are found in Series 1. More details on the Agricultural College mural are found in 1938 correspondence with R. Vernon Hunter, and many sketches for that project are found in Artwork (Series 4).

This series contains business records related to artwork by Olive Rush and Native American artists Rush worked with and helped to promote.

Records of Artwork by Olive Rush make up the bulk of this series, including notebooks that record individual titles of works, prices, and sometimes sale and exhibition information; bills and receipts for supplies, framing, and other work expenses; and lists of inventories, submissions, and prices. Scattered receipts of painting sales are filed with price lists. Additional sales information can be found in Correspondence.

Records of Artwork by Native American Artists include lists of artists' names and works, price lists, and records of exhibitions.

This series contains loose sketches and drawings, sketchbooks, woodcuts, and lithographs by Olive Rush, along with a few artworks created by others.

Sketches and Drawings are grouped by subject matter, with those representing Rush's murals and frescoes filed separately. There is some crossover among the subject categories, and sketches and drawings made for murals in particular are likely to be found in other categories. Although most sketches are unidentified, murals and frescoes known to be represented here include Rush's Federal Art Project murals at the Santa Fe Public Library, the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, and the Pawhuska, Oklahoma Post Office. Also represented are privately commissioned works, including murals and frescoes created for the La Fonda Hotel of Santa Fe, the Sandia School in Albuquerque, and the homes of Florence Barrett, Cyrus McCormick, and Mary Wheelwright, among others. Photographs of many of Rush's murals and frescoes are found in Series 7.

Among the other sketches and drawings are scenes of Native American reservation life, scenes from home and travel destinations, studies for Rush's illustrations, portraits, and other paintings, and abstract, non-objective drawings. Sketches and Drawings are mostly executed in pencil, but are also found in colored pencil, charcoal, watercolor, pen and ink, crayon, and oil.

Sketchbooks contain a similar range of subjects and media, with sketches sometimes accompanied by notes and information about location and date of execution. Artwork by Others includes works by Charles Barrows, Edgar Miller, Dorothy Stewart, Mootzka, Will Shuster, and Ethel Pennewill Brown Leach. See Correspondence for prints received by Rush as greeting cards. Additional drawings by Ethel P.B. Leach are found in Biographical Materials.

This series contains exhibition catalogs; newspaper and magazine clippings; reproductions of Rush's illustrations, paintings, and murals; periodicals; postcards; programs from the theater and other cultural events; pamphlets; and other printed miscellany. Exhibition catalogs, making up the bulk of this series, are for Rush's solo and group exhibitions throughout her career, and for other artists as well. A poster designed by Rush for the Plastic Club (founded 1897), a club for female artists in Philadelphia, is filed here.

Photographs in this series depict Olive Rush, her schools, classmates, friends, colleagues, homes, and artwork. Class pictures include a group photograph from the Corcoran School of Art circa 1890, and from the John Herron Art Institute from 1920. Photographs from Rush's Delaware years depict the residents of "Tusculum," a boarding house used by female artists who attended Howard Pyle's studio lectures and criticisms, and the interior of the Howard Pyle studio, where Rush lived with Ethel Pennewill Brown (later Leach) during Pyle's absence in 1911.

The bulk of photographs of artwork depict Rush's murals in the Midwest and Southwest, some in private residences and businesses, and others created for the Federal Art Project in public facilities. A series of photographs also depict Rush working with local Navajo, Taos, and Apache artists on frescoes at Maisel's Indian Trading Post in Albuquerque

Dates given in parentheses are execution dates of artwork and should not be confused with record dates. Apart from installation views, murals, and frescoes, photographs of artwork have not been digitized.