Series 2 :Correspondence , 1920-1954 (boxes 1-2, OV 12; 1.2 linear feet)Series consists of Marsh's personal and professional correspondence. Among the correspondents are vaudeville performers and producers, artists, museums, galleries, publishers, greeting card companies, government officials, admirers, and former students, as well as family and friends. Correspondence largely concerns Marsh's career as a painter and illustrator, and his relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.
Correspondence documents his work as a vaudeville reviewer for the New York Daily News from 1922 to 1925; the sale and exhibition of his art work; the publication of his illustrations and caricatures in various magazines; his book illustrations; and the reproduction of his art work on greeting cards produced by American Artists Group and Living American Art, Inc. There are also extensive files (which also contain scattered business, financial, and travel documents) relating to his work on two federal art projects, murals in the Post Office Department, Washington, D.C. (1935) and the Customs House in New York (1937), and his assignment as an artist correspondent in Brazil during the Second World War (1943). Similar materials are also found amongst the business and financial papers in Series 7.
Correspondence documents his relationships with his father, Fred Dana Marsh, his first wife, Betty Burroughs, and his second wife, Felicia Meyer Marsh, as well as his relationships with friends and colleagues, including the English writer, Llewelyn Powys, the artists, Yasuo and Katherine Kuniyoshi, and the U.S. Senator (and former Yale classmate), William Benton, who ended up being one of the largest collectors of Marsh's work.
Letters from artists, such as Edward Laning, and curators, such as Lloyd Goodrich, provide some sense of Marsh's methods and techniques for creating art work (especially his use of the "Maroger medium") and his views on art and current art movements (especially Abstract Expressionism). Correspondence pertaining to the award competition for the U.S. Building at the New York World's Fair, which includes versions of Marsh's letters to and letters from Edward Bruce of the Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture, is especially suggestive of Marsh's strong feelings of "despair" over the lack of originality in contemporary art.
General correspondence is typically arranged in chronological files, interspersed with files named according to correspondent. Letters are typically to Marsh, unless otherwise noted. Project correspondence is arranged according to the name of the project on which Marsh worked or to which correspondence pertains. Envelopes, which had at some earlier point been separated from correspondence, and greeting cards are arranged in files at the end of the series. An appendix of significant correspondent's names from the chronological files is included in this finding aid.
See Appendix for a list of selected correspondents from Series 2.
Description Container Select General Correspondence Select: General Correspondence 1920-1922 Select: 1920-1922 1923 Select: 1923 1924-1925 Select: 1924-1925 1926-1928 Select: 1926-1928 1929-1930 Select: 1929-1930 1931-1932 Select: 1931-1932 1933-1935 Select: 1933-1935 1936-1937 Select: 1936-1937 General Correspondence Select: General Correspondence 1938-1940 Select: 1938-1940 1941-1942 Select: 1941-1942 1943 Select: 1943 1944-1945 Select: 1944-1945 1946-1947 Select: 1946-1947 1948 Select: 1948 1949 Select: 1949 1950 Select: 1950 1951 Select: 1951(2 folders) 1951 Select: 1951 1952 Select: 1952 1952 Select: 1952 1953 Select: 1953 1953 Select: 1953 1954 Select: 1954 undated Select: undated Mabel Randall, Letters to and from Randall Relating to Genealogical Research, 1929-1933 Select: Mabel Randall, Letters to and from Randall Relating to Genealogical Research, 1929-1933 Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1934-1943 Select: Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1934-1943 Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1943 Select: Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1943 Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1943-1945 Select: Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1943-1945 Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1945, undated Select: Felicia Meyer Marsh (Timmy), Letters from Marsh, 1945, undated William Benton, 1939-1945 Select: William Benton, 1939-1945 William Benton, 1945-1948 Select: William Benton, 1945-1948 William Benton, 1949-1951 Select: William Benton, 1949-1951 William Benton, 1951-1952 Select: William Benton, 1951-1952 William Benton, 1953-1954 Select: William Benton, 1953-1954 Project Correspondence Select: Project Correspondence Treasury Department Art Projects, 1935 Select: Treasury Department Art Projects, 1935 Treasury Department Art Projects, 1936 Select: Treasury Department Art Projects, 1936 Treasury Department Art Projects, 1937 Select: Treasury Department Art Projects, 1937 Treasury Department Art Projects, 1937 Select: Treasury Department Art Projects, 1937 Treasury Department Art Projects, 1937-1938 Select: Treasury Department Art Projects, 1937-1938 U.S. Building at the New York World's Fair Awards, 1938 Select: U.S. Building at the New York World's Fair Awards, 1938 Office of Civilian Defense Projects, 1941-1942 Select: Office of Civilian Defense Projects, 1941-1942 War Art Unit, 1943 Select: War Art Unit, 1943 War Art Unit, 1943-1944 Select: War Art Unit, 1943-1944 Greeting Cards, 1932-1951 Select: Greeting Cards, 1932-1951(See also OV 12) Envelopes, 1922-1928 Select: Envelopes, 1922-1928 Envelopes, 1929-1937 Select: Envelopes, 1929-1937 Envelopes, 1941-1951 Select: Envelopes, 1941-1951 Envelopes, 1952-1954 Select: Envelopes, 1952-1954 Oversize, Greeting Cards, 1932-1951 Select: Oversize, Greeting Cards, 1932-1951(See Box 2, F35)