Richard Artschwager papers, 1959-2013

Richard Artschwager's correspondence is with museums, galleries, artists, art historians, academic institutions, collectors, and publishers. Subjects include the scheduling of exhibitions, loans, preparation of catalog essays; speaking engagements and teaching positions; Artschwager's participation in art-related events; and requests for reproduction rights, provenance and biographical information. Also included are letters by Artschwager that discuss his work and the work of other artists. Among the correspondents are Lawrence Alloway, Gagosian Gallery, Galerie Franck + Schulte, Galerie Neuendorf, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ivan Karp, Kunsthalle Basel, Leo Castelli Gallery, Mary Boone Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art, Ingrid Schaffner, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Letters from artists include Bill Copley, Eric Fischl, Ray Johnson, Louise Lawler, Gerhard Mack, and Betty Woodman. Found are scattered letters from John Baldesarri, Damien Hirst, Dorothea Rockburne, Ed Ruscha, and Holly Solomon. Also included are a few letters illustrated by Artschwager. There are letters from Ann Sebring Artschwager acting on behalf of her husband.

Many of the letters have attachments, e.g., curricula vitae and artist's statements; business related material, e.g., informational sheets, scattered price lists, receipts, consignments; layouts of exhibition space; and printed material including clippings, exhibition announcements and invitations, and reviews; and photographs and digital photographs of artwork. The folders labeled "First Names" contain mostly postcards and thank you notes from people who signed off with the given name and did not include a surname. Some of the correspondence is in German.

Letters are filed alphabetically by the personal or corporate name. Correspondence with individuals is generally filed according to the name of the organization with which they were associated.

Commercially produced holiday and greeting cards, correspondence that only included first names, and correspondence where names were illegible were grouped together towards the end of the series and arranged chronologically.

The bulk of this series has been scanned. Birthday and greeting cards were not scanned. Other materials that were not scanned include duplicates, blank pages, and blank versos of photographs.

Recorded talks and lectures include those held at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Museum of Modern Art, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Florida. Included is a panel discussion that was held in conjunction with a group exhibition featuring Richard Artschwager's work at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Netherlands; also included are the museum's interviews with the artists, including Artschwager, Steve Ginakos, Peter Saul, and John Tweedle.

Talks by others consists of a panel discussion moderated by Judy Dobrzynski between art critics Michael Kimmelman and Peter Schjeldahl and artists Alex Katz and Elizabeth Murray.

Talks and lectures are arranged in chronological order.

This series mostly contains files on Artschwager's solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe from the 1990s-2000s. Materials include biographical information, correspondence and memoranda, fact sheets, exhibition plans, checklists, sketches of layouts, contracts, loan agreements, cost estimates and receipts. Among the printed materials are press releases, exhibition catalogs, photographs of exhibition installations, and video and sound recordings related to exhibitions. Also found are Artschwager's annotations on drafts of catalog essays.

Additional materials related to Artschwager's exhibitions can also be found in Series 1: Correspondence and Series 4: Exhibition Files.

Files are arranged in chronological order by exhibition date.

The bulk of the material in this series has been digitized. Duplicates and blank versos of photographs. In some cases, printed materials have only had their covers, table of contents, and relevant pages scanned.

Newspaper and magazine clippings consist of exhibition announcements and reviews of the artist's work. A list of citations records the reviews of Artschwager's early solo and group exhibitions, providing the name of the reviewer, publication, and date. Also found are exhibition invitations, posters, reproductions, and brochures. Some of the clippings are in German.

Folders are arranged by format and thereafter in chronological order.

The bulk of the material in this series has been digitized. Duplicates have not been scanned. In some cases, printed materials have only had their covers, table of contents, and relevant pages scanned.

Photographs include Hans Namuth's images that were used by Artschwager as source material for his portrait of Leo Castelli. An unidentified photograph presumably was also used for art reference.

The series has been fully digitized.