Stuyvesant Van Veen papers, circa 1926-1988

Collection Information

Size: 5.1 Linear feet

Summary: Biographical material, correspondence, photographs, works of art, writings, project files, a scrapbook, and printed material relating to painter, illustrator, and cartoonist, Stuyvesant Van Veen.

Biographical information includes resumes, curriculum vitae, artist statements and profiles, membership cards, certificates, and awards. Correspondence is both professional and personal, and is with art galleries, artists and the U.S. Information Agency about exhibition exchanges with the U.S.S.R. Photographs are of Van Veen, his works of art, and works of art by Frances Avery. Artwork (portions filmed on microfilm reel 2026) includes numerous sketchbooks and sketches of artists, writers, musicians, scientists, and celebrities, caricatures and finished works by Van Veen, cartoons, illustrations, posters, Christmas cards, and book jackets. Writings include diaries,1928-1955, recording Van Veen's daily activities and notes and fragments of writings by Van Veen, including "My diary in sketches for 1942" with seven entries for January 1942.

Project files include the 1939 New York World's Fair mural for Hall of Pharmacy, the mural series Memorial to Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field Apartment Houses, New York, 1963, and the New York City public school murals at PS 8, The Bronx, New York. A scrapbook contains letters, photographs, and clippings. Printed material includes 72 photographic postcards featuring murals and sculptures of the 1939 World's Fair, catalogs, exhibition announcements, clippings, and off-prints. Also included are four comic books which contain illustrations by Van Veen under the pseudonymns Joe Lozen, Jack Camden, and Lester Raye.

Biographical/Historical Note

Stuyvesant Van Veen (1910-1988) was a painter, illustrator, cartoonist, and printmaker in New York, New York. Van Veen was the illustrator for "The Fairy Fleet"; literary satires, Nation and New Masses magazine, and a WPA muralist.

Provenance

Donated 1964 through 1986 by Van Veen and in 2010 by the New York Artists Equity Association via Regina Stewart, who found the material in Van Veen's apartment after his death. Among the donation are papers Van Veen lent for microfilming in 1969 and 1973. "My diary in sketches for 1942" donated 2016 by art historian Christine I. Oaklander who purchased the material at auction.

Related Materials

Also in the Archives are papers that were lent for microfilming on reels 621, 922-924 that include biographical information, correspondence, sketchbooks, photographs, a scrapbook, 1927-1941, designs for book jacket, exhibition catalogs and announcements, magazine articles and comic strips, press clippings, 1926-1966, miscellaneous, and sketches (some may be completed works).

Language Note

English .