Walt Kuhn Family papers and Armory Show records, 1859-1984, bulk 1900-1949

This series contains correspondence among Armory Show organizers, artists, dealers, collectors, vendors, publicists, and the public concerning the planning, production, and reception of the exhibition in New York, Chicago, and Boston.

Unless otherwise noted, incoming and outgoing correspondence has been interfiled and arranged alphabetically by correspondent. Often only unsigned carbons of outgoing correspondence exists for a listed correspondent. When a correspondent has less than five items in a series, their letters have been placed in general alphabetical files, whose contents are listed under their file heading. Announcements written by AAPS members and sent to multiple recipients have been filed under the heading "Association of American Painters and Sculptors," regardless of the signature.

Organizers' Letters include letters written by Arthur B. Davies and Walt Kuhn. Recipients include Walter Pach, Walt Kuhn, and Vera Kuhn. Letters describe Kuhn's and Davies' travel to Europe to collect works to exhibit, preparations in New York, and the traveling exhibitions in Chicago and Boston. Several letters from Walt Kuhn are illustrated, and a floor plan of a proposed installation in the Armory is among Davies' letters. One postcard to Vera Kuhn from Boston is signed by Maurice and Charles Prendergast and Frederick James Gregg, as well as by Walt Kuhn.

Additional letters from Walt Kuhn to his wife before and after his Armory Show activities can be found in Series 4.2: Walt Kuhn Letters to Family.

Letters are separated by author and arranged chronologically.

Artists and Lenders Correspondence includes correspondence between organizers and artists, dealers, collectors, and other potential contributors to the exhibition. Included are letters from Oscar Bluemner, Constantin Brancusi, Robert Delaunay, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Arthur J. Eddy, Erich Heckel, Edvard Munch, Maurice Prendergast, John Quinn, Odilon Redon, Charles Sheeler, Alfred Stieglitz, Leo and Michael Stein, Ambrose Vollard, and Jack B. Yeats, among others.

This group is divided geographically between domestic and European correspondents, and is arranged alphabetically by name. Americans living in Europe at the time of the show are generally filed in the European correspondence. In addition to letters, this series contains occasional translations of letters from French or German, and a handful of lists of works or notes found with correspondence.

Additional correspondence with artists, dealers, and patrons can be found in Armory Show Sales Correspondence (Series 1.1.6).

Correspondence with Insurers, Packers, and Shippers contains inventories, receipts, and correspondence detailing arrangements for the physical handling and security of works included in the show, and correspondence relating to insurance claims on exhibited works.

Artists' and lenders' correspondence regarding insurance and shipping is filed in Artists and Lenders Correspondence (Series 1.1.2). Extensive correspondence regarding the shipment of works to Chicago and Boston is filed in Traveling Exhibition Correspondence (Series 1.1.5). Additional shipping information can be found in the annotated catalogs filed in Printed Material and Memorabilia (Series 1.5).

The bulk of correspondence concerning the production and promotion of the Armory Show is filed here. Subjects include real estate matters, press coverage, art work reproductions, invitations, publications, merchandise, and fundraising. Correspondence by artists, dealers, and collectors concerning these subjects has been filed in Artists and Lenders Correspondence (Series 1.1.2).

This series documents the modified exhibitions sent to the Art Institute of Chicago (March 24 to April 16, 1913) and the Copley Society of Boston (April 28 to May 19, 1913). The bulk of correspondence is between Armory Show organizers and officials at the Chicago and Boston venues, including Walt Kuhn, Arthur B. Davies, Walter Pach, Frederick James Gregg, Elmer MacRae, and John Quinn, William M.R. French, Arthur T. Aldis, N.H. Carpenter, J.F. Coolidge, Holker Abbott, and Desmond Fitzgerald.

Correspondence among exhibit organizers regarding sales made during the traveling exhibition is also filed here. A contract between the AAPS and the Copley Society, referred to in a telegram of March 4, 1913, is filed with that telegram. Correspondence regarding a contract dispute between the AAPS and the Copley Society is also filed in this series. Arrangement is chronological.

Additional correspondence relating to the traveling exhibition can be found in Walt Kuhn's letters to Vera Kuhn in Organizers' Letters (Series 1.1.1).

Sales Correspondence contains the bulk of correspondence regarding the sale, payment, and delivery of works bought at the exhibition, as well as inquiries and acknowledgements made by the buyers and artists. This correspondence is most often of a perfunctory nature, listing works and prices or other arrangements.

In addition to correspondence in this series, information about exhibition sales can be found in Traveling Exhibition Correspondence (Series 1.1.5), Armory Show Notes (Series 1.4) and in the marked catalogs in Printed Materials and Memorabilia (Series 1.5).

This series contains a record book of works from the United States submitted for inclusion in the Armory Show, showing which works were selected and which rejected. Also found are mailing lists of artists.

This series consists of forms filled out and submitted by artists and dealers for individual works sent to the Armory Show. Forms include the name of the work, the name of the artist, the date of execution, the price of the work for insurance and for sale, the location of the work and the address to which the work was to be returned.

Forms in German are separated from forms in French, and arrangement is alphabetical by artist.

This series consists of handwritten and typewritten information related to the Armory Show, including notes in Walter Pach's hand from a conversation with Odilon Redon from December of 1912, a list of artists suggested for inclusion in the show by Picasso and often referred to as "Picasso's list," statistics for attendance and sales, prices of works in an annotated catalog, and a list of purchasers and their mailing addresses. Additional catalogs from the exhibition, both annotated and un-annotated, can be found in Printed Material (Series 1.5). Additional statistics for attendance can be found in Scrapbooks (Series 1.8, Press II, p. 69).

Printed material in this series includes a blueprint of the Armory installation floor plan; the 1912 catalog of the Sonderbund Internationale Kunst-Austellung in Cologne, Germany, which was sent to Walt Kuhn by Arthur B. Davies and annotated by both men; exhibition catalogs for the New York, Chicago, and Boston exhibitions; printed exhibition announcements and notices; postcards printed with reproductions of art works; pamphlets published by the organizers of the show; two items of memorabilia including an Armory Show button and a lapel pin; and newspaper clippings.

Several of the catalogs contain annotations. Annotated New York catalogs are marked with prices and other notes; annotated Boston and Chicago catalogs are marked with shipping and packing information. Researchers should note for each of the catalogs, the annotated copies have been digitized. Digitization was not repeated for clean duplicates of catalogs.

An additional annotated catalog can be found in Notes (Series 1.4) under the heading "Prices and Purchasers." Additional clippings can be found in Scrapbooks (Series 1.8). Transcripts of Walt Kuhn's translation of Gauguin's "Noa-Noa" are filed under Writings of Walt Kuhn (Series 1.6).

This series contains translations written by Walt Kuhn during his voyage home from Europe in November, 1912. Works include excerpts from Paul Gauguin's "Noa-Noa," which was later published in pamphlet form for sale at the Armory Show, and excerpts from "Letters of a Post Impressionist" by Vincent van Gogh, which was not published. Also included are copyright clearances for both works obtained from the Library of Congress Copyright Office.

Manuscripts and typescripts are filed together in this subseries. The published pamphlet of the Gauguin translation can be found in Printed Material and Memorabilia (Series 1.5). Additional writings by Walt Kuhn can be found in the Walt Kuhn Family Papers (Series 4).

This series consists of photographs related to the Armory Show, including installation views, art works, the Duchamp-Villon brothers, and the celebratory beefsteak dinner held on March 8, 1913, taken by Percy Rainford. Photographs include individual prints and one photo album. The photo album consists of platinum prints of works of art that were made into postcards, and an original photograph of the Duchamp-Villon brothers.

A handful of loose platinum prints of art works and of the Duchamp-Villon brothers match the prints in the photo album in image, tone, and print quality, and have been treated as originals. Copy photographs of images whose originals are not in this collection are filed in Series 1.9: Retrospective Materials. Additional photographs are found in Series 3 and 4.

This subseries includes two scrapbooks (currently housed in three conservation phase boxes) that document the Armory Show. They include magazine and newspaper clippings; printed materials related to the exhibition; typescript documents of the AAPS related to statistics, public speeches, and circulars; and telegrams remarking on the exhibition. Subjects of the clippings include advance press of the show, diverse responses to the show, satirical cartoons, John Quinn's fight to eliminate the tariff on art, Guzton Borglum's public resignation from the AAPS, and the vice investigation of the show by Chicago authorities.

Because of the poor quality paper used in the scrapbooks, items in this series have required conservation treatment, which has slightly modified their composition. The Beefsteak dinner menu, which is from the celebratory dinner hosted by the AAPS on March 8, 1913 and is signed by the attendees, was originally included in these scrapbooks, but was later conserved as a separate item. The menu is included in this series with reference to its original page number in the scrapbook. The original binding of volume 2 of the scrapbooks was removed when the volume was conserved, and is housed separately. Another item that was separated from the scrapbooks, a clean copy of the New York edition of the exhibition catalog, is now housed with the other catalogs in Printed Materials and Memorabilia (Series 1.5). Microfilm copies of the scrapbooks as they appeared at the time of accession are available on reels D242-D243.

In general, scrapbook items are loosely chronological. Duplicates of many of the pamphlets, notices, posters, catalogs and postcards in the scrapbooks are found in Printed Material and Memorabilia (Series 1.5).

Additional scrapbooks, which are unrelated to the Armory Show, are found in Series 3 and 4.

This series consists of materials related to retrospective accounts of the Armory Show from the 25th and 50th anniversaries of the exhibition, in 1938 and 1963. Items from the 25th anniversary include an article by Frank Crowninshield in Vogue magazine, and Walt Kuhn's pamphlet, "The Story of the Armory Show" (1938), which was later reprinted in the Art News annual of 1939. Additional items in this series, including a typescript catalog, a series of photographs of the Armory building exterior dated 1962, and reproductions of clippings and artwork, seem to have been gathered for the 50th anniversary exhibition held in 1963. The reproductions in this series were not made from the Armory Show records in this collection. Additional documents related to the Kuhn pamphlet can be found in the Walt Kuhn Family Papers (Series 4).