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

Items in this series relate to the two artists' clubs in which Kuhn was heavily involved in New York. The annual costume balls of both clubs are documented in this series, as well as exhibitions and other events put on by the Penguin Club.

Artists's balls are documented in photographs, scripts, and printed materials. Photographs depict party-goers and performers in costume, including Kuhn, John Quinn, Frederick James Gregg, William Bahr, John Oakman, Charles Ferrand, Rudy Dirks, Jack Johnston, Gus Mager, and Wood Gaylor, among others who are unidentified. Several photographs were taken by New York photographer Jesse Tarbox Beals. Scripts or scenarios written by Walt Kuhn and Frederic Paul Lopère are also filed here. Kit Kat Ball Printed Materials include invitations, posters, and glossy, heavily-illustrated programs.

Most of the Penguin Club material in this series was removed from a scrapbook during previous processing and is now arranged chronologically as a group. In addition to artists' balls, items from the scrapbook document exhibitions, a musical performance, and social events such as stag dinners, strawberry festivals, and summer outings. Types of materials include invitations, tickets, flyers, announcements, posters, exhibition catalogs, programs, and Penguin Club stationary. Two posters for Penguin Balls are by the cartoonist Alfred J. Frueh.

Other Penguin Club materials include marked exhibition catalogs from 1917, with Kuhn's estimated and actual sales prices, a large poster designed by Kuhn for the 1917 Penguin Ball, and a 1923 flyer for a dinner honoring Horace Brodsky. An undated historical essay entitled "The Penguin" by George Spelvin, which may have been added to the collection at a later date, is accompanied by two photographs showing posters made by the Penguin Club for the Red Cross in 1918.

Additional materials related to the Penguin Club and Kit Kat Club can be found in the Walt Kuhn Family Papers (Series 4).

This series has been scanned in entirety, with the exception of two photographs from the 2015 addition.