Archives of American Art Blog

Dorr Bothwell and Polynesian Patterns

Dorr Bothwell in her studio, 1967 / Bill Foote, photographer. Dorr Bothwell papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

An intriguing portrait of artist Dorr Bothwell (1902–2000) in her studio captured my attention recently. I knew little of Bothwell’s life and work as a painter, printmaker, and art instructor. In Bill Foote’s black and white photograph, Bothwell exudes elegance as she sits perched on a stool, clothed in a plaid smock, smart wool dress, cable knit knights, and leather slippers. The pegboard of tools and silkscreen frame seems particularly evocative of her labor. Yet, the gridded rectangular wall hanging raised some questions for me: Where is it from? Did she make it? And, what significance did it hold for her to have such a place of prominence in her studio? Bothwell’s papers at the Archives of American Art provided some clues.

The wall hanging appears to be a siapo. Siapo is the Samoan name for Polynesian barkcloth, generally known as tapa. This piece likely dates from her period in Samoa. In 1928, she quit her job as a waitress when she inherited $3,000 from an aunt. Rather than buying things as others suggested, she packed a roll of canvas, stretchers bars, and paints and headed for Samoa. On May 3, 1928, Bothwell set sail for Pago Pago aboard the S.S. Sierra. In addition to her art supplies, she carried with her several letters of introduction from teachers and gallerists who attested to her success, hailing her as “a serious and recognized artist.” And, as her former teacher, Rudolph Schaeffer, professor of Rhythmo–Chromatic Design, explained, Bothwell possessed an interest in “studying the sources of underlying impulses producing individual expression of decorative design with various races in different lands.”

During her time in the Polynesian archipelago, Bothwell maintained a diary in which she recorded her daily activities: reading, swimming, gardening, and sketching. She studied local artistic traditions and made many studies of daily life in pen, pencil, and watercolor. According to an oral history conducted with Bothwell in 1986, she made a number of paintings that she shipped to her mother who took them to a gallerist in San Diego, CA. After that show sold–out, Bothwell sent over a second batch of materials that were exhibited in San Francisco, CA. She also completed 17 measured drawings of tapa cloth that she sent to the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.

I have seen copies of Bothwell’s siapo from the period. She worked in colored pencil, principally in black, yellow, and red. The rhythmic patterns, with their stripes, triangles, squares, rectangles, and diamonds remind me of the exuberant Art Deco iconography that she would have been familiar with in the United States during the same period. And, it suggests the multiple sources of modern motifs and abstraction that she developed in her later paintings and serigraphs.

Shortly after she returned to the States, Bothwell presented a performance of her “tales of adventure in Samoa, illustrated with songs and dance” in 1930, in the Gold Ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, CA. She later worked in the mural division of the Federal Arts Project of Los Angeles during the New Deal. During the rest of her life, she was a painter, printmaker, author, and art instructor in California and abroad. And, as this photograph suggests, Bothwell carried Polynesian patterns with her throughout her career.

Kelly Quinn is the Terra Foundation Project Manager for Online Scholarly and Educational Initiatives at Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Monuments Men in Japan: Discoveries in the George Leslie Stout papers

George Leslie Stout, Langdon Warner, and Japanese officials at Nishi Honganji temple in Kyoto, Japan, 1946 May 29 / unidentified photographer. George Leslie Stout papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Haruki Watsuji, Kyoto, Japan letter to George L. (George Leslie) Stout, Tokyo, Japan,, 1946 June 27. George Leslie Stout paper, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

George Leslie Stout, ca. 1965 / Lotte Jacobi, photographer. George Leslie Stout papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

While processing the George Leslie Stout papers, I came across a black and white photograph of a group of Japanese and American gentlemen gathered together in a temple garden. The accompanying letter written on June 27, 1946 from Haruki Watsuji, then mayor of Kyoto, to George Leslie Stout mentions a visit by Stout and Langdon Warner, both seated in the photo, during which they attended a tea ceremony at Nishi Honganji temple. For a few months, I have been organizing the personal papers of several of the Monuments Men at the Archives of American Art, thanks to funding by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation’s grant program for World War II provenance research. Stout was a member of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives Section (MFAA) of the U.S. Army—known colloquially as the “Monuments Men.” This group was charged with the protection and damage documentation of cultural monuments along with the investigation, location, recovery, and repatriation of art that had been plundered systematically by the Nazis.

Stout was a prominent art conservator working at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum and one of the first to be recruited to the MFAA Section. As a Monuments Man, Stout accomplished a great deal: he supervised the inventory and removal of several thousand art works from repositories hidden in salt mines, churches, and other locations; he was appointed as the Lieutenant Commander of MFAA; and he received the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal. I knew of Stout’s history and of the Monuments Men’s work in Europe, but the letter and the photograph of Stout and Warner alerted me to the existence of a branch of the MFAA Section in Japan.

George Stout and fellow Monuments Man Laurence Sickman recommended creating a MFAA division in Japan following the country’s official surrender on September 2, 1945. Consequently, the Arts and Monuments Division of the Civil Information and Education Section of GHQ of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers in Tokyo was established. Stout was the Chief of the Division from approximately August 1945 until the middle of 1946. Langdon Warner, archaeologist and curator of Oriental art at Harvard’s Fogg Museum, was brought on as an advisor to the MFAA Section in Japan from April to September of 1946. Other members who served in Tokyo’s Arts and Monuments Division include Howard Hollis, Sherman Lee, and Harold Gould Henderson. Curious about the legacy these individuals left behind, I rummaged through the collection at the Archives. I learned that Harold Gould Henderson, a Japan scholar and Columbia University professor who would later become the director of the Japan Society in New York, was on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff as an MFAA advisor and worked as a liaison to the Japanese Imperial household alongside his friend and colleague Reginald H. Blyth. Henderson and Blyth assisted with drafting the Humanity Declaration (人間宣言 Ningen Sengen), the Japanese Emperor’s historic speech in which he renounced his personal divinity.

Another lasting impact on Japanese culture was made by Sherman Lee. An Asian art expert, Lee had the opportunity to examine an art collection held at the Shosoin Imperial Repository in Nara, Japan, which houses over 9000 categorized objects. Lee negotiated with the Japanese government to display the treasures, which had never before been available to the public. The first of what would become an annual exhibition was held in September 1947. To this day, the exhibition is considered the most popular in Japan each year.

It should be noted that not all of the achievements in Japan attributed to the Monuments Men are accurate. One rumor that gained ascendancy—to the extent that it was widely accepted as fact—was that Monuments Man Langdon Warner was the savior of Nara and Kyoto, the first and former capitals of Japan respectively, and cultural goldmines, rich in temples, shrines, and palaces. The two cities had survived the war relatively intact, whereas other places had not: Tokyo was razed to the ground by incendiary bombs; Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled by atomic bombs. When news traveled that Kyoto had been on the shortlist of prospective targets for the atomic bomb, people were convinced that only a man as knowledgeable and influential as Warner could have had the clout to sway those in power and divert the disaster. Warner repeatedly denied any responsibility for the fortunes of the two cities, but the belief was too entrenched. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasures in recognition of his work, and memorial shrines were built in his honor on the precincts of the Horyuji temple in Nara and other cities, including Sakurai, Kita Ibaraki, and Kamakura.

If not Warner, then who? In something of a historical whodunit, the idea that Warner protected Kyoto and Nara from harm has been discredited. In 1975, professor and Japan scholar Otis Cary, wrote an article examining the issue titled, “Mr. Stimson’s ‘Pet City’ — The Sparing of Kyoto, 1945,” a copy of which he inscribed to Stout. According to Cary’s research at the National Archives, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson visited Kyoto several times and rejected the city as a target for bombing on multiple occasions, without prompting from Warner or others. Nara, fortuitously, was never marked for bombing by the B–29 planes.

My cursory research on this topic yielded an intriguing mix of history and legend. I’m sure that I will discover more as I continue processing the collections at the Archives. If anything, the Monuments Men demonstrate that the survival of art in wartime is not a happy accident in history, but the result of dedicated individuals united by a common goal.

Explore more:

• Oral history interview with George Leslie Stout, 1978 Mar. 10-21
• “S. Lane Faison, Jr., and ‘Art Under the Shadow of the Swastica’” by Nancy H. Yeide and Patricia A. Teter–Schneider Archives of American Art Journal 47: 3-4
• About the “Samuel H. Kress Foundation Project for Enhanced Online Access to World War II Provenance Research Archival Collections”

Rihoko Ueno is a processing archivist at the Archives of American Art.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Facial Hair of Note: Daniel C. Beard

Collaged portrait of Daniel Carter Beard, ca. 1890 / Stahmer Art Photography, photographer. Charles Scribner's Sons Art Reference Dept. records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Daniel Carter Beard, founded the Sons of Daniel Boone in 1905, a youth program that merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. Beard was an illustrator as well as an outdoorsman.

At some point someone felt this portrait of Beard needed to be “improved”—the book with hands and feet has been pasted to the original photograph, making for an amusing collage!

Jennifer Snyder works with oral history interviews at the Archives American Art. When not sending interviews out for digitization, she is writing about extraordinary examples of facial hair for this blog.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Back to School

Alfred and Walter Pach as young boys, ca. 1889 / Pach Brothers, photographer. Walter Pach papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Selected pages from letter from Maximilian P.E. Groszmann to Gotthelf Pach, 1895 Jan. 15. Walter Pach papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Magnus Gross letter to Gotthelf Pach, 1898 Jan. 7. Walter Pach papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Packing my two boys off to school in September, after a lazy (for them at least) 10 week summer break, has left me feeling rather like I’ve been shot from a cannon. Predictably each morning finds me frantically exhorting my 9 year old son to put down his Calvin and Hobbes book, or the latest Lego micro–spaceship he’s designed, or whatever piece of plastic junk has caught his attention this week, and put on his shoes so we can get to school already! Once again I’m fretting about how to help him stay focused and engaged as the ever more pressing weight of school work competes in his 4^th grade brain with more appealing childhood distractions. Not that I’m worried about him. He’s a curious, happy and empathetic kid, and I don’t have a problem getting him to read or play on his own—I just have a problem getting him to do anything else. So when I came across these school letters in the Walter Pach papers, describing the 12 year old Pach, I recognized a familiar scenario.

Walter Pach, influential artist, critic, writer, and art consultant who helped bring the avant–garde to America in the landmark Armory show of 1913, was attending the private Workingman’s School in New York City in 1895. Soon to be renamed the Ethical Culture School, it was renowned for a commitment to social justice, racial equality and intellectual freedom. In 1895 Pach would have been in 7^th grade and, by all accounts, he was struggling. Following a meeting with his father, Pach’s teachers had been asked to report on the child’s progress and weigh in on the possibility of his suspension and transfer to the public school system. Walter, one said, suffered from “an excess of vitality.” The young Pach questioned why he should be made to do mechanical drawing when he hated it, took “little interest in music,” and was “one of the poorest of his grade in drawing, designing and modeling.” He lacked “greatly” the qualities of “order and neatness” and had a “sense of the ludicrous” so “unduly developed” that it constituted “a danger for his moral development.”

Despite a rocky beginning in 7^th grade, Pach’s teachers nevertheless noted his “very good intellectual ability” and had discerned some improvement as the year progressed. They saw a boy who was “facile with thought and pen and unusually intelligent,” despite being “slovenly in action and attitude,” and most felt that he would benefit from remaining at the school and receiving the special attention he needed to overcome his “faults.” There was a general consensus that the harsh disciplinary measures likely to be meted out in public school would be counter–productive for the feisty Pach, who was prone to “stubborn resistance” when disciplined. “The moment I censure him,” remarked one teacher, “he gets all excited and he is not the master of himself.” Now that sounds familiar.

Nevertheless, Pach was transferred to Public School 6 on the Upper West Side at some point during the next few years. In 1898, arithmetic teacher Magnus Gross lamented in a letter to Pach’s father that he had “so frequently to caution him to put away books, papers and playthings with which he allows his attention to be absorbed,” that he recommended “that all reading (except upon subjects connected with his studies) be forbidden him....and that all distractions of any nature (except a due amount of physical exercise) be removed from him.” Poor Walter.

Not that I’m comparing the potential of my offspring to that of a renowned art–world figure, but it’s reassuring to know that a dearth of interest in arithmetic and a penchant for (gasp!) books and playthings during childhood does not necessarily doom a boy to failure. The young Pach clearly had a mind of his own, and while he appears to have struggled, at least for a time, to apply it effectively within the constraints of a grade school education, his intellect was eager and quick and hinted at a fascinating life to come: Pach befriended and corresponded with some of the major European, American and Mexican artists and art–world figures of the first half of the twentieth century. He helped to form the legendary collections of Walter Arensberg and John Quinn. Fluent in French, German and Spanish he was able to effectively translate avant–garde ideas emerging from Europe for an American audience, and he wrote extensively on art, artists, and museums. On top of all that he was an artist in his own right. Not bad for the poorest in his grade.

Stephanie Ashley is a processing archivist at the Archives American Art.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Archivist on the Road: Spiral Jetty

Built in six days in 1970 by the artist Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty is often completely submerged, revealing itself during times of drought. Photo: Jason Stieber

Collecting trips keep me pretty busy, but every now and again, I get the opportunity to have an unplanned adventure. On a recent trip to Utah, I had a free day to visit Robert Smithson’s masterwork of land art, Spiral Jetty. If you ever decide to visit the site, don’ be put off by the Dia Foundation’s driving directions warning you to bring an off–road vehicle. The gravel roads to Spiral Jetty are well–maintained and easily passable in a regular passenger vehicle.

The arid landscape is oddly alien, dotted with dark boulders of basalt and parched scrub. Stranger still is the vividly pink water of Gunnison Bay, the northern portion of the Great Salt Lake where Smithson built Spiral Jetty in 1970. The bay was cut off from the fresh water of the surrounding river systems when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a causeway across the lake in 1959, causing its salinity to spike dramatically. A pink, salt–loving algae has thrived in the bay ever since.

An old oil rig jetty lies less than a mile south of Spiral Jetty and, in partnership with its more elegant neighbor, calls to mind the natural processes in which Smithson delighted. Photo: Jason Stieber.

Spiral Jetty. Photo: Jason Stieber.

The Jetty was partially submerged, but visible during my visit. Smithson was able to build Spiral Jetty with a $9,000 grant from the Virginia Dwan Gallery, which he used to hire a bulldozer, dump trucks, and other equipment operated by a local contractor named Bob Phillips. The ruins of an old oil rig jetty just to the south offer an interesting contrast between the products of industry and those of art, however frequently they share the same tools.

Archivist on the Road, off the road. Photo: Jackie Petersen.

Since its construction, the Jetty has become a landmark of the Land Art movement, inspiring a generation of artists. I highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in Northern Utah. Just don’t walk the Jetty in your bare feet like I did. Ouch!

Jason Stieber is one of two Collections Specialists at the Archives of American Art. Jason travels throughout the United States in search of treasures to add to the Smithsonian’s collections.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

You’ve Got Mail Art: Discovering John Held Jr.’s Role as Librarian and Mail Artist

Hans Fricker mail art to John Held, 1991. John Held papers relating to Mail Art, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Mail art is not exclusively an American art form. In fact, it is an amazing phenomenon because it reaches across international physical, political, and social borders. My interest in mail art comes from a love of underground art forms that stem from artists’ who strive to unite art and life.

During a Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL) professional development internship focusing on artists’ books I was reacquainted with mail art. I found several artists’ books that contained examples of mail art within SIL’s hidden collection and decided to look a little deeper into the subject. This led me to the Archives of American Art and to the John Held papers related to mail art, 1973-2008. I pored over the papers and found that John Held, Jr. is not only a mail artist and a librarian, but he has documented an art form that is culturally significant around the world in a way that nobody else has. What I found was that he captured examples, ideas, and opinions of this democratic medium from the “father” of mail art, Ray Johnson, to hundreds of lesser–known mail art participants across the globe by corresponding with them over the course of several decades.

Ray Johnson mail art to John Held, 1981 Apr. 7. John Held papers relating to Mail Art, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Ray Johnson mail art to John Held, verso, 1981 Apr. 7. John Held papers relating to Mail Art, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

As a recent Library School graduate, this experience impacted the way I view the documentation of art history in libraries and archives. It seems that it is no longer enough to be the “keeper of the books”; to be a truly effective librarian one must become immersed in the culturally significant activities as they are happening, as John Held, Jr. did. Through unifying art, librarianship, and life, the history of art becomes a rich well of information and inspiration accessible to anyone.

Explore more:

• Oral history with Ray Johnson, 1968 Apr. 17
• X–Magazine: Mail Art or Artists’ Book? from the Smithsonian Libraries Blog

Amanda Meeks was a Smithsonian Institution Libraries professional development intern. She is a book artist and a recent graduate from Emporia State University’s Portland, OR School of Library and Information Management program.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Alma’s Stripes: Finding Fashion in the Alma Thomas papers

Alma Thomas working in her studio, ca. 1968 / Ida Jervis, photographer. Alma Thomas papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Alma Thomas in her studio, ca. 1968 / Ida Jervis, photographer. Alma Thomas papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Thomas at opening in the Whitney Museum, 1972? / unidentified photographer. Alma Thomas papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Upon learning that the late Alma Thomas’s birthday was approaching, I began to poke around on our website and in our collections to learn a little more about her life. I have been drawn to the details of her biography largely because I am a social historian interested in African American life and thought. And, as an art historian interested in abstraction and Washington’s Color School, I have been drawn to her paintings. While I knew her life story and her artwork, it was when I turned to the Archives of American Art’s Image Gallery that I first saw her as a person. Looking at pictures of Alma Thomas got me thinking about the aesthetic choices artists make, and I discovered a new fascination with her sartorial choices.

The Alma Thomas papers capture my fancy because of my long–standing interest in this African American female teacher and painter who lived and worked for much of her life in Washington, D.C. until her death in 1978. When she was a teenager, Thomas’s family moved north from Georgia to Washington, DC during the Great Migration. The District of Columbia served as a cultural, political, social, and economic capital for African American men, women, and children at the turn of the 20^th century.

An alumna of the D.C. Public Schools (and other prestigious colleges and universities), Alma Thomas served as a teacher at Shaw Junior High School between 1924 and 1960. Thomas introduced generations of children to art and art appreciation through her distinctive pedagogy which included establishing the school system’s first art gallery, organizing annual exhibitions of African American artists during Negro History Week, and developing the School Arts League Project. During her tenure—both as a student and as a faculty member—the D.C. Public Schools was one of the premier primary and secondary educational institutions for African Americans in the county.

Ida Jervis’s photographic portraits of Alma Thomas from 1968 allow us to peek into Thomas’s studio and glimpse her practice. In a favorite of mine, Thomas stands at a table, paintbrush in hand, tracing curvilinear shapes, working with an abstract painting. Those lines echo the leaves in the potted plant that stands in the bright window to her left. This canvas of intersecting arcs and overlapping shapes is markedly different from the rigid rows of vivid color we often associate with Thomas’s work. Those (perhaps) more familiar paintings appear in other shots. Indeed, Thomas posed for Jervis in front of several sheets of “Alma’s Stripes” as she called them. These portraits nudged me to consider Alma Thomas’s physical presence as well.

On this day in 1968, Thomas favored gridded patterns on her canvases and in her costume. Her dress is composed of a series of checkerboards and colored squares. At the opening of her solo show at the Whitney Museum in 1972—when she was 77 years old—Thomas sported a different dress (or maybe a duster) with a bold geometric print featuring diamonds, squares, and zigzags. I began to wonder, “Why did she choose these particular items on these occasions?” Did she aim to associate her physical self so closely to her paintings? Was this a conscious effort to coordinate and link the artistic practices of painting and dressing? Thomas studied costume design while a student at Howard University, and her mother executed her designs for school productions. I chatted about Thomas’s fashion sense with my co–worker Elizabeth Botten who mused about whether and how Thomas sought out the fabric: did she pick it out and design the pieces or did she buy them? We are left with more questions than answers but one thing is certain: I am now inspired to don a checkerboard caftan on September 22 to mark Alma Woodsey Thomas’s birthday.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Thomas!

Kelly Quinn is the Terra Foundation Project Manager for Online Scholarly and Educational Initiatives at the Archives of American Art.

Not Just Simple Sketches: Caricatures from the Archives of American Art

I was just interested in doing caricatures and making compositions and drawings and sketching in black and white. I didn’t do much ratiocination, I guess. I just went around “doing my thing,” as they say now.

–Peggy Bacon

As interns at the Archives of American Art this summer, we were immersed in the world of Peggy Bacon and her “six degrees.” Bacon was noteworthy as an illustrator and art world doyenne, but she was also a talented caricaturist. Through her work we learned caricatures are more than just simple sketches, they are artworks in their own right. We took this inspiration to find some other notable examples of this charming art form in the collections of the Archives of American Art.

John Singer Sargent

Caricature of an artist painting vigorously, ca. 1885-1886. Francis Davis Millet and Millet family papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

This lively caricature from the Francis Davis Millet and Millet family papers features an artist fervently painting his subject, just in the background. Most likely it is John Singer Sargent at work on his painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. His posture and the expression on his face suggest an exuberance that matches the action of the paint dripping and splashing as it prepares to meet the canvas with energetic strokes.

Abril Lamarque

Abril Lamarque's Calling Card, 19--. Abril Lamarque papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Though an exaggerated caricature might not be a natural choice for announcing yourself to the world, Abril Lamarque embraces it whole–heartedly by incorporating it into his calling card. The shape of his calling card even emphasizes the elongated face of his caricature, with his stylized signature under his chin. We are’t sure if a twinkle lies just beneath his closed eyes, though this item begs the question: Why the long face, Abril?

Antonio Sotomayor

Antonio Sotomayor painting on glass, ca. 1935 / unidentified photographer. Antonio Sotomayor papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

As well as being a caricaturist, Antonio Sotomayor was active in San Francisco as a painter, muralist, and illustrator. Here he is pictured sketching on a rather unusual medium—a glass panel—everything from cars to kids. Though the lines of his characters may seem simple, Sotomayor distills them down to their essence. Their cartoonish qualities and circular actions bring them to life.

Alfred J. Frueh

Caricature of Dick Van Dyke, between 1957 and 1968. Alfred J. Frueh papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Alfred J. Frueh’s caricature portrays a goofy Dick Van Dyke with a large grin and extended neck. Frueh, a cartoonist and illustrator, was best known for depicting strong personalities within his caricatures.  Here, he expertly draws Van Dyke with an oversized chin, droopy eyelids, and outwardly flexed hands to provide a humorous impression and a cartoonish facade. Freuh emphasizes Van Dyke’s expressiveness and ability for physical comedy that, through his many acting roles, have made him a beloved American icon.

John White Alexander

Mark Twain caricature self-portrait, 1902. John White Alexander papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

This charming copper plate with the attached journal was a party favor for the fifty guests at Mark Twain’s 67^th birthday party in 1902.  Twain’s self portrait is amusingly inscribed, “I cannot make a good mouth, therefore leave it out.” His blunt sense of humor in this sketch “done with the best ink” comes through in this wispy haired, mouth–less version of himself.

 John White Alexander was a painter and muralist who also counted Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James among his literary correspondents. As an attendee at Twain’s birthday party he received this caricature with a personal note stating, “I remember you well, sir.” Forget handfuls of candy and a plastic whistles, this is our kind of party favor!

From drawings to etchings, and calling cards to party favors, these five caricatures illustrate the dynamic range of gems located within the Archives of American Art’s collections.

Explore more:

• Peggy Bacon papers, 1893–1973, bulk 1900–1936
• Oral history interview with Peggy Bacon, 1973 May 8

In conjunction with the exhibition, Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon, visitors to the Archives of American Art’s Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery on Saturday, September 1, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., will receive a free caricature of themselves. The Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery is on the first floor of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at 8th and F Streets, NW.

Emma Bird is an undergraduate at Vassar College and Anais Ortiz is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. Both were curatorial interns for the Archives of American Art.

A rare delight: Mexican home movies from the 1930s

Amateur films of Mexico, 1935-1941, Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

The nine short reels of film that make up these charming home movies form a small but significant series within the papers of artists Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo, a collection that is also rich with correspondence, artwork, writings, and many hundreds of photographs. These films, which were shot in Mexico between 1935 and 1941, are among the Archives’ oldest motion picture holdings and, until now, they were completely inaccessible due to their condition and age. With funding provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation, the films are now preserved and accessible for all to view.

Motion pictures are found in about eight percent of the collections at the Archives of American Art. Although they can be tricky to access and costly to preserve, this project has proven once again how rewarding it is to take the trouble. Home movies in particular, with their ad hoc subject matter and personal nature, convey a feeling of being there that you don’t get with paper records or even photographs.

These films depict mainly daily life in the large provincial town of Taxco in the state of Guerrero, where Rogo and Hirsch lived, and Tehauntepec, a large town in the Southern state of Oaxaca. They show a festival procession and dancing, busy streets and markets, and scenes of people working, living, and playing. The films are clearly the work of amateur filmmakers, but the artist’s eye overcomes their technical shortcomings. At times the film quality is compromised by the shakiness of the hand–held camera, low light, or overly–quick camera movements, all common problems in amateur films, but they are always tightly composed and well–balanced. In their composition and subject–matter, they evoke the documentary photographs created by Farm Security Administration photographers, or Paul Strand or Manuel Alvarez Bravo, all contemporaries of Hirsch and Rogo. Technically, it’s also worth noting that two of the films (beginning at 26:18) are in color. Color film had only just become available to consumers, and this may have been another source of inspiration for the filmmakers.

The period when these films were made, between the world wars, was a transformative period politically, socially, and aesthetically, and the films bear witness to ways in which those transformations manifested in North America. Mexico had entered a new period of relative political stability which, coupled with the onset of the Depression in the United States, helped to foster a burgeoning expatriate community in Mexico. Politicized by the wars and populist movements of the early twentieth century, artists expressed their social and political sympathies through their artwork in a variety of ways.

Reproduction of Schoolhouse vista, a tempera by Efren Villalobos, age 11, 1932?. Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Rogo’s teaching and writing during this period suggest that she may have been more interested in the self–expression of Mexicans than in her own depiction of them as an artist. In 1931, she founded a painting school for children in Taxco and, in 1937, published a book entitled Walls and Volcanos: The Creative Impulse of the Mexican People. In some ways, I think her orientation as a teacher encouraging creative self–expression can be seen in the films. This is not the footage of a tourist or propagandist seeking to exoticize Mexicans, to highlight their otherness. Her subjects participate in the films. Rather than being objectified, their subjectivity is what comes through, often bursting out of the frame with direct gazes at the camera, sometimes warm, sometimes curious, sometimes playful, sometimes indifferent.

TOP: Views of Taxco and the Mexican countryside, 194-? / unidentified photographer. Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

BOTTOM: Views of the marketplace in Taxco, 194-? / unidentified photographer. Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

While there is limited documentation of the film footage in the collection, there are hundreds of photographs, many of the same subjects. Many original negatives are found in the collection, still in their 35mm strips showing a sequence of photographs that echo the feel of a strip of motion picture film. When I look at the photographs and watch the films, I can imagine the excitement with which these artists, avid documenters of their adopted home, picked up a movie camera and recorded the light and movement and, in two of the reels, the colors around them.

The preservation of the films presented here is part of the Archives’ ongoing commitment to making its significant motion picture holdings accessible to the public. We are grateful to the National Film Preservation Foundation for making this project possible.

Megan McShea is the audiovisual archivist and CLIR project archivist at the Archives of American Art.

A Modernist Likes Old–Fashioned Dessert

Charles Sheeler notebook with addresses and recipes, between 1950 and 1963?. Charles Sheeler papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

While doing research in the papers of photographer and painter Charles Sheeler for my final paper as part of Professor Anne McCauley’s “Masters and Movements of Twentieth Century Photography” art history class, I encountered a peculiar notebook in box 1. I had seen the folder before; I had read Sheeler’s diary, along with other artists’ diaries at the Archives last summer. Because I was constructing an argument about the importance of photography as documentation in Sheeler’s artistic oeuvre, I returned to the journal for my final paper. In academic research, I’ve heard finding a relevant or intriguing book on the same shelf as that book which a researcher initially planned to investigate referred to as “stacks serendipity,” but serendipity isn’t just for libraries—I would say that “box serendipity” happens in archives. A zealous baker, I’m always on the lookout for a good recipe, and once I saw folder 55 with recipes in the title, I had to check that box first.

While I prepared for my research trip to D.C. to read Sheeler’s papers, I read selections from The Photography of Charles Sheeler: American Modernist. After looking at some of his paintings and photographs, particularly those of the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant and of his Doylestown, Pennsylvania farmhouse, I expected to read the papers of a “thoroughly modern” individual, someone who was fascinated by scientific progress or who wanted to create some kind of narrative about the world’s technological progress.

One line from Sheeler’s journal disrupted my assumption. About painting, Sheeler wrote, “I am largely attracted to things seen in nature, by instinct for their intrinsic beauty rather than seeing them as manikins upon which to drape my pet theories.” Additionally, his apparent enjoyment of a certain Pennsylvania Dutch dessert prompted me to reconsider how I thought of Sheeler.

Found among the Sheeler papers, in addition to his main journal, there is a notebook in which he recorded a recipe for shoo–fly cake and then another version of the same, molasses shoo–fly. According to a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania tourism website, there are two types of shoo–fly pie, a regional dessert. Cake sho–fly features the crumb mixture mixed into the molasses, while “wet–bottom” shoo–fly consists of layers of crumbs and molasses mixture.

After I finished my paper (and completed my undergraduate degree), I made Charles Sheeler’s molasses shoo–fly pie for a family celebration. Using Sheeler’s recipes along with the shoo–fly pie recipe included in Phyllis Pellman Good and Rachel Thomas Pellman’s From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens as a secondary source, I modified—or modernized—the dessert to be vegan and gluten–free. In keeping with the rustic nature of this dessert, I figured Charles Sheeler would have had access to buckwheat and oats rather than other, more exotic gluten–free flours.

My version of Charles Sheeler’s molasses shoo–fly pie

Crust

3/4 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup oat flour

1/4 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon sugar (I used maple sugar)

1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt

6 tablespoons shortening (I used organic palmfruit)

2 tablespoons vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance original buttery spread)

3–4 tablespoons ice water

1/4 cup brown rice or oat flour for dusting and rolling

Crumbs

1 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

2 tablespoons shortening (I used organic palmfruit)

Molasses Shoo–Fly

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed + 4 tablespoons water

1 cup boiling water

1 teaspoon baking soda

scant 1 cup molasses

In a large bowl, whisk together crust ingredients. Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening and margarine until mixture resembles wet sand. Adding the water by the tablespoon, cut in the water until mixture sticks together. Pat into a 1–inch thick disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least a half an hour.

Once crust has chilled, preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9–inch pie plate. Remove the crust from the refrigerator. Liberally dust a sheet of waxed paper with brown rice or oat flour. Place the crust in the center of the prepared work surface, dust the top with flour, and roll out the crust with a well–dusted rolling pin until it is 1/4–inch thick. Transfer the crust to the pan and crimp the edges (this is best done by placing the pie plate on top of the waxed paper and crust and flipping over the whole assemblage. It’ s messy but leads to the fewest breaks in the crust). Set aside.

Boil the water for the soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the crumbs ingredients. With a pastry blender, blend in the shortening until the mixture forms small clumps. Set aside.

In a large measuring cup, whisk together the flaxseed and water. Pour the boiling water into a small bowl and stir in the baking soda. Add the molasses to the flaxseed mixture, stir, and add the baking soda mixture. In the piecrust, pour about a third of the molasses mixture and then sprinkle on a third of the crumbs. Continue alternating molasses and crumbs to finish with the crumbs.

Place pie on a foil–lined cookie sheet. Bake on the middle rack for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for 35–40 minutes or until firm (filling will feel springy and it won’t be wet in the middle). Remove from the oven and cool on a rack before refrigerating. For the true wet–bottom pie experience, serve on the same day. For a firmer pie filling, chill four hours or overnight.

I chilled mine since I was bringing it to a party the next day. Twenty–four hours later, the filling had set to a consistency and taste I can only describe as gingerbread pudding. It was gravity–defying, coherent, and delicious, with soft, melting layers of molasses interspersed with crispy, crunchy crumbs. I applaud Charles Sheeler’s addition of gingerbread spices in his “Molasses Shoo–Fly” since they make special a dessert that would otherwise be a sugar–filled pie.

Whether one remembers Charles Sheeler for his painting or his photography, whether one chooses to bake a cake or molasses–style shoo–fly pie, art is art and dessert is dessert. Both, as Charles Sheeler wrote, are “Yummy!”

Explore more:

• Charles Sheeler letter collection, 1939-1958
• Oral history interview with Charles Sheeler, 1958 Dec. 9
• Oral history interview with Charles Sheeler, 1959 June 18

Q Miceli is a former Archives of American Art intern who recently graduated from Princeton University.