Findings
Exhibition Poster from the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, 1971. New York (New York, United States). Collection on Arts Organizations. A0014. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York 
Finding 78: Exhibition Poster from the Museum of Contemporary CraftsDecember 5, 2012 This poster from the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, known today as the Museum of Arts and Design, announces the 1971 exhibition ACTS: A Series of Participatory Exhibitions/Events for Total Involvement. The museum was located at 29 West 53rd Street in Manhattan until 1986. Today, this site is the location of the Museum of Modern Art’s Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building. Offering an alternative to the traditional art museum exhibition experience, the exhibition presented a series of experimental works and events that involved wearable sculpture and performances throughout the city. Artists listed on the poster include Carl and Heidi Bucher, Marilyn Wood, and Jim Burns. —Caroline LeFevre, former Archives Intern |
Cuadernos del Ciclo de Arte de Hoy (1964). Barcelona (Spain): Ciclo Arte de Hoy. Collection on Arts Organizations. A0014. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 77: "Cuadernos del Ciclo de Arte de Hoy"September 28, 2012 This issue of the short-lived Barcelona-based artists’ publication Cuadernos del Ciclo de Arte de Hoy (beginning and ending after only eight issues, all from 1964) contains original illustrations by all six of the founding artist collective’s (Ciclo Arte de Hoy) members: Lluís Bosch i Cruañas, Joaquim Lluciá, Carlos Mensa, Owe Pellsjö, Amèlia Riera, and Francisco Valbuena. Accompanying the illustrations are statements about art and form, which the collective has associated with six Modernist masters (Pablo Picasso, Emil Nolde, Paul Klee, Vasily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Wilhelm Lehmbruck). Also in this issue are statements and poems by other Catalan artists. —Ryan Evans, Archives Volunteer |
Left: Page proof of Katherine Dreier’s translation of Point and Line to Plane by Vasily Kandinsky. Right: Published version of the same text translated by Howard Dearstyne and Hilla Rebay. Point and Line to Plane correspondence. Administrative: Publications and Reproductions: Books. Hilla Rebay records. A0010. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York, NY
Finding 76: “Point and Line to Plane” English TranslationAugust 20, 2012 In the early 1940s, Katherine Dreier, co-founder and president of Société Anonyme, worked with Hilla Rebay to create the first English translation of Vasily Kandinsky’s Point and Line to Plane to be published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. However before the book went to print, Rebay rejected the translation and used a translation jointly made by Howard Dearstyne, architect and Bauhaus scholar, and Rebay. Dreier’s original translation was returned to her and the press proof illustrated on the left is all that remains in the Museum Archives of Dreier’s translation.The page on the right is the published translation by Dearstyne and Rebay. The variations between the two translations are most clearly seen in the first sentence of the “In Earlier Times” section. —Francine Snyder, Director of Library and Archives |
Exhibition Poster from St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, 1960s. New York (New York, United States). Collection on Arts Organizations. A0014. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 75: St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery Art OpeningJuly 11, 2012 Situated on East 10th Street and 2nd Avenue just north of the Bowery, St. Mark’s Church is known for its rich Dutch heritage, community service, and active support of emerging local talent in the visual, performing, and literary arts. The church, constructed in 1799, has been home to numerous art projects and events over the years, including the Poetry Project, the Danspace Project and the Incubator Arts Project. The poster featured here announces the opening of a 1960s exhibition of works by Richard Pedreguera and Barbara Beaudreau at St. Mark’s. —Caroline LeFevre, Archives Intern |
Entartete Kunst, 1937. Munich. Collection on Arts Organizations. A0014. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 74: "Entartete Kunst" Exhibition CatalogueJune 5, 2012 The exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) opened in Munich on July 19, 1937. Organized by Joseph Goebbels, Third Reich Minister of Propaganda, the exhibition was designed to demonstrate to the German public examples of modernist and avant-garde works that were unacceptable under the Third Reich for reasons of foreignness and cultural degeneracy. Tactics that were employed included stripping paintings from their frames, adding graphic commentary, and highlighting the prices of the works to raise public ire. First in Munich and then as a traveling exhibition, Entartete Kunst was attended by more than two million visitors, with Guggenheim director Hilla Rebay among them. She wrote to the artist Rudolf Bauer in August 1937 to report that she had visited the exhibition, where she saw works by many of the artists she would soon support through exhibitions at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (forerunner of the Guggenheim Museum). These included works by Vasily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, and Bauer, among others. —Rachel Chatalbash, Archivist |
Education Information, Inc. Newsletter, 1960. New York: The American Artists Professional League, 1960. Collection on Arts Organizations. A0014. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 73: Anti-Communism in an Art NewsletterMay 3, 2012 During the second half of the 20th century, the art world was rife with political controversy surrounding the spread of Communism. Rampant fear of anything construed as un-American resulted in an adverse reaction to modern art among conservative artist circles. In 1960, the American Artists Professional League distributed a newsletter founded by Education Information, Inc. to disseminate writings by American artists, such as Wheeler Williams and E. Merrill Root, who sought to fight the penetration of Communist ideology into American culture. This special issue of the publication was written on the subversion of art in modern times. —Caroline LeFevre, Archives Intern |
 
Letter from Joan Miró, top, and the ceramic mural Night and Day (1957–59). Guggenheim International Award, 1956. Exhibition records. A0003. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 72: Guggenheim International AwardApril 10, 2012 In 1959, Joan Miró's ceramic mural Night and Day won the 1958 Guggenheim International Award (GIA). Established in 1956 as both a recognition of outstanding achievements in the visual arts and an important manifestation of international goodwill, the GIA functioned as a global art competition that awarded $10,000 to an artist whose painting was selected by an international jury and subsequently approved by the Guggenheim Foundation. In this letter, Miró writes to James Johnson Sweeney, second director of the Guggenheim Museum, thanking him for the award. The final GIA was awarded in 1964, after which funds were reallocated to acquiring works from exhibitions for the collection. —Francine Snyder, Director of Library and Archives |
Solomon R. and Irene Guggenheim’s apartment in the Plaza Hotel, New York, circa 1937. Hillla von Rebay Foundation Archives. M0007. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 71: Plaza Hotel ApartmentMarch 19, 2012 Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Solomon R. and Irene Guggenheim maintained several suites at the Plaza Hotel as their New York City residence. Already actively collecting nonobjective artwork, Solomon Guggenheim decided to open select areas of the apartment to the public for art viewings. The by-appointment viewings showcased artworks from his private collection, now know as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection. Hilla Rebay, who would later be named the first director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, was instrumental in the selection and display of the artwork in the apartment. In addition, starting in 1939 and lasting until the early 1940s, Rebay invited artists to the apartment for "artists' tea," a forum in which Rebay would critique artists' current work, and for lectures on nonobjectivity. —Francine Snyder, Director of Library and Archives |
Installation view: Constantin Brancusi, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1955, first floor, third and forth room, looking east, with Torso of a Young Man, The Miracle, Caryatid, and White Seal. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, NY. Reference copy in Constantin Brancusi. Exhibition records. A0003. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 70: Exhibition History of Constantin Brancusi, 1955February 23, 2012 On Wednesday, October 26, 1955, the first major museum exhibition of Constantin Brancusi opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The exhibition, held at the 1071 Fifth Avenue town house, consisted of 59 sculptures and 10 drawings and gouaches. Seven of the works, including White Seal, came from Brancusi's studio in Paris, and many had never previously been shown in the United States. In the press release, then-director James Johnson Sweeney described "the importance of such a comprehensive exhibition of the sculptor's work to a just appreciation of Brancusi's genius. Only such a cross-section of his art can bring out the full justice the variety of work, his dedicated love of materials—wood, stone, metal—and his simple, direct—yet subtly imaginative—interpretation of them." Although never published, the exhibition records include extensive research and planning for an exhibition catalogue. Found within these files is a rare installation view of Brancusi's work at the Arts Club of Chicago in 1927. —Francine Snyder, Director of Library and Archives |