Findings

Letter, T.S. Eliot to James Johnson Sweeney, July 27, 1954. James Johnson Sweeney records, A0001, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 7: T.S. Eliot Letter

February 5, 2010

While it is unclear how the two became acquainted, T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), the noted poet, playwright, and winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature, was a personal friend of James J. Sweeney. Sweeney, a literature scholar, rare-books collector, and editor of James Joyce’s Work in Progress, was an accomplished writer in his own right. This letter, thanking Sweeney for recent gifts of an African sculpture book and a pamphlet on Spanish artist Joan Miro, reveals Eliot’s interest in art and the sharing of expertise between the two accomplished intellectuals.

In addition to the Eliot letter, the Sweeney records contain a number of letters to and from other well-know academics, including I. A. Richards and Barry Faulkner.

—Pete Asch, archives assistant

Office workers moving into the Monitor building, ca. 1959. James Johnson Sweeney records, A0001, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 6: Move In and Opening of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

January 20, 2010

Opened in 1959, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum building was designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Located at 1071 Fifth Avenue, it remains one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Though the core building remains unchanged, the use of its floor space has changed drastically to accommodate the museum’s growth. This contact sheet shows images of staff moving into the building and setting up the museum as Wright intended, with administrative offices located in the Monitor building, which is now known as the Thannhauser Gallery.

Frank Lloyd Wright and James J. Sweeney were often at odds over the use of building’s space and its function. When it opened, the Wright-designed building included Sweeney’s design for hanging artwork on the walls rather than Wright’s vision of free-standing easels. Yet another disagreement was settled after Wright’s death in 1959, when Sweeney brought in an engineering firm to redesign the lighting throughout the building to improve the viewing experience for visitors.

—Pete Asch, archives assistant

Excerpt of correspondence from Willi Baumeister to James Johnson Sweeney, October 24, 1953. Exhibition records, A0003, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 5: Willi Baumeister Shipping Story

January 13, 2010

This document was found in the files of the 1953 exhibition Younger European Painters. Here we see Willi Baumeister combining image and text to explain the circuitous route his paintings are taking from Europe to New York. At the top right he shows himself, brush in hand, at work in his Stuttgart studio.

Willi Baumeister (1889–1955) was a German painter who typically worked in an abstract style, often imbuing his paintings with a sense of the archaic and primordial. Denounced as a "degenerate artist" under National Socialism, he began to show his work again in Germany after the war and co-founded the Zen 49 artists’ group in 1949. Baumeister was one of thirty-two artists to participate in Younger European Painters. After debuting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from December 3, 1953–May 2, 1954, the exhibition toured the country for two years and was shown at numerous institutions, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the San Francisco Museum of Art.

—Amanda Brown, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant intern

Card, Aeyrdy to James Johnson Sweeney, 1953. James Johnson Sweeney records, A0001, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 4: “Meilleurs Voeux pour 1954” Card

January 6, 2010

This card, wishing James J. Sweeney “Best Wishes for 1954,” came from a French painter named Aeyrdy. The 12.5 by 10 cm color print is edition 25 of 74.

Holiday cards such as this one, between the director and artists, can be found throughout Sweeney’s correspondence. Cards were not limited to people who personally knew Sweeney, but were one of the many ways artists distributed their work to the museum. Additional records found in Sweeney’s artist correspondence are a rich source of information on Sweeney’s process of locating, appraising, and acquisitioning works of art for the museum. He encouraged the development of countless amateur artists and often exchanged several letters with them over a period of years. Related to these correspondences are Sweeney’s artist research records, which contain photographs of completed artwork, small drawings, and gallery exhibition flyers.

—Pete Asch, archives assistant

Reel-to-reel Safe Sound shipment. Reel-to-reel collection, A0004, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 3: Reel to Reel Digitization

December 30, 2009

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Reel-to-Reel collection holds recordings of artists’ talks, symposia, lectures, interviews, and performances. Programs highlight artists such as Pablo Picasso, Vassily Kandinsky, Robert Motherwell, Juan Gris, and Vincent Van Gogh. Speakers include Thomas Messer, director of the Guggenheim Museum (1961–88), and Pulitzer prize-winning author and collector James Michener.

The reel-to-reels have valuable content, but are relatively inaccessible in their current format. To preserve the audio content, the Library and Archives Department was awarded a grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize the recordings. Safe Sound Archive, a nationally known vendor for audio preservation and reformatting, has been contracted to preserve and digitize the recordings. Once complete, all audio will be accessible for public research on site at the museum and select audio tracks will be available online.

—Martha Horan, archives assistant

Performance of The Yellow Sound (Der Gelbe Klang), 1912, for Kandinsky in Munich 1896–1914, Marymount Manhattan Theater, New York, 1982. Photo: Marilyn Mazur. Exhibition records, A0003, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 2: Photograph of Kandinsky’s The Yellow Sound (Der Gelbe Klang)

December 16, 2009

This photograph by Marilyn Mazur documents the world premiere of Vasily Kandinsky’s experimental opera, The Yellow Sound (Der Gelbe Klang). Combining aspects of the visual arts, music, theater, and dance, the piece represents Kandinsky’s attempt to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. While Kandinsky published the text and scenario for The Yellow Sound in the Blaue Reiter Almanac of 1912, he was never able to produce the work in his lifetime. In 1982, in conjunction with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition Kandinsky in Munich 1896–1914, the piece was staged for the first time at the Marymount Manhattan Theater in New York. Under the direction of Gunther Schuller, The Yellow Sound was carefully reconstructed based on the notations of Kandinsky and the composer with whom he collaborated, Thomas de Hartmann.

—Amanda Brown, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant intern

Unprocessed records. James Johnson Sweeney records, A0001, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York

Finding 1: James Johnson Sweeney Records

December 9, 2009

September marked the beginning our work with the physical records in the collections named in the NHPRC grant-funded project: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the First Fifty Years. Starting with the Exhibition records and the James Johnson Sweeney records, project staff conducted surveys and created processing plans. Samplings of records proved as we hoped; objects of interest abound.

Once a week, the project staff will be highlighting a “finding,” an object of interest found in the collections. Check back weekly for updates.

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