Findings
September 2009 marked the beginning of the NHPRC grant-funded project, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum the First Fifty Years. Once a week, the project staff will highlight a “finding,” an object of interest found in the collections. Check back weekly for updates or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Opening announcement for the Carl Andre exhibition, September 29– November 22, 1970. Exhibition records, A0003, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 31: Carl Andre OpeningThe exhibition Carl Andre ran from September 29– November 22, 1970 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and consisted of both sculpture and poems. The document seen here reflects Andre's belief that all museums should have free admission. In a letter to Thomas M. Messer, Andre explained that he objected to the socially elitist atmosphere at most museum openings. Furthermore, he requested that there be no private opening for his exhibition and that admission fees be suspended for the first day. Andre’s request was granted and there was no private preview of this exhibition and the museum opened free to the public on the opening day. In lieu of a private preview, Andre gave a reading of his poetry. |
Holiday card from Marguerite Arp to Thomas M. Messer. Thomas M. Messer records, A0007, Series II: Administration: Correspondence: A, 1977, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 30: Correspondence with Artists’ WivesThis holiday card featuring a reproduction of Collage (1958) by Jean Arp was sent to Thomas Messer by Marguerite Arp, the wife of the famed artist. The Thomas M. Messer records contain a significant number of letters to and from the wives of artists, including Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Naum Gabo, Francis Picabia, and many others. The letters reveal not only the personal relationships that Messer developed with these artists’ wives over his career, but also the important role that women played in the careers of their husbands. Often, they functioned as the artists’ managers, publicists, and social planners. Messer recognized this relationship and often conducted acquisitions and exhibition planning with them. |
Finding 29: Kenneth Noland LectureIn conjunction with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s 1977 exhibition Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective, art historian Michael Fried gave a lecture at the museum entitled “Achievement of Kenneth Noland.” In this clip, Fried discusses the artist’s series Horizontal Stripes in relation to other artistic currents of the period. Michael Fried, “Achievement of Kenneth Noland” (lecture, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, May 17, 1977). Reel to Reel collection, A0004, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York |
Learning to Read Through the Arts Programs, Inc. Sculpture in Your Schoolyard: A Guide for Teachers and Students, 1983. Thomas M. Messer records, A0007, Series II: Administration: Education: Learning to Read Through the Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 28: Sculpture in Your SchoolyardThis page is from the Learning to Read Through the Arts (LTA) guide for teachers, parents, and students. The LTA program began at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1970 and was created to combat illiteracy and introduce the arts to inner-city children. LTA was run by educators and artists, and worked to create teaching methods that advantageously combined both disciplines. One of LTA’s projects for its 1983 program was called “Sculptures in Your Schoolyard,” which resulted in the creation of a sculpture garden at P.S. 198 in Manhattan. This 1983 guide documented the results of the project and demonstrated how other students could benefit from “multisensory educational experiences. The Guggenheim’s LTA records were processed in 2009. There is also an index to this collection available in the Archives Collections section of this Web site. |
László Moholy-Nagy Memorial, 1947. Exhibition records, A0003, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 27: Moholy-Nagy Exhibition CatalogueIn 1947 the Museum of Non-Objective Painting organized an exhibition of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's art. Moholy-Nagy was a painter, photographer, and professor at the Bauhaus School from 1923–28, and the exhibition, In Memoriam László Moholy-Nagy commemorated his life's work. Hilla Rebay wrote an essay for the exhibition catalogue; within the essay she wrote, "with devotion he fulfilled his vocation to bring enlightenment to others, not only as a painter, but also as a person dedicated to space control of any kind. . . . ” Here she emphasized his contributions to the field and to others in the field. |
Exhibitions Visited form, 1955. James Johnson records, A0001, Series III: Administration: Exhibitions Visited by Staff, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 26: Exhibitions Visited FormAs Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, James Johnson Sweeney required staff to attend exhibitions throughout New York City. The museum created the Exhibitions Visited forms as part of an effort to discover new artists and track the activities of other museums and galleries. The form pictured here was filled out by Georgine Oeri, the museum’s staff manager. The majority of staff members provided only the location of the exhibition and the artists featured, but some, such as this one, includes short criticisms. These forms provide a glimpse into New York City’s exhibition history of the 1950s, and the museum staff’s relationship to it. Additional items in Sweeney’s records such as his research also provide documentation on New York City’s museum and gallery exhibitions of the 1950s. |
Permanent collection exhibition, Museum of Non-Objective Painting, 1948. A0003, Exhibition records, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 25: Installation Photograph, Museum of Non-Objective PaintingThis 1948 installation view shows the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's collection at the first museum site, then located on 24 East Fifty-Fourth Street in New York. The exhibition showcased paintings by Vasily Kandinsky and Rudolf Bauer—nonobjective artists favored by Hilla Rebay—and artists at the core of the museum’s collection. The paintings in the museum were hung close to the floor, as shown in the photograph. Rebay wanted the viewer to have an intimate experience with the paintings, and believed the low placement could help foster that experience. |
Correspondence, Thomas M. Messer to Thomas Messer, June 18, 1970. Thomas M. Messer records, A0007, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 24: Dear Mr. Messer“As you have experienced yourself, it is a curious sensation to address someone by one’s own name, especially in an instance where this is not to be taken for granted and where everything but the middle initial matches.” This statement by Guggenheim Director Thomas Messer was made in response to a letter he received in 1970 inquiring if he might be a relative of another Thomas Messer. This letter in 1970 was one of two letters Messer received from others with the same name. In 1962 a nine year old Thomas Messer, who shared the middle initial M., wrote to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with a similar inquiry. The letter provides some insight into Messer’s ancestry and family history. |
Flyer for Josef Albers: A Retrospective panel discussion, 1988. Exhibition records, A0003, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York Finding 23: Josef Albers: A Retrospective Panel DiscussionFrom March 24–May 29, 1988, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presented a retrospective of Josef Albers's work. The exhibition later traveled to Baden-Baden and Berlin, Germany, and Pori, Finland. In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum hosted a panel discussion on April 5 that consisted of panelists Peter Halley, Donald Judd, Paul Overy, and Harry Seidler and moderator Nicholas Fox Weber. While speaking of the relationship between Albers’s theories and his work, one panelist gave the following anecdote: “When you refer to Albers’s scale and his European sense of scale, it made me think of a time when a critic visited Albers in Connecticut in the early 1970s. The critic had observed that for years Albers had created the works in his Homage to the Square series in sizes ranging from 16 x 16 inches to 40 x 40 inches, and [the critic] said ‘Professor Albers, in 1962 you suddenly began to work in the size of 48 x 48, and I wondered if this was your reaction as a European to the vaster scale of life in America or in fact to the American attempt to conquer space and reach larger dimensions?’ And Albers looked at him and said ‘young man that was the year we got a bigger station wagon.’” |