Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Rydell, Roy (Amnell Roi), 1915-2000
- Abstract:
- This collection includes correspondence, client files & sketches, business papers, scrapbooks, family photographs and photograph albums.
- Extent:
- 48 Linear Feet 115 boxes
- Language:
- English
- Preferred citation:
-
Roy Rydell papers. MS 29. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection includes correspondence, business papers, scrapbooks, and family photographs and albums.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Amnell Roi Rydell (17 Sep 1915 - 2000) was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to a large extened Swedish family. Roy studied at the Minneapolis Art Institute before moving to Los Angeles in 1929. There he continued his art studies at the Chouinard Art School and University of Southern California followed by work at University of California, Berkeley and at Ecole de la Grand-Chaumière in Paris. In 1943 he married Frances L. Cooksey (1914-1998) in Las Vegas, Nevada. After living in the Los Angeles area and traveling, the Rydells moved to Scotts Valley (1948-1953) where they took a caretaking job for the Robert Law family on the Lawridge Farm in Scotts Valley. They became good friends and neighbors to Svea V. Lindquist and Helga O. Olsen, landscape designers and consultants. The ladies introduced Roy, then a struggling artist, to their clients and mentored him in landscpe design.
In the early 1950s the Rydells bought the old school house in Bonny Doon and set about transforming it and building the landscape design and consultanting business. Roy was instrumental in the development of the new Pacific Garden Mall, along with Chuck Abbott and architects Arthur Hyde and Kermit Darrow. As the landscape architect he used the design of the Mall to echo the shapes of nature rather than follow the rules of urban planning. Roy served on local and state boards and committees, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Cabrillo Music Festival and the development of the Museum of Art and History.
Roy and Frances Rydell established the Rydell Visual Arts Fund at the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz in 1985, to support the arts in Santa Cruz County in perpetuity. Following their passing, their estate was bequeathed to the Community Foundation, with the proceeds of the sale added to the fund, which has grown to over $2 million, and is used to support the arts through grants to visual arts organizations and fellowships to individual artists.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Roy Rydell and the Rydell Estate.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by M. Carey, M. E. Simpson. Completed June 2016.
- Physical location:
- Stored offsite at NRLF: Advance notice is required for access to the papers. Box 114 is stored on site in Special Collections and Archives.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Landscape architecture -- California
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights for this collection reside with the University of California. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. The publication or use of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use for research or educational purposes requires written permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for obtaining permissions, and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
- Preferred citation:
-
Roy Rydell papers. MS 29. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
- Location of this collection:
-
Special Collections and Archives, University Library1156 High StreetSanta Cruz, CA 95064, US
- Contact:
- (831) 459-2547