Collection Guide
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Barton (Rick) drawings and paintings
LSC.2374
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Rick Barton drawings and paintings
Source:
Evans, Henry Herman
Creator:
Barton, Rick
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2374
Physical Description:
11.25 Linear Feet
(3 flat boxes, 3 oversize flat boxes, 1 map folder)
(775 drawings, 4 paintings)
Date (inclusive): circa 1956-1964
Abstract: Rick Barton was a gay Beat artist who lived in San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s. The collection is primarily comprised
of drawings created by Barton, chiefly in pen and ink, in the late 1950s to early 1960s.
Physical Location: Portions of the collection stored off-site. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access
special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Language of Material:
English
.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
[Identification of item], Rick Barton drawings and paintings (Collection 2374). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Henry Evans, 1971.
Drawings were purchased from the artist by Henry Evans, printmaker and owner of Peregrine Press.
These materials were originally a part of the Collection of original works of art on paper (LSC.0099). Given the breadth and
depth of drawings by Barton in Collection 0099, it was determined and recommended by LSC curator, Genie Guerard, in 2018 that
the Rick Barton drawings comprise their own collection.
Container list and rehousing by Hannah Moshier in 2019, under the supervision of Jasmine Jones. Collection description created
by Genie Guerard and Jasmine Jones in 2019.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9272598
Rick Barton was born in New York in 1928. He was an artist who claimed to have conducted a self-guided education at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. While serving in the U.S. Navy in 1947, he traveled to China where he observed
traditional line painting. He was most prolific in the gay San Francisco Beat subculture of the 1950s and 1960s. There he
garnered a group of disciples who were drawn to his unique artistic style, which evidences an array of influences, including
Chinese line painting, Renaissance woodcut illustrations, and Cubism. Barton drew his surroundings constantly, and was most
attracted to subjects such as rooms, people, hands, cafés, churches and botanicals, which were represented in detailed and
imagined perspectives. While he primarily lived in San Francisco, Barton spent time in Los Angeles, drawing spaces like Olvera
Street, Bunker Hill, and other Los Angeles environs. Some of his drawings were printed by Henry Evans, who ran the Peregrine
Press in San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s, and who supported Barton by purchasing what is now the largest extant collection
of his original drawings throughout those years. Barton passed in 1992.
Sources:
The Morgan Library & Museum Associate Curator of Modern & Contempory Drawings Rachel Federman and "Rick Barton," The Morgan
Library & Museum, accessed October 2019,
https://www.themorgan.org/drawings/item/403453 .
Collection is comprised of works of art on paper by artist Rick Barton. The drawings were primarily done in pen and ink, though,
at least three of them, drawn in prison, appear to have been drawn in charcoal with burnt wood matches. Many of the drawings
were published by the Peregrine Press in the Press's limited edition books and print portfolios.
The collection is arranged in chronological order.
Peregrine Press and Henry H. Evans collection (Press coll. Archives Peregrine). Available at UCLA. Clark (William Andrews) Memorial Library.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Peregrine Press
Beats (Persons) -- California -- San Francisco
Evans, Henry Herman
Barton, Rick -- Archives