Caroompas (Carole) papers, 1940s-2022

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Summary

Title:
Carole Caroompas papers
Dates:
1940s-2022
Creators:
Caroompas, Carole (1946), Clark, Peter, 1944 May 6-, Bachardy, Don, 1934-, Copley, William Nelson, 1919-1996, Haskell, Sharon, Lightbody, Joyce, 1954-, and Smith, Alexis, 1949-
Abstract:
The collection documents the life and work of Los Angeles-based artist Carole Caroompas, primarily focusing on her five-decade career in visual arts while also covering her music and performance art. The archive comprises Caroompas's writings, such as journals and dream diaries, along with notebooks containing extensive research for her works. Substantial photographic documentation captures her artistic output, personal life, and contemporaries in the Los Angeles art scene. The collection features source materials and preparatory drawings for her collages and paintings, exhibition-related materials, and professional papers encompassing gallery correspondence and grant applications. Audiovisual materials consist of performance recordings and musical releases.
Extent:
107.23 Linear Feet (167 boxes, 6 flatfile folders)
Language:
Collection material is in English, with a small amount of material in Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, and Spanish.
Preferred citation:

Carole Caroompas papers, 1940s-2022, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2023.M.25.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/archives2023m25

Background

Scope and content:

The collection documents the life and work of Los Angeles-based artist Carole Caroompas, primarily focusing on her five-decade career in visual arts while also covering her music and performance art. The archive comprises Caroompas's writings, such as journals and dream diaries, along with notebooks containing extensive research for her works. Substantial photographic documentation captures her artistic output, personal life, and contemporaries in the Los Angeles art scene. The collection features source materials and preparatory drawings for her collages and paintings, exhibition-related materials, and professional papers encompassing gallery correspondence and grant applications. Audiovisual materials consist of performance recordings and musical releases.

Series I. Albums and performances documents Caroompas's artistic output through audiovisual materials, color slides, photographs, and related papers. It includes Caroompas's artist's book Five Fables (1977–1978) and props from her musical and performance work.

Series II. Notes, source materials, and preparatory drawings illustrates Caroompas's artistic process for major works from 1977 to 2016. It contains her notes, sketches, and source materials including books, comics, magazines, postcards, clippings, and computer printouts. Much of the imagery in these materials can be directly linked to her finished works.

Series III. Artworks and published writings contains examples of Caroompas's published works and visual art, including "Surprise Hotel" (1975), "Chymical Wedding" (1979), and "The Weaver's Dream: A Lullabye" (1981), along with photographic prints and a mixed-media work.

Series IV. Documentation of visual works comprises visual and textual documentation of Caroompas's art from 1968 to 2011, including color slides and transparencies, computer discs, computer printouts, photographic prints, and written descriptions and plans for several works.

Series V. Exhibition files documents 111 exhibitions and gallery shows in which Caroompas's work was displayed through exhibition catalogs, exhibition ephemera, and other papers.

Series VI. Professional papers includes Caroompas's artist's statements, curricula vitae, fellowship and grant applications, gallery correspondence and loan forms, interviews, press clippings, sales records, studio portraits, and other papers.

Series VII. Personal papers documents Caroompas's personal life and artistic community through calendars, correspondence, dream diaries, ephemera, photographs, and schoolwork. Correspondents include artists Don Bachardy, Peter Clark, William Copley, Sharon Haskell, Joyce Lightbody, and Alexis Smith. Photographs make up a significant portion of this series, depicting Caroompas's peers and acquaintances in the Los Angeles art scene including Cliff Benjamin, Chris Burden, Bernard Cooper, Mary Corse, Roy Dowell, Scott Grieger, George Herms, Patrick Hogan, Tom Knechtel, Peter Lodato, Allan McCollum, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Renée Petropoulos, Lari Pittman, collectors Joan and Jack Quinn, Matt Roberts, Allen Ruppersberg, and Alexis Smith, among others.

Series VIII. Printed material consists of published books and serials related to Caroompas and her works.

Biographical / historical:

Carole Caroompas (1946–2022) was a Los Angeles-based artist known for her feminist and conceptual work, which explored themes of gender and power dynamics through collage, large-scale paintings, and performance. Spanning five decades, her art reflects a deep engagement with literature, mythology, and popular culture, incorporating fragmented narratives and diverse media to challenge societal norms, question contemporary gender roles, and offer alternative perspectives on authority, often with humor.

Caroompas began her career in 1971, creating works that utilized impermanent installations and uncommon materials. In her earliest exhibited works—Delayed Occurrences (1972), Falls (1972), and Egyptian Goddesses (1972–1973)—she explored ephemerality and anti-formal arrangements by pouring paint and glitter onto walls, linoleum, paper, and cardboard tubes.

From 1974 to 1985, Caroompas shifted her focus to collage, combining text, image, and found materials to examine gender through references both to herself and to literature and popular culture. Works from this period include Remembrance of Things Past (1976), Lost and Found: An Excavation (1978), and A Hermetic Romance from A to Z (1980–1981). Between 1978 and 1989, she performed narrative and musical pieces throughout Southern California that reflected the themes present in her visual art. She also released two music albums: Target Practice (1981) and La Lucha (1989).

After 1985, Caroompas transitioned to painting on canvas. Although she moved away from her earlier, more personal works, her feminist perspective remained evident in her new large-scale paintings, such as Fairy Tales (1988–1990), Before and After Frankenstein: The Woman Who Knew Too Much (1991–1994), and Hester and Zorro: In Quest of a New World (1994–1997). Her series—referred to as "sets" by the artist and ranging in size from four to 26 pieces—employed fragmented narratives from literature, mythology, popular culture, and other sources to deconstruct sexist and authoritarian perspectives. Through these works, she posed critical questions and suggested alternative viewpoints on societal structures and hierarchies. This approach continued until her series Psychedelic Jungle (2004) and Dancing With Misfits: Eye-Dazzler (2007), in which she had decidedly switched to exploring existential themes like alienation, mortality, and the loss of Americana.

Following Dancing With Misfits, Caroompas created Uncle Lenny: Right as Wrong/Wrong as Right (2011), a body of ten works based on comedian Lenny Bruce that examined the artist's role in society. Her final completed work appears to be Hallucinatory Logic in the Sahara (2016), a series incorporating imagery from the film Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and popular representations of the Sahara Desert and its people.

Caroompas was born in Oregon City, Oregon, and spent her childhood in Newport Beach, California. She attended Newport Harbor High School, California State University, Fullerton (BA, 1968), and the University of Southern California (MFA, 1971). After graduating in 1971, she joined a consciousness-raising group with artists Karen Carson, Judy Chicago, and Miriam Schapiro. She later taught at several institutions, including California State University, Northridge (1972–1975), Immaculate Heart College (1973–1976), Los Angeles Valley College (1974–1976, 1980–1981), Cal State Fullerton (1976–1978), and the Otis College of Art and Design (mid-1980s–2020). Throughout her artistic career, she remained based in Los Angeles and was represented by local galleries including Jan Baum-Iris Silverman Gallery, Sue Spaid Fine Art, and Western Project. She passed away on July 31, 2022.

Sources consulted:

Carole Caroompas papers, accession no. 2023.M.25, Artist's statement, 2003, Box 83, Folder 2.

Otis Gallery, ed. Carole Caroompas: Lady of the Castle Perilous. Los Angeles: Otis College of Art and Design, 1997. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title, organized by and presented at the Otis College of Art and Design, November 1997–January 1998.

Wagley, Catherine. "L.A. artist Carole Caroompas, performer and painter who bucked convention, dies at 76." Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2022.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Cliff Benjamin. Acquired in 2023.
Appraisal information:

Duplicate printed exhibition ephemera, color slides, and serials were not retained with the collection.

Custodial history:

Materials in the archive were created or collected by Carole Caroompas. Following her death in 2022, artist and dealer Cliff Benjamin took possession of the archive until its transfer to the repository in 2023.

Processing information:

Sarah Lerner processed the collection and wrote the finding aid in 2024.

Transcribed file titles are in quotation marks. Dates added during processing are in square brackets.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in eight series:

Series I. Albums and performances, 1977-2017, undated; Series II. Notes, source materials, and preparatory drawings, 1957-2020, undated; Series III. Artworks and published writings, approximately 1968-1981, undated; Series IV. Documentation of visual works, 1968-2011, undated; Series V. Exhibition files, 1972-2017, undated; Series VI. Professional papers, 1970-2018, undated; Series VII. Personal papers, 1940s-2022, undated; Series VIII. Printed material, 1972-2017, undated.

Physical location:
Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Sarah Lerner
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-10-30 09:08:43 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers. Audiovisual and born-digital materials are unavailable until reformatted. Contact the repository for information regarding access.

Terms of access:

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Preferred citation:

Carole Caroompas papers, 1940s-2022, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2023.M.25.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/archives2023m25

Location of this collection:
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688, US
Contact:
(310) 440-7390
Website