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Tuchman (Maurice) papers
2015.M.19
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Contributing Institution: Special Collections
Title: Maurice Tuchman papers
Creator: Ruscha, Edward
Creator: Cotton, Paul, 1939-
Creator: Byars, James Lee
Creator: Weiner, Lawrence
Creator: Dine, Jim, 1935-
Creator: Johns, Jasper, 1930-
Creator: Guston, Philip, 1913-1980
Creator: Klüver, Billy, 1927-2004
Creator: Oldenburg, Claes, 1929-
Creator: Hammersley, Frederick, 1919-2009
Creator: Lippard, Lucy R.
Creator: Christo, 1935-
Creator: Schapiro, Meyer, 1904-1996
Creator: Jeanne-Claude, 1935-2009
Creator: Man Ray, 1890-1976
Creator: Tuchman, Maurice
Creator: Kienholz, Edward, 1927-1994
Creator: Kowalski, Piotr, 1927-2004
Creator: Tinguely, Jean, 1925-1991
Creator: Restany, Pierre
Creator: Arikha, Avigdor, 1929-2010
Creator: Hockney, David
Creator: Kitaj, R. B.
Creator: LeWitt, Sol, 1928-2007
Creator: Baldessari, John, 1931-
Identifier/Call Number: 2015.M.19
Physical Description: 34.8 Linear Feet(70 boxes, 7 flatfiles)
Date (inclusive): 1949-1998, undated
Abstract: Maurice Tuchman (Jacksonville, Florida, 1936) is one of the most important curators to have emerged from Los Angeles, and
his papers form a significant resource for the study of Southern California art history from the early 1960s to the 1990s.
The archive documents many of Tuchman's projects both at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where he served as
curator from 1964 to 1994, an those done outside the institution as a scholar and art consultant. His professional files include
most notably his appointment books from 1965 to 1994, and the photographs he took during the installation of
Art and Technology (1971). A large section of personal correspondence, photographs and miscellaneous papers is also present, together with some
audiovisual materials.
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 .
Language of Material: Collection material is in English.
Maurice Tuchman was born in 1936 in Jacksonville, Florida, to a Jewish Polish immigrant family who raised him in the Bronx.
He received his BA from the City College of New York, and then enrolled in the graduate art history program at Columbia University
to study under Meyer Schapiro, counting William Rubin, Donald Judd, and Barbara Rose as fellow students. After receiving his
master's degree, he spent some time in Berlin, and on his return joined the Guggenheim Museum as a research fellow under director
Thomas Messer. In 1964 he became LACMA's first full-time curator of modern art.At LACMA he significantly helped to define
the reputation of the museum, with such significant exhibitions as
Edward Kienholz (1966);
American Sculpture of the Sixties (1967);
Art and Technology (1971);
Seven Artists in Israel, 1948-1978 (1978, with Stephanie Barron);
The Avant-Garde in Russia 1910-1930: New Perspectives (1980, with Stephanie Barron);
Art in Los Angeles: Seventeen Artists in the Sixties (1981);
The Spiritual in Art : Abstract Painting 1890-1985 (1986); and
Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art (1992, with Carol Eliel). His tenure was occasionally marked by controversy, including the charge of sexism that accompanied
Art and Technology and
Art in Los Angeles, both of which were criticized and protested for their lineup of male artists.In addition to his work at the museum, Tuchman
also prepared the catalogue raisonné for Chaim Soutine (Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1993).In 1993, the recently-appointed
director, Michael Schapiro, attempted to move Tuchman to a newly created position as curator of twentieth-century drawings,
after failing to convince him to accept early retirement. A lawsuit by Tuchman reinstated him to his former position, though
he transitioned to senior curator emeritus, and then retired by the end of the following year.
This note is drawn from a text compiled by John Tain.
Sources consulted:
Kienholz, Edward, "Maurice Tuchman: Bronx Cowboy & Super Curator,"
Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1967.
Wilson, William, "Maurice Tuchman: Still the Enfant Terrible after 25 Years,"
Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1989.
Scope and contents of collection
Maurice Tuchman's archive documents many of his projects both at LACMA, where he served as curator from 1964 to 1994, and
those done outside the institution, as a scholar and art consultant.
Series I. Personal papers includes correspondence from 1970 to 1997, photographs mainly of trips, parties and other social
gatherings, and different groupings of personal files, bearing no clear distinction between strictly private matters and the
professional activities Tuchman was conducting outside of LACMA. A few family and childhood souvenirs are also present in
the series.
Series II. Professional files includes the complete collection of Tuchman's appointment books from 1965 to 1994; miscellaneous
material on artists and other art professionals including posters and other ephemera, photographs and artworks; press clippings
mostly documenting Tuchman's lawsuit against LACMA; and a fragmentary collection of project and research files comprising
mostly photographs and ephemera.
Series III. contains audiovisual materials, including recordings of Tuchman's conversations and lectures, documentaries on
artists and exhibitions, video art, and other materials.
Most of the documents were originally loose and have been ordered by the archivist. Original arrangement has been retained
whenever the material has been found organized in folders or binders.
The collection is arranged in three series: Series I. Personal papers, 1949-1997, undated; Series II. Professional files,
1964-1998, undated; Series III. Audiovisual materials, 1964, 1969, 1978, 1984-1993, undated.
Donated by Maurice Tuchman in 2015.
Processed by Pietro Rigolo in 2016.
The Maurice Tuchman papers complement many archives documenting Southern California art history already at the Getty Research
Institute, such as the papers of Henry Hopkins, his former colleague (2006.M.1), Betty Asher, his former assistant (2009.M.30),
Barbara Rose, his former paramour (930100), and the Experiments in Art and Technology records (940003). Correspondence with
Tuchman can also be found in the Mizuno Gallery records (2010.M.84), in the papers of Julius Held (990056), Giuseppe Panza
(940004), Irving Sandler (2000.M.43), Harald Szeemann (2011.M.30), and Robert Watts (2006.M.27). Various photographs taken
in Tuchman's home in the 1960s form part of Malcolm Lubliner's photographs of the Los Angeles art scene (2012.R.21).
More than 50 publications were transferred to the general collection of the Getty Research Institute. They can be found by
searching the
library catalog using the phrase "Maurice Tuchman collection."Duplicate publications were transferred to LACMA.
The archive is open for use by qualified researchers with the following exceptions: audiovisual materials and data disks are
unavailable until reformatted.Box 63 is sealed until 2057 due to privacy issues.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Maurice Tuchman papers, 1949-1998, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2015.M.19.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2015m19
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Letters (correspondence) -- United States -- 20th century
Color photographs
Video recordings -- United States -- 20th century
Audiotapes -- 20th century
Audiocasettes -- United States -- 20th century
Color negatives
Black-and-white negatives -- 20th century
Artists -- California -- History -- 20th century
Artists -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th century
Art, American -- California -- Exhibitions
Art, American -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
Art, American
Art, American -- California -- 20th century
Black-and-white photographs -- 20th century
Videocassettes -- United States -- 20th century
Art museum curators -- Archives
Soutine, Chaim, 1893-1943