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Ellin (Everett) papers
2015.M.22
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Title: Everett Ellin papers
Date (inclusive): 1928-2013
Number: 2015.M.22
Creator/Collector:
Ellin,
Everett
Physical Description:
6 Linear Feet
(14 boxes; 5 audiocassettes; 4 audio discs; 1 computer disc; 3
videocassettes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: Everett Ellin was the polymathic owner
of two well-regarded art galleries in Los Angeles during the late 1950s and the early 1960s.
He invigorated the local art scene by bringing major artists from New York to Los Angeles.
He also created a vital link between technology and museums by founding the Museum Computer
Network. After leaving the art world, he worked as an entrepreneur in energy management and
medical imaging technology, as an inventor of media devices, an executive for SONY, and as a
business consultant. The papers document Ellin's professional life, including his work with
the Everett Ellin Gallery, French & Company, and the Museum Computer Network. A small
quantity of personal papers is also present.
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Language: Collection material is in English
Everett Ellin was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1928 and died in 2011 in Diana, Texas. While
he is most known in the art world as a Los Angeles dealer of contemporary art, his BS in
Industrial and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan (1949) and JD from
Harvard Law School (1952) allowed him to follow diverse career paths before and after he ran
the Everett Ellin Gallery (1957-1958) and Everett Ellin Gallery, Inc. (1960-1963). Ellin is
regarded as one of the key local gallery owners responsible for animating the mid-century
Los Angeles art scene by showcasing contemporary art from New York. Before opening the
gallery, Ellin served as a US Air Force officer in the Korean War, assisted the Vice
President of the William Morris Agency, clerked for a justice of the California Supreme
Court, and served as Deputy House Counsel for Columbia Pictures. In 1959 he opened the
Everett Ellin Gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard, a move which developed out of his
experience of writing gallery contracts for his girlfriend and future wife, the painter Joan
Jacobs, and her artist friends. In this first iteration of his gallery, he showed California
abstract expressionist artists, including Bruce Beasley, to whom he gave his first show.
Ellin's hunger to see the world of abstract expressionism in its native environment led him
to take a job in New York as Director of the Contemporary Art Department at French &
Company. Recommending him for the job was Clement Greenberg, "the mastermind and spiritual
leader of the gallery," as Ellin put it in the
Smithsonian
Interview.
Greenberg also served as his mentor during his directorship. It was
this experience at French and Company that brought him into direct contact with the most
high-profile figures in contemporary art at the time, including David Smith, whose
successful show at the gallery was organized by Ellin. When French and Company changed
leadership in 1960, he returned to Los Angeles to open his second gallery, Everett Ellin
Gallery Inc., on Sunset Boulevard, where he organized a version of his David Smith show. His
time in New York also allowed him to bring the works of Jean Arp, Helen Frankenthaler,
several Dadaists, Arshile Gorky, and Jasper Johns (in a retrospective show among others), to
Los Angeles.
After closing his second gallery in 1963, Ellin was hired by Frank Lloyd to work at the
Marlborough Gallery upon its opening, where he organized a Jackson Pollock retrospective
exhibition. This was followed by a post at the Guggenheim Museum as Officer-in-Charge of
Public Affairs, a position that required him to build attendance numbers at the museum and
increase its publicity. His success in increasing museum attendance to reach "the millions"
resulted in his promotion to Assistant Director. He left the Guggenheim not long after he
became interested in "bringing the electronic age to museums" after reading Marshall
McLuhan. His article "Museums as a Medium" reveals the formation of the ideas that led him
to leave the Guggenheim to create the Museum Computer Network, an initiative funded by the
Mellon Foundation and hosted by the Museum of Modern Art from 1968 to 1970. A pioneering
digital humanist, Ellin was perhaps the first to think of digitizing museum images and
textual records to make them widely accessible. The Museum Computer Network is still a
thriving organization today.
Ellin's work in promoting the digitization of museum information can be viewed as the
transition point between his work in the art world and his subsequent work in decidedly
non-art-related areas, such as medical digital imaging technology. Following the direction
illuminated by reading McLuhan, and building on his college degree in industrial and
mechanical engineering, Ellin left the art world at the end of his period as Executive
Director of the Museum Computer Network to pursue a multifarious and largely entrepreneurial
career as a developer and inventor of different media technologies, an executive at Sony
Corporation, a management consultant, a professor of marketing, business and technology, and
a regional/urban planner. In his later years he was regularly sought after to give lectures
at museums about Jackson Pollock, his work as a consultant, and the art world in general.
Sources cited: John Tain, Acquisition Approval Form for "Everett Ellin papers, 1928-2013,
accession no. 2015.M.22," January 27, 2015.
Open for use by qualified researchers. Audiovisual and born digital materials unavailable
until reformatted.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Everett Ellin papers, 1928-2013,The Getty Research Institute, Accession no. 2015.M.22.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2015m22
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 2015
Processed by Julie Park under the supervision of Kit Messick, Fall 2018.
Everett Ellin papers, [circa 1958-1963]. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution.
Everett Ellin Gallery records relating to David Smith, 1960-1963. Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution.
Oral history interview with Everett Ellin, 2004 April 27-28. Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution.
French & Company records, 1911-1998 (bulk 1950-1969), Getty Research Institute,
Accession No. 990051.
Two published works have been transferred next hit to the library's general collection and
may be found by searching the
Library Catalog for Everett Ellin.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains both personal papers and material relating to Ellin's professional
activities, particularly as related to the operation of the Everett Ellin Gallery. Also
present is material related to his directorship of the contemporary art gallery of French
& Company, his work as Public Affairs Officer at the Guggenheim Museum, and as founder
of the Museum Computer Network. Ellin's other professional endeavors are documented in
business files, correspondence, clippings and offprints, and audio and video recordings. A
small quantity of personal papers and photographs is also present.
Aranged in three series: ; ;
Series I. Personal papers,
1928-2013
Series II. Gallery and museum files,
1957-2008
Series III. Other professional files,
1952-2008.
Smith, David, 1906-1965
Ellin, Everett
Museum Computer
Network
French & Company (New
York, N.Y.)
Everett Ellin
Gallery
Art galleries, Commercial -- California -- Los Angeles
Art dealers -- California -- Los Angeles
Art dealers -- Archives
Ellin,
Everett
Everett Ellin
Gallery
Everett Ellin
Gallery