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Asher (Betty) Papers
2009.M.30
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Title: Betty Asher papers
Date (inclusive): 1860-1999
Number: 2009.M.30
Creator/Collector:
Asher, Betty
Physical Description:
69.6 Linear Feet
(76 boxes, 55 flat files, 1 roll)
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: The papers of art collector and dealer
Betty Asher document the Los Angeles art scene from circa 1960 to 1990, though most
comprehensively in the 1970s, through photographs, artist files, and more than three hundred
posters. Correspondence, photographs and other documents provide information about Asher's
family history and the process by which she built her art collection. Included in the papers
are her collections of postcards and other ephemera.
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Language: Collection material is in English
Betty Asher (née Michael) was born in Chicago on May 4, 1914, to James and Rayna Michael,
proprietors of a pharmacy. While training as a nurse, she met Leonard Asher, who was then a
medical intern. The two married in 1939, and after two years in Boston, where Leonard had a
residency, the couple moved permanently to Los Angeles. Daughter Rayna (1942-1990) was
followed by son Michael (1943-2012). Though marriage put an end to Asher's nursing career,
it also stimulated her interest in art and art collecting. With her husband she began
acquiring lithographs from Associated American Artists in New York. As she gained more
experience and knowledge, she progressed from lithographs to original pieces by American,
Mexican, and Haitian artists. By the late fifties, her growing familiarity with artists and
galleries in Los Angeles spurred her move into contemporary art. Due to her early interest,
she managed to acquire major pieces from Rauschenberg, Ruscha, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and
many other artists. In 1966, shortly after Maurice Tuchman became curator of modern art at
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Asher was hired to assist him in the
curatorial department, having already served on the museum's Contemporary Art Council. As
prices for contemporary art rose, and especially after Asher's divorce in the mid 1970s, she
began to concentrate on art pottery in her acquisitions, amassing an impressive collection
of contemporary and traditional art cups and saucers. She resigned from the museum in August
1978 in order to work full time as a dealer, teaming up with Patricia Faure to open the
Asher/Faure Gallery the following year. The gallery mixed exhibitions of younger local
artists (such as Gwynn Murrill and Michael McMillen) with better-known names represented by
established galleries in New York (such as Morris Louis, Joel Shapiro, Kenneth Noland, and
Sam Francis). Asher retired from the gallery in 1990. She died at her home in Beverly Hills
in 1994.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Betty Asher papers, 1860-1999, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no.
2009.M.30.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2009m30
Gift of Michael Asher in 2009.
Processed by Annette Leddy and Jan Bender between October 2009 and February 2010.
Thirty-two books and journals were transferred to the library's general collection. To find
the publications, search the
library
catalog
for the Betty Asher Collection."
Scope and Content of Collection
The Betty Asher papers consist of a rich range of material, including letters, photographs,
posters, press clippings, records of Asher's collections, and tea cup postcards. Together
these give a vivid sense of the Michael and Asher families, Betty Asher as collector, and
the Los Angeles art world of the postwar years.
Series I contains over 700 photographs, including formal studio portraits, color snapshots,
baby albums, and twenty photographs of the Asher family residence taken by Julius Shulman.
Documenting Asher's collecting interests are approximately 200 photographs of her art
collection, part of which has now been donated to local museums, and part of which was sold
at auction. Her ceramics and cup collection is also documented in photographs. Many of these
photographs depict pieces as they were originally installed in different areas of the
various Asher homes.
Several black-and-white and color photographs document the exhibition Limited Works by
Important Artists (known as the "Multiples show") held at the Egg and the Eye Gallery in
1966. The exhibition featured Pop art prints, books, sculpture, ceramics and games by Andy
Warhol, Ed Ruscha, and Robert Watts, among others. More than 200 photographs of Los Angeles
gallery openings and art parties at Asher's home in Los Angeles from the 1960s to the 1990s
highlight her presence in the Southern California art scene, along with other pivotal
figures such as Irving Blum, Stephanie Barron, Stanley and Elise Grinstein, and Patricia
Faure.
Series II includes family letters and professional correspondence not contained in
individual artist files, as well as official documents, such as birth and marriage
certificates, and business contracts. Asher's favorite recipes are also preserved in this
series.
Business files in Series III include loan forms and invoices chronicling the amassing of
Asher's collections of art and teacups. Asher's collection of more than 1200 cup postcards
comprises Series IV. Series V pertains to exhibitions of Asher's cup collection. The artist
files in Series VI include a wealth of material that traces Asher's strong relationships
with artists, which developed in tandem with her collecting activities. Asher's artist files
contain letters, postcards and gifts from artists such as George Herms, Dan Flavin, Joe
Goode, Emerson Woelffer, William Copley, and Bruce Conner. A significant portion of the
archive is comprised of gallery announcements and over 300 posters, many of them signed by
artists such as Billy Al Bengston and Edward Kienholz. Eighty of these posters are original
announcements from Ferus Gallery and Irving Blum Gallery.
Printed matter, such as clippings and announcements, when not included in the above series,
may be found in Series VII.
Arranged in seven series:
Series I.
Family photographs, 1860-1998;
Series II. Personal materials,
1900-1999;
Series III. Business files,
1950-1992;
Series IV. Collections,
1865-1994;
Series V. Cup exhibitions,
1972-1995;
Series VI. Artist files,
1938-1996;
Series VII. Printed matter,
1914-1996.
Pop art
Conceptual Art
Art dealers -- United States -- 20th century
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- United States
Art museums -- California -- Los Angeles
Correspondence -- 20th century
Photographs, Original
Cartes-de-visite
Slides (photographs) -- 20th century
Photographic prints -- 20th century
Videocassettes
Posters -- 20th century
Postcards -- 20th century
Postcards -- 19th century
Ruscha, Edward
Flavin, Dan
Woelffer, Emerson
Irving Blum Gallery (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Watts, Robert
Warhol, Andy
Shulman, Julius
Asher, Michael
Asher, Betty
Conner, Bruce
Blum, Irving
Bengston, Billy Al
Ferus Gallery (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Kienholz, Edward,
1927-1994
Herms, George
Goode, Joe
Copley, William Nelson