Ernest and Mary Peixotto papers, 1838-1956,, bulk bulk 1890-1940

Summary

Creators:

Peixotto, Ernest C., 1869-1940 Peixotto, Mary Hutchinson, 1869-1956

Abstract:

Papers of artist and writer Ernest Peixotto and his wife Mary Hutchinson Peixotto. Includes correspondence; subject files; diaries, sketchbooks, and notebooks; personalia; ephemera; and some scrapbooks.

Extent:

Number of containers: 7 cartons, 5 oversize folders, 2 boxes, 1 volume, 1 oversize box, and 1 tube Linear feet: 12

Language:

Collection materials are in English and French

Background

Scope and content:

Correspondence; subject files; diaries, sketchbooks, and notebooks; personalia; ephemera; and some scrapbooks. Correspondence consists of letters between Ernest and Mary Peixotto during and after World War I as well as general incoming correspondence. Ernest Peixotto's correspondents include friends, other artists and writers (such as Frank Norris, Maxfield Parrish, George Sterling, and Gelett Burgess), publishers, patrons, and art organizations and committees. Mary Peixotto's general correspondence documents, among other things, her activities with French war relief organizations during World War I. Among Ernest Peixotto's subject files are materials on the following: American Camouflage; War Artists; the American Expeditionary Force Art Training Center at Bellevue, France; Appui aux Artistes; the Beaux Arts Institute of Design; the Fontainebleau schools; the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York; the National Society of Mural Painters; the Student Art League of New York; and the World's Fair. Scrapbooks include clippings documenting Ernest Peixotto's career. Notable among Mary Peixotto's other papers are some early letters and documents from the Hutchinson and Glascock families as well as files on her family's genealogy.

Biographical / historical:

Ernest Peixotto is best known as a muralist and illustrator, though he also achieved notable success as a writer. Born to Sephardic Jewish parents in San Francisco in 1869, Peixotto studied at the California School of Design and, from 1888 until 1894, at the Atelier Julian in France. Upon returning the the United States in 1894, Peixotto settled again in San Francisco where he founded The Lark, an art magazine in print from 1895 through 1897. Peixotto married painter Mary Glascock Hutchinson in New Orleans in 1897. Hutchinson, born in San Francisco in 1869, had also been a student at the California School of Design. The couple moved to New York after their marriage and Ernest joined the staff of Scribner's Magazine, where he worked as an illustrator. Together, they relocated to France in 1899, taking up residence just outside of Paris in a villa in Fontainebleau that would serve as the couple's primary home until Ernest's death in 1940.

During World War I, General John Pershing appointed Ernest Peixotto an official war artist attached to the American Expeditionary Force. Peixotto is remembered for having created a striking visual record of the destruction and dislocation of modern warfare. At the war's end, Peixotto became, for a brief period, director of the American Expeditionary Force Art Training Center at Bellevue, France, which merged into the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1923. After leaving his post as director, Peixotto continued to serve the school as chair of its American Committee. From 1919 through 1926, Peixotto was also director of the mural department of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. In 1921, he was made a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor, for his work during the war and for promoting good relations between France and the United States.

Between 1926 and 1940, Peixotto focused on his own work while still serving a number of art organizations and committees. He was the president of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1929 to 1935, president of School Art League of New York from 1936 to 1940, and a member of the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York from 1935 to 1940. He also served as director of murals for the New York World's Fair in 1939.

Acquisition information:

The Ernest and Mary Peixotto papers were given to The Bancroft Library by Eustace M. Peixotto, Ernest D. Peixotto, and Mrs. Hervey P. Clark between 1958 and 1990.

Physical location:

Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

Website