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Interviews with art historians
940109
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Title: Interviews with art historians
Date (inclusive): 1991-2002
Number: 940109
Creator/Collector:
Getty Research Institute.
Research Library
Physical Description:
6 Linear Feet
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: Transcripts, audio recordings, and
computer disks preserve interviews with contemporary art historians, archaeologists,
bibliographers, and selected key individuals from the J. Paul Getty Trust.
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Language: Collection material is in
English .
Biographical / Historical Note
The Oral History Documentation project was begun in collaboration with the Oral History
Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1991. Seventeen interviews
were completed, most by interviewer and historian Richard Cándida Smith, in collaboration
with UCLA. The Oral History Program owns the tapes and electronic versions and this
collection includes only the transcripts of these interviews. Transcripts of those
interviews jointly sponsored by the Getty and UCLA are also located at UCLA and in the
Bancroft Library at Berkeley. UCLA is digitizing transcripts of the seventeen oral histories
and making them available online.
Connect to the digital
versions.
The project has been continued by the Getty Research Institute alone, and is an on-going
effort to document and contribute to the history of the discipline of art history and
closely related fields, particularly archaeology. Interviews, thus far, are with art and
architectural historians, archaeologists, a bibliographer and historian of the book arts, a
collector of artists' papers, and leaders of art institutions, including the leadership of
the Getty Trust. The GRI is digitizing these transcripts and making them available online.
Connect to the digital
versions.
Open for use by qualified researchers with the following exceptions. Sound recordings are
unavailable until reformatted. Selected transcripts and recordings are temporarily sealed
and restricted, as indicated in the container list. Computer discs are restricted.
Contact
Library Reproductions
and Permissions
.
Interviews with art historians, 1991-2002, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute,
Accession no. 940109
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa940109
Produced by the repository in collaboration with the Oral History Program, University of
California, Los Angeles.
Processed by J. Gibbs and Beth Guynn. This collection of interviews with art historians was
developed from 1991 through 2002. Tapes, discs, and transcripts have been added to the
collection from the following acquisitions: 950033, 950067, 950087, 960010, 960041, 960073,
970050, 980051. J. Gibbs created this finding aid in June 1998. Beth Guynn processed
additions and revised the finding aid. Jan Bender rearranged the finding aid.
The audio tapes that were reformatted by the repository have 4 generations: originals,
archival and copy masters, and use copies. Use copies are available in the repostory for
researchers.
Digital Collection and Use Copies
The Getty Research Institute has digitized most of the transcripts and made them available
online for research purposes only.
Connect to the digital
collection.
UCLA has also digitized transcripts of their oral histories from the collaborative project.
Connect to the UCLA digital
collection.
The interview with Sherman E. Lee was digitized in 2017 and is is available only to
on-site readers and Getty staff. Connect to the digitized version:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/940109s1av
Use copies of some of the audio recordings are available, as indicated in the container
list.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection of interviews with art historians includes bound transcripts and also, for
those interviews conducted by the Getty Research Institute alone, audio cassette tapes of
the interviews and computer disks for the transcripts. The project was begun in 1991, in
collaboration with UCLA's Oral History Program, and continued by the Getty Research
Institute when the collaboration ended. This was a multi-year project to document the
history of the discipline of art history through the major contributors to art history and
closely related fields.
The purpose of the project was to document the institutions, personalities, philosophical
debates, pedagogical and field practice, the relationship of European and American
scholarship, the impact of German émigré scholars, the role of women, post W.W.II collecting
and connoisseurship, and the professionalization of the museum field.
Interviews in the field of classical archaeology are meant to explore the contributions of
foreign archaeological schools in the Mediterranean, the changing politics of national
archaeological superintendencies, the synthesis of classics, anthropology and art history,
the impact of the "new archaeology" and other theoretical approaches, debates surrounding
collecting and dealing in ancient art, and methods of interpretation.
Interviews document the professional, and sometimes the personal, lives of art and
architectural historians (including Agnes Mongan, Julius Held, Manfredo Tafuri, George
Kubler, James Ackerman, Otto von Simson, Otto Wittmann, Craig Smyth, among others)
archaeologists (Phyllis W. Lehmann, Lane Faison, Griselda Pollock, Colin Renfrew, among
others), a bibliographer and historian of the book arts (J. M. Edelstein), and a collector
of Fluxus artists' papers and works (Jean Brown). Interviews have been made with selected
individuals at the J. Paul Getty Trust (J. M. Edelstein, Nancy Englander, Harold Williams).
The interviews complement the archives of scholars' papers held by the Getty Research
Institute, Research Library.
The repository has numbered the cassette tapes, C1-C45. Some duplicate audio cassettes came
with the archive. When available, these duplicates serve as use copies. The repository has
reformatted some sound cassettes, and use copies are available as indicated in the container
list. Some tapes do not yet have use copies; these audio recordings are unavailable until
reformatted.
Arranged in 2 series: Series I. Transcripts and sound recordings, 1991-2002; Series II.
Computer disks of oral history transcripts, 1991-2002.
Ackerman, James S.
Barocchi, Paola
Argan, Giulio Carlo
Boardman, John, 1927-
Baxandall, Michael
Buchthal, Hugo,
1909-1996
Brown, Jean, 1911-1994
Cándida Smith, Richard
Englander, Nancy
Edelstein, J. M. (Jerome
Melvin), 1924-1996
Heckscher, William S. (William
Sebastian), 1904-1999
Held, Julius S. (Julius
Samuel), 1905-2002
Haskell, Francis, 1928-2000
Heckscher, Roxanne
Hamilton, George Heard
Harrison, Evelyn B. (Evelyn
Byrd)
Faison, S. Lane (Samson Lane),
1907-2006
Grabar, Oleg
Kubler, George, 1912-1996
Lee, Sherman E.
Kitzinger, Ernst,
1912-2003
Kubler, Elizabeth
Hoffmann, Herbert
Herrmann, Wolfgang,
1899-1995
Himmelmann, Nikolaus,
1929-
Ridgway, Brunilde Sismondo, 1929-
Renfrew, Colin, 1937-
Proske, Beatrice Gilman,
1899-2002
Pollock, Griselda
Nochlin, Linda
Mongan, Agnes
Lewis, Samella S.
Lehmann, Phyllis Williams,
1912-2004
Vermeule, Cornelius C. (Cornelius Clarkson),
1925-2008
Thompson, Homer A.
Tafuri, Manfredo
Steinberg, Leo, 1920-2011
Smyth, Craig Hugh
Simson, Otto Georg von, 1912-1993
Sekler, Eduard F. (Eduard Franz)
Wittmann, Otto,
1911-2001
Von Bothmer, Dietrich, 1918-2009
Weitzmann, Kurt,
1904-1993
Wittkower, Margot
Coolidge, John,
1913-1995
Williams, Harold Marvin,
1928-
University of California, Los Angeles. Oral
History Program
J. Paul Getty Trust
Art historians -- United States -- Interviews
Archaeologists -- United States -- Interviews
Art -- Historiography -- Study and teaching
Transcripts
Sound recordings
Oral histories (document genres)
Interviews
Floppy disks
Brown, Jean,
1911-1994
Getty Research Institute.
Research Library
Buchthal, Hugo,
1909-1996
Coolidge, John,
1913-1995
Baxandall, Michael
Boardman, John,
1927-
Argan, Giulio Carlo
Barocchi,
Paola
Ackerman, James S.