Description
The Allan Kaprow Papers offer
comprehensive documentation of an artistic career that spanned the latter half of the 20th
century and continues into the 21st. Arranged chronologically so as to demonstrate the
artist's passage from student of art and art history to practicing artist, art theorist and
art educator, the collection contains drawings, term papers and notebooks from Kaprow's
student days, followed by ca. 250 Project Files, comprising the complete extant
documentation of Kaprow's Environments, Happenings, and Activities.
Background
Allan Kaprow was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on August 23, 1927, and spent his
childhood in Tuscon, Arizona. His family then moved to New York, where Kaprow attended the
High School of Music and Art, graduating in 1945. He received his B.A. degree from New York
University, where he majored in philosophy and art history and was a principle cartoonist
for the college magazine. He then earned a Master's Degree in art history at Columbia
University where he studied with Meyer Schapiro, to whom he dedicated his Thesis on Piet
Mondrian in 1951. He also studied painting with Hans Hofmann (1947-1948) at Hofmann's
school, and musical composition with John Cage at the New School for Social Research
(1957-1958).
Extent
63.5 Linear Feet
(119 boxes, 16 flat file folders, 2 rolls)
Restrictions
Contact Library Reproductions
and Permissions.
Availability
Open for use by qualified researchers, except un-reformatted audiotapes, videotapes and
films.