The Getty Foundation, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, has awarded the UCLA Library a grant of $190,000 for the processing and cataloging of five major collections that document art and architecture in Los Angeles during the 20th century: the archives of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture and the papers of Jules Langsner, Richard Neutra, Gordon Wagner and June Wayne.
This grant is part of a collaborative initiative of the Getty Foundation and the Getty Research Institute known as "On the Record: Art in L.A. 1945–1980," which aims to uncover and document the history of modern art in Los Angeles. Since 2002, the Getty Foundation has awarded a series of grants to help Los Angeles institutions survey and catalogue their local archives.
"We are extremely grateful to the Getty Foundation for this generous grant and for their longstanding support of UCLA Library acquisitions and initiatives," said University Librarian Gary E. Strong. "These funds will enable us to make more of our unique collections available to scholars and researchers both on campus and around the world."
The archival files of UCLA's fine arts departments, colleges and schools, now under the auspices of the School of Arts and Architecture, document research, teaching and external relations during 1960–95. Early files trace the creation and development of the College of Fine Arts, which replaced the College of Applied Arts in 1960 and marked a shift from the technology of applied arts toward a more intellectually rigorous approach. Other files relate to the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum, Wight Gallery, and arts faculty and organizations. The total archive fills 53 boxes.
Los Angeles art writer, critic and curator Jules Langsner (1911–67) was the Los Angeles correspondent for Art News for 15 years and a contributor to Art and Architecture and other art and craft periodicals. He organized several major exhibitions, including a 1966 Man Ray retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and "Four Abstract Classicists," also at the museum in 1959, which traveled to London and focused international attention on Los Angeles artists. The collection, which fills 25 boxes, includes personal and professional correspondence, articles, photographs and ephemera.
The Richard Neutra Papers, one of the Library's most heavily used collections, contain travel sketches, papers, drawings, rolled plans, blueprints, audio recordings and photographs related to the career of this renowned Southern California architect (1892–1970). Also included
are correspondence, client files, manuscripts, architectural models, clippings, magazines and photographs generated by him and his architectural firm, and awards and honors he received. The original collection was given to the Library in 1954 by Neutra, and his family has continued to add to it. It now fills 2,900 boxes and oversized containers.
Born and raised in Southern California, Gordon Wagner (1915–87) was a noted sculptor, painter and assemblage artist whose work is featured in more than 500 museums and collections. He attended Chouinard Art Institute and UCLA and had his first show in Los Angeles in 1949 at the Willard Hougland Gallery. He also taught at Barnsdall Art Center (1960–67), Pitzer College (1970–71) and other institutions. Donated by his widow, his papers, which fill 10 boxes, include correspondence, scrapbooks, daybooks, sketchbooks, journals, posters, photographs, design drawings, ephemera, and publicity material and records of exhibitions of his artwork.
Born in Chicago in 1918, June Wayne settled in Los Angeles in the late 1950s. She established her renowned Tamarind Lithography Workshop in 1959, where she championed the revival of lithography in the United States; it is now an institute at the University of New Mexico. She also has earned acclaim for her filmmaking and for her leadership and activism on behalf of artists. Her papers, which she gave to UCLA in 2001, include materials and correspondence documenting her life and work, particularly the "Dorothy Series," about her mother's life as a traveling saleswoman. The collection fills 107 boxes and oversized containers.
Processing will include organizing each collection's contents and placing them in archival-quality containers for long-term storage and preservation. A finding aid, or inventory, will be created that will enable users to search each collection, and the finding aids will made available online through the UCLA Library Catalog and other databases.
All five collections are housed in the Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections. One of the country's top special-collections departments, the department provides primary resources for instruction and research in the humanities and social sciences. Its collections encompass rare books and pamphlets from the 15th through the 20th centuries; extensive manuscript holdings; drawings, including original architectural drawings; early maps and atlases; and photographs, prints and paintings. Collections also contain artifacts, audiotape and videotape recordings, oral history transcripts, phonograph records, postcards and posters.
Information is available online at www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb.
About the Getty
The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute and the Getty Foundation. The Getty Trust and the Getty programs are located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Additional information is available on the Getty Web site at http://www.getty.edu/.