BIB_ID
431279
Accession number
MA 22733
Creator
Woodruff, Hale, 1900-1980.
Display Date
New York City, New York, 1955 November 25.
Credit line
Purchased for The Dannie and Hettie Heineman Collection as the gift of the Heineman Foundation, 2018.
Description
1 item (7 pages) : illustrations ; 31.8 x 20.4 cm + envelope
Notes
The final two pages of the letter contain drawings of African masks and notes by Woodruff.
Envelope with New York University letterhead and postmarks: "Miss Esther Krasny / The Womans College of the / University of N.C. / Greensboro, North Carolina."
Written in blue ink on yellow legal paper.
Esther Krasny was a student at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. In the fall of 1955, she wrote to a number of artists, educators, and art historians, asking for their opinions on "the influence of the Negro artist on painting today." Three of the responses she received, from Hale Woodruff, Edward N. Wilson, Jr., and Thomas Munro, are in the Morgan's collection. The letters are housed and cataloged separately as MA 22733, MA 23385, and MA 23386.
Envelope with New York University letterhead and postmarks: "Miss Esther Krasny / The Womans College of the / University of N.C. / Greensboro, North Carolina."
Written in blue ink on yellow legal paper.
Esther Krasny was a student at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. In the fall of 1955, she wrote to a number of artists, educators, and art historians, asking for their opinions on "the influence of the Negro artist on painting today." Three of the responses she received, from Hale Woodruff, Edward N. Wilson, Jr., and Thomas Munro, are in the Morgan's collection. The letters are housed and cataloged separately as MA 22733, MA 23385, and MA 23386.
Provenance
Purchased from Swann Auction Galleries, Sale 2470, March 22, 2018.
Summary
Writing in detail about how Western artists have responded to, drawn on, appropriated, and been influenced by African art; mentioning as examples the work of Pablo Picasso (particularly his Demoiselles d'Avignon), Georges Braque, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee; crediting the German anthropologist Leo Frobenius with an early interest in African art; describing how this influence was linked to a break with traditional and classical styles in the early twentieth century and a search for new sources of inspiration; referring to Dadaism, Futurism, and Cubism; mentioning Mark Tobey and Morris Graves as West Coast artists who looked to Asian art traditions; noting "However, the modern artist rarely delved into the cultures of these peoples. They simply looked at their art and transformed it to their purposes -- as forms;" writing about the influence of African art on areas other than painting and sculpture; mentioning modern furniture and architecture and referring to Jean (Hans) Arp and Le Corbusier; referring to Amedeo Modigliani, Wifredo Lam, Henry Moore, William Baziotes, and Adolph Gottlieb; discussing how the collecting of African art has changed over the previous fifty years; making a distinction between "African art" and "Negro art;" writing about the term "primitive art": "It is misleading. African art is not primitive as we define the term. It is sophisticated, knowingly done, for a definite intent & use [...] African art is traditionally refined, even classic;" quoting André Malraux on style and tradition in art; wishing Krasny good luck with her papers.
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