Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
Archives related to: Carpenter, Rue Winterbotham, d. 1931
| title | Arts Club Records, 1892-1995 | repository | Newberry Library |
| description | Planning files, publicity, business records, informational records, and a small amount of original artwork from the Arts Club of Chicago. Since 1916, the Club has been serving its mission by mounting exhibitions and hosting music performances, dance performances, lectures, receptions, film screenings, and plays, and its records reflect these activities. Minutes from the various Club committees show the early stages of planning each seasons' events, and files within each of the artistic series detail the day-to-day logistics of creating each event. The Membership files reveal the wide variety of Chicago-area (sometimes nationwide) artists, art patrons, and enthusiasts who were active in the Club. Other series, such as Historical, Cards and Catalogue Books, and Scrapbooks, provide information to the long public history of the Club's activities through newsclippings, photographs, and printed matter. Narrative descriptions of the subject matter, types of material, and arrangement of each series are available through the Organization section of the finding aid. History of The Arts Club The Arts Club of Chicago was incorporated in 1916. Its objectives, according to the mission drafted at its inaugural meeting, are "to encourage higher standards of art, maintain galleries for that purpose; and to promote the mutual acquaintance of art lovers and art workers." Since its inception the Arts Club has been a pioneering force in modern and avant-garde art exhibitions, performances, lectures, and events in Chicago. For example, the Arts Club was the first venue in Chicago to exhibit Picasso drawings, in 1923. Other modern art exhibitions have followed, featuring artists who were to become major names and influences in the 20th century: Georges Bracque, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Walt Kuhn, Fernand Leger, Jacques Villon, Berthe Morisot, Constantin Brancusi, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson, etc. In addition, the Arts Club hosted musical performances or lectures by modern composers such as Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Mihaud, and John Cage. The Arts Club has been at the forefront of dance as well, in holding both performances and lecture/demonstrations by Martha Graham, Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, and Merce Cunningham. Its Lecture Series has hosted writers, poets, historians, and artists since the beginning, and has included Thornton Wilder, W.H. Auden, Le Courbusier, Gertrude Stein, David Mamet, and David Sedaris. The Club has always had a two-tiered membership system; professional artists pay lower dues than patrons, ensuring that artists remain a vital component of Arts Club membership. Since its inception, The Arts Club has had seven locations around Chicago. Currently it is in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago at 222 W. Superior Street, and retains the steel interior staircase designed by architect Mies van der Rohe for its previous space at 109 E. Ontario Street. Its exhibits are open to the public, and the Club still maintains a rigorous exhibit and event schedule. |
| extent | 1.0 cubic ft. |
| formats | Exhibition Files Writings Financial Records Correspondence Printed Materials |
| access | The Arts Club Records are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 5 folders at a time maximum, and items in each folder will be counted before and after delivery to the patron (Priority I). |
| record link | http://www.newberry.org/collections/FindingAids/artsclub/ArtsClub.html |
| record source | http://www.newberry.org/collections |
| finding aid | Online and in repository |
| acquisition information | Gift, Arts Club of Chicago, 1972, with subsequent donations. |
| updated | 03/16/2023 10:29:55 |
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| title | John Alden Carpenter Papers, 1890-1964, bulk 1900-1950 | repository | Newberry Library |
| description | Most of the correspondence relates to Carpenter’s musical activities, and includes letters written not only to him but also to his wife, Rue, and his daughter Genevieve (Ginny). There is one folder of drafts or carbons of Carpenter’s outgoing correspondence and one folder of correspondence with his music publisher, G. Schirmer, Inc.. Among the well-known correspondents of Carpenter, his wife and daughter are John Barrymore, Sarah Bernhardt, Marcel Duchamp, Percy Grainger, George Herriman, Langston Hughes, Serge Koussevitsky, Fernand Leger, Vachel Lindsay, John McCormack, Pierre Monteux, Gerald Murphy, Sir William Nicholson, Eugene Ormandy, Serge Prokofieff, Artur Rodzinski, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Philip Sousa, Adlai Stevenson, Igor Stravinsky, George Szell, Alice B. Toklas, Louis Untermeyer, Bruno Walter and Thornton Wilder. Also, material regarding Carpenter’s ballet music, including a printed copy of the score of Krazy Kat and sketches of the costumes and staging of Skyscrapers by Robert Edmond Jones; a small collection of autographs including four with cartoons by Clare Briggs, Charlie Chaplin, George Herriman and Charles Schulz; clippings and miscellaneous programs, financial records both personal and professional, a radio interview, and information on his memorial in 1960. There is one folder of material relating to Rue Winterbotham Carpenter, including a lock of her hair. Also, one box of photographs of family and many celebrities, the most interesting of which are shots of Picasso and Stravinsky and one group photo featuring Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. In an oversize box are photos of Arthur Rubinstein and of a vast banquet given for Frederick A. Stock, plus a few designs for Skyscrapers. Narrative descriptions of the subject matter, types of material, and arrangement of each series are available through the Organization section of the finding aid. |
| extent | 2 cubic ft. (3 boxes, 1 oversize box) |
| formats | Correspondence Photographs Ephemera Manuscript |
| access | The John Alden Carpenter Papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 5 folders at a time maximum, and items in each folder will be counted before and after delivery to the patron (Priority I). |
| record source | http://www.newberry.org/collections/artsabstracts.html |
| finding aid | Online and in repository |
| acquisition information | Gift of Mrs. Patrick Hill (daughter Genevieve Carpenter), 1977; gift of Mrs. Ivor LeClerc (Joan Pirie LeClerc, granddaughter of Carpenter’s second wife Ellen), 1979, 1987. |
| updated | 11/12/2014 11:29:54 |
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