Belle Krasne Ribicoff Correspondence, 1942-2007
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Ribicoff, Belle Krasne, 1924-
setName: label: See more items in
content: Belle Krasne Ribicoff papers
physdesc: label: Extent
content: (Boxes 1, 3; 1.0 linear feet)
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.krasbell2, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement note
content: Correspondence, including files with individuals where there is substantive correspondence is arranged alphabetically; letters within the folders are filled in chronological order.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Correspondence spans over sixty years, with the bulk dating from 1949-2007. Belle Krasne Ribicoff's correspondence, mostly incoming letters, consists of letters, drafts, postcards, and copies of e-mails. Some letters are illustrated; a few contain original artwork. Many letters have attachments, such as invoices, price lists, notes, sketches, printed material, clippings, exhibition catalogues, invitations, and photographs.

Ribicoff was friends with many artists. Their letters to her concern daily activities, work, and the art world. Among the correspondents were Charles Burchfield, Oscar and Eleanor Chelminsky, Joseph Cornell, Piero and Virginia Dorazio, John and Rae Ferren, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, John Graham, Russell Lynes, Frank Modell, George L.K. Morris, Philip Pearlstein, David Smith, John Von Wicht, Adja Yunkers, among others. There are individual artists' files for Ben Benn, Sidney Geist, Leon Hartley, Arnold Newman, Ralph Rosenborg, and Theodore Roszak. Two items of interest: Carl Holty's letter to J.B. Neumann discusses the use of realism in his work and an artist's statement by Adolph Gottlieb. Marcel Duchamp correspondence consists of two black and white photographs of the artist: a print by Victor Obsatz inscribed to Belle Krasne Ribicoff and a print by Naomi Savage, and a reproduction of an artwork.

Ribicoff's friends and colleagues included writers, actors, and other well-known individuals associated with theatre and film, such as Edward Albee, Claire Bloom, Horton Foote, Elia Kazan, Peter De Vries, Mark Lamos, Estelle Parsons, Cornelia Otis Skinner, and P.T. Travers. Also found are letters from art historians, museum directors, gallery dealers, such as Dore Ashton, S. Lane Faison, Balcomb Greene, Rene d'Harnoncourt, Pierre Matisse, Andrew C. Ritchie, Harry Salpeter, Curt Valentin and others. Files also contain letters to Belle Krasne Ribicoff from friends and colleagues relating to her departure from Art Digest; letters between Ribicoff and representatives of the Storm King Art Center Museum pertaining to her donation of unpublished letters by David Smith to the museum; and correspondence with the Wadsworth Atheneum. Included is a small file of unidentified correspondents.