Oral history interview with Thomas Tibbs
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 5 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Tibbs, Thomas S., 1917-2002
label: Interviewer
content: Karlstrom, Paul J.
label: Names
content: American Crafts Council. Museum of Contemporary Crafts
topic: label: Topic
content: Handicraft
label: Topic
content: Museum directors -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Educators -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Decorative arts
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for the transcription of this interview provided by Pasadena Art Alliance.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Tibbs, Thomas S., 1917-2002
label: Interviewer
content: Karlstrom, Paul J.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Thomas Tibbs (1917-2002) was a museum director and educator from San Diego, California. Tibbs was founding director (1956-1960) of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York and the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (1968), now Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, where he promoted an interest in crafts, their collection and exhibition as art. He was director of the new museum in Huntington, W.V., where he initated a crafts competition as a means to "fill the museum." His long-time interest in modern and contemporary art led him to hire I.M. Pei to design the new museum wing in Des Moines when he was director. Tibbs is professor emeritus of San Diego State University where he taught contemporary art.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 2 Sound cassettes (Sound recording (120 min.), analog)
label: Extent
content: 49 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1996 March 19-May 9
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.tibbs96
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Sound cassettes
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Thomas Tibbs conducted 1996 March 19-May 9, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home, in Fallbrook, California.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Tibbs discusses his family background and early interest in the arts that led him to the University of Rochester (N.Y.), where he had his first museum experience and studied music and literature before doing post-graduate work as curator of prints and of education; the museum field in the late 1940s and the professionals he knew, among them his mentor Phillip Adams of the Cincinnati Art Museum and Grace McCann Morley; the changing ideas of contemporary art, regionalism, and New York's emergence as the center in the 1950s; his experiences with the New York school artists in the 1950s and his observations of their interests and individuality, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibition at the Crafts Museum in 1958, an event which he credits the Tiffiany fashion "rage" of the 1960s. Tibbs recalls artists Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Betty Parsons, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, and Peggy Guggenheim, David Campbell, Earl Parten, Wharten Escherick, Margret Craver Withers, and Arlene Fisch.