Chronological Correspondence
odd: label: Appendix: Selected Indivuduals, Institutions, and Organizations found in Series 2.2
content: Ament, Robert S.

American Museum of Natural History, New York, N.Y.

American Federation of Arts, Washington, D.C.

Artzybasheff, Boris

Barbeau, Marius

Bill, Edward Lyman

Blassingame, Lurton

Bowles, Chester

Brooklyn Museum

Bye, George T.

Canadian Pacific Railway Company, Montreal

Cross, Wilbur L.

Dixon, Maynard

Eaton, Earle Hooker

Eggers, G. W.

Ennis, Howard

Explorers Club, New York, N.Y.

Fisher, Franklin

Gallup, Anna Billings

Great Northern Railroad Company, St. Paul, Minn.

Grosvenor, Gilbert

Halseth, Odd S.

Kihn, Alfred

Kihn, Helen

Kihn, W. Langdon

Kirk, Ruth

Laubin, Reginald and Gladys

Lecompte du Noüy, Marie (May) 

Lecompte du Noüy, Pierre

Leechman, Douglas

Lummis Charles, F.

Macmillan Company

Museum of the American Indian

Niven, Frederick

Oakley, Thornton

Paisano, Ulysses

Reid, Russell

Schultz, Hart (Lone Wolf)

Skinner, Constance Lindsay

Standard, Paul

Steele, Captain Russell V. 

Stefansson, Vilhjalmur

Stirling, Matthew W. 

Watson, Elmo Scott

Wellcome, Sir Henry

White, D. Fedotoff

Wiggins, Guy

Ziegler, John
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Kihn, W. Langdon
setName: label: See more items in
content: W. Langdon Kihn papers
label: See more items in
content: W. Langdon Kihn papers / Series 2: Correspondence
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1917-1959
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.kihnwlan, Subseries 2.2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement note
content: Letters have been arranged in folders in chronological order. However, there are examples of early correspondence in which the original letter and the later response letter have been glued together. No attempt has been made to separate them and in some cases they may disrupt the chronological arrangement.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Found in this subseries are letters to and from Kihn that document his career as an artist, illustrator, teacher, and writer. Scattered through out are personal correspondence, including letters addressed to his wife Helen from their mutual friends. There is also a cache of third party correspondence addressed to Marius Barbeau, a Canadian ethnologist who was a colleague and friend of Kihn's.

The earliest correspondence includes letters from his parents, particularly his father Alfred Kihn, who also trained as an artist and founded a steel engraving firm with his brother that specialized in bank note engraving. Kihn senior not only wrote proffering career advice, but also corresponded with his son's business and personal associates while Langdon Kihn was on extended trips. There are also letters from W. Langdon Kihn to his parents describing his trips, including his impressions of San Francisco, Glacier Park, experiences painting Indian portraits, as well as his 1929-1932 sojourn painting in Paris and Spain. These early letters also record exhibitions, primarily a traveling exhibition of his portraits of members of the Blackfeet Indian tribe, which was organized by the Brooklyn Museum of Art and traveled to over 40 institutions in the United States.

Letters to and from authors, publishers, advertisers, and collectors comprise a large amount of correspondence from late 1920s to the mid 1930s, which document his efforts at securing commissions for commercial work. During this time he also began to submit articles about his work and travels. Correspondents include the author Constance Lindsay Skinner; publishers Macmillan and Company; Little, Brown, and Company; Harcourt Brace and Company; and magazines including, Fortune and Story Parade.

The bulk of the chronological correspondence records his association with the National Geographic magazine, spanning from 1935-1955. The National Geographic Society commissioned Kihn to paint historical and contemporary scenes of the lives of over 35 tribal nations from the continental United States, Alaska, and the Northwest Territories. Engraved illustrations of his paintings were published in the magazine's ongoing series on American Indians between 1937 and 1949. Most of the related correspondence was between Kihn, Franklin L. Fisher, Chief of National Geographic's Illustrated Division and Matthew W. Striling, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, who also played an important role in this project.

See Appendix for a list of selected indivuduals, institutions, and organizations found in Series 2.2.