Oral history interview with Sonia Wolfson
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 9 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Wolfson, Sonia, 1903-1997
label: Interviewer
content: Fort, Ilene Susan
topic: label: Occupation
content: Art critics -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Women art critics
label: Topic
content: Art, Modern -- 20th century -- California, Southern
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.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Wolfson, Sonia, 1903-1997
label: Interviewer
content: Fort, Ilene Susan
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Sonia Wolfson (1903-1997) was an art critic from Los Angeles, California.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 3 Items (sound cassettes)
label: Extent
content: 38 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1990 August 19
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.wolfso90
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Interviews
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Sonia Wolfson conducted 1990 August 19, by Ilene Fort, for the Archives of American Art.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Wolfson speaks of her childhood in New York; moving to California in the 1980s; writing for California Graphic and Game and Gossip; traveling to view various art collections in San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, Washington D.C., and Europe; working as a secretary for three days at Columbia Studio; working as a writer and art critic for Stendhal Art Galleries in Los Angeles; taking a job for 20th Century Fox as a unit publicist in 1933 during the Depression. Wolfson discusses several of the actors she worked with, including Jane Withers, Darryl Zanuck, George Arliss, and Winfield Sheehan; she reminisces about writing about the 1925-26 Pan-American Exhibition in Los Angeles.