Oral history interview with Edith Gregor Halpert
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 7 tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 27 digital wav files. Duration is 32 hrs., 27 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970
label: Interviewer
content: Phillips, Harlan B. (Harlan Buddington), 1920-1979
label: Names
content: C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries
label: Names
content: Daniel Gallery
label: Names
content: Downtown Gallery (New York, N.Y.)
label: Names
content: Ferargil Galleries
label: Names
content: Grand Central Art Galleries
label: Names
content: M. Knoedler & Co.
label: Names
content: Montross Gallery
label: Names
content: New Gallery (New York, N.Y.)
label: Names
content: Bacon, Peggy, 1895-1987
label: Names
content: Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981
label: Names
content: Barrie, Erwin S., 1886-1983
label: Names
content: Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975
label: Names
content: Brackman, Robert, 1898-
label: Names
content: Bridgman, George Brant, 1864-1943
label: Names
content: Brixey, Richard de Wolfe
label: Names
content: Cahill, Holger, 1887-1960
label: Names
content: Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976
label: Names
content: Cary, Elisabeth Luther, 1867-1936
label: Names
content: Chase, William Merritt, 1849-1916
label: Names
content: Coleman, Glenn O., 1887-1932
label: Names
content: Crowninshield, Frank, 1872-1947
label: Names
content: Daniel, Charles, 1878-1971
label: Names
content: Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964
label: Names
content: Demuth, Charles, 1883-1935
label: Names
content: Deskey, Donald, 1894-
label: Names
content: Dove, Arthur Garfield, 1880-1946
label: Names
content: Dudensing, F. Valentine, 1892-1967
label: Names
content: Fergusson, John Duncan, 1874-1961
label: Names
content: Field, Hamilton Easter
label: Names
content: Force, Juliana, 1876-1948
label: Names
content: Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939
label: Names
content: Frost, Robert, 1874-1963
label: Names
content: Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-1983
label: Names
content: Goodyear, A. Conger (Anson Conger), 1877-1964
label: Names
content: Greenberg, Clement, 1909-1994
label: Names
content: Halpert, Samuel, 1884-1930
label: Names
content: Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943
label: Names
content: Hirsch, Stefan, 1899-1964
label: Names
content: Hopkinson, Charles, 1869-1962
label: Names
content: Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967
label: Names
content: Johns, Jasper, 1930-
label: Names
content: Kline, Franz, 1910-1962
label: Names
content: Knox, Seymour H., 1898-1990
label: Names
content: Kroll, Leon, 1884-1974
label: Names
content: Kuhn, Walt, 1877-1949
label: Names
content: Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 1889-1953
label: Names
content: Laurent, Robert, 1890-1970
label: Names
content: Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000
label: Names
content: Levine, Jack, 1915-2010
label: Names
content: Levy, Julien
label: Names
content: Locke, Charles, 1899-
label: Names
content: Luks, George Benjamin, 1867-1933
label: Names
content: Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955
label: Names
content: Marin, John, Jr., 1915?-1988
label: Names
content: McBride, Henry, 1867-1962
label: Names
content: Mellon, Paul
label: Names
content: Mercer, Henry Chapman
label: Names
content: Montross, N. E. (Newman E), 1849-1932
label: Names
content: Noguchi, Isamu, 1904-1988
label: Names
content: O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986
label: Names
content: Pascin, Jules, 1885-1930
label: Names
content: Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973
label: Names
content: Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956
label: Names
content: Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972
label: Names
content: Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957
label: Names
content: Robinson, Edward G., 1893-1973
label: Names
content: Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich
label: Names
content: Saarinen, Aline B. (Aline Bernstein), 1914-1972
label: Names
content: Saklatwalla, Beram K.
label: Names
content: Sandburg, Carl, 1878-1967
label: Names
content: Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969
label: Names
content: Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965
label: Names
content: Siporin, Mitchell, 1910-1976
label: Names
content: Soutine, Chaim, 1893-1943
label: Names
content: Steichen, Edward, 1879-1973
label: Names
content: Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946
label: Names
content: Stella, Frank
label: Names
content: Stern, Louis E., 1886-1962
label: Names
content: Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946
label: Names
content: Tannahill, Robert Hudson
label: Names
content: Vollard, Ambroise, 1867-1939
label: Names
content: Weber, Max, 1881-1961
label: Names
content: Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, 1875-1942
label: Names
content: Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963
label: Names
content: Wittenberg, Philip, 1895-1987
label: Names
content: Zerbe, Karl, 1903-1972
label: Names
content: Zorach, Marguerite, 1887-1968
label: Names
content: Zorach, William, 1887-1966
topic: label: Occupation
content: Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Topic
content: Art -- Economic aspects
label: Topic
content: Camouflage
label: Topic
content: Folk art -- Collectors and collecting
label: Topic
content: Women art dealers
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art 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 others. The transcript was microfilmed in 1996.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970
label: Interviewer
content: Phillips, Harlan B. (Harlan Buddington), 1920-1979
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Edith Halpert (1900-1970) was an art dealer from New York, N.Y.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 436 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1962-1963
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.halper62
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: 35mm microfilm reel 5130 available at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Edith Halpert conducted 1962-1963, by Harlan Phillips, for the Archives of American Art.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Halpert speaks of her childhood in Russia and growing up in New York City; working at Bloomindale's, Macy's, Stern Brothers, and Cohen Goldman; her marriage to artist Sam Halpert, his health, and living in Paris in 1925; becoming an art student at the Academy of Design and feeling that Leon Kroll was an excellent art teacher until he began to correct her drawings; when George Bridgman thought she was ruining his class; the Lincoln Square Arcade, when she and Ernest Fiener and Robert Brackman would rent Conan's studio evenings and bring in instructors; how Newman Montross influenced her more than anybody about showing her art that she loved; burning all of her work because Kroll said she had no talent; receiving a painting from John Marin; her friendship and working relationship with Abby Rockefeller and other family members.
label: Scope and Contents
content: She recalls opening the Downtown Gallery, in Greenwich Village, in 1926; a brief history of modern art; many artists helping decorate the new Daylight Gallery in 1930 and the first show being called "Practical Manifestations of Art"; meeting Robert and Sonia Delaunay in France; when she refused to allow Ezra Pound to speak at one of the gallery lectures because of his anti-Semite remarks and William Carlos Williams and Ford Madox Ford argued with her over it; experiencing jealousy and professional attacks from other dealers; the successful "Pop" Hart show and book in 1929; the "Thirty-three Moderns" show in 1930 at the Grand Central Galleries; the Jules Pascin show in 1930; in America, most of the art buyers supporters of culture were women, until the WPA and World War II, when it became fashionable for men to be involved; Ambroise Vollard's advice on selling art; handling the frustrations of working in the art field; friendships with Stuart Davis,Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn; how artists work through dry periods in their creativity and the "Recurrent Image" show; a discussion on modern art galleries of New York City, such as Daniel, Knoedler, Ferargil, the New Gallery, 291, the Grand Central, Kraushaar, and Montross; her travels through Pennsylvania and Maine for good examples of folk art for the gallery; the "The Artist Looks at Music" show; the non-competitive spirit of the early modern American artists; of being saved financially in 1940 by selling a William Harnett painting to the Boston Museum and then renting new space for the gallery.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Also, Mitchell Siporin bringing Halpert and Edmund Gurry to Mitchell Field during World War II for a camouflage show and consequently Downtown Gallery artists and others were enlisted in the camouflage corps for the U.S. Air Force; Charles Sheeler and his wife find Halpert a house in Newtown, Conn.; her decision in 1933 to push folk art for acquisition by the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri; her great concern about what to do with her folk art literature collection; dismay and that no one writes about the history of folk art and those responsible for its creation and popularity; Louis Stern hiring her to organize a municipal exhibit in Atlantic City, N.J., with Donald Deskey designing the furniture and Holger Cahill managing the publicity; Joe Lillie helping her meet Fiorello La Guardia and Joe McGoldrick in 1934 about a municipal show in New York City, but it is moved to Radio City Music Hall through Nelson Rockefeller; the "Salons of America" show; wanting articles written about art for love rather than art for investment; working with Aline Saarinen on her book, "Proud Possessors;" letters from Stuart Davis, William Zorach and others that hurt her feelings; enjoying giving educational lectures and considering retirement because of ill health; the desire to write a book on the history of trade signs in folk art; feeling that the young artists are being ruined by too much support without working for it; planning to write a book entitled, "Unsung Heroes," about artists brave enough to experiment; organizing a show in Russia at her own expense; later representing the U.S. in art at the "American National Exposition"; the agitators and success of the exposition; Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Halpert also recalls Juliana Force, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Buckminster Fuller, George Luks, Edsel Ford, Max Weber, Danny Diefenbacker, Hamilton Easter Field, Frank Stella, Glenn Coleman, Margaret Zorach, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Henry Mercer, Romany Marie, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Mellon, Charles Pollet, Alex Brook, Lunca Curass, Dorothy Lambert, Duncan Candler, Frank Rhen, Louis Rittman, Bea Goldsmith, Arthur Craven, Robert Frost, Philip Wittenberg, Caesar de Hoke, Richard deWolfe Brixey, Seymour Knox, Walt Kuhn, Elisabeth Luther Cary, Charles Locke, Duncan Fergusson, Mrs. Solomon Guggenheim, Bob Tannahill, David Thompson, Marsden Hartley, Erwin Barrie, Robert Laurent, Conger Goodyear, Henry McBride, Edward Hopper, Charles Daniel, William Merritt Chase, Charles Hopkinson, Thomas Hart Benton, Frank Crowninshield, Alfred Barr, Lord Duveen, Jacob Lawrence, John Marin Jr., Karl Zerbe, Franz Kline, Arthur Dove, Julian Levy, Jack Levine, Valentine Dudensing, Peggy Bacon, Stefan Hirsch, Gertrude Stein, Isamu Noguchi, Jasper Johns, Chaim Soutine, B. K. Saklatwalla; Fernand Leger, Pablo Picasso, Ben Shahn, Charles Demuth, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Edward Steichen, Carl Sandburg, Clement Greenberg, and others.