Emmy Lou Packard Papers
name: label: Creator
content: Packard, Emmy Lou, 1914-1998
label: Names
content: American Civil Liberties Union
label: Names
content: Public Works of Art Project
label: Names
content: Covarrubias, Miguel, 1904-1957
label: Names
content: Edmunds, John, 1913-
label: Names
content: Kahlo, Frida
label: Names
content: Lange, Dorothea
label: Names
content: O'Gorman, Juan, 1905-
label: Names
content: O'Higgins, Pablo, 1904-
label: Names
content: Refregier, Anton, 1905-
label: Names
content: Reynolds, Malvina
label: Names
content: Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957
topic: label: Occupation
content: Painters -- California -- San Francisco
label: Occupation
content: Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco
label: Occupation
content: Muralists -- California -- San Francisco
label: Topic
content: Printmakers -- California -- San Francisco
label: Topic
content: Mural painting and decoration, American
label: Topic
content: Mural painting and decoration, Mexican
label: Topic
content: Latino and Latin American artists
label: Topic
content: Women artists
label: Topic
content: Women muralists
label: Topic
content: Women printmakers
label: Topic
content: Women painters
label: Topic
content: Women sculptors
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Emmy Lou Packard donated her papers to the Archives of American Art from 1984-1988. An additional 16mm reel of motion picture film donated in 2023 by Donald Cairns, Packard's son.
creator: label: Creator
content: Packard, Emmy Lou, 1914-1998
setName: label: See more items in
content: Emmy Lou Packard Papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
bioghist: label: Biographical/Historical note
content: Emmy Lou Packard was born in Imperial Valley, California on April 15, 1914, to Walter and Emma Leonard Packard. In the late 1920s she lived with her family in Mexico City where she became acquainted with Diego Rivera, from whom she received regular art criticism and encouragement. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and completed courses in fresco and sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts in 1940. That year and the next, Packard worked as a full-time painting assistant to Rivera on his 1,650 square-foot fresco at the World's Fair in San Francisco. During this project, Packard became very close to Rivera and Frida Kahlo and returned to Mexico with them and spent a year living with the couple.

From then on, except for in 1944-1945 working for a defense plant, Packard worked and grew in various aspects of her art. In addition to her work in fresco, Packard is known for her work in watercolor, oil, mosaic, laminated plastic, concrete, and printmaking, both in linocuts and woodblocks. She received numerous commissions that included installations for ships, hotels, and private homes for which she executed large woodcuts and mural panels. During the 1950s and 1960s, Packard was hired to restore several historic murals, most notably the Rincon Annex Post Office mural by Anton Refregier and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco.

Between 1966 and 1967 she was commissioned by architects to design and execute a number of concrete and mosaic pieces, one of which went to the Mirabeau Restaurant in Kaiser Center, Oakland. She also designed and executed a mural for the Fresno Convention Center Theater during that same period. In 1973-1974, she designed and supervised a glazed brick mural for a public library in Pinole, California.

Packard had one-woman shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Raymond and Raymond Gallery (San Francisco), Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Mass.), Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Pushkin Museum (Moscow), and March Gallery (Chicago). Emmy Lou Packard died in 1998.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 9.5 Linear feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1900-1990
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.packemmy
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Sketches
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Interviews
label: Type
content: Diaries
arrangement: label: Arrangement note
content: The collection is arranged into 15 series.

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1942-1985 (Box 1; 1 folder)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1990 (Box 1-3; 2.6 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1945-1985 (Box 3; 21 folders)

Series 4: Interview Transcript, 1979 (Box 3; 1 folder)

Series 5: Notes, 1900-1985 (Box 3-4, 10; 1.1 linear feet)

Series 6: Reference Files on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1929-1986 (Box 5, 10, OV 11; 0.9 linear feet)

Series 7: Writings by Packard, 1953-1984 (Box 6; 17 folders)

Series 8: Writings by Others, 1955-1984 (Box 6; 19 folders)

Series 9: Artwork, 1921-1976 (Box 6; 10 folders)

Series 10: Exhibition Files, 1950-1964 (Box 6, OV 11; 5 folders)

Series 11: Project Files, 1953-1985 (Box 6-7, 10, OV 11; 1.8 linear feet)

Series 12: Photographs, circa 1910-1982 (Box 8, 10; 0.8 linear feet)

Series 13: Scrapbooks, 1947-1950 (Box 8, 10; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 14: Printed Material, 1936-1988 (Box 8-9, 10; 1.0 linear foot)

Series 15: Artifacts, 1984 (Box 9-10, OV 11; 2 folders)
processinfo: label: Processing Information note
content: The collection was processed and described by Jean Fitzgerald in 2002. The collection was microfilmed on reels 5812-5820; the microfilm is no longer in circulation. The collection was prepared for scanning by Judy Ng and digitized in 2012 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies note
content: The bulk of the collection was digitized in 2012 and is available via the Archives of American Art's website. Blank pages, blank versos of photographs, photographs of artwork, duplicates, and exhibition catalogs of other artists have not been scanned. In most cases, the cover, title page, and individual relevant pages have been scanned from published materials.

The unpublished sound recording in this collection was digitized for research access in 2012 and is available at the Archives of American Art offices. Researchers may view the original cassette for the archival notations on them, but the original cassette is not available for playback due to fragility.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks
label: Genre/Form
content: Sketches
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
label: Genre/Form
content: Diaries
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material.

Biographical materials include resumes, personal forms, and certificates. Correspondence is with family, friends, and colleagues, including muralist Anton Refregier, songwriter Malvina Reynolds, and composer John Edmunds. There is one letter from Dorothea Lange. Also found is correspondence with various political and arts organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Russian magazine Soviet Woman. Much of the correspondence discusses personal relationships and political and art-related activities. Additional correspondence with and concerning Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is arranged in Series 6.

Personal business records found within the papers include studio real estate and rent records, insurance records, price lists for artwork, consignment records, and miscellaneous receipts. There is one interview transcript of an interview with Packard for the Radical Elders Oral History Project. The papers include a series of notebooks/diaries, address lists, and other notes.

Packard's reference files and personal papers documenting her professional and close personal relationship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are arranged into a separate series. They include her research files for a planned book on the two artists, personal letters between Packard and the couple, as well as several interesting photographs. Also found in this series are notes, writings, and printed materials relating to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other Mexican artists, such as Covarrubius, Juan O'Gorman, and Pablo O'Higgins.

The collection also includes typescripts and additional writings by Packard and others. Artwork consists of orginal drawings and prints by Packard and others not directly associated with projects. Exhibition and project files for many of Packard's commissioned projects are also found within the collection, including her files for the restoration of Anton Refregier's Rincon Annex Post Office mural in San Francisco and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. Many of the project files contain correspondence, reports, contracts, printed material, photographs, and artwork. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956. 

The papers also include photographs of Packard, her family, residences, artwork, friends, and colleagues, including Cesar Chavez, Juan O'Gorman, Malvina Reynolds, Charles Safford, Ralph Stackpole, and Tennessee Williams. Two scrapbooks are found, as well as additional printed materials such as clippings and exhibition announcements and catalogs. There are also two artifact items, a vinyl record of Malvina Reynolds and a political campaign button.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Archival Materials note
content: Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Emmy Lou Packard conducted by Mary Fuller McChesney in 1964.