Oral history interview with Robert O. Preusser
odd: label: General
content: Poor sound quality. The first 35 minutes of the interview have been lost.
label: General
content: Originally recorded on 1 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 18 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Preusser, Robert O. (Robert Ormerod), 1919-1992
label: Interviewer
content: Brown, Robert F.
label: Names
content: Art Center School (Los Angeles, Calif.)
label: Names
content: Boris Mirski Gallery (Boston, Mass.)
label: Names
content: Center for Advanced Visual Studies
label: Names
content: Downtown Gallery (New York, N.Y.)
label: Names
content: Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, Mass.)
label: Names
content: Institute of Design (Chicago, Ill.)
label: Names
content: Joan Peterson Gallery
label: Names
content: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
label: Names
content: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. School
label: Names
content: Newcomb College. School of Art
label: Names
content: University of Houston
label: Names
content: Davidson, Ola McNeill
label: Names
content: Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001
label: Names
content: White, Minor
topic: label: Topic
content: Art -- Study and teaching -- Massachusetts
label: Topic
content: Art -- Study and teaching -- Texas -- Houston
label: Topic
content: Camouflage (Military science)
label: Topic
content: Painters -- Massachusetts -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Painters -- Texas -- Houston -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Painting -- Study and teaching
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: Preusser, Robert O. (Robert Ormerod), 1919-1992
label: Interviewer
content: Brown, Robert F.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Robert Preusser (1919-1992) was a painter and art instructor from Houston, Texas and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 106 Pages (Transcipt)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1991 January-October
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.preuss91
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
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 Robert O. Preusser conducted 1991 January-October, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Preusser discusses the establishment of an art department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his involvement with it first as a visiting lecturer and then as a professor of visual design. He speaks often of Gyorgy Kepes, whom he had known at the Institute of Design, Chicago, in the early 1940s, and who recruited him to M.I.T; he also discusses other faculty members, like Minor White, professor of photography. He gives attention to his courses at M.I.T., 1954-1985; early computer design projects by students; his writings on the importance of visual arts to technology; and his supervision of educational programs at M.I.T.'s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, 1974-85. An extensive part of the interview is held in an exhibition of Preusser's work at the M.I.T. Museum (April 4, 1991), discussing in particular his incorporation of various plastic and metallic materials in his works from the 1960s and 1970s. He speaks as well of the importance of his inclusion in group exhibitions at the Downtown Gallery, New York, ("Newcomers," 1951, and "Recent Arrivals, 1952) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston ("Collectors Exhibition," 1954), and of his exhibitions at the Boris Mirski Gallery and the Joan Peterson Gallery, Boston, during the 1950s and 1960s, and at various galleries in Houston during the 1980s. Other topics of discussion are his early art instruction in his native Houston, Texas, by the painter Ola McNeill Davidson, 1930-39; further training in painting and design at the Institute of Design, Chicago, 1930-39, 1941-42; Newcomb School of Art at Tulane University, 1940-41; service with a camouflage unit in the U.S. Army, 1942-45; classes at the Art Center School, Los Angeles, 1946-47; his teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1947-54, and at the University of Houston, 1951-54, and his role as co-director of the Houston Contemporary Arts Association, 1948-50.