Oral history interview with Mordi Gassner
name: label: Interviewee
content: Gassner, Mordi, 1899-1995
label: Interviewer
content: Pennington, Estill Curtis
topic: label: Occupation
content: Art teachers -- Virginia -- Drake's Branch -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Art, American
label: Topic
content: Designers -- Virginia -- Drake's Branch -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Muralists -- Virginia -- Drake's Branch -- Interviews
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: These interviews are 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 others.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Gassner, Mordi, 1899-1995
label: Interviewer
content: Pennington, Estill Curtis
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Mordi Gassner (1899-1995) was a muralist, designer, educator of New York, N.Y. and Drake's Branch, Va.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 3 Items (sound files Sound recording, digital, wav file)
label: Extent
content: 24 Pages (Transcript)
phystech: label: System Details
content: Originally recorded on 2 cassettes.
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1982 Apr. 16
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.gassne82
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
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: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview with Mordi Gassner conducted 1982 Apr. 16, by Buck Pennington, for the Archives of American Art.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Gassner speaks of growing up in Brooklyn, NY; attending Parsons Design School (then called New York School of Fine and Applied Art); opening a studio and designing signs for the Strand Theater; walking from El Paso, Texas to Phoenix to improve his eye condition; beginning work in Hollywood and working on set designs for Douglas Fairbanks and Cecille DeMille; moving back to New York to teach art in a Big Brother program; creating his mural, Mural Monument to Modern Culture; receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship and spending two years in Florence before returning to New York during the Depression; being invited to work back in Hollywood for Disney Studios and with Ernest Schoedsack only to have the films cancel production; his one-man show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; his involvement with the Artists' Union and the American Artists' Congress; creating Op art during World War I, and later designing visual aids for the armed services during World War II; becoming the art director of ABC [American Broadcasting Corporation]; working later at the Metropolitan Opera as a scenic painter; moving to Drakes Branch, Virginia after his retirement.