Oral history interview with Ed Rossbach
name: label: Interviewee
content: Rossbach, Ed
label: Interviewer
content: Austin, Carole
label: Interviewee
content: Westphal, Katherine
label: Names
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
topic: label: Occupation
content: Weavers -- California -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Fiber artists -- California -- Berkeley -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Decorative arts
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: Rossbach, Ed
label: Interviewer
content: Austin, Carole
label: Interviewee
content: Westphal, Katherine
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Charles Edmund Rossbach (1914-2002) was a fiber artist from Berkeley, California. Carole Austin is a curator and writer from Orinda, California.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 72 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2002 August 27-29
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.rossba02
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Ed Rossbach conducted 2002 August 27-29, by Carole Austin, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Berkeley, California.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Rossbach speaks of his early education and the influential teachers he had; his involvement with the All-Arts Club in high school; his family and the Depression; his beginnings with weaving; the rich and full experience of Cranbrook Academy of Art; his education at the University of Washington and professor Lea Miller; his use of the GI Bill; his relationship with dealers and galleries; his workplace at home; the isolation he felt as an artist; the importance of the craft movement and the very international feeling associated with it; the publications he worked on and completed, including, "Making Marionettes," (1938), "Baskets as Textile Art," (1973), "The New Basketry," (1976) and, "The Art of Paisley," (1980); his experience at Rhode Island School of Design and using the advanced power loom; Jim's Caning Shop in Berkeley, where he got a lot of his materials; the community of fiber artists that formed at Fiberworks; the "long" process of working with fiber; his dear friend Lillian Elliott; and the difficulty in preserving his artwork. Rossbach also recalls Maija Grotell, Jack Lenor Larsen, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Olga de Ameral, Pat Hickman, Ginger Laky, Chere Mah Marianne Strengell, Annie Albers, Pat Charley, Mark Balken, Daphne Farago, and others. Katherine Westphal, Rossbach's wife, concludes the interview with Ms. Austin discussing several of Ed's works in the catalog, "Ed Rossbach, 40 Years of Exploration and Innovation in Fiber Art," (1990), the accounts from Ms. Westphal add particular insight to the artwork Rossbach produced and how integral a figure Rossbach was to the field of fiber art.