Frederick Hammersley papers
name: label: Creator
content: Hammersley, Frederick, 1919-2009
label: Names
content: L.A. Louver Gallery
label: Names
content: Pomona College (Claremont, Calif.)
label: Names
content: Benjamin, Karl
label: Names
content: McLaughlin, John, 1898-
label: Names
content: Stone, Susie
topic: label: Occupation
content: Painters -- New Mexico
label: Occupation
content: Painters -- California -- Los Angeles
label: Occupation
content: Art teachers -- California -- Los Angeles
label: Topic
content: Computer Art
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Frederick Hammersley donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in nine accessions from 1974 to 2008. The Frederick Hammersley Foundation donated additional papers in 2012, 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2021 via Executive Director, Kathleen Shields.
creator: label: Creator
content: Hammersley, Frederick, 1919-2009
setName: label: See more items in
content: Frederick Hammersley papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The papers of Los Angeles Abstract Classicist painter and educator Frederick Hammersley measure 35.1 linear feet and date from circa 1860-circa 2018, bulk 1940-2009. Biographical materials, 32 diaries, family and professional correspondence, personal business and financial records, estate records, writings, graphic design project and teaching files, printed materials, scrapbooks, photographs, works of art, and sound and video recordings, provide extensive coverage of Hammersley's career, including his contributions as a core member of the "west coast hard-edge" movement, and his evolution into other styles of painting, sculpture, and computer-based art.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Painter, graphic designer, and educator Frederick Hammersley (1919-2009) spent most of his career in Los Angeles and New Mexico. He is closely associated with the hard-edge abstraction painting style of the Abstract Classicists of Southern California.

Hammersley was born on January 5, 1919 to Anna Westberg and Harold Hammersley in Salt Lake City, where his father worked for the U.S. Department of the Interior. The family lived in Utah and Idaho before finally settling in San Francisco. Hammersley attended the University of Idaho and later enrolled in the Academy of Advertising Art in San Francisco. In 1940, Hammersley began taking classes at the Chouinard Art Institution in Los Angeles.

Hammersley's studies were interrupted by World War II military service from 1942 to 1946. He was stationed first in Paris as a draftsman in the Signal Corp and was eventually promoted to Army sergeant in the Office of Military Government in Berlin. While in Paris, he visited Picasso's studio several times and also took classes at the Ècole des Beaux Arts at the end of the war. When he returned home in 1946, the GI Bill subsidized his final year of study at Chouinard, now the California Institute of Arts, and three years at the Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles.

Hammersley made his living as an art professor in California for twenty years, where he taught at the Jepson Art Institute and Pomona College in Claremont. He moved to Albuquerque after accepting a teaching position at the University of New Mexico in 1968. In 1971, Hammersley resigned his teaching position and devoted himself to painting.

Hammersley's reputation as a painter began in 1948 when one of his small paintings was accepted in an annual exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1958, several of his works were included in the seminal exhibition Four Abstract Classicists, organized by Jules Langsner and Peter Selz and shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Hammersley, and fellow painters Lorser Feitelson, Karl Benjamin, and John McLaughlin, were dubbed the "hard-edged painters," whose style consisted of flat, colored geometric shapes that were a sharp contrast to the more popular Abstract Expressionism. The label stuck and in the mid 1970s, Hammersley submitted several works of art for a show called L.A. Hard Edge, a show that featured art from the 1950s and 1970s.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Hammersley exhibited in several one-man shows, including at L.A. Louver in Venice, California, the Hoshour Gallery in Albuquerque, and the Corcoran in Washington, D.C. In 2000, the Laguna Art Museum presented a traveling exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts in Sante Fe, and the Pomona College Museum of Art organized a retrospective in 2007. Hammersley's work is in museum collections across the country, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Hammersley died in 2009 at the age of 90.  He was survived by his sister, Susie Hammersley Stone.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 35.1 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1860-circa 2018
label: Date
content: bulk 1940-2009
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.hammfred
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Diaries
label: Type
content: Drawings
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Interviews
label: Type
content: Sketchbooks
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Video recordings
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged as 12 series.

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1914-circa 2018 (2.5 linear feet; Box 1-3, 31, 33, 37)

Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1900-2009 (3.1 linear feet; Box 3-6, 37)

Series 3: Diaries, 1909-2008 (2.1 linear feet; Box 6-8, 37)

Series 4: Writings, Lectures, and Notes, circa 1940-2009 (0.6 linear feet; Box 8-9, 37)

Series 5:  Teaching Files, circa 1950-1993 (0.2 linear feet; Box 9)

Series 6: Graphic Design Projects, circa 1945-1980 (0.4 linear feet; Box 9-10, 31)

Series 7: Personal Business and Financial Records, 1897-2009 (3.2 linear feet; Box 10-13, 24, 33, 35, 37)

Series 8: Estate Records, 1898-2010 (0.7 linear feet; Box 13, 24, 37)

Series 9: Printed Material, 1945-2012 (3.6 linear feet; Box 13-17, 31, 38, 43, OV 57)

Series 10: Scrapbooks, circa 1890-1960s (3.3 linear feet; Box 17-18, 25-29)

Series 11: Photographs, circa 1860-2007 (10.7 linear feet; Box 18-23, 29-31, 38-44)

Series 12: Artwork and Artifacts, circa 1920-2009 (4.7 linear feet; Box 22, 31-32, 38, 42, 44-45, OVs 35, 46-56, 58-64)
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Diana Shenk processed a portion of the papers in 2010 with funding provided by The Getty Foundation. In 2012-2013, a large addition to the papers was integrated, processed, and described by Jayna Josefson and the collection was scanned in its entirety with funding provided by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation. Additions from 2015 and 2018 were processed by Ryan Evans, additions from 2020 and 2021 were processed by Stephanie Ashley, and the bulk of these additions was digitized in 2021, with funding provided by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: The bulk of the collection was digitized in 2013-2014, and subsequent additions were digitized in 2021. All digitized material is available on the Archives of American Art's website.  Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, duplicates, negatives and slides, blank versos of photographs, some family material, routine financial and estate records unrelated to Hammersley's career, and sensitive financial records.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Diaries
label: Genre/Form
content: Drawings
label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
label: Genre/Form
content: Sketchbooks
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Video recordings
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The papers of Los Angeles Abstract Classicist painter and educator Frederick Hammersley measure 35.1 linear feet and date from circa 1860-circa 2018, bulk 1940-2009. Biographical materials, 32 diaries, family and professional correspondence, personal business and financial records, estate records, writings, graphic design project and teaching files, printed materials, scrapbooks, photographs, works of art, and sound and video recordings, provide extensive coverage of Hammersley's career, including his contributions as a core member of the "west coast hard-edge" movement, and his evolution into other styles of painting, sculpture, and computer-based art. 

Biographical materials include resumes and biographies, calendars, military records, family genealogies, school records, high school and college yearbooks, and awards. There are also sound and video recordings of talks, interviews, and television appearances. Scattered materials relating to Hammersley's parents, Anna Westberg Hammersley and Harold Hammersley, are also found in the series.

Correspondence consists of letters from family and close friends as well as business correspondence with collectors and professional art associations. Family correspondents include Hammersley's immediate family and aunts and cousins. Additional noteworthy correspondents include fellow artists Karl Benjamin, William Brice, Robert Chuey, Rico Lebrun, and John McLaughlin, among others.

There are 23 diaries written by Frederick Hammersley dating from 1935-2008, with a gap spanning 1954-1972. Also found are six diaries written by Harold Hammersley dating from 1940-1959 and three by Anna Hammersley from 1909-1965.

Hammersley's writings include college class notes, essays, poetry, lecture notes, grant applications, and proposals. There are also sound recordings of lectures and talks as well as drafts and a final copy of an article published in the journal Leonardo in 1970. Two notebooks include a sales and exhibition history, and a photography log.

Teaching files consist of class lecture notes, student evaluations, and grade books for classes likely taught at Pomona University and the Chouinard Art Institute.  

Graphic design projects contain materials from Hammersley's company Handsome Cards for which he designed greeting and holiday cards. Also included are various freelance designs and draft designs for exhibition catalogs. General financial and business records focus on Hammersley business relationships and transactions with galleries and museums and his efforts to promote his art. Galleries and museums represented in the files include Modernism Gallery (San Francisco), L.A. Louver Gallery (Venice, California), and Hoshour Gallery (Albuquerque). This series also contains tax returns and expense ledgers. Also found are scattered materials from the household of Anna and Harold Hammersley. 

Estate records are found for Frederick Hammersley, Susie Hammersley Stone, Anna and Harold Hammersley, Frederick Hammersley Sr., Mrs. E. Hammersley, Maude Eliza Hammersley, Dorothy Hutchinson Hammersley, and Basil Edward Pratt. These files include wills and yearly financial reports.

Printed material consists of newspaper and magazine clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and printed copies of Hammersley's graphic designs. The series is extensive and contains clippings and exhibition material that represents Hammersley's entire career as an artist. Also found are packets of printed materials created by Hammersley to represent the careers of his friends and colleagues. 

Scrapbooks consist of eleven "scrapfiles," postcard albums, and clippings scrapbooks created by Frederick Hammersley and Anna Hammersley. Scrapfiles refers to the original title created by the Hammersleys. Frederick's scrapbooks contain clippings of art, criticisms of his work, and news mentions of his career. Anna's scrapbooks contain one postcard album and 4 scrapbooks and scrapfiles of news clippings relating to subjects of her personal interest.  

Photographs include snapshots of Hammersley; images of Hammersley with family and friends; travel photographs, many of them taken in Europe during World War II; photographs of exhibitions; and photographs of Hammersley's artwork. Most of the photographs were labeled and dated by Hammersley. There are six photo albums created by Frederick Hammersley, seven albums compiled by his parents Harold and Anna Hammersley, and two albums compiled by his sister, Susie Hammersley Stone. 

Artwork consists of Hammersley's sketchbooks, drawings, and paintings from high school and college classes, designs for exhibition catalogs, drawings and sketches from the 1930s-1980s, and cards and printouts for his computer drawings series.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: The Archives of American Art also holds the Tamara Webster papers relating to Frederick Hammersley.