Arts Club records
Scope and Content of the Collection
Planning files, publicity, business records, informational records, and a small amount of original artwork from the Arts Club of Chicago. Since 1916, the Club has been serving its mission by mounting exhibitions and hosting music performances, dance performances, lectures, receptions, film screenings, and plays, and its records reflect these activities. Minutes from the various Club committees show the early stages of planning each seasons' events, and files within each of the artistic series detail the day-to-day logistics of creating each event. The Membership files reveal the wide variety of Chicago-area (sometimes nationwide) artists, art patrons, and enthusiasts who were active in the Club. Other series, such as Historical, Cards and Catalogue Books, and Scrapbooks, provide information to the long public history of the Club's activities through newsclippings, photographs, and printed matter.
Dates
- Creation: 1892-2004
Creator
- Arts Club of Chicago (Organization)
Language
Materials are in English, and occasionally in French.
Access
The Arts Club records are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).
Audiovisual recordings in this collection have been digitized and are available online. Access to the original audiovisual items is restricted.
Ownership and Literary Rights
The Arts Club records are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.
History of The Arts Club
The Arts Club of Chicago was incorporated in 1916. Its objectives, according to the mission drafted at its inaugural meeting, are "to encourage higher standards of art, maintain galleries for that purpose; and to promote the mutual acquaintance of art lovers and art workers." Since its inception the Arts Club has been a pioneering force in modern and avant-garde art exhibitions, performances, lectures, and events in Chicago. For example, the Arts Club was the first venue in Chicago to exhibit Picasso drawings, in 1923. Other modern art exhibitions have followed, featuring artists who were to become major names and influences in the 20th century: Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Walt Kuhn, Fernand Leger, Jacques Villon, Berthe Morisot, Constantin Brancusi, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson, etc. In addition, the Arts Club hosted musical performances or lectures by modern composers such as Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Mihaud, and John Cage. The Arts Club has been at the forefront of dance as well, in holding both performances and lecture/demonstrations by Martha Graham, Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, and Merce Cunningham. Its Lecture Series has hosted writers, poets, historians, and artists since the beginning, and has included Thornton Wilder, W.H. Auden, Le Corbusier, Gertrude Stein, David Mamet, and David Sedaris.
The Club has always had a two-tiered membership system; professional artists pay lower dues than patrons, ensuring that artists remain a vital component of Arts Club membership. Since its inception, The Arts Club has had seven locations around Chicago. Currently it is in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago at 201 E. Ontario Street, and retains the steel interior staircase designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for its previous space at 109 E. Ontario Street. Its exhibits are open to the public, and the Club still maintains a rigorous exhibit and event schedule.
Extent
111 Linear Feet (198 boxes, 16 oversize boxes, and 51 volumes)
34 items (16 audiocassettes, 3 DVDs, 15 VHS tapes)
Abstract
Corporate records of the Arts Club of Chicago, an institution incorporated in 1916 and devoted to exhibiting and showcasing innovative artists and performers. Records include extensive exhibition files, files on the Club's music, lecture, film, and drama series, and administrative and financial files.
Organization
Papers are organized in the following series
- Series 1: Exhibitions, 1917-2004
- Boxes 1-117
- Series 2: Drama and Films, 1919-1995
- Boxes 1-2
- Series 3: Lectures and Receptions, 1917-1995
- Boxes 1-7
- Series 4: Music, 1917-2002
- Boxes 1-14
- Series 5: Correspondence, 1912-2000
- Boxes 1-3
- Series 6: Committees and Membership, 1916-2004
- Volumes 1-31, Boxes 1-12
- Series 7: Financial Records, 1916-1969
- Volumes 1-20, Boxes 1-9
- Series 8: Historical, 1918-1996
- Boxes 1-2
- Series 9: Facilities, 1918-2000
- Boxes 1-5, oversize blueprints
- Series 10: Audiovisual, approximately 1892-2004
- Boxes 1-14
- Series 11: Cards and Catalogue Books, 1920-2004
- Boxes 1-16
- Series 12: Scrapbooks, 1917-1973
- Boxes 1-10
- Series 13: Artwork, 1921-1969
- Box 1
Collection Stack Location
1 2 7, 1 3 1-7, 1 16 1-2; 4a flat file drawer; Vault 49 4
Provenance
Gift, Arts Club of Chicago, 1972, with subsequent donations.
Processed by
Benita Cullinan, 1972; Christine Sammon, 1981; Ruth Ann Koesun, 1999; The NEH Grant processing team, 2005, Eileen Truong, 2014.
Acknowledgements
This inventory was created with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this inventory do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Subject
- Scheidt, Patricia (Person)
- Cottong, Kathy (Person)
- Schumm Traffic Agency (Organization)
- Schweiker, Paul (Person)
- Sedaris, David (Person)
- Shaw, Rue Winterbotham (Person)
- Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946 (Person)
- Stravinsky, Igor, 1882-1971 (Person)
- Tomihiro, Chiye (Person)
- Tsatsos, Irene (Person)
- Villon, Jacques, 1875-1963 (Person)
- W. S. Budworth and Son (Organization)
- Wilder, Thornton, 1897-1975 (Person)
- Wolfe, Tom (Person)
- Kusama, Yayoi (Person)
- Morley, Malcolm, 1931-2018 (Person)
- Plensa, Jaume, 1955- (Person)
- Tuttle, Richard, 1941- (Person)
- Aldis, Arthur T. (Person)
- Art Institute of Chicago (Organization)
- Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973 (Person)
- Benette, Margaret (Person)
- Borowski, Felix, 1872-1956 (Person)
- Boulanger, Nadia (Person)
- Brancusi, Constantin, 1876-1957 (Person)
- Braque, Georges, 1882-1963 (Person)
- Cage, John (Person)
- Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976 (Person)
- California Insurance Company (Organization)
- Carpenter, Rue Winterbotham, -1931 (Person)
- Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985 (Person)
- Chapman, Elizabeth Fuller (Person)
- Christensen, Grace (Person)
- Coolidge, Elizabeth Sprague, 1864-1953 (Person)
- Copland, Aaron, 1900-1990 (Person)
- Cunningham, Merce (Person)
- Dalí, Salvador, 1904-1989 (Person)
- Dolin, Anton, 1904-1983 (Person)
- Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-1985 (Person)
- Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968 (Person)
- Dux, Claire, 1885-1967 (Person)
- Eisendrath, William N. (Person)
- Ernst, Max, 1891-1976 (Person)
- Fairbank, Miriam (Person)
- Freehling, Stanley (Person)
- Gallagher and Ascher, Inc. (Organization)
- Gerstenberg, Alice (Person)
- Graham, Martha (Person)
- Haley, Alex (Person)
- Hektoen, Eleanor (Person)
- Jarvis, Isabel (Person)
- Julien Levy Gallery (Organization)
- Klee, Rogers, Loeb and Wolff (Firm) (Organization)
- Kokoschka, Oskar, 1886-1980 (Person)
- Kuhn, Walt, 1877-1949 (Person)
- Le Corbusier, 1887-1965 (Person)
- Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955 (Person)
- Lockett, Robbin (Person)
- Lucien Lefebvre-Foinet (Firm) (Organization)
- Magnusson, M. J. (Person)
- Mamet, David (Person)
- Man Ray, 1890-1976 (Person)
- Markova, Alicia, Dame, 1910-2004 (Person)
- Matisse, Pierre, 1900-1989 (Person)
- Balkenhol, Stephan, 1957- (Person)
- McNear, Everett, 1904-1984 (Person)
- Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969 (Person)
- Milhaud, Darius, 1892-1974 (Person)
- Moats, Mabel B. (Person)
- Bourgeois, Louise, 1911-2010 (Person)
- Moore, Case, Lyman and Hubbard Insurance (Organization)
- Moore, Marianne, 1887-1972 (Person)
- Morisot, Berthe, 1841-1895 (Person)
- Nef, John U. (John Ulric), 1899-1988 (Person)
- Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988 (Person)
- Noguchi, Isamu, 1904-1988 (Person)
- Palmer, John, 1881-1964 (Person)
- Cemin, Saint Clair (Person)
- Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956 (Person)
- Prokofiev, Sergey, 1891-1953 (Person)
- Railway Express Agency (Organization)
- Robinson, Edward G., 1893-1973 (Person)
- Roullier, Alice, 1883-1963 (Person)
Genre / Form
- Clippings (information artifacts)
- Contracts
- Correspondence
- Invitations
- Moving images
- Photographs
- Programs
- Reports
- Scrapbooks
- Sketches
- Sound recordings
Topical
- Art -- Exhibitions
- Art -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Exhibitions
- Art museums -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Art, American -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
- Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
- Artists -- Portraits -- Exhibitions
- Authors as artists
- Clubs -- Illinois -- Chicago -- History -- 20th century -- Sources
- Drawing -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
- Manuscripts, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Painting, Modern -- Exhibitions
- Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
- Title
- Inventory of the Arts Club records, 1892-2004
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Alison Hinderliter, Eileen Truong
- Date
- ©2014.
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2023-01-17: Audiovisual materials have been permanently removed from the collection for preservation. Access to the original audiovisual items is restricted.
Repository Details
Part of the The Newberry Library - Modern Manuscripts and Archives Repository
60 West Walton Street
Chicago Illinois 60610 United States
312-255-3512
reference@newberry.org