The Winterthur Library

 The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum

5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, Delaware  19735

Telephone: 302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883

 

 

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION

 

Creator:         Bowman, Leslie Greene        

Title:               Exhibition and publication research papers   

Dates:             circa 1986-circa 1994

Call No.:         Col. 1013       

Acc. No.:        10x165

Quantity:        7 boxes

Location:        9 G 6

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

 

Leslie Greene Bowman is an art historian, curator, and museum director specializing in American decorative arts and material culture. Born in Ohio in 1956, she received her undergraduate degree from the Miami University, Oxford, Ohio in 1978.  She earned a Master of Arts in Early American Culture in 1981 from the University of Delaware, being a fellow in the Winterthur program.  Her thesis was on Irving W. Lyon.

 

Bowman held increasingly responsible positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), first as curatorial assistant (1980-1981), then as assistant curator in the department of Decorative Arts and European Sculpture (1981-1984), and then as associate curator in that department (1984-1988).  During 1989-1997, Bowman served as the department’s curator and as assistant director of exhibition programs.  She was the co-curator of the 1992 exhibition American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament and co-author of the accompanying catalog.  While at LACMA, she taught courses in American decorative arts history at the University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles.  She was consultant curator to Oakland Museum, Oakland, California in conjunction with the 1993-1994 exhibition The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life.

 

The next phase in Bowman’s career took her to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she was Executive Director of the National Museum of Wildlife Arts from 1997 to 1999.  She left Wyoming to become Executive Director and CEO of Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, a position she held until 2008 when she became President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Monticello, Virginia.

 

Bowman’s contributions to history of American decorative arts has been acknowledged by awards and appointments.  In 2016 she received the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution’s Historic Preservation Medal, and she has been a member of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House since 1993.  Bowman is a noted expert on American Arts and Crafts Movement, particularly as it was expressed in California.  She is a consultant to private collectors of Arts & Crafts furniture and decorative arts, and a contributing curator to Arts and Crafts exhibitions and catalogs, including American Arts and Crafts: Virtue in Design (a catalog of the Palevsky/Evans Collection and related works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art). 

 

 

SCOPE AND CONTENT

 

The collection includes Bowman’s research notes and institutional correspondence from her time as curator at LACMA, and they are for two traveling exhibitions and their catalogs: American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (1992) and The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life (1993-1994).  There are also a few files connected with the exhibition and catalog Silver in the Golden State (1987/88), to which Bowman was a contributor.

 

American Rococo, 1750-1775:  Elegance in Ornament

The exhibition and catalog were jointly organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with the exhibition appearing at each venue. The co-authors and curators were Morrison Heckscher, curator and head of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Bowman.  The two jointly authored the introductory essay and the section on engravings, while Bowman was responsible for the sections on silver, glass, and porcelain.

 

Box 1 contains paperwork about the exhibition, such as loan forms and correspondence with lenders. Box 2 has research and early versions of catalog essays. The contents are basically arranged in catalog order, beginning with general research about silver and silversmiths; other folders follow the order in which the subjects appear in the catalog.

 

The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life

The exhibition was organized by the Oakland Museum, Oakland, California.  After the show opened in Oakland in 1993 it traveled to The Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1993 and 1994. This was a private project of Bowman’s, and was not part of her work for LACMA.  The catalog essays, contributed by various authors, focused on particular areas of California.  Bowman’s contribution covered the region from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, and was entitled: “The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Southland.” The majority of the files contain the raw, primary source data, collected by Bowman’s students in a college course offered in 1991, about individual artists, workshops, art colonies, businesses, and schools.  (Unfortunately, it is not known which college these students attended.)  There are substantial files on Elizabeth Eaton Burton and her father Charles Eaton, Douglas Donaldson, Harold Doolittle, Paul Elder, Halcyon Art Pottery, Robert Wilson Hyde, Arts and Crafts at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, and Throop Institute (also known as Throop Polytechnic, which became California Polytechnic Institute).  The data were drawn largely from city directories, university and historical society archives, and city and regional publications (including newspapers), and California-based journals.  There are also folders about the Arroyo Craftsman Guild (including a photocopy of its inaugural edition, published in 1909); art schools in California (primarily southern California); artists’ clubs and exhibitions in Los Angeles before 1930; Ernest Batchelder; Blanchard Porter; California’s utopian colonies; Catalina Pottery; Craft Camarata; Leonora Eaves; Fletcher Morley; furniture retailers in Los Angeles in the early 20th century; D’Arcy Gaw; Irving John Gill; Grand Feu Art Pottery; inns; William Lees Judson; Llano Colonist; Los Angeles Glass Company; McClellan Manufacturing Company; Monterey: Californio Rancho Furniture, Pottery, and Art; Montgomery Brothers; old Mission wicker; Oriental Art Store (Nathan Bentz); Pacific Art Tile (aka Tropico Potteries); Pasadena; Frederick Hurten Rhead (Rhead Pottery); Edna Rich memoirs (including Sloyd); Ruskin Art Club; Santa Barbara Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics; Julius Stark; textile and embroidery companies; University City Pottery; Dirk van Erp; Emma Wandvogel; Winfield Pottery; and Frank Lloyd Wright.  Some of the artists’ biographical information was included in the catalog, but much was not.

 

Box 6 contains folders relating to the preparation of the catalog and exhibition.

 

 

           

ORGANIZATION

 

Series I, American Rococo;

Series II, Arts and Crafts in California

 

 

LANGUAGE OF MATERIALS

 

The materials are in English.

 

 

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS

 

Collection is open to the public.  Copyright restrictions may apply.

           

 

PROVENANCE

 

Gift of Leslie Greene Bowman.

           

 

ACCESS POINTS

 

Topics:

            Arts and crafts movement - California - Exhibitions.

            Arts and crafts movement - California - History.

            Decorative arts - California - History.

            Decorative arts, Rococo - United States.

            Decoration and ornament, Rococo - United States - Exhibitions.

            Museum exhibits.

            Women museum curators.

           

 

 

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

 

Location: 9 G 6

 

 

Series I: “American Rococo”: exhibition and catalog

 

Box 1:

 

Folder 1:          Budget and fundraising

 

Folder 2:          Catalog memos

 

Folder 3:          Contract

 

Folder 4:          Correspondence; Robert Barker. Features extensive correspondence between Bowman and English silver specialist Robert Barker about 18th- century English and Colonial silver, jewelry, and engraving. It includes a photocopy of Barker’s 1990 paper, “Colonial Attempts to Establish an Assaying System in Philadelphia and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1753-1770.” Barker is thanked in the Acknowledgements; see also: p. 244, fn. 15, 21, and 43.

 

Folder 5:          Correspondence with LACMA; filed alphabetically by institution

 

Folder 6:          Correspondence; thank you letters and miscellaneous correspondence

 

Folder 7:          Gallery floor plans for the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Folder 8:          Headings; suggested headings for the catalog

 

Folder 9:          Interns

 

Folder 10:        Letterhead and loan form templates

 

Folder 11:        Loan requests

 

Folder 12:        Removed objects

 

 

Box 2:

 

Folder 1:          Biographical information; original owners; provenance

 

Folder 2:          Research, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Winterthur; Bowman notes

Folder 3:          Silver research, Bowman

 

Folder 4:          Silver research, English silver/American histories; photocopies of articles

 

Folder 5:          Silver research, “American Rococo Silver,” by Margaret M. Lovell; photocopy of 1972 research paper

 

Folder 6:          Silver; Myer Myers

 

Folder 7:          Silver, Myer Myers alternates for catalog

 

Folder 8:          Silver, Paul Revere ledgers. Bowman notes

 

Folder 9:          Silver, Joseph Richardson. Photocopied images with Bowman’s opinions

 

Folder 10:        Silver, rare, cast. Correspondence

 

Folder 11:        Silver, Silversmith biographies

 

Folder 12:        Essay, Silver for Tea and Coffee Pots; Teapots [early draft]

 

Folder 13:        Silver research, teapots [catalog order]; correspondence

 

Folder 14:        Essay, Silver Sugar Dishes and Cream Pots [early draft]     

 

Folder 15:        Essay, Coffee [early drafts]

 

Folder 16:        Silver research, coffee pots

 

Folder 17:        Essay, Drinking and Serving Forms [early draft]     

 

Folder 18:        Silver research, Drinking and Serving [catalog order]; includes correspondence, photocopies of some articles; some early owner research

 

Folder 19:        Essay, Rare Forms [early draft]

 

Folder 20:        Essay, Ceramics and Glass [early draft]

 

Folder 21:        Porcelain, Bonin and Morris, correspondence and research

 

Folder 22:        Essay furniture [early version]

 

Folder 23:        Essay, Engraving [early version]       

           

 

           

Series II: “The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life”: exhibition and book

 

Box 3:

 

Folder 1:          “The Arroyo Craftsman Guild c. 1900-c. 1915 (20),” by Inger Feeley, class paper

 

Folder 2:          Arroyo Craftsman, photocopy of the inaugural October 1909 edition

 

Folder 3:          Art Schools in California, various

 

Folder 4:          “Artists’ clubs and exhibitions in Los Angeles before 1930,” Nancy Wall Moore and Phyllis Moore (1975) and “The California Art Club,” by C. P. Austin (Out West, December 1911)

 

Folder 5:          “Artistic Homes of Southern California. Residence of Carl Leonardt, Chester Place, Los Angeles,” by Mrs. Elva Elliott Sayford (Out West, Dec. 1910)

 

Folder 6:          “Arts and Crafts at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,” by Frederick Allen Whiting (International Studio, Oct. 1904)

 

Folder 7:          Batchelder, Ernest

 

Folder 8:          Blanchard, Porter

 

Folder 9:          Burton, Catherine Eaton. Misc. articles

 

Folder 10:        Burton, Catherine Eaton and Charles Frederick Eaton. “Elizabeth Eaton Burton and Charles Frederick Eaton in Living the Good Life: The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Golden State, by Judy Mowinckle, research paper (N.B. Mowinckle identifies herself in correspondence as a research assistant in LACMA’s Decorative Arts Department).

 

Folder 11:        Burton, Catherine Eaton and Charles Frederick Eaton. “Elizabeth Eaton Burton and Charles Frederick,” by Judy Mowinckle, research project. Includes copies of microfilm originals about the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904) and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909), held in Seattle.

 

Folder 12:        California Art Research, edited by Gene Hailey

 

Folder 13:        California Arts and Crafts Architecture [various crafts people and art schools]; for Santa Barbara Normal Schools, see folder Bowman, The Arts and Crafts in California, footnotes, fn. 47/85

 

Folder 14:        California’s Utopian Colonies, by Robert Hines [first printed 1953]

 

Folder 15:        Catalina Pottery [sometimes also listed at Catalina Clay Products Company]

 

Folder 16:        Craft Camarata

 

Folder 17:        Directory of California Artists, Craftsmen, Designers, and Art Teachers

 

Folder 18:        Donaldson, Douglas. “Douglas Donaldson,” by Dawn R. Ferry, class paper

 

Folder 19:        Donaldson, Douglas. “Douglas Donaldson,” by Melissa Kay, class paper

 

 

Box 4:

 

Folder 1:          Doolittle, Harold. “Harold Doolittle,” by Catherine Smith, class paper

 

Folder 2:          Eaton, Charles. [See also Burton, Elizabeth Eaton and Charles Eaton]

 

Folder 3:          Charles Frederick Eaton and Elizabeth Eaton Burton. Footnotes to Bowman’s footnotes in Living the Good Life,” in draft footnote order; includes Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909) information, Elizabeth E. Burton catalog of her work.

 

Folder 4:          Eaves, Leonora

 

Folder 5:          Elder, Paul. “Paul Elder: Bookseller-Publisher (1897-1917: A Bay Area Reflection,” by Ruth Gordon, Dissertation, 1977

 

Folder 6:          Emery, Elizabeth. “Arts and Crafts: some Recent Work” (House Beautiful, February 1904). Various artists are referenced

 

Folder 7           Fletcher, Morley. “Woodcuts,” by James H. Saint and “Woodblock Printing in Santa Barbara,” Arnold and Gladys LeJeune (both, Noticias, Winter 1970)

 

Folder 8:          “For Art’s Sake,” Newspaper, Sept. 1, 1924 edition. Includes articles about William Silver, Otis Art Institute, Douglas Donaldson, and Porter Blanchard

 

Folder 9:          Furniture Retailers (Arts and Crafts), Los Angeles. Out West advertisements

 

Folder 10:        Gaw, D’Arcy [see also The Crafters]

 

Folder 11:        Gill, Irving John

 

Folder 12:        Grand Feu Art Pottery

 

Folder 13:        Gray and Edwards

 

Folder 14:        Halcyon Art Pottery

 

Folder 15:        Halcyon Art Pottery. “The Marketing of Halcyon Art Pottery,” by Sherri L. Birdsong, class paper, folder 1 of 3

 

 

Folder 16:        Halcyon Art Pottery. “The Marketing of Halcyon Art Pottery,” by Sherri L. Birdsong, class paper, folder 2 of 3

 

Folder 17:        Halcyon Art Pottery. “The Marketing of Halcyon Art Pottery,” by Sherri L. Birdsong, class paper, folder 3 of 3

 

Folder 18:        Hyde, Robert Wilson

 

Folder 19:        Inns; includes The Glenwood, Riverside; Arrowhead Hotel, Arrowhead Hot Springs; The Peninsula, San Francisco; Hotel Virginia, Long Beach

 

 

Box 5:

 

Folder 1:          James, George Wharton. “‘Fashioned by Nature,’” by George Wharton James (Out West March-April 1913; article about hickory

 

Folder 2:          Judson, William Lees

 

Folder 3:           “William Lees Judson: 1842-1928, Southern California Artist,” by Mark Maurice Burson, 1977, senior thesis.

 

Folder 4:          Light Fixtures

 

Folder 5:          Llano Colonist. California’s Utopian Colonies, by Robert V. Hine

 

Folder 6:          Los Angeles Glass Company

 

Folder 7:          Los Angeles Painters of the Nineteen-Twenties, by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure.

Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center. Claremont, CA. Bibliography  only

 

 Folder 8:         “McClellan Manufacturing Company,” by unknown students. Probably for L. Bowman course, taught 1991, class paper

 

Folder 9:          “Monterey: Californio Rancho Furniture, Pottery, and Art.” Exhibition at Santa Monica Heritage Museum, 1988. Guest curated by Deloris Fisher and Don Shorts. Catalog dedicated to “Frank and George Mason, creators of “Monterey” furniture

 

Folder 10:        Monterey Furniture

 

Folder 11:        Montgomery Brothers. “In search of Montgomery Brothers,” by Vanessa Swarofski, class paper

 

Folder 12:        Old Mission Wicker

 

Folder 13:        Oriental Art Store [Nathan Bentz]

 

Folder 14:        Pacific Art Tile/Tropico Potteries

 

Folder 15:        Palevsky Collection

 

Folder 16:        “Pasadena: the City of the Beautiful Homes,” by George Wharton James (Out West, Dec. 1912)

 

Folder 17:        Pasadena: Crown of the Valley: An Illustrated History, by Ann Scheid (1986)

 

Folder 18:        Pasadena. Stickney Hall

 

Folder 19:        Pasadena. Survey of the Pasadena City Schools (1931)

 

Folder 20:        “Retailers of Eastern Arts and Crafts Companies and Artists,” by Kathleen Neely, class paper (1991)

 

Folder 21:        Rhead, Frederick; also Rhead Pottery

 

Folder 22:        Rhead, Frederick. Articles written by Rhead

 

Folder 23:        Rhoads, William. “The Colonial Revival and the Arts and Crafts Movement.” Not published with the 1990 Winterthur Conference papers.

 

Folder 24:        Rich, Edna. Various articles from the Edna Rich scrapbook at UCSB Special Collections (either 9.001 or 9.00). Includes table of contents of a catalog of an art exhibit at the State Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics and a photocopy of the manuscript “The Story of the Domestic Science (1891)-Domestic Art (1895) and Manual Arts (Sloyd) (1892).” Includes references to Dr. Philip King Brown, Lockwood de Forest, the Normal School, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Frederick Eaton. [See Santa Barbara Normal School folder].

 

Folder 25:        Rogers Bros.

 

Folder 26:        Roseville Pottery, Della Robbia Vase

 

Folder 27:        Ross, Dr. Denman W. “The Arts and Crafts—a diagnosis,” possibly printed in The Craftsman. Ross was a design professor at Harvard. Parts of his textile collection are at Harvard and the MFA, Boston

 

Folder 28:        Ruskin Art Club, Los Angeles

 

 

Box 6:

 

Folder 1:          Santa Barbara, miscellaneous newspaper articles

 

Folder 2:          Santa Barbara Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics. Includes notes from William H, Ellison’s typescript “Antecedents of the University of California, Santa Barbara 1891-1944” [see Rich, Edna folder]

 

Folder 3:          Silver in the Golden State. Photocopy of the exhibition catalog of the travelling exhibition the originated in The Oakland Museum, 1987 and 1988. Organized by Kenneth R. Trapp. Bowman was a consulting curator with Edgar W. Morse and Donald Hardesty. Some correspondence

 

Folder 4:          Sloyd School, Santa Barbara

 

Folder 5:          Stark, Julius

 

Folder 6:          Textiles and Embroidery, misc.

 

Folder 7:          “Textile and Embroidery Companies—S. California,” by Denise Barry, class paper (probably 1991)

 

Folders 8-11:   Throop University. Throop Polytechnic Institute, Pasadena [later California Institute of Technology]. Includes photocopies of printed material and photographs in the Cal Tech archives. Project by Joan Plortz, class paper. 4 folders

 

Folder 8: various

 

Folder 9: newspaper articles and advertisements

 

Folder 10: copy of typed manuscript, “Memories of Throop At the Turn of the Century,” by Mrs. Ivy E. Arthur, Class of ’01 (1954)

 

Folder 11: photocopies of pages from Throop University Bulletins, 1892-1911

 

Folder 12:        University City Pottery

 

Folder 13:        Van Erp, Dirk

 

Folder 14:        Waldvogel, Emma

 

Folder 15:        Winfield Pottery

 

Folder 16:        Wright, Frank Lloyd. “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Marin County Civic Center: An

Architectural and Historical Study,” by Bonnie Ruder, 1990, class paper

 

 

Papers concerning the creation of the exhibition and exhibition catalog The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life”

 

Folder 17:        Authors’ outlines with Bowman annotations

 

Folder 18:        Book outlines

 

Folder 19:        Correspondence

 

Folder 20:        Exhibition fact sheet and checklist

 

Folder 21:        Footnotes. Photocopies of articles used for footnotes in Bowman’s essay draft; arranged in chronological order (lowest number first, where the same data were used for several footnotes). N.B.: Inscribed footnote numbers do not correspond with the numbers in the catalog.

 

Folder 22:        Notes (Bowman)

 

 

 

Box 7: legal-sized folders for The Arts and Crafts Movement in California

 

Folder 1:          Eaton, Charles and Elizabeth Eaton Burton. “Charles Eaton and Elizabeth Eaton Burton,” by Elizabeth Nesbitt, class paper

 

Folder 2:          Hyde, Robert Wilson. “Robert Wilson Hyde, Illuminator,” by Julia Perry, class paper