Wildenstein Plattner Institute

Oral Histories

Bearden Oral Histories

The Wildenstein Plattner Institute’s (WPI’s) Romare Bearden Oral History Series explores Bearden’s life, career, and legacy through interviews with scholars, collectors, collaborators, and family members. These accounts are a companion to the forthcoming Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné, offering significant insight into Bearden’s personal and professional life.

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Diedra Harris-Kelley is an artist, educator, and co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation, the nonprofit organization responsible for preserving and perpetuating the legacy of acclaimed artist Romare Bearden. Harris-Kelley is also Bearden’s niece. Highlights of Harris-Kelley’s oral history include memories of her childhood on Staten Island with her extended family, including Romare and his wife Nanette; discussions of her education and influences as a formally trained artist; and thought-provoking reflections on how to shape an artist’s public legacy after their passing. 

KEYWORDS: Romare Bearden, Nanette Rohan, Romare Bearden Foundation, Johanne Bryant-Reid, Grace Stanislaus, Cinque Gallery, catalogue raisonné, artists’ studios, artists’ estates, experimental art, collage, African-American art movements, Canal Street, St. Martin, Dance Theater of Harlem, art collectors 

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André Thibault (Teabo) is a North Carolina-based artist who served as Romare Bearden’s studio assistant and collaborator from 1980 until Bearden’s passing in 1988. Highlights of his interview include memories of working hands-on in Bearden’s studio, the development of particular Bearden works, and Thibault’s own journey with his artistic practice. 

KEYWORDS: Romare Bearden, artists’ studios, experimental art, collage, African-American art movements, Québec, Arne Ekstrom, Barrie Stavis, Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, ACA Gallery, Canal Street, Myron Schwartzman

Renoir Oral Histories

The Pierre-Auguste Renoir Oral History Series explores Renoir’s historical and artistic legacies. Oral histories with Sophie Renoir and Paul Louis Durand-Ruel, respectively the great-granddaughter of Renoir and the great-grandson of Paul Durand-Ruel, Renoir’s art dealer, allow us to better understand the world of the Impressionists and how their descendants are tasked with the stewardship of their legacies. Focusing on the collaborative relationship between Renoir and Durand-Ruel, this series offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the experience of compiling Renoir’s catalogue raisonné, examining paintings on the Renoir Committee, and advocating for the contemporary importance of the Impressionist movement. 

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Paul Louis Durand-Ruel is the great-grandson of Paul Durand-Ruel, the art dealer of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and many other Impressionist legends. He has written and lectured on Paul Durand-Ruel’s important influence on the Impressionist movement, and co-edited the memoirs of Paul Durand-Ruel with his niece, Flavie. His oral history sheds light on the creative relationship between Renoir and Durand-Ruel and how an artist—and their dealer—might find ways to actively shape their future legacy during their living years. 

KEYWORDS: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Durand-Ruel, art dealers, artistic legacies, Impressionist art, Impressionism, archives, art restoration, provenance, catalogue raisonnés, art galleries, forgeries, portraits

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Sophie Renoir is the great-granddaughter of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and a contemporary scholar and advocate for his work. Following in the footsteps of her family’s cinematic traditions—her father, cinematographer Claude Renoir, and uncle, director Jean Renoir—she is an acclaimed French film and television actress. Highlights from her oral history include discussions of childhood memories from the Renoir family home in Essoyes, responsibilities of maintaining a family’s artistic legacy, and ways she connects personally with Renoir’s paintings today.  

KEYWORDS: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Impressionism, Impressionist art, Claude Renoir, Jean Renoir, Pierre Renoir, Essoyes, art museums, droit moral, Renoir Committee, La vague, La loge, Eric Rohmer, digital art history, catalogue raisonnés, classic cinema

Johns Oral Histories

In this singular oral history, the WPI’s Director of Digital Publications, Caitlin Sweeney, speaks with Roberta Bernstein about her first-hand experience working with Jasper Johns to complete the research for the artist’s catalogue raisonné of painting and sculpture, as well as her monograph on his work. Sweeney and Bernstein worked on the project together, and their conversation brings new insights into the advantages of working with a living artist, Johns’ commitment to objectivity, and how an artist may navigate the creation of their historical legacy. 

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Roberta Bernstein is the author and project director of Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture, including the catalogue’s comprehensive monograph, Jasper Johns’s Painting and Sculpture, 1954–2014: Redo an Eye. Bernstein has written and lectured extensively on Johns and other contemporary artists, including Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Marisol Escobar. Bernstein is professor emeritus of art history at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.  Highlights of the interview include discussions of Bernstein’s dissertation—the first art history dissertation on a living artist at Columbia University—on Johns, memories of early years working in Warhol and Johns’ studios, and reflections on the process of cataloguing and classifying a living artist’s works. 

KEYWORDS: Jasper Johns, catalogue raisonné, John Cage, Theodore Reff, Columbia University, dissertations, art history, David Whitney, Merce Cunningham, Wildenstein Institute, Heidi Colsman-Freyberger, archives, Museum of Modern Art, Leo Castelli, art mediums, Fool’s House, Flag 

Gauguin Oral Histories

The Wildenstein Plattner Institute’s (WPI’s) Paul Gauguin Oral History Series explores the context and creation of the 2020 digital volumes of the catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Paul Gauguin.
Interviews with the catalogue’s researchers and preeminent Gauguin scholars, including Sylvie Crussard, reveal the intricate, detailed process and decisions that shape a catalogue raisonné. Highlighting the project researchers’ professional backgrounds and the unique skills and experiences they bring to their work, a more comprehensive behind-the-scenes picture of the research process emerges — and in doing so, our contemporary understanding of Gauguin’s work gains new depth as well.

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Sylvie Crussard is a Gauguin scholar and leading researcher for the forthcoming volume of the Paul Gauguin catalogue raisonné focused on the artist’s Breton years (1889-1891). Working on the Wildenstein Institute’s Claude Monet catalogue raisonné in the early 1970s was her first job in art history, and she has remained integral to the Institute’s research endeavors ever since. Highlights from her interview with WPI’s Executive Director Elizabeth Gorayeb include her memories of working on the Monet catalogue with researcher Rodolphe Walter, collaborating with Daniel Wildenstein and Douglas Cooper on the early volumes of the Gauguin catalogue, shifts in public perception of Gauguin’s work, and descriptions of her preferred research methods.

KEYWORDS: Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Wildenstein Institute, Daniel Wildenstein, Richard Brettell, Douglas Cooper, Rodolphe Walter, Victor Merlhes, Tahitian period, Breton period, Pont-Aven, experimental art, sketchbooks, catalogue raisonnés, provenance research

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Françoise Marnoni is a researcher and Managing Editor for the forthcoming volume of the Paul Gauguin catalogue raisonné. She began working for the Wildenstein Institute’s Paris office in 2000 while researching the Pierre-Auguste Renoir catalogue raisonné, and later on, the catalogue raisonnés of Maurice de Vlaminck and Kees Van Dongen. Highlights of the interview include discussions of her research methods, the use of correspondence and digital archival collections as research tools, provenance in Gauguin’s Tahitian period, and the particular advantages of a digital catalogue raisonné.

KEYWORDS: Paul Gauguin, Tahitian period, provenance research, correspondence, Ambroise Vollard, Raymond Cogniat, Georges Chaudet, Georges-Daniel de Monfreid, Gaston Lévy, archival collections, dossiers, catalogue raisonnés

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Evgenia Kuzmina is a researcher on the team compiling the forthcoming volume of the Paul Gauguin catalogue raisonné. She began working for the Wildenstein Plattner Institute’s Paris office in 2018. Originally from Russia, Kuzmina’s first encounters with the work of Paul Gauguin came in the galleries and archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg, lending her a unique perspective on the artist’s work. Highlights of the interview include discussions of various European art institutions and archives, the benefits and difficulties of conducting research with digital archival collections, and establishing a comprehensive chronology of Gauguin’s works.

KEYWORDS: Paul Gauguin, Tahitian period, provenance research, correspondence, archival collections, dossiers, catalogue raisonnés, digital archives, ZADIK, Thannhauser Archives, Gaston Lévy, Georges Chaudet, Pushkin Museum, Russian art movements

Wesselmann Oral Histories

The Wildenstein Plattner Institute’s (WPI’s) Tom Wesselmann Oral History Series accompanies its forthcoming Tom Wesselmann Digital Catalogue Raisonné. It explores the artist’s life and work in full, from his working process to his scholarly and institutional reception, and from his connections with dealers, gallerists and collectors to his engagement with models, studio assistants and fabricators. The oral histories facilitate a deeper exploration of questions raised during the catalogue raisonné research process and beyond. Through semi-structured interviews between Huffa Frobes-Cross, WPI’s Tom Wesselmann Catalogue Raisonné Project Manager, and various notable interviewees with living memory of Wesselmann, these oral histories supplement our knowledge of Wesselmann and illuminate his work in exciting, provocative new ways. 

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Peggy Steffans Sarno is an American actress and model known for her collaborations with her husband, Joseph Sarno, the “Ingmar Bergman of porn.” She counted Claire and Tom Wesselmann as close family friends, and participated as a portrait model in Tom’s Smoker series. Highlights of her oral history include memories of New York’s arts and cultural scene in the 1960s, discussions of Wesselmann’s oeuvre in the context of American social and sexual norms, and reflections on her personal connection to Wesselmann’s body of work today.

KEYWORDS: Pop Art, Cooper Union, nude portraiture, pornography, Claire Wesselmann, 20th-century American art, Mouth series, Smoker series, Joe Sarno, cinema, Polly Platt, artists’ models, artists’ muses, A Life in Dirty Movies 

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Constance “Connie” W. Glenn is an acclaimed art historian, curator, writer, and collector. She is the founding director of the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach, where she also established the Graduate Certificate Program in Museum Studies and taught courses in art history and museum studies. Since the 1960s, she has been an avid collector with a particular interest in Pop Art and the works of Tom Wesselmann. In her second oral history session with WPI, Glenn discusses her philosophy as a collector, her correspondence with Wesselmann on the difficulties of classifying works, and her observations of shifts in Wesselmann’s approach over the course of his career.

KEYWORDS: Pop Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Great American Nudes, California State University Long Beach, Wayne Thiebaud, Jonathan Borofsky, Ivan Karp, Jack Glenn Gallery, Sidney Janis Gallery, Leo Castelli, art criticism, Frank Stella, Paul Bianchini, Sunset Nudes, Abstract Expressionism

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Carroll Janis is the son of acclaimed gallerist Sidney Janis. He helped organize many of the Janis Gallery’s most significant shows of the twentieth century, and took over management of the gallery after his father’s passing in 1989. He maintained close connections with many Pop artists, including Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg, and James Rosenquist. Highlights of the interview include discussions of the gallery’s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop, detailed descriptions of the Janis Gallery’s operations, and thoughts on the art historical legacy of Wesselmann.

KEYWORDS: modernism, Tom Wesselmann, Abstract Expressionism, art market, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann, Arshile Gorky, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Pop Art, Sidney Janis Gallery, Green Gallery, New Realists, erotic art, Great American Nudes

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Monica Serra is a painter, multimedia artist, and singer/songwriter. She collaborated with Tom Wesselmann as a model, then joined Wesselmann’s studio as a studio assistant and went on to become the studio manager. Since Wesselmann’s death in 2004, she has been an integral part of the Estate of Tom Wesselmann, continuing to preserve and advocate for the works and legacy of the artist. Monica’s oral history examines her close working relationship with Wesselmann, the experience of viewing herself in his works, and themes of gender and representation.

KEYWORDS: modeling, drawing, gender, studio practice, nude portraiture, Tom Wesselmann, Henri Matisse, metal sculptures, Candy Spilner, Allan Rubin, country music, songwriting, art criticism, Smoker series, Great American Nudes

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Constance “Connie” W. Glenn is an acclaimed art historian, curator, writer, and collector. She is the founding director of the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach, where she also established the Graduate Certificate Program in Museum Studies and taught courses in art history and museum studies. Since the 1960s, she has been an avid collector with a particular interest in Pop Art and the works of Tom Wesselmann. Highlights of the interview include descriptions of the burgeoning Kansas City art scene in the 1960s, trends in Glenn’s history as an art collector, memories of her relationship with Tom and Claire Wesselmann, and thoughts on the unique and lasting nature of Wesselmann’s works. 

KEYWORDS: Pop Art, Tom Wesselmann, 20th century art, modern art, Jack Glenn, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, California State University Long Beach, Claire Wesselmann, Andy Warhol, Merce Cunningham, Susan Buckwalter, Peter Brant, art collectors, art dealers, Ivan Karp, Leo Castelli, Sidney Janis, Art in America, Great American Nude, Postwar American art, Neo-avant-garde, Larry Rivers, Virginia Dwan, Dwan Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, John Weber, Ted Coe

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Jeffrey Sturges is the current Director of Exhibitions for the Estate of Tom Wesselmann. He first worked as a studio assistant for Tom Wesselmann in the 1990s, taking time in between to explore the gallery world and his burgeoning interest in photography, and returned in 2004 just prior to after the artist’s death. Highlights of the interview include discussions of Sturges’ early experiences in Wesselmann’s studio and his first encounters with Wesselmann’s art, the transition from a working studio to an estate, stylistic and symbolic interpretations of Wesselmann’s work, and the unique nature of Wesselmann’s record keeping and titling practices.

KEYWORDS: 20th century art, abstract expressionism, art critiques, artists’ estates, artists’ studios, assemblage, Claire Wesselmann, collage, dimensionality, exhibitions, Great American Nude, Green Gallery, modern art, Pop Art, retrospectives, Robert Rauschenberg, Sidney Janis Gallery, Still Life series, Tom Wesselmann