Viewing page 24 of 43

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[image]]
NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
EIGHTHT AND G STREETS, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C.

Office of Research
Room 337

August 17, 1977

Lorser and Helen Lundeberg Feitelson
8307 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, California 90048

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Feitelson,

As a Smithsonian Fellow at the National Collection of Fine Arts, I am conducting research on a doctoral dissertation, Subjective Currents in American Painting of the 1930s. The dissertation covers a number of artists I perceive to be united by a commitment to an inner-directed art, a subjective art concerned with personal expression and private meanings at a time in which both conservatives and leftists demanded that art be objective and oriented to the present physical (and American) environment. There are chapters on Edwin Dickinson and Ivan Albright; Arshile Gorky and biomorphism; Peter Blume, Louis Guglielmi, Walter Quirt and social content and fantasy. There will also be a chapter on psychological symbolism in which I will be writing on your work from the thirties and that of one or two other artists whose painting is quite different from your own but still concerned with psychological expression (such as Federico Castellon).

I am now going through the microfilmed material on your careers that is in the Archives of American Art. As you can imagine, I have found it extremely illuminating. This October, I will be travelling West on a research related trip and will be in Los Angeles probably from October 22-28. I would very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and discuss your work, your attitudes to other art from the 1930s, and the reactions of critics and artists to your own paintings. Several persons, especially Walter Hopps (our curator here) and Diane Moran have spoken highly of you to me, and they have encouraged me to write you.

Another project which I hope will be of interest to you is a forthcoming issue of The American Art Review for around February 1978. It will be devoted to "American Surrealism" a term which I find impossible to define and usually in need of clarification. However, I have been approached by the editor of the magazine for a contribution. The editor, Victoria Kogan, indicated a desire to interview you both for the issue, so I suggested my interviewing you instead of writing an article, a suggestion that was eagerly accepted. The editor felt it would be best to have the interview conducted by someone familiar with your early work

MAILING ADDRESS: NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A. 20560