Index of Associated American Artists print, ceramics and textile designs, published by the Beach Museum of Art of Kansas State University, now available
Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016
"El Jibaro, Puerto Rico," a 1940 etching by Irwin Hoffman, was offered by Associated American Artists. The print is in the Syracuse University Art Collection. | Download this photo.
MANHATTAN — A compilation of the thousands of original artists' prints, ceramics and textile designs marketed by Associated American Artists has been published online by the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University.
Authored by Gail Windisch, Sylvan Cole Jr. and Karen Herbaugh, the 555-page index is a free, searchable PDF, available at http://hdl.handle.net/2097/19686.
The index is titled "Art for Every Home: An Illustrated Index of Associated American Artists Prints, Ceramics, and Textile Designs" and complements the 288-page exhibition catalog, "Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists, 1934-2000," published in conjunction with the traveling exhibition on Associated American Artists organized by the Beach Museum of Art in 2015. Windisch, Herbaugh and others contributed essays to the catalog, which is distributed by the museum and by Yale University Press through various book retailers for $50.
The exhibition "Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists" and its accompanying publications, both index and catalog, present the first major survey of a commercial art enterprise best known as the publisher of prints by noted Regionalist artists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood. Founded in New York City in 1934 and ceasing operation only in 2000, Associated American Artists, or AAA, employed innovative strategies to cultivate middle- and upper-middle-class Americans as prospective art patrons. AAA served as a highly successful artists' agent by expanding the popular reach of original art through not only mail-order catalogs, but also sales through department stores in all major American cities, extensive advertising promotions in newspapers, magazines and on radio, and corporate commissions that ranged from Madison Avenue to Hollywood. Illustrations of mail-order catalogs are included in the index.
The "Art for Every Home" exhibition opened Sept. 15, 2015, at the Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, Kansas, before heading to the East Coast to New York University's Grey Art Gallery, April 19-July 9, 2016. It opens next at Syracuse University Art Galleries in New York State, Jan. 12-March 26, 2017. The exhibition is curated by Elizabeth Seaton, curator at the Beach Museum of Art, and Jane Myers, former senior curator of prints and drawings at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas.
The "Art for Every Home" illustrated index has received major support from Edward and Karen Seaton through the Beach Museum of Art R.M. Seaton Endowment for Exhibitions and the Ross and Marianna Kistler Beach Endowment. Additional support has been provided by the International Fine Print Dealers Association.
The Beach Museum of Art is on the southeast corner of the Kansas State University campus, at the corner of Anderson Avenue and 14th Street. Admission is free. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The museum is closed on Sunday and Monday. Free parking is available adjacent to the building. For more information, call 785-532-7718 or visit beach.k-state.edu.
