Collection Information
Size: 5.2 Linear feet; 0.003 Gigabytes
Summary: The papers of multi-media artist Elaine Sturtevant date from circa 1960-2014, with the bulk of material dating from the period of the artist's resurgence, 1990-2014. The collection measures 5.2 linear feet and 0.003 GB. The papers document Sturtevant's career and artistic process through correspondence with artists and curators, writings and illustrated notes, exhibition and catalog files, project files, and printed material. Sturtevant's voice and artistic mission emerge through the many items of correspondence, essays, and project notes in the collection. The collection also contains a few born-digital files of scans of exhibition photographs dating from the 1960s.
Biographical/Historical Note
Elaine Sturtevant (1924-2004) was a multi-media artist in New York and Paris known for her carefully inexact repetitions of others artists' works. She is sometimes called the "mother of appropriation art" for being among the first to question concepts such as originality, individual authorship, and plagiarism. Sturtevant had her first exhibition at the Bianchini gallery in New York in 1965, showing works resembling those of George Segal, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. While Sturtevant mainly withdrew from the art world in the 1970s, she reemerged in the mid-1980s and began exhibiting internationally. In the last decades of her career, Sturtevant worked increasingly in video and installation.
Provenance
Donated to the Archives of American Art in 2018 by Loren Sturtevant, Elaine Sturtevant's daughter.
Related Materials
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Elaine Sturtevant conducted by Bruce Hainley and Michael Lobel in 2007.
Language Note
English .
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