Kathe Burkhart (1958- ) is an American artist, writer, professor, and graphic designer based in both New York and The Netherlands. Her artwork utilizes various techniques including collage, painting, digital media, photography, video recordings, and sculpture. These techniques manifest in multiple forms including installations, short films, and writings. Her visual works frequently engage with themes such as gender roles, sexual politics, feminine dominance, and celebrity. The Kathe Burkhart Papers consist of paper and electronic files, and audio and video recordings on multiple formats which have been created and collected by Kathe Burkhart over the course of her personal and professional life dating from the 1960s to 2017. These materials document Burkhart’s interdisciplinary work and provide contextual understanding of her artistic processes. Files and audiovisual material accumulated by Burkhart document her career as an artist through press clippings, artwork images, press releases, grant proposals, exhibition promotional material, and business correspondence. Datebooks and notebooks from the 1970s to the mid-2010s function as a combination of journals and appointment books. A significant amount of documentation is related to Burkhart’s ongoing project, the The Liz Taylor Series, which originated in 1982, and includes source material, artwork images, clippings, and exhibition ephemera.
Work files related to her writings include drafts, contracts, correspondence, and cover layouts, documenting her books From Under the 8-Ball (1985), The Double Standard (2002, 2005), Between the Lines (2006), and Dudes (2014). Burkhart's poetry, short stories, and articles are also in this collection. Files related to Burkhart's graphic design work and classes she taught at New York University and other institutions are also in this collection. Correspondence, writings, ephemera, and diaries related to Burkhart's Aunt Grace Knipe are in this collection and used as inspiration for her book Between the Lines (2006). Burkhart's personal files include photographs, astrology readings, correspondence, and high school and college ephemera.
