Maxine Seelbinder Merlino papers

ArchivalResource

Maxine Seelbinder Merlino papers

Maxine Seelbinder Merlino papers

1928-2003

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw90a9011ad-dc22-46af-8069-cbf79c038f97

The papers of illustrator, muralist, theatrical set designer, and professor, Maxine Seelbinder Merlino papers measures 1.1 linear feet and date from 1928-2003. The collection includes correspondence; newspaper clippings and reviews of artist's work; sketches for stage and set designs and mural decorations; federal commission contracts; exhibition brochures; theater playbills and announcements; photographs; original art work, including watercolor sketches; original lithographs; and material on the dedication of the Merlino Gallery at California State University, Long Beach.Documenting Merlino's work on New Deal federal government programs are letters sent to her in the early 1940s from the Public Buildings Administration and the Section of Fine Arts of the Federal Works Agency in Washington, D.C. as well as three photographs of a mural executed by Merlino for the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C. that depicts Benjamin Banneker, a pioneering African-American surveyor, inventor, and astronomer.Representing Merlino's early New York period are brochures of group exhibitions and her one-woman show in a theater gallery. Among the original works of art are two original lithographs: <emph render="italic">Franco's Destruction</emph>, which was reproduced in a 1938 issue of <emph render="italic">New Masses</emph>, and <emph render="italic">Hearst's Empire</emph>, which appeared in the April 1938 edition of <emph render="italic">The Fight</emph> magazine.

Archives of American Art