Prentiss Taylor papers

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Prentiss Taylor papers

1885-1991

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9f818b565-3f0c-457b-8712-7eb5d7b4a257

The collection measures 20.8 linear feet, dates from 1885 to 1991 (bulk dates 1908-1986) and documents the career of Harlem Renaissance lithographer, teacher, and painter Prentiss Taylor. The collection consists primarily of subject/correspondence files (circa 16 ft.), reflecting Prentiss' career as a lithographer and painter, his association with figures prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, notably Carl Van Vechten and Langston Hughes, his activities as president of the Society of Washington Printmakers and other art organizations, his work in art therapy treating mental illness, and his teaching position at American University. The subject files contain mostly correspondence, but many include photographs and printed material. Also included are biographical, financial, legal and printed material; several hundred photographs; notes and writings; sketchbooks, drawings and a few prints by Taylor; and scrapbooks dating from 1885-1956.The Langston Hughes files contain photocopies of letters from Hughes, greeting cards, ten original photographs of Hughes, and an autographed card printed with Hughes' poem, <emph render="italic">The Negro Speaks of Rivers</emph>. In addition, there is a contract between Hughes and Taylor, witnessed by Carl Van Vechten, forming the Golden Stair Press, through which many of Hughes' poems were printed with illustrations by Taylor. A rare edition of their first publication, <emph render="italic">The Negro Mother</emph>, is found here. Also found in this file is a 1932 final copy of <emph render="italic">Scottsboro Limited</emph>, another collaborative effort between Taylor and Hughes that focused on a case where nine black youths were falsely accused of raping two white women. The collection contains extensive correspondence about Taylor's lithograph of the same title and the printing of the publication. Other rare Harlem Renaissance publications found within Taylor's papers include <emph render="italic">Golden Stair Broadsides</emph>, <emph render="italic">Opportunity Journal of Negro Life</emph>, <emph render="italic">The Rebel Poet</emph>, and <emph render="italic">Eight Who Lie in the Death House</emph>, several of which were also illustrated by Taylor.Prentiss Taylor's long association with Langston Hughes and other figures of the Harlem Renaissance stemmed from his early friendship with Carl Van Vechten. Taylor's papers contain correspondence with Van Vechten, autographed copies of Van Vechten's booklets, and numerous photographs of notable Harlem Renaissance figures, many taken by Van Vechten, including Zora Neale Hurston, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Eugene O'Neill, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Paul Robeson, and many others. Also found are period photographs of Charleston, South Carolina and Harlem street scenes.95 letters from Rachel Field, 75 letters from Langston Hughes, 3 letters from Armin Landeck, 46 letters from Josephine Pinckney, 1 letter from Gertrude Stein, 7 letters from Alice B. Toklas, 1 postcard from Mark Van Doren, and 25 letters from Carl Van Vechten are photocopies. Originals of the Hughes and Toklas letters are located at the Yale University Library. Location of the remaining original letters are unknown.The Prentiss Taylor papers offer researchers insight into the rich cultural documentation of the Harlem Renaissance and the development of twentieth-century printmaking as an American fine art.

Archives of American Art

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SNAC Resource ID: 6630748

Archives of American Art

Related Entities

There are 20 Entities related to this resource.

Golden Stair Press.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6f82frm (corporateBody)

American University (Washington, D.C.). Fine Arts Dept.

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Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wx883w (person)

Gertrude Stein (b. February 3, 1874, Allegheny, PA-d. July 27, 1946, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. She moved to Paris and acquired a love for modern painting. Stein began building a personal collection of major artists, many of whom became her friends and formed the core of her regular salons. In 1907, as Stein was struggling to establish herself as a writer, she met Alice Babette Toklas, a fellow American who had come to P...

Hurston, Zora Neale, 1891-1960

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63599q1 (person)

Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida, in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. It is n...

Robeson, Paul, 1898-1976

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fc5sfw (person)

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 9, 1898, Paul Robeson was a multitalented man whose artistic and political career spanned over four decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s. Known worldwide during the 1930s and 1940s, he fell from prominence in the 1960s because of the political controversy that surrounded him during the McCarthy era. Robeson was a talented dramatic actor whose performance of Othello in this country in 1943-44 once held the record for the ...

Kahlo, Frida, 1907-1954

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6md9pkv (person)

Frida Kahlo (born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, 6 July 1907, Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico – died 13 July 1954, Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico), Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical ele...

Golden Stair Press

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American University (Washington, D.C.)

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Robinson, Bill, 1878-1949

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vh5szq (person)

Jazz dancer. From the description of Autograph card signed : [n.p.], [194-?]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270904716 ...

Van Vechten, Carl, 1880-1964

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kd21ds (person)

Carl Van Vechten was an American novelist, critic, essayist, book collector, and photographer. From the description of Carl Van Vechten collection of papers, 1922-1964. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 122455166 From the guide to the Carl Van Vechten collection of papers, 1911-1964, (The New York Public Library. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature.) Carl van Vechten (1880-1964) was an American photographer, writer,...

Van Doren, Mark, 1894-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6x92c2h (person)

Correspondence to Lewis Mumford from Mark Van Doren and his wife, Dorothy Van Doren. From the description of Letters, 1965-1978, to Lewis Mumford. (University of Pennsylvania Library). WorldCat record id: 155877479 Mark Van Doren was an American author, scholar, and educator. He is probably best remembered for his long tenure as Columbia professor, where he was noted for his inspired Humanities courses and respect for students. His poetry was meticulously well-crafted and gr...

O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6930vbg (person)

A biographical timeline is provided in the Eugene O'Neill Papers (YCAL MSS 123). From the guide to the Eugene O'Neill collection, 1912-1993, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library) American playwright. From the description of Papers, 1913-1986, 1913-1950 (bulk). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155490040 From the description of Papers of Eugene O'Neill [manuscript], 1915-1940. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 647810476 From the de...

Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rn37qn (person)

Poet, author, playwright, songwriter. From the guide to the Langston Hughes collection, [microform], 1926-1967, (The New York Public Library. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division.) From the description of Langston Hughes collection, 1926-1967. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 144652168 Langson Hughes: African-American poet and writer, author of Weary Blue (1926), The Big Sea (1940), and other works. ...

Taylor, Prentiss, 1907-1991

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65148rd (person)

Prentiss Taylor was born 1907 in Washington, D.C. He studied at the Art Students League in New York City and became a noted landscape painter. He spent four months in Charleston, South Carolina in 1933 doing sketches of rundown buildings. Working for the W.P.A., he made a series of lithographs from these drawings. He was also an illustrator about stories of blacks in the South. He served as president of the Society of Washington Printmakers for 34 years and did pioneering work in art theorapy wi...

Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6v40wfj (person)

Mexican painter and muralist. From the description of Declaration in connection with a watercolor and a drawing sold to Mrs. Schwartz, 1934 March 7, Mexico City. (Getty Research Institute). WorldCat record id: 81939422 Diego Rivera, a renowned Mexican mural painter, was commissioned by Mrs. Samuel Strong in 1935 to paint a portrait of her friend, Kathleen Burke, of Cleveland, Ohio. From the description of Receipt from Diego Rivera, 1935 Mar. 5. (Unknown). WorldCa...

Landeck, Armin, 1905-1984

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66w9x41 (person)

This print is based on a detail from Landeck's 1932 lithograph View of New York. From the description of [Manhattan vista] [graphic] / A. Landeck. 1934. (Boston Athenaeum). WorldCat record id: 45289291 A quote from Landeck in Kraeft's catalogue raisonné states that the print was "done when they were building the F.D.R. Drive on the East Side [of New York]. The print shows the new road. Whiteness and no traffic. The old coal bunker in the foreground makes the picture." ...

Pinckney, Josephine, 1895-1957

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Toklas, Alice B., 1877-1967

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Toklas was a writer and companion to Gertrude Stein. From the guide to the Alice B. Toklas letters to William Alfred, 1951-1961., (Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University) Biographical Note Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967) was an author and the life partner of Gertrude Stein. Don Frank is the son of one of Toklas' childhood friends. After his service in the armed forces, he met Toklas in Europe. ...

Field, Rachel, 1894-1942

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Rachel Field, author, studied playwriting at Radcliffe, 1914-1918. She wrote plays, children's books, poetry, and novels. She received the Newberry medal for children's literature (1929) and the National Award for Fiction (1935). From the description of Papers, 1845-1942 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 232008513 Rachel Field, American novelist, poet, and author of children's fiction. From the guide to the Rachel Field collection, 1917-1942,...

Society of Washington Printmakers (Washington, D.C.)

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