Professional papers of Richard Bellamy, art dealer, gallery owner, friend and patron of artists and the art world. The papers particularly contain records of the Hansa Gallery, the Green Gallery, the Oil & Steel Gallery, and material relating to the artists Mark di Suvero and Alfred Leslie, as well as many others. The Richard Bellamy Papers document nearly fifty years of activity in the life of a noted connoisseur, gallerist, private dealer, and friend and supporter of the arts. Through correspondence, invoices, expense documents, lists of works, consignment and loan agreements, installation diagrams, photographs, announcements and other ephemera, news clippings, articles, and interviews, the papers provide a detailed portrait of Bellamy and the careers of his most prominent artists and friends, and display an intimate look at the actual mechanisms and activities of galleries and art dealing over four decades. The collection is organized into four major series with additional subdivisions. Series I: Correspondence, is organized into two subseries. Subseries I.A consists of nearly four decades of sent and received correspondence organized alphabetically by personal or institutional name. The bulk of the material begins in the early 1970s when Bellamy maintained an office at the Noah Goldowsky Gallery, continues through his years on Park Avenue, through the establishment and relocation of the Oil & Steel Gallery, and ends in the weeks before his untimely death. The correspondence deals mostly with business matters and displays Bellamy's tireless promotion of different artists. The series details the arrangements he made to stage exhibitions, manage consignments and loans, and organize the installation of major pieces of sculpture in distant locations. A large portion of the correspondence relates to Bellamy's work on behalf of Mark di Suvero though his efforts for other artists are also represented. Subseries I.B is a duplicate set of outgoing correspondence organized by year. Series II: Business Records, is divided into five subseries. Subseries I.A focuses on the Hansa Gallery. The folders here contain key early documents of the gallery, exhibition announcements, the transcript of the oral history of the Hansa Gallery conducted by Richard Brown Baker for the Archives of American Art, and documents of a later exhibition on the gallery. Subseries II.B, records of the Green Gallery, contain important material detailing sales of works by numerous artists, disbursements and expenses for them, news clippings and reviews, and an extensive collection of elaborately designed and printed posters and announcements for numerous groundbreaking exhibitions. Subseries II.C documents the years Bellamy shared space with the Noah Goldowsky Gallery. The series contains ledgers, check stubs, records of sales, purchases, expenditures and other financial documents. Subseries II.D chronicles the history of the Oil & Steel Gallery as well as detailing activities in the years 1975-1980. Oil & Steel was the first time in fifteen years Bellamy ran a gallery with public exhibitions and a full-time staff. These records attest to the energy and organization required to manage such an operation as the subseries contains extensive financial documentation including payroll and expense records, ledgers, receipts, credit card and bank account reports, and invoices and records of sales and purchases. The subseries also contains records of exhibitions including price lists, announcements, press, photographs, advertisements, and a guestbook. Subseries II.E constitutes a discrete set of materials relating to the settlement of the Robert C. Scull estate after Scull's passing, in 1986. Bellamy aided the estate's lawyers in reappraising Scull's art collection (sold in 1986 to record-setting prices) after the IRS questioned the pre-auction appraisal upon which estate taxes were assessed. Robert Scull's ex-wife, Ethel Scull, also sued to gain possession of a greater portion of the estate and Bellamy provided testimony and evidence to the early years of the Sculls' joint activities in the art world. The records here record the labyrinthine path of Bellamy's involvement in these legal affairs. Series III comprises materials of and about specific artists generated, collected, and compiled by Bellamy over his career. Subseries III.A is devoted to artists Bellamy was less involved with professionally, never represented (or only in the distant past), or had only incidentally come into contact with. Most artists here are represented by one folder each and the contents include numerous slides and photographs of work, some correspondence, biographical material and curricula vitae, exhibition ephemera, and news clippings. Subseries III.B through III.P comprise files of artists Bellamy directly represented or had closer relationships to, especially during the existence of the Oil & Steel Gallery. The largest groups of records here are concerned with Mark di Suvero and Alfred Leslie. Subseries III.N, the Mark di Suvero files, document and depict Bellamy's work curating exhibitions, aiding the organization of domestic and foreign installations and purchases of di Suvero's work, and abetting the growth of his reputation and dissemination of his output. There is abundant correspondence, receipts, invoices, expense records, photographic documentation, exhibition announcements, advertisements, press, and other documentation located in these files. They present a vivid picture of the relationship between Bellamy and di Suvero and a testament to the impact of Bellamy's role in di Suvero's career. Likewise, the files of Alfred Leslie, Subseries III.G, provide a detailed view of Bellamy's involvement in Leslie's career. In particular, Bellamy formally collaborated with Barbara Flynn and the Flynn Gallery in staging major retrospective shows of Leslie's work in the years 1991 and 1992. The substantive portion of this subseries is actually composed of files created and maintained by the Flynn Gallery but Bellamy's joint role in the exhibitions is clear. The extensive photographic documentation of works from Leslie's entire career as a painter and draftsman amount practically to a catalogue raisonneĢ. Additionally, there is a wealth of documentation of other exhibitions held at Oil & Steel, correspondence, invoices and other financial material. The other subseries devoted to individual artists are smaller in size but likewise document exhibitions Bellamy staged of their work, his personal and professional history with them, and in some cases, his close personal relationship. Subseries III.M, Myron Stout, contains fourteen audio cassettes of Stout recounting his life and career in interviews with Kathryn Maartens. Subseries III.B, III.F, III.H, III.L, III.M, concerning Joan Baer, Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria, David Rabinowitch, and Myron Stout, all contain correspondence testifying to the strength of the friendship the artists had with Bellamy and revealing details of their works and careers. These and other files contain numerous photographs and negatives documenting the artists' work. The files of Neil Williams, Subseries III.O, contain negatives and contact sheets comprising nearly three thousand images taken by Williams and documenting his travels, his friendships, and the artworks by himself and others, particularly John Chamberlain. Overall the artist files are a wealth of information not only on the artists but on Bellamy's deep and lasting relationships with them. Series IV contains a small amount of material accumulated after Bellamy's death in 1998. In addition to biographical materials assembled for authors of obituaries, and copies of the obituaries and memorials themselves, the series contains a large amount of correspondence sent in condolence to Miles Bellamy and video recordings of two memorial services: one held at Oil & Steel on April 1st (only three days after Bellamy's death), and the other held at P.S.1 on May 13th. In November 1998 a public reading of bellamy's correspondence was staged and an audio cassette and program of that event are present This series provides condensed tribute to the personal and professional accomplishments of Bellamy's life, and invokes and testifies to those labors which the Richard Bellamy Papers so extensively describe. Finally, Series V comprises correspondence between Bellamy and noted collector Adam Aronson. Aronson bought numerous works from the Green Gallery and the first correspondence here dates from 1963. The professional relationship and friendship lasted until Bellamy's death. Included here are original letters from Bellamy to Aronson, copies of sent letters by Aronson, occasional third party correspondence, and scattered invoices and financial records. This series was received from Adam Aronson in 2000.
