A Thousand Kisses, Love Letters

At Archives Of American Art

[Both at 1 1/2  cols]

Photograph of Xavier Gonzalez Xavier and Ethel Edwards, circa 1963.  Xavier Gonzalez papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. 

Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, circa 1946, photograph by Ronald Stein. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

 

MUST FOR 2/15

SMITHSONIAN ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART “LOVE LETTERS” w/1 cut

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Love letters bring out the voyeur in most people. These deeply personal communications have the power to make a reader blush or, at the very least, reveal a tender moment in the complex lives of others. “A Thousand Kisses: Love Letters from the Archives of American Art” is on display through May 30 in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery, Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

This selection of affectionate communiqués and rare photographs gives insight into the lives of painters, sculptors, illustrators and others — their relationships, perceptions and creative energies — from the mid-Nineteenth to the late Twentieth Century. Drawn from the collections of the Archives of American Art, there are letters, illustrated poems, collages and drawings that cover a range of intensity, from sexual passion between lovers to the devotion of a parent, and from the durable bonds of friendship to the enthusiasm of fans.

Featured in the exhibition is a passionate letter signed with a pink lipstick kiss from Frida Kahlo to Nickolas Muray, written while she recuperated in a Paris hospital; an illustrated letter declaring “My darling — I DO!” from Rockwell Kent to his future wife Frances Lee; and a poignant letter from Lee Krasner to Jackson Pollock, “I miss you & wish you were sharing this with me,” she wrote only three weeks before Pollock died in an auto accident in New York while she was still in Europe.

The exhibition celebrates the archives’ publication With Love: Artists’ Letters and Illustrated Notes by Liza Kirwin, curator of manuscripts, and Joan Lord, curatorial specialist, available from Collins Design.

The Archives of American Art Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery is on the first floor of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art, at Eighth and F Streets N.W. For information, 212-399-5030 or www.aaa.si.edu.