Oral history interview with George McNeil, 1965 June 3

Object Details

Place of publication, production, or execution: New York (State)
Physical Description: 18 Pages, Transcript
General Note: Originally recorded on 2 sound tapes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 49 min.
Access Note / Rights: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Summary: An interview of George McNeil conducted by Dorothy Seckler for the Archives of American Art. McNeil speaks of his childhood and his family; becoming interested in art during high school; attending Pratt Institute, and not being satisfied there; deciding to drop out of Pratt after attending a lecture from Vaclav Vytlacil; going to the Metropolitan Museum every day drawing and analyzing paintings; meeting Arshile Gorky while at the Metropolitan Museum; attending the Art Students League; studying with Hans Hofmann; the start of the American Abstract Artists; his involvement in the WPA's mural project; attending Teachers College at Columbia before joining the Navy; re-entering the New York art scene during the forties and liking it very much; meeting and being influenced by Pollock; his views on the state of painting; how his work has evolved; the various stages in the way a painting developed for him; how The Club and the Eighth Street Club has influenced him; the ideas discussed at The Club, and how he feels surrealism was not a big influence on them; Jackson Pollock's influence on abstract expressionism; artists he admires or has admired; and his thoughts on the contemporary art scene. He recalls Vaclav Vytlacil, Arshile Gorky, Jan Matulka, David Smith, Dorothy Dehner, Edgar Levy, Leo Manso, Burgoyne Diller, Irene Rice Pereira, Hans Hofmann, Jo Hopper, Giorgio Cavallon, Linda Lindaberg (Cavallon), Mercedes Kahls, George Byron Brown, Albert Swinden, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack, Franz Kline, Jack Tworkov, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, and many others.
Citation: Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with George McNeil, 1965 June 3. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Biography Note: George McNeil (1908-1995) was a painter and a printmaker in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Language Note: English .
Provenance: This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Location Note: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001

Data Source: Archives of American Art

Record number: (DSI-AAA_CollID)13160; (DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)214125; AAA_collcode_mcneil65

interviewee: McNeil, George, 1908-1995
interviewer: Seckler, Dorothy Gees, 1910-1994
Subject: Smith, David; Gorky, Arshile; De Kooning, Willem; Matulka, Jan; Pereira, I. Rice (Irene Rice); Dlugoszewski, Lucia; Manso, Leo; Vytlacil, Vaclav; Hofmann, Hans; Rothko, Mark; Levy, Edgar; Hopper, Jo N. (Josephine Nivison); Reinhardt, Ad; Pollock, Jackson; Tworkov, Jack; Dehner, Dorothy; Cavallon, Giorgio; Kline, Franz; Diller, Burgoyne; Art Students League (New York, N.Y.); Pratt Institute. Art School; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.); United States. Work Projects Administration; American Abstract Artists

Type: Sound recordings; Interviews

Topic: Art, American; Painters -- New York (State) -- Interviews; Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews; Abstract expressionism; Painting; Surrealism; Mural painting and decoration

Record ID: AAADCD_oh_214125

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