Armando Valdés Peza correspondence with Harriet Dean and Elsie Whitaker Martinez
Overview
Correspondence between Mexican-American artist Armando Valdés Peza and two Bohemian friends in California.
Dates
- Creation: 1929-1935
Creator
- Valdés Peza, Armando, 1907-1970 (Person)
Condition Description
Most letters in good condition; some are fragile at the folds.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.15 linear feet (1 box)28 letters from Valdés Peza to Harriet Dean ("Pal") and Elsie Martinez ("Pellie"), with 20 of their replies in copies to Valdés Peza; correspondence includes manuscript and typescript letters, postcards, and telegrams.
Biographical / Historical
Armando Valdés Peza (May 24, 1907 - July 1, 1970) was a Mexican-American artist, fashion designer, actor, writer, and influential designer in Mexican cinema, working on at least 97 films. During the period covered by these letters, he traveled to Mexico City to study with Diego Rivera. Before he went to Hollywood, he lived in Piedmont, California with Elsie Whitaker Martinez and her long-term partner, Harriet Dean, at their home at 747 Scenic Avenue.
Harriet Dean was from an Indianapolis, Indiana industrialist family. She attended Vassar College, but in 1915 (before graduating) she joined Margaret Anderson's Little Review, a modernist literary magazine. Xavier ("Marty") and Elsie Martinez met Harriet Dean in 1916 while Harriet was working at the Little Review in San Francisco. When the magazine's brief stint in the City ended, Harriet stayed. By 1919 Harriet's mother financed a house a few doors down from the Martinez studio home in the Piedmont hills. After returning from a European year abroad with Dean in 1923, Elsie and her daughter Micaela ("Kai") moved in with her.
Elsie Whittaker Martinez was a writer and prominent member of the Bay Area’s Bohemian community. Born in 1890 in Manitoba, Canada, she and her family moved to Piedmont in 1902. After marrying painter Xavier Martinez at 18, she remained active in various writing groups and artist circles and began teaching at California School of Arts and Crafts. Martinez also worked as a correspondent for Harper’s and the Little Review. Elsie met painter Xavier Martinez (1869–1943) at Coppa's Restaurant in San Francisco. After the earthquake of 1906, Martinez moved to Piedmont. Months later, he proposed to an 18-year-old Whitaker. The couple married in 1907, and they had a daughter in 1913, Micaela "Kai" Martinez (1913–1989) who became a fine artist. In 1923, Elsie and Xavier Martínez separated and she moved into Harriet Dean's house.
Arrangement
Arranged as received.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2024MT-4. Purchased from McBride Rare Books with the Howard D. Rothschild Bequest, 2023 July 27.
Processing Information
This collection was processed to a basic level with minimal rehousing, organization, and preservation. (Melanie Wisner, 2023)
Geographic
Creator
- Valdés Peza, Armando, 1907-1970 (Person)
- Dean, Harriet, 1892-1964 (Person)
- Martinez, Elsie Whitaker, 1890-1984 (Person)
- Title
- Valdés Peza, Armando, 1907-1970. Armando Valdés Peza correspondence with Harriet Dean and Elsie Whitaker Martinez, 1929-1935 (MS Thr 2293): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University.
- Date
- 2023 August 15
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hou03592
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
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