Overview
Photographs, slides, press proofs, clippings, and a scrapbook relating to the work, travels, and social activities of Walter Gropius, as well as books from his personal library.
Dates
- Creation: 1930-1972
Conditions on Access:
Unrestricted
Conditions on Use
Copyright: Copyright in the papers in the collection may be held by the authors of the documents, or the authors' heirs or assigns. Researchers must obtain the written permission of the holder(s) of copyright and the Harvard Art Museums Archives before publishing quotations from any material in the collection.
Copying: Papers may be copied in accordance with the Harvard Art Museums Archives' usual procedures.
Extent
17 linear feet (2 file boxes, 1 half file box, 3 record cartons, 1 5.5x12 card box, 6 12x15 folio boxes, 1 8.75x11 folio box, 1 9.25x12 folio box, 1 10x13 folio box, 1 13x18 folio box, 1 14.75x18.75 folio box, 1 15x14.5 folio box)The collection contains photographs of Walter Gropius, his wife, Ise Gropius, and his friends and colleagues, documenting his activities and travels in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and East Asia between 1946 and 1969. The collection also includes a series of slides of the Gropius House in Lincoln, MA, as well as a number of photographs and slides depicting birthday celebrations held in his honor. There is a small amount of printed material including press proofs and article clippings. The collection also contains books and periodicals from his personal library, including works by Gropius, Lyonel Feininger, and Alexander Dorner.
When the records first arrived at the Busch-Reisinger Museum, the photographs and manuscript materials were re-housed in photograph binders, boxes, and loose folders according to medium, format, acquisition date, and topic. These materials, as well as the slide collection, were re-housed again in 2014 into archival folders and boxes and arranged into series and subseries by format and subject.
Biography:
Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was a German architect and theorist of modern architecture who founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919 and was the school’s director until 1928. He taught architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design from 1937-1952. In 1945, he founded The Architects’ Collaborative (TAC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. TAC projects included the Harvard Graduate Center in Cambridge (1949), Six Moon Hill in Lexington, MA (1947-1950), and the Pan-American World Airways Building in New York (1958-1963).
Arrangement
The collection is divided into three series: Visual Materials; Printed Materials and Correspondence; and Gropius Library. Visual Materials is further divided into subseries by topic: Family, Friends, and Colleagues; Work; and Gropius House.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The materials were donated in separate accessions to the Busch-Reisinger Museum by Gropius’ widow, Ise Gropius, in 1974 and 1980, and by his daughter, Ati Gropius Johansen, in 1984.
Separated Materials
The following photograph was removed from these papers and accessioned into the Busch-Reisinger Museum collection in 2018:
- Portrait of Walter Gropius with Joan Miro mural, Graduate Center, Harvard University, 1952. Photograph by Hans Namuth. Accession number: 2018.214.
Box and Folder Locations
- Box 1: Folders 1-13, 23-26
- Box 2: Folders 45-50, 52, 54
- Folio Box 3: Oversize Folders 14-15, 44, 51, 53
- Box 4: Folders 16-21, 27-43 [slides]
- Box 5: Folder 22 [scrapbook]
- Box 6: Folders 55-59, 62, 66-69, 71-72, 75-76, 78-83, 85-87, 89-91, 97, 99, 101-102, 104-105, 107-108, 110, 112-113, 117, 122-123 [books]
- Box 7: Folders 84, 88, 93-95, 100, 106, 109, 111, 116, 118, 127, 140, 143, 145, 149 [books]
- Box 8: Folders 60-61, 63-65, 73-74, 77, 92, 119-120, 124-126, 128-133, 135-136, 156, 159, 162 [books]
- Box 9: Folders 114, 117, 148, 153 [books]
- Box 10: Folders 138, 141, 150, 158, 161
- Box 11: Folders 96, 160, 163
- Box 12: Folders 70, 98, 103
- Box 13: Folders 115, 144, 147
- Box 14: Folders 134, 137, 139
- Box 15: Folders 142, 146, 155
- Box 16: Folder 152
- Box 17: Folder 151
- Box 18: Folder 154
- Box 19: Folders 121, 164
- Box 20: Folder 157
General note
Names
- Albini, Franco
- Architects Collaborative, Inc.
- Bauhaus
- Costa, Lúcio
- Giedion, S. (Sigfried), 1888-1968
- Gropius, Ise
- Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969
- Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969 -- Exhibitions
- Gropius House (Lincoln, Mass.)
- Harvard University. Department of Architecture.
- Kuhn, Charles L. (Charles Louis), 1901-
- Le Corbusier, 1887-1965
- Markelius, Sven, 1889-1972
- Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946
- Moral, Enrique del, 1906-1987
- Nervi, Pier Luigi
- Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957
- Rogers, Ernesto N.
- Saarinen, Eero, 1910-1961
- Unesco
- Zehrfuss, Bernard
General note
Subjects
- Architects -– Germany
- Architecture –- Design and plans
- Architecture -- History.
- Architecture, Modern -– 20th Century -– Brazil
- Architecture, Modern -– 20th Century -– Germany
- Architecture, Modern –- 20th Century -– Japan
- Architecture, Modern -– 20th Century -– Mexico
- Architecture, Modern –- 20th Century -- United States
- Architecture and society.
- Design
- Interior Design
- MetLife Building (New York, N.Y.)
General note
Form/Genre Terms
- Clippings
- Correspondence
- Glass negatives
- Illustrations
- Negatives
- Photographs
- Portraits
- Scrapbooks
- Slides (photographs)
Processing Information
The collection was processed in April 2014 by Raphael Koenig under the supervision of Lynette Roth and Megan Schwenke; the finding aid was revised in July 2014 by Brooke McManus.
- Title
- Papers of Walter Gropius (BRM 4), 1930-1972: A Guide
- Author
- Busch-Reisinger Museum
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- art00032
Repository Details
Part of the Harvard Art Museums Archives Repository
The Harvard Art Museums Archives is the official repository for institutional records and historical documents in all formats relating to the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1895 to the present. Its collections include papers of individuals and groups associated with the museums' history, including records of past exhibitions, architectural plans, photographs, scrapbooks, and memorabilia, as well as correspondence with collectors, gallery owners, museum professionals, and artists throughout the twentieth century. Its holdings also document the formation of the museums' collections and its mission as a teaching institution.
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