Artists Research Group

Initiated in 1988, this project focused on the involvement of the New York School in higher education, most notably at Hunter College in New York.

Supported by grants from the Research Foundation of the City University of New York, a number of interested participants researched and interviewed former faculty members as well as others peripherally associated with the Art Department at Hunter, and/or intimately involved in the New York art world of the 1940s-1960s, and beyond.

The Art Department at Hunter College had distinguished itself by becoming directly involved with artists shortly after WWII. Edna Wells Luetz, chair of the Department during this period hired Robert Motherwell to teach, and subsequently, William S. Rubin and others recommended by Motherwell. In so doing she brought into the academy figures then in the forefront of modern art.

William Baziotes, one of the early figures in this history remarked that “he who teaches, learns twice.” Much of the foundation of contemporary art as we know it was formed during this period, and many of those so closely associated with its developments were actively teaching. This part of the history of modern art is really little known.

Participants in these researches over the years have included Tracy Adler, Elizabeth K. Allen, Caroline Ash, Belinda Blum, Umberto Calabro, Paul Corio, Margaret Fiore, Jill Gannon, Matthew Garrison, Lauren Gohara, Fred Gross, George Hofmann, Tracy Myers, John Parker, Searfino Patti, Shirley Ricci, Meagan Shein, Elizabeth Simonson, Allyson Spellacy, Anya Steger, Michael Steger, and Rachel Urkowitz.

It is our hope that this site will be useful to researchers and others interested in the history of modern art, and that it will be added to in the course of time.