Born in 1900, Betty Parsons was one of the leading art dealers in New York City specializing in modern art; her gallery on 57th Street was a hub of activity for decades. As a young person, she lived in Paris for 10 years studying painting and sculpture, returning to New York in 1935. During the postwar period, she represented Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko. It was an exciting period and what is most remarkable is that her prodigious collection of correspondence and personal papers ended up at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. This remarkable digitized collection contains over 61,000 pages of material, including correspondence with fellow gallery owners, personal financial records, photographs, stock inventories, sales records, sketchbooks, and pocket diaries. First-time visitors should start by looking over the Finding Aid area, which is tremendously helpful. As a whole, this collection will be most useful to art historians and others with an interest in the cultural milieu of the American art world in the mid-20th century.
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