[WALT KUHN] Vera Spier Kuhn (1885ñ1961) studied jewelry-making in Washington D.C. and Woodstock, NY, and opened a studio on East 23rd Street in 1908. There, she met Walt; they married the next year. During his involvement with the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS), Vera Kuhn stayed with her mother and Brenda, their young daughter, at her motherís home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Walt and Veraís extensive correspondence during this period contains rich details about the 1913 Armory Show. He credited Vera with being the most important factor in his success. These letters are in the collection of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. TLS, August 1, 1955, 1p, from Vera Kuhn to Maynard Walker (1896-1985). Walker, was the New York art dealer representating the Estate of Walt Kuhn's art work during this time. In 1933, while working at the Ferargil Gallery in New York, Mr. Walker organized an exhibition for the Kansas City Art Institute that for the first time brought together the work of the regionalist painters Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry. After Mr. Walker opened his own gallery, at 108 East 57th Street, in 1935, these artists joined him and showed regularly there. The gallery was also among the first to show the work of George Grosz, the German painter and caricaturist, who moved to the United States in 1932. The gallery moved to 117 East 57th Street after the war. Vera's letter offered here is a retained copy that was sent to Breanda, her gaughter. This letter concerns one of the most important paintings by Walt Kuhn, The White Clown, which is now in the collection of the National gallery of Art, Washington DC, a gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman. Vera has written a note at top which mentions Mrs. Navas, who was Elizabeth Stubblefield Navas. She is remembered for "assembling an American art collection for the people of Wichita. From 1938 to 1962, Mrs. Navas purchased 167 outstanding American paintings and sculpture. Artists represented included Dove, Marin, Ryder, Cassatt, Eakins, Henri, Hopper, Sheeler, Prendergast, Homer, Harnett, De Creeft, Lachaise, and Zorach. This strong collection eventually attracted additional gifts to the museum, particularly the L.S. and Ida L. Naftzger Collection of prints and drawings (1943-1951), the Naftzger Collection of C.M. Russell's Art, and the John W. and Mildred L. Graves Collection of American Impressionism." The 2nd scan below shows a photo of Vera Kuhn taken by her husband Walt Kuhn in the summer of 1914. That photo is in the Walter Pach papers, 1857ñ1980. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Extremely Rare!. Only the letter is included here - not the pictures.

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