Oral History Interview with Joan Snyder, 2010 February 25-26

Oral history interview with Joan Snyder, 2010 February 25-26 Funding for this interview was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Joan Snyder on 2010 February 25- 26. The interview took place in Brooklyn, N.Y. at the artist's home and was conducted by Judith Olch Richards for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Joan Snyder and Judith Olch Richards have reviewed the transcript. Snyder's corrections and emendations appear below in brackets with initials. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: This is Judith Richards interviewing Joan Snyder on February 25, 2010 in Brooklyn for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, disc one. Joan, let's start with my asking you about your family, starting back I guess with your grandparents—where they were from and what their professions were and all that, and how well you knew any of them, and then going on to your parents, yourself and your siblings. JOAN SNYDER: My maternal grandparents—my mother's mother was named Dora Saltzman Cohen. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Cohen, C-O-H-E-N? JOAN SNYDER: C-O-H-E-N, and her husband was Samuel Cohen. She was from a town called Kovno Gubernia , which I think was on the Russian-German border. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Do you know how to spell that? JOAN SNYDER: No. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Okay. JOAN SNYDER: But we can find out. I mean, I can guess but that's just a guess. My grandfather was from Moscow, and he actually was an educated man and my grandmother was not an educated woman. He was an inventor, among other things. They came to this country—she came when she was 13. I don't really know the whole story. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Do you know when she was born? JOAN SNYDER: No, but I could figure it out. She died in 19—oh, my gosh. Well, it's easy for me to find that out, but she died in the—oh, when did she die? She probably died in the late '60s when she was 86 years old, so she had to be born in 1880 sometime. [1964 –JS] Well, let's just go to my paternal grandparents who I didn't—I knew my paternal grandmother but not well. That was my father's mother. She lived in Perth Amboy, New Jersey when I was growing up, but we barely saw her. Her name was Sarah Snyder and I think her maiden name was Boehm—B-O-E-H-M—something like that. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: What was Dora's maiden name? JOAN SNYDER: Saltzman. And Dora came over on a boat with her brother, Abraham Saltzman when they were 12 and 13. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Here to New York? JOAN SNYDER: Yes. And I don't know how and when she met my grandfather. It's too bad I never asked her. Getting back to my paternal grandparents, my father's father owned a butcher shop in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His name was Joseph Snyder, and I'm named after him. Yussel was the Hebrew name—or the Yiddish name. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Were they also from Russia? JOAN SNYDER: No. I think that they—well, I think he was born in Germany, but for some reason I think she was born in this country, Sarah. My grandfather committed suicide, actually, in the mid-'30s. He actually was a rich man who lost all his money in the Depression. He had been a butcher. This was something that my father never, never talked about but I found out myself because I became very close friends with an old man in New Brunswick [who –JS] had a junk business and I messed around with him with this junk business. And that's when I had my studio on the Raritan River in New Brunswick during and before graduate school. Anyway, he told me about my grandfather, and then I asked my father about it but I didn't get much conversation from him. Money was never important to my father. He was a toy salesman. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: What was your father's name? JOAN SNYDER: Leon David Snyder—[he] went around to local candy stores and sold his toys. He went to different towns. And the neighborhood kids used to call him Mr. Leon and they loved all his toys, and I did, too. And he was a really, really kind, gentle, nice guy—not highly intelligent like my mother. My mother was—we didn't finish with my grandmother yet. Shall we go back to my grandmother? So I was very, very attached to my grandmother. I used to call her Grandma Cohen. And she was a major figure in my life, really. I loved her. Her husband died when my mother was about 14. My mother and he were on a train together going to New York where he was going to patent an invention that he had made, which was like Ajax. It was a cleanser that wasn't on the market yet. And they were on the train going to New York [City –JS] to patent this thing and he had a heart attack and died. It was probably the worst thing that ever happened to my mother, I'm sure. It was devastating because her father was the educated, English-speaking one. Her mother [barely spoke –JS] English. So my mother, who was a very—had two brothers name Bernard Cohen and Simon Cohen—anyway, her name— my mother's name was Edythe—E-D-Y-T-H-E—Adelaide Cohen. And that was very devastating to her. And she was a really tall 13-year-old, so she kind of got away with working to support my—help support my grandmother. I don't know; I think my Uncle Bernie might have been out of the house by then. I'm not sure. [Her brothers –JS] were older. And Simon was—Uncle Simey was sort of retarded. I don't know what happened to him but he was—I don't know what we would call it today but he definitely had serious learning disabilities and lots of other things. I mean, he was a nice guy; he was sweet, but he was, you know, backwards. So my mother, who was kind of a genius, worked to support my grandmother and often got picked up by the truancy officers because she was tall and—but they were on to her, you know. I mean, that was her story as a child. She tried to help my grandmother and never went to college, which was horrible, and became a very angry, frustrated woman who was pretty abusive towards me. I mean, I suffered a lot of verbal abuse from her. She was just negative, negative, negative. Just everything was —it was horrible. And she yelled and screamed a lot. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: How did she and your father meet, or when or— JOAN SNYDER: You know, I don't know. They were a very attractive young couple. I don't know where or how they [met]. It was in New Brunswick somewhere. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: How did they meet? JOAN SNYDER: I don't really know, but I think they were happy when they were a young couple. Think they married [when –JS] they were in their late 20s, though. But she—you know, her crowd was more an upwardly mobile crowd and so she was always angry that money was never important to my father because of what had happened to his own father. And so she was not a happy camper, to put it mildly. You know, the Reform temple that my grandfather had practically built, or was one of the founders of, we couldn't afford to go [to] after a while. My brother got bar mitzvahed and I got bat mitzvahed, but then they had to quit because they couldn't afford it. So that was a source of great anger and frustration and certainly didn't make me very happy in terms of any kind of organized religion. You know, forget about it. But my grandmother was an Orthodox Jew, and one of the things that always resonated with me was going to synagogue with her, because I used to accompany her, especially on the High Holy days when— JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: This was your father's mother? JOAN SNYDER: No, this was my mother's mother, Grandma Cohen, who—no, my father's mother was in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and I can't even remember her ever being at our house. We went and visited her maybe once a year or twice a year. She was kind of strange. I have no idea why or what her—well, her husband had committed suicide. That could be one reason that would make her strange for the rest of her life. I never really thought very much about her. But where was I going with my— JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: You said you went to synagogue with— JOAN SNYDER: Oh, with my grandmother. JUDITH OLCH RICHARDS: Yes. JOAN SNYDER: So that is part of my history, which is that I always loved the singing and the chanting and the prayers, the sound of it, the Hebrew and hearing the Kaddish.

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