Clara Diament Sujo Papers, 1944-2014 (Bulk 1981-2008)

http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8st7wnv No online items Finding aid for the Clara Diament Sujo papers, 1944-2014 (bulk 1981-2008) Karen Meyer-Roux Finding aid for the Clara Diament 2018.M.31 1 Sujo papers, 1944-2014 (bulk 1981-2008) Descriptive Summary Title: Clara Diament Sujo papers Date (inclusive): 1944-2014 (bulk 1981-2008) Number: 2018.M.31 Creator/Collector: Diament Sujo, Clara Physical Description: 147.29 Linear Feet(360 boxes, 7 flat file folders) Repository: The Getty Research Institute Special Collections 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100 Los Angeles 90049-1688 [email protected] URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref (310) 440-7390 Abstract: The papers of Clara Diament Sujo provide a comprehensive survey of the operations of CDS Gallery founded by the dealer and art critic in New York in 1981. There is also documentation on the center of contemporary art Estudio Actual created by Sujo in Caracas in 1968, as well as on her formative years studying with Jorge Romero Brest in Buenos Aires, and her writings and lectures. The archive comprises correspondence; financial records; scrapbooks; exhibition brochures; artist files; photographs; videos; and works on paper dedicated to Sujo. Among the artists represented by CDS Gallery and in the records are: Roberto Aizenberg; Jacobo Borges; Carlos Cruz-Diez; José Luis Cuevas; Stephen De Staebler; Wilfredo Lam; Roberto Matta; Henry Moore; José Clemente Orozco; Armando Reverón; Jesús Rafael Soto; Hedda Sterne; Joaquín Torres-García; and Adja Yunkers. Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy . Language: Collection material is in English and Spanish. Biographical / Historical Clara Diament Sujo pursued a long career as a dealer of modern and contemporary art, first opening the center of contemporary art Estudio Actual in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1968, and then in 1981, CDS Gallery in New York, the name of which corresponds to her initials. Sujo was instrumental in developing relationships between artists, collectors and museums in Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Columbia and the United States. In nearly two hundred exhibitions at CDS Gallery, Sujo actively promoted the work of Roberto Aizenberg; Jacobo Borges; Carlos Cruz-Diez; Wilfredo Lam; Roberto Matta; José Clemente Orozco; Armando Reverón; Jesús Rafael Soto; and Joaquín Torres-García, along with the work of other artists. In 1979, the first major auction in New York of twentieth-century Latin American art was organized by the Center for Inter-American Relations, an organization that was later incorporated into the Americas Society whose goal is to promote the cultural heritage of the Americas. The auction catalog acknowledges Sujo's contribution to the success of the initiative. Held at Sotheby Parke Bernet, the sale is still regarded as a turning point in the development of the contemporary art market. It would also have an important impact on Sujo's career. Sujo was born under the name Clara Diament in Buenos Aires in 1921, the daughter of a Polish Jew who developed an export business in Patagonian fur garments (red foxes, chinchilla and hares) for a Jewish market in Russia and Poland. Her parents were members of a distinguished synagogue, the Templo Libertad in Buenos Aires, and frequent attendees of the opera house, the Teatro Colón. From 1943 to 1946, Sujo worked in Chicago for the large corporation Abbott Laboratories, an experience which was crucial-along with having helped in her father's business from a young age-to honing the management skills that ensured the success of her later ventures. In 1946, upon returning to Argentina, Sujo immersed herself in an intellectual and artistic milieu, studying with the poet Jorge Romero Brest and becoming in 1947 editor for the journal Ver y estimar founded by Brest. The rule of Juan Domingo Perón, while favorable to working classes, was also marked by the dismissal of dissident university faculty and rising antisemitism. This, along with the economic opportunities offered by Venezuela, finally prompted Sujo's move with her three young children in 1953 to Caracas where she joined her husband who had found employment there. Sujo observed that Buenos Aires seemed like a satellite of Europe, with the beautiful collection of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires containing "no Latin American art-hardly any Argentinian art." Instead the US presence in Venezuela, in part motivated by the oil industry, was felt in all aspects of life in Caracas. The weight of European tradition was less evident in Caracas, as well, noted Sujo. The director of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas embraced Sujo's Finding aid for the Clara Diament 2018.M.31 2 Sujo papers, 1944-2014 (bulk 1981-2008) initiative to help form a collection of contemporary art from Latin America for the museum, first acquiring a work by the Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam which had been exhibited at documenta in Kassel. This initiative would become a pioneering project to promote the work of contemporary artists from Venezuela and other countries in Central and South America. While in Caracas, Sujo taught art history at the Ciudad Universitaria, the Escuela de Artes Plásticas, the Instituto de Diseño Neumann, and as an art critic she contributed to numerous journals and periodicals. As a director and script writer for Venezuela's National Television, Sujo produced a series of documentary films on art in collaboration with the movie director Angel Hurtado, who also served as cameraman for the project. In 1968, with an inaugural show dedicated to the work of Marcel Duchamp, Sujo opened Estudio Actual in Caracas, where she would continue to host exhibitions dedicated to contemporary artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Adja Yunkers, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Escobar Marisol. One of Sujo's goals was to introduce Venezuelans, who were well versed in US pop music, to other aspects of American culture, such as modern and contemporary painting, which they were less familiar with, but which had stunned Sujo during her years exploring the prominent art collections in Chicago. The short five-hour flight from Caracas to New York would facilitate Sujo's friendships with colleagues in New York, including curators Kynaston McShine at MoMA and Thomas M. Messer at the Guggenheim who welcomed Sujo's collaboration for the organization of an exhibition dedicated to the Venezuelan artist Soto in 1974. When a flood damaged seventy works in the Estudio Actual in 1978, Sujo received regular advice from the conservation departments at the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim. The United Nations and the Americas Society welcomed these forms of cooperation between the two continents. The embassies in both countries were often actively involved in the exchanges. The success of the 1979 Sotheby's Latin American art auction encouraged Sujo to explore venues in New York. At her request in the late fall of 1980, Sujo's son Aly visited a gallery space at 13 East 75th Street that was available for rent and conveniently located near the Whitney Museum. Aly described the space as being in ruinous condition: "Los techos estan en el piso y el piso en los techos: Te va a gustar." (The ceiling is on the floor and the floor on the ceiling: You'll like it). Several months later, on May 4, the inaugural show at the newly-renovated CDS Gallery at 13 East 75th Street entitled Masters of the Americas contrasted works by artists from North America with works by artists from Central and South America. The artists included were: Juan Batlle-Planas; Pedro Figari; Lucio Fontana; Helen Frankenthaler; Arshile Gorky; Philip Guston; Wilfredo Lam; Roberto Matta; Merida; Robert Motherwell; José Clemente Orozco; Amelia Peláez; Emilio Pettoruti; Jackson Pollock; Cândido Portinari; Armando Reverón; Diego Rivera; Rufino Tamayo; Joaquín Torres-García; and Adya Yunkers. The show was organized in collaboration with the Argentinian art critic Marta Traba and featured loans from Israel, Argentina, and MoMA. John Russell, the British art critic for the New York Times, praised the show's intelligence and tact. In subsequent exhibitions, Sujo explored juxtaposing the work of contemporary artists from different generations, and later the curatorial choices made by artists in a series of shows called "Artists Choose Artists." In the first years of CDS Gallery, Sujo would simultaneously organize an exhibition at Estudio Actual in Caracas and in New York, while she later focused her activities on CDS Gallery alone. Prominent art historians and art critics were often called upon to participate in the exhibitions held by CDS Gallery. In 1988, for the show, The Irascibles, dedicated to the New York School, which featured loans from MoMA, the Met, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and other museums, CDS Gallery enlisted Irving Sandler as curator. In 1995, the Galería de Arte Nacional (GAN) in Caracas organized an exhibition dedicated to Sujo's personal collection of Venezuelan art, featuring ninety-nine works, some of which Sujo later donated to the museum. From 1997 to 2003, Sujo loaned two hundred works to the Duke University Art Museum to help it form a Latin American art collection. Sujo took an active role advising private collectors and helped place drawings, paintings and sculptures in museums that were increasingly displaying-as had been Sujo's wish all along-works by artists from both continents side-by-side. References: Oral history interview wih Clara Diament Sujo, 2010 June 8-16. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Diament Sujo, Clara. "Cronología," in Una visión del arte venezolano 1940-1980: Colección Clara Diament Sujo, Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, septiembre-noviembre 1995 . Caracas: La Galería, 1995. Russell, John. "Art: New Gallery Offers Surprising Americana," The New York Times , July 17, 1981.

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