Oral history interview with Roy Superior, 2010 June 29-30 Funding for this interview was provided by the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. 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 Roy Superior on June 29 and 30, 2010. The interview took place in the artist's home and studio in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, and was conducted by Mija Riedel for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Mara Superior has reviewed the transcript. Her 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 MIJA RIEDEL: This is Mija Riedel with Roy Superior at the artist's home and studio in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, on June 29, 2010, for the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, disc number one. Good afternoon. Shall we start at the beginning? Let's cover a little of the biographical background. ROY SUPERIOR: The early years before I was born? MS. RIEDEL: Yes, the early years before—your parents? MR. SUPERIOR: Well, the first thing I think that I ought to mention is where my name came from. MS. RIEDEL: Please do. MR. SUPERIOR: Because one doesn't grow up with a name like that without it having some effect. MS. RIEDEL: Yes. MR. SUPERIOR: I grew up with an inferiority complex. [They laugh.] MS. RIEDEL: I see. MR. SUPERIOR: And Roy Inferior was the first nickname that I had, which caused many fights. [Laughs.] Originally it was Zeviliansky. And at Ellis Island one of several brothers changed his name somehow to Superior. And they went from there to Montreal. MS. RIEDEL: Ah-hah. MR. SUPERIOR: And I don't know much about my great-grandparents at all, except that I do know that my parents are first cousins, which may explain a lot of things. [Laughs.] MS. RIEDEL: Your parents are first cousins! MR. SUPERIOR: Yes. MS. RIEDEL: And where are they from? MR. SUPERIOR: Beg pardon? MS. RIEDEL: Originally where are they from? MR. SUPERIOR: From Montreal. They were both born in Montreal. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: And my father's parents moved to New Jersey, Elizabeth, New Jersey. And he met my mother when he was in college, I believe, at Tufts Dental School. MS. RIEDEL: What was your father's name and your mother's? MR. SUPERIOR: Daniel. MS. RIEDEL: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Daniel Superior. MR. SUPERIOR: Daniel Superior. And my mother's name was Ethel Shapiro. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: So there were a couple of Shapiros with an A, and a Superior, only one. MS. RIEDEL: Did your relatives select that name, Superior? Or was it given to him at Ellis Island, do you know? MR. SUPERIOR: I don't know. I wasn't there. MS. RIEDEL: It's interesting. [They laugh.] I thought perhaps there was a family story. MR. SUPERIOR: I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall when that happened to see, because it's pretty presumptuous. I remember being in a student show when I was a student at Pratt and overhearing somebody say, gee, look at the grade back I got. [They laugh.] MS. RIEDEL: Is that true? Or are you telling a story? MR. SUPERIOR: No, that's true. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: And, you know, there are limitations on it, like you can say, "Hi, I'm Smith." I can't do that. Not without provoking people. [Laughs.] MS. RIEDEL: Right, right. MR. SUPERIOR: You know instantly if I say, "I'm Superior," people say, "Who the hell do you think you are?" MS. RIEDEL: So where and when were you born? MR. SUPERIOR: I was born—[Phone rings.] [Audio break.] MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: I was born in 1934. MS. RIEDEL: Where? MR. SUPERIOR: In New York. MS. RIEDEL: New York City? MR. SUPERIOR: Yes. MS. RIEDEL: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] MR. SUPERIOR: And my parents lived in Jackson Heights at that time. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: And I grew up—my first memories are of things like that living in an apartment that had a tar balcony. It was one flight off the ground above a butcher shop. And I remember playing with a hose on this balcony and spraying people as they walked in and out of the butcher shop. And I also have a very, very distinct memory of standing at the top of the stairs with my Superman cape and actually flying down and landing on my feet on the first floor. And I remember sitting on the front steps with my roller skates with the keys waiting for somebody to come by to tighten them up for me. [Laughs.] And I remember my very first art experience when I was four in kindergarten being taught how to draw a turkey. The teacher drew a circle, and we all drew a circle. And then a bigger circle. And then some feathers, some feet, an eye and a beak. And I could still draw that turkey. But I started to draw when I was four. Somewhere I have a painting from when I was four, and I have like my very first sketchbook which is filled with drawings of, among other things, people—fishermen—standing on docks with shark-like fish all over the place. I didn't know then, of course, I would become a fly fisherman dedicated, a purist, for over 40 years now. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: Anyway, that was the beginning. MS. RIEDEL: And it's interesting, given the contraptions, the flying contraptions and the allegorical constructions that you— MR. SUPERIOR: My mother made—my mother was a seamstress. MS. RIEDEL: Oh. MR. SUPERIOR: She worked at Bergdorf Goodman among other places, and she made me a little Superman cape. [Laughs.] I guess he was my first hero. But I distinctly, clearly remember I was able to fly from the top floor of the stairs down to the landing. MS. RIEDEL: You have a clear memory of that? Is it something you— MR. SUPERIOR: I probably fell down a couple of bottom steps, that was it. MS. RIEDEL: Or maybe it was a dream? MR. SUPERIOR: But in memory I actually flew. MS. RIEDEL: Do you dream? Was it something you might have dreamed, do you think? MR. SUPERIOR: I might have dreamt it, but in my mind it's true. So we'll just let it go at that. MS. RIEDEL: [Laughs.] That explains the perfect introduction. MR. SUPERIOR: I was not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, however. MS. RIEDEL: Right. But you could fly. MR. SUPERIOR: I could fly. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. Alright. Well, it's here on the record. MR. SUPERIOR: On a flight of stairs down. [They laugh.] But I couldn't fly back up again. MS. RIEDEL: So what was childhood like in Jackson Heights? MR. SUPERIOR: What was what? MS. RIEDEL: What was childhood like in New York? Were you in and out of museums? MR. SUPERIOR: Yes, my mother took me to museums. MS. RIEDEL: What did your father do? MR. SUPERIOR: My father was a dentist. MS. RIEDEL: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Okay. Interesting. MR. SUPERIOR: Then in 1939, they built a house in Great Neck, Long Island. And that's where my childhood was. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. SUPERIOR: We moved there in 1939. In 1941, on December 7th, I was in the movie theater. It was Sunday, December 7th. There's 400 ten-year-olds sitting there, right? Eating their free orange and white ice cream pops and watching Donald Duck. And all of a sudden the screen went blank, the lights came on, and somebody came out on the stage and said, "Well, all servicemen please report to their bases. The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor." So 400 kids, all ten years old, well, nobody reported to the bases. But we all walked home looking like this. MS. RIEDEL: Right. The sky. MR. SUPERIOR: And my mother was an air raid warden. She had a white World War I style helmet with a symbol on it. And she would go out and blow the whistle during air raid drills and so forth. And my father enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor, and he wanted to go overseas. He never got overseas. He had a fight with his senior officer, a captain, when he went in as a second lieutenant, who had just graduated from dental school. My father had been in practice for a long time. And he wanted my father to pull a tooth. My father said, "No. I can save that tooth." And he did. And the guy said, "You'll never get out of the United States because he knew he wanted to go." So my father served for four years in the Army; came back a bitter man because of the waste that he saw and the fact that he never got himself fulfilled. MS. RIEDEL: He felt he could do a lot more good— MR. SUPERIOR: Beg pardon? MS. RIEDEL: He felt he could do a lot more good overseas. MR.