Oral Histories

Interview of Phyllis Williams Lehmann

Smith College professor of art. Archaeologist and art historian who conducted excavations at Samothrace.
Subtitle:
Art Historian
Series:
Art History - Oral Documentation Project
Topic:
Art
Biographical Note:
Smith College professor of art. Archaeologist and art historian who conducted excavations at Samothrace.
Interviewer:
Barnett, Teresa
Interviewee:
Lehmann, Phyllis Williams
Persons Present:
Lehmann's home in Haydenville, Massachusetts. and Lehmann and Barnett.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Interviewer Background and Preparation:
The interview was conducted by Teresa Barnett, Principal Editor, UCLA Oral History Program; B.A., Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University; M.A., Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University. Barnett prepared for the interview by looking at Lehmann's publications and at her papers in the Smith College archives. In addition, she looked at catalogs from the Institute of Fine Arts located at the Getty Center for the History of Art.
Processing of Interview:
Rebecca Stone, editorial assistant, edited the interview. She checked the verbatim transcript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation, paragraphing, spelling, and verified proper names. Words and phrases inserted by the editor have been bracketed.Lehmann reviewed the transcript. She verified proper names and minor corrections and additions.The interviewer prepared the table of contents.Rebecca Stone compiled the biographical summary, interview history, and index.
Length:
7.75 hrs.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Series Statement:
The interviews in the series Art History - Oral Documentation Project are part of a cooperative venture between the Oral History Program and the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, documents a generation of scholars who developed and elaborated paradigms of art history established in the late nineteenth century to forge a twentieth-century discipline.
Abstract:
Attends the Packer Collegiate Institute; attends Wellesley College; art classes at Wellesley; works at the Brooklyn Museum; receives a fellowship to study in Paris; attends New York University's Institute of Fine Arts; studies classical art with Karl Lehmann; Richard Offner; teaches at Bennett Junior College; faculty and students at the Institute; the Institute's influence on American art history; Karl Lehmann's education and career; Karl Lehmann's scholarship and approach to art; marries Karl Lehmann; the Lehmanns' contributions to each other's career; begins excavations at Samothrace; the Bollingen Foundation; publishing the Samothrace findings; James R. McCredie; excavation staff; the difference between Karl Lehmann's and James R. McCredie's excavations and interpretations; teaches at Smith College; Ruth Wedgwood Kennedy; teaches at Bryn Mawr and Oberlin Colleges; appointed dean of Smith College; effects of political events of the 1960s and 1970s at Smith College; discrimination against women in academia; interest in architecture; Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; articles and monographs; sociological interpretations of art.