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Doris Chase video and art collection, 1948-2004

Overview of the Collection

Artist
Chase, Doris, 1923-2008
Title
Doris Chase video and art collection
Dates
1948-2004 (inclusive)
Quantity
4 posters, 8 oversized art prints and paintings, 167 black and white prints, 114 color prints, 56 negatives, 4 postcards, and 4 slides
Collection Number
PH2003-035
Summary
Photographs and biographical features documenting the work of Seattle artist Doris Chase
Repository
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu
Access Restrictions

Access restricted. For more information, contact Special Collections.

Request at UW

Languages
English
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Historical Note

Doris Chase was born in Seattle, Washington in 1923. She studied architecture at the University of Washington between 1941 and 1943. In 1950, after the birth of her two children and after her husband was paralyzed by polio, she began to teach painting as a way of combating the overwhelming difficulties confronting her. Working in Seattle through the fifties and the sixties, she established herself as a recognized painter. By 1962, at a time when the art world in the United States was almost exclusively male, she had her first New York City gallery show. During the sixties she turned to sculpture. In order to create large-scale wood pieces, she found it necessary to work collaboratively with a wide range of skilled craftsmen. This experience proved essential when, in the late sixties, she began collaborating with the dancer Mary Staton to create dance sculpture - sculpture designed for interaction with dancers in performance. It was during these collaborations that Chase began to use film, first as a means of documentation and eventually as an integral artistic element.

Through the seventies, Chase created a number of dance/sculpture films, placing her at the front of contemporary avant-garde movements. After coming to New York, she was encouraged by the video artist Nam June Paik to explore video art. Her works in this medium have been shown widely in festivals, screenings, and exhibits worldwide, and have been collected by museum, libraries, and archives. During the seventies Chase also produced a number of videos for children including Sculpture for Children, The Emperor's New Clothes, and How Do You Feel? that explore themes of self-esteem, body awareness, and movement. She also began to use the medium of video to explore the subject of women from a feminist point of view in documentaries such as Lies, Masks, Windows, Skyfish, Electra Tries to Speak, Travels in the Combat Zone, and Thulani, which comprise the "Concept Series". By the mid-eighties, Chase achieved a breakthrough into mainstream television with the "By Herself" series, in which she introduced the subject matter of older women in society to a popular audience. Chase also produced and directed works in the series, such as Table for One, Dear Papa, A Dancer, Glass Curtain, and Sophie. She died in Seattle in December 2008.

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Content Description

Artwork includes prints of variations on multi-colored discs, a water color of a city sky line, a design for sculpture, and test work for Dance Frame video. Photographs include images of many of Chase's paintings and early work with sculpture. Also includes a set of biographical features detailing Chase's artistic career and inventories detailing the numerous repositories with holdings from her collections.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

Doris Chase retains copyright to her graphic and moving image materials (film and videotape).

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Administrative Information

Custodial History

The current photograph collection, Photo Acc. 2003-035, was received together, on May 16th, May 23, 2003, and June 12th with the materials that form Accession No. 2842-004 in the Manuscripts Collection. Please refer to the appropriate manuscripts finding aids to use those collections. Another portion of the accession was received on July 7, 2004. The video recordings, photographs, and other materials were transferred to the Visual Materials Collection on June 30, 2003. Videos were transferred to PH0985 April, 2020.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Doris Chase, May 16, 2003, May 23, 2003, June 12th, 2003, and July 7, 2004.

Processing Note

Unprocessed.

Separated Materials

Material Described Separately:

45 videorecordings removed from collection and added to Doris Chase Films, Audio and Videotapes (PH0985)

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Detailed Description of the Collection

 

  • Posters

    • Description: Table For One

      Advertisement for Museum of Modern Art sale and rental copies with Geraldine Page

      Container: Folder 1, Item 46
    • Description: the Chelsea

      Advertisement for Musuem of Modern Art veiwing on November 11th.

      Container: Folder 1, Item 47
    • Description: the Chelsea

      Advertisement for Musuem of Modern Art veiwing on November 11th.

      Container: Folder 1, Item 48
    • Description: Projects: Video XVI

      Advertisement for Video Gallery viewing of Jonathan and the Rockets

      Dates: circa 1970s-1980s
      Container: Folder 1, Item 49
    • Description: Films On Outdoor Sculpture

      Advertisement for April 23rd screening of Doris Chase's Full Circle at the School of Visual Arts Amphitheatre in New York City.

      Dates: 1985
      Container: Folder 1, Item 50
  • Art Work

    • Description: City Sky Line Watercolor Painting
      Dates: 1998
      Container: Folder 1, Item 51
    • Description: Design for Glass Sculpture
      Dates: 1999
      Container: Folder 1, Item 52
    • Description: Dance Frame

      Test work for video

      Dates: 1980
      Container: Folder 2, Item 53
    • Description: Rocking Form
      Dates: 1999
      Container: Folder 2, Item 54
    • Description: Moon Disc
      Dates: 1980
      Container: Folder 2, Item 55
    • Description: Silver Disc
      Dates: 1980
      Container: Folder 2, Item 56
    • Description: Sun Disc
      Dates: 1980
      Container: Folder 2, Item 57
    • Description: Ying Disc
      Dates: 1980
      Container: Folder 2, Item 58
  • Photographs

    • Description: Oil Paintings

      Images that document Doris Chase's work with oil painting 1948-1963, including 44 color prints, 31 b/w prints, 8 negatives, and 2 postcards of portraits and lanscapes. Many of the color prints include page number citations for inclusion in Patricia Failing's "Doris Chase, Artist In Motion: From Painting and Sculpture to Video Art." Also includes three clippings that feature Chase oil paintings displayed in the Northwest Plywood House exhibit at the Seattle Worlds Fair from the August 1962 edition of American Home Magazine.

      Dates: 1948-1963
      Container: Box/Folder 1/1, Item 59-143
    • Description: Watercolor Paintings

      Images of Doris Chase's work with watercolor and sumi ink from the early 1960's, including 17 color prints, 4 b/w prints, and 8 negatives of landscape paintings. Includes the cover page from a May 12th, 1963 copy of the Asahi Journal, featuring one of Chase's untitled watercolor and sumi ink works.

      Dates: 1962-1963
      Container: Box/Folder 1/2, Item 144-172
    • Description: Cement Paintings

      Images of Doris Chase's work with cement from 1959-1965 in home patios, exterior panels, and textural painting, including 10 color prints, 10 b/w prints, 10 negatives, and 4 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" color slides. Also includes clippings of her work with cement from a 1961 article in "Architectural Craftsman."

      Dates: 1959-1965
      Container: Box/Folder 1/3, Item 173-206
    • Description: Large Steel Sculptures

      Images that document Doris Chase's work with large steel sculptures, including 3 color prints, 14 b/w contact sheets, 5 b/w prints, and 1 negative of the process involved in the creation and installation of sculptures in Osaka, Japan in 1970 (permanently housed in the Museum of Modern Art in Kobe) and Kerry Park, Seattle, Washington during the 1960's.

      Mary Randlett, photographer.

      Dates: ca. 1960's-1970
      Container: Box/Folder 1/4, Item 207-229
    • Description: Small Steel Sculptures

      Photographs of Doris Chase's work with smaller steel sculptures, including 1 color print and 10 b/w prints.

      Nathan Rabin, photographer.

      Dates: undated
      Container: Box/Folder 1/5, Item 230-240
    • Description: Small Wood Sculptures

      Images of Doris Chase's work in the 1960's with small wooden sculptures, including 4 color prints, 38 b/w prints, and 11 negatives. Includes a publicity shot of the the artist and her work in laminated fir, entitled "Moveable Form."

      Photographed by: Mary Randlett, Nathan Rabin, Jane Flanders, Elizabeth Blaine.

      Dates: 1965-1967
      Container: Box/Folder 1/6, Item 241-293
    • Description: Large Wood Sculptures

      Images of Doris Chase's studio and work with large wooden sculptures, including 6 b/w prints and 1 negative.

      Mary Randlett, photographer.

      Dates: undated
      Container: Box/Folder 2/1, Item 294-300
    • Description: Painted Wood Sculptures

      Images of Doris Chase's work with paint and wood objects, including 1 color print, 9 b/w prints, and 7 negatives of laminated oak boxes and sculptures.

      Dates: ca. 1965
      Container: Box/Folder 2/2, Item 301-317
    • Description: Early Wood Sculptures

      Photographs of Doris Chases' early work with wood sculptures, including 8 b/w prints of pieces, such as "Moving Form" for the College Club in Seattle, Washington and Doris working on a wood sculpture in November 1966.

      Photographed by: Mary Randlett, Elizabeth Blaine, Art Lind Studio.

      Dates: 1966
      Container: Box/Folder 2/3, Item 318-325
    • Description: Glass Sculptures

      Photographs of Doris Chase's more recent work with glass, including 31 color prints of sculptures that incorporate colored glass spheres with painted wood bases.

      Dates: undated
      Container: Box/Folder 2/4, Item 326-356
    • Description: Lucite Sculptures

      Images of Doris Chase's work with lucite and plexiglass sculptures during the late 1960's, including 6 b/w prints, 1 b/w contact print sheet, and 2 postcards that document pieces entitled, "Nesting Forms" and "Moveable Semi-Circles." Includes publicity for Ruth White Gallery viewing of "Nesting Forms" in New York City on October 3rd, 1970.

      Dates: ca. 1960's-1970
      Container: Box/Folder 2/5, Item 357-365
    • Description: Sculpture for Children

      Images of "Sculpture for Change" and "Forms to Change" from Doris Chase's work with flexible eurathane objects entitled "Sculpture for Children", including 3 color prints, 22 b/w prints, 10 negatives, and 1 drawing. Includes a number of duplicate prints of the Anderson children playing on a number of different untitled pieces from the collection, a template for a 1970 publicity photograph of "Forms to Change", and a blueprint sketch of an untitled piece.

      Edward Peterson, photographer.

      Dates: 1970
      Container: Box/Folder 2/6, Item 366-401
    • Description: Dance Sculpture

      Images documenting Doris Chase's collaboration with dancer and choreographer, Mary Staton, to create theatre performances that merge kinetic sculptures and dance, including 1 b/w print and 1 oversize b/w print contact sheet. Includes a publicity flyer detailing Mary Staton's career up through the early 1970's

      Dates: undated
      Container: Box/Folder 2/7, Item 402-403
    • Description: "Changing Form"

      11 x 14 b/w print of Doris Chase and "Changing Form" sculpture during construction in July 1969.

      Mary Randlett, photographer.

      Dates: July 1969
      Container: Box/Folder 2/8, Item 406
  • Reference Materials

    • Description: Career Survey: Painting and Sculpture

      Includes reviews, articles, and exhibition advertisements on Chase's painting and sculpting career.

      Dates: 1955-2001
      Container: Box 3
    • Description: Career Survey: Film and Video

      Includes reviews, articles, and exhibition advertisements on Chase's work with video sculpture, as well as inventories and descriptions of her films and videos.

      Dates: 1968-2000
      Container: Box 3
    • Description: Inventories

      Inventories and catalog records representing materials from Chase's professional career currently held at a number of repositories. The majority of the inventories are organized by format and include the current location.

      Dates: 1999-2004
      Container: Box 3

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Artists--United States
  • Kinetic sculpture
  • Moving Image Collections (University of Washington)
  • Sculptors--United States
  • Video art
  • Visual Materials Collections (University of Washington)

Personal Names

  • Chase, Doris, 1923-2008--Archives
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