Postcard. Paul B. Moses to Violette de Mazia
Item
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Title
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Postcard. Paul B. Moses to Violette de Mazia
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Description
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About 1950, Paul Moses wrote to Violette de Mazia from Europe, joking he once paid for lodging in Venice with a 33⅓ record. Traveling with Philadelphia friends through Capri, Florence, and Venice, he calls Capri the most beautiful place he has seen and looks forward to studying the French Primitives, which refers to the book "French Primitives and their Forms" by Albert C. Barnes and Violette de Mazia, which Moses says he will use as his guide. [https://archive.org/details/frenchprimitives00barn]
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Violette de Mazia (1896–1988) was an art educator, writer, and long-time collaborator of Dr. Albert C. Barnes at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. Trained in philosophy and art history in Paris before immigrating to the United States, she helped shape the Barnes method of art appreciation. The Violette de Mazia Foundation was established after her death through a stipulation in her will to start a trust which would fund an organization devoted to instruction in the arts like the Barnes Foundation.
Paul B. Moses (1929 - 1966) was born in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, attended Lower Merion High School and became one of the first Black undergraduates at Haverford College. Despite facing racism and isolation, he excelled in languages and art, studying abroad in France with the support of Albert C. Barnes, MD. After serving in the U.S. Army, he taught at institutions including the Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, and at the American Overseas School in Rome before earning a Masters and pursuing a doctorate in art history at Harvard, where his dissertation specialized in Degas’s etchings (Moses and Strother, “Paul B. Moses Haverford Graduate, Trailblazing Art Historian.”).
Moses’s career was tragically cut short when he was murdered in a Chicago carjacking in 1966 at the age of 36.
His legacy has since been honored through exhibitions such as the 2023-2024 exhibit at the Barnes Foundation entitled Education and Empowerment: Scholarship Recipients at the Barnes Foundation, 1927-1949; the exhibit entitled Paul Moses: Trailblazing Art Historian at the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago, 2022; and the exhibit entitled Paul B. Moses: Haverford Graduate, Trailblazing Art Historian at the Rebecca and Rich White Gallery, Lutnick Library, Haverford College, 2023.
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Education and Empowerment: Scholarship Recipients at the Barnes Foundation, 1927-1949
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The French Primitives and their Forms
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About Violette de Mazia
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Contributor
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The Barnes Foundation
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Date Created
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(c. 1950)
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Creator
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Paul B. Moses
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Rights
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This work is not in copyright, but commercial uses of this digital representation are limited. For more information, contact reference@barnesfoundation.org and see http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/
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Identifier
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AR-VDM-COR-GEN-79
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Language
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eng
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Format
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Text
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Extent
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2 sides
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Spatial Coverage
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Merion, PA
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Publisher
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The Barnes Foundation
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Is Part Of
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Violette de Mazia Collection, Barnes Foundation Archives
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Subject
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Postcards
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Artists, Black
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Moses, Paul
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transcription
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via Rovereto,2
Roma
Have you ever paid your lodging with
a 331/3 record? Well, that’s the
way it’s turned out for me here in Venice
And this whole trip has some of that
slightly unusual character. I had the
good fortune of having some friends
from Philadelphia come to Europe for
a few weeks, rent a car and ask me
to accompany them. After Capri
which I found the most overwhelmingly
naturally beautiful and I have ever
seen, we have headed north to Florence,
Venice and finally France. My companion
and guide here will be the French Primitives.
I am as excited by the prospect of the
rest of the trip
as tho’ I had never been before. Best wishes to all.
Paul Moses
Miss Violette de Mazia
c/o Barnes Foundation
Merion
Pennsylvania
USA
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Bibliographic Citation
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Moses, Michael, and Stephanie Strother. “Paul B. Moses
Haverford Graduate, Trailblazing Art Historian.” 2023. https://www.haverford.edu/sites/default/files/Office/Library/HaverfordLibrary-Paul-B-Moses-Catalog.pdf.
Trailblazing Art Historian, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago, 2022 https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/paul-b-moses-trailblazing-art-historian/
