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This collection contains materials related to Chermayeff's personal, professional, and academic lives, the bulk originating during his residency in the United States, beginning in the late 1930s. Project records document the full range of his work, including many records from his British period. The collection also contains extensive correspondence with personal friends, clients, and professional and academic colleagues.

The collection consists of papers related to the personal and professional life of American architect Ely Jacques Kahn. A small amount of personal papers was transferred from the Arendts Library at Syracuse University in 1992. Additional personal papers, including two large scrapbooks, were donated by Liselotte Kahn, wife of Ely Jacques Kahn, in 1992 and 1993. Also found in this collection are student drawings and an incomplete autobiographical essay, donated to Avery Library by Kahn himself in 1963. Completing the Kahn holdings are personal materials from Ely Jacques Kahn, including drawings done while Kahn was a student at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris (1907-1908), sketchbooks, diplomas, autographs from fellow students, a typescript of Kahn's autobiography, and scrapbooks containing clippings, photographs, telegrams and other ephemera. Additionally, there is a small holding for Liselotte Kahn within the collection, including her unpublished memoirs, some correspondence, and a watercolor painting. Liselotte Kahn's memoirs describe her childhood in Germany; her marriage to Dr. Ernst Müller and the birth of their sons; Nazi anti-Semitism; their emigration to Greece; her husband's medical practice in Athens; the Italian and German invasion of Greece; their escape to Palestine; and their emigration to and experiences in the United States.

The School of the Arts Records consists of administrative files from several offices within the School. The files span from the creation of the Department of Fine Arts through the mid-1990s and document the day to day maintenance of the School as well as the large scale vision held by faculty and administration. General administrative files such as financial records, meeting minutes, proposals, reports, and correspondence comprise the bulk of the collection. Correspondence from Dean Davidson Taylor and Associate Dean Grafton Nunes is well represented. Records from the Translation Center tend to focus on individual issues, but there are also files concerning fundraising, publicity, and the many awards granted on a yearly basis.

Materials include: Expertises (correspondence, images, fading fax paper regarding artwork consultations); Course Materials; Writings (reviews, articles, manuscripts, art catalog text, drafts of manuscripts, published and non-published materials, speeches and lectures); Correspondence; Notebooks; Columbia Files (any materials and documents regarding his involvement with the department, art humanities or University at large); Research Files (materials he used as he wrote his manuscripts); Muraro (any documents concerning this center in Venice, since he was so instrumental in getting the bequest for CU); Save Venice (and documents concerning his involvement with this organization); Subject Files (evidence of his interests in the art history field.); Awards and Honors (any certificates or honors you would want to include, including diplomas); Photographs (of people or events, not artwork)

This collection includes tape recordings and some phonograph records of the numerous conferences, seminars and other events held during 1953 to 1954 in celebration of Columbia University's 200th anniversary. In addition there are 31 tape reels of the CBS Radio Network's series "Man's Right to Knowledge." Also included are Bicentennial press releases, typescript and galley proofs with manuscript corrections for two volumes in the Columbia University Bicentennial Series: RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM IN THE AMERICAS and THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE.