About LCGA

The mission of the Lydia Csato Gasman Archives for Picasso and Modernist Studies is to preserve in perpetuity the extensive body of manuscripts, papers, and books that she bequeathed to her former graduate students, Lyn Bolen Warren and Victoria Beck Newman, for the use of scholars and laypeople alike. The immediate priorities of the Archives are as follows: the safe housing of Professor Gasman’s work in accordance with established archival standards; the digital scanning of her papers including research notes, lectures, manuscripts, and letters; the publication of her influential dissertation, Magic, Mystery, and Love in Picasso, 1928-1938 and the re-publication of her second major work, War and the Cosmos in Picasso’s Texts, 1936-40; and the organization and publication of her original, e xhaustively researched and brilliant lectures on modernism as a multi-volume work. Professor Gasman’s interpretation of Picasso’s art and writings of the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties resulted in the radical reorientation of Picasso scholarship in all periods of his career. Similarly, it is expected that the publication of her readings of the work of other modern artists and the wider culture in which they practiced will have a profound effect on art historical studies. Because her interests and approach to art history led her to range widely across diverse disciplines, the material she accumulated and wrote about will also appeal to audiences outside the field of art history.

As materials are scanned and catalogued, these documents and Professor Gasman’s extensive library will be made available for research to scholars and to the general public. Future plans include a speaker and performance series related to the subjects represented by the Archives. Eventually, in the spirit of Professor Gasman’s inestimable intellectual generosity and brilliant mentorship, there will be financial research and writing grants for scholars of modern art. Thus the LCGA is ultimately defined by two essential components: the conservation of an important and irreplaceable body of scholarship and a mandate to disseminate and build upon that scholarship in the best possible way.