The New School Libraries and Archives was recently contacted by a media archivist at the University of Georgia about an intriguing movie reel in one of its collections. Our Georgian counterpart, Margie Compton, was examining what looked to be a fabulous costume party.

Frank Alvah Parsons was born April 1, 1866 in Chesterfield, Massachusetts. In 1901, after a period of European travel, Parsons moved to New York City where he pursued a degree in Art Education from Columbia University, graduating in 1905.

In the Classroom

Created by Akshaya Narayanan, Elizabeth Sanders and Carolyn Herrera- Perez

Even if you were Van Day Truex, the year was 1952 and you had just resigned as president of the Parsons School of Design to take a shot at a private life, you will still be stunned by the enormity of such carte blanche. Imagine its happening twice in a lifetime.

Van Day Truex was a Parsons Alum, and later became the Professor of Interior Design. He was on the administration at Parsons for over thirty years. You can read more about him here.

Benedict Fernandez taught in the New School’s photography department in the 1960s. You can read more about him here.

"We have an opportunity to do something here that was done only once before—at the Bauhaus," said David C. Levy, executive dean of the Parsons School of Design.

David C. Levy worked at the Parsons School of Design as an administrator from 1961-1991. You can read more about him here.

Benedict J Fernandez's "In Opposition: Images of American Dissent in the Sixties" is a kind of pictorial primer of protest, both for and against whatever the cause-Vietnam, fair housing, white or black power , student sit ins.

Allan Kaprow was an American painter who taught at the New School during the 1970s. You can read about him here.

Stanley Barrows was a longtime, influential interior design professor at Parsons for many years.

If you’d like to write a more in-depth profile of Stanley Barrows, email us at archivist@newschool.edu. We welcome contributions.

Jean McClintock Gardner is a longtime Parsons urban environment faculty member. You can read more about her here.

Cipe Pineles ( 1908-91) was an Austrian graphic designer who became one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century. In 1926, Cipe enrolled in the Pratt Institute where she studied fine art.

John Russo was the director of the graphic design department at Parsons for many years. You can read more about him here.

A bare table—or wall-makes Stanley Barrows very nervous. In nearly 79 years of living, he has collected 4,000 books, 45 framed paintings and engravings, 60 pieces of porcelain, and in various sinuous positions of sniffing and leaping, a dozen small bronze whippets and greyhounds.

But there was another, morbid, side to his meaningfulness. To "die at the top" for being his kind of artist was to many, I think, implicit in the work before he died. It was this bizarre implication that was so moving. We remembered Van Gogh and Rimbaud.

As the first major Regionalist painting to enter the permanent collection, Thomas Hart Benton's Weighing Cottony 1939 (Fig. 1) significantly enhances the Art Gallery's ability to present a balanced view of American art in the years between the Depression and World War Two.

When Gerald and Beatrice Banu sought approval for refurbishing the cast iron balustrades that grace the front of their 114 year-old Greenwich Village brownstone, the New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission quickly gave its approval.

Multi-talented George Pitts taught photography at Parsons for two decades, from 1998 until his untimely death in 2017. He came to Parsons as the revolutionary, founding Director of Photography at Vibe magazine, where he worked from 1993 to 2004.

ParsonsPaper was a monthly student-produced newspaper that ran from 1976 to 1990, and was sponsored by the Parsons Student Council. The newspaper featured news, opinions, poetry, artwork and photographs contributed by Parsons students, faculty and administrators.

The Temple bell stops
But the sound keeps coming out of the flowers

– Basho

“I had always seen architecture as landscaping.”

– Michael Kalil, “Seed Vision” interview, 1990

In archival terms, this assemblage of objects is known as “realia”- ie. three-dimensional objects (man-made or naturally occurring) such as coins, tools, and textiles and anything else that cannot be described as a document.

“We dream faster than we can build and we build faster than we accept. We therefore invent the notion of the future until we accept what we have built.” -MK

You walk into her office on the ninth floor of Joseph Urban’s Modernist architectural masterpiece, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, at 66 W. 12th St. She gives you a warm smile with a firm, friendly handshake.

The Parsons fashion design program has been the starting point for many of today’s industry leaders. Not many people know that before Tim Gunn was the host of Project Runway, he was the Chair of Fashion at Parsons School of Fashion.

The Parsons table is not a physical object but an idea, the platonic ideal of a table, characterized by a simple form, unadorned, adaptable to any material, with legs as wide as the tabletop is deep.

Margaret McKay Tee was born in 1882 and raised in Pennsylvania until her family moved to Colorado. Following her education at Colorado College, she trained at New York’s Cooper Union and Columbia Teacher’s College, where she met Frank Alvah Parsons.

The Fashion Design program at Parsons has always been known for its professors and mentors, and the professors have always been industry professionals who bring the students outside of the classroom and into the real world.

Art models at The New School offer an insight to the changes, discrepancies, and happenings at the New School during the 1960s. The New School Archives provides us with records of letters, receipts, and work forms pertaining to the models during the period.

Throughout the history of the Parsons fashion department from 1950-present there have been many important events that have helped shape the fashion department into the prestigious program that it is today.