Painted Screen Society of Baltimore collection

Overview

Administrative/Biographical Note

Screen painting is a folk art form whereby painters transform ordinary window screens with picturesque scenes, providing residents with privacy and domestic ornamentation. First seen in Baltimore in 1913 at the entrance to William Oktavec’s grocery store in Little Bohemia, painted screens were a common sight on rowhouses across east Baltimore by the mid-twentieth century. The Painted Screen Society of Baltimore, Inc., is a nonprofit organization that preserves screen paintings and rowhouse arts in Baltimore, Maryland. The society was founded in 1985 by folklorist, Elaine Eff, and screen painter, Dee Herget. It grew from a guild for active screen painters into a membership organization made up of painters and community supporters. The society has hosted workshops, tours, and educational events, promoted the screen painting tradition and individual artists in the media, planned exhibitions across the country, and documented screen painting history. In 1988, the society released a 28-minute documentary, “The Screen Painters.” Directed and produced by Eff, the film explores the history and revival of the art form in Baltimore and features a number of screen painters, including Albert Oktavec, Dee Herget, Johnny Eck, and Tom Lipka.

Scope & Content

This collection has been organized into three series: Series I: Organizational records; Series II: “The Screen Painters” film records; and Series III: Dee Herget papers. Within each series and subseries, folders have been arranged in chronological order except for the first set of files in Subseries II.A, which are organized alphabetically to aid in matching them to their corresponding film and audio reels, and Subseries II.C, which is arranged according to an inherited inventory. Series I: Organizational records Administrative records Publications Field research Objects Series II: “The Screen Painters” film records Film administrative records Film publications and publicity Film reels and audiovisual materials Objects Series III: Dee Herget papers

Provenance Information

Records of the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore were received by UMBC in 2021 accompanied by the donor’s personal papers. Additional files were received in 2023. Dee Herget’s papers were collected by the donor and transferred to UMBC in 2022. UMBC received “The Screen Painters” film and audio reels in 2016 in a transfer from the University of Baltimore Foundation and the Langsdale Library Special Collections Department. Aiden Faust at the University of Baltimore and Lindsey Loeper at UMBC handled the physical transfer of materials. Elaine Eff originally planned to donate the reels to the University of Baltimore, where they were stored from 2006 to 2016 without an executed donor agreement. Prior to their storage at the University of Baltimore, the reels were stored at EPL Archives, Inc., in Virginia. Accessions MSS2016-02, MSS2021-04, MSS2022-13, MSS2023-01.

Organizational and film production files were separated from the donor’s personal collection to focus primarily on the organization. Archivist Laurainne Ojo-Ohikuare completed initial processing of two boxes of Painted Screen Society records in 2020. Once duplicate materials were taken out, materials were arranged in chronological order for the benefit of the researcher to better understand the timeline of events covered in the collection. Upon receipt of a significant number of additional files in 2022 and 2023, Archivist Acadia Roher reprocessed the collection and undertook film conservation and rehousing. With the exception of the film and audio reels, the collection’s files and audiovisual materials had no discernible original order. Paper and photographic files were organized into archivist-imposed series based on content, weeded of duplicates, refoldered and sleeved, and organized chronologically within each series. Film and audio reels retain the order inherited from EPL Archives, Inc. A small number of reels did not appear on the EPL Archives inventory and were assigned numbers to follow the inventoried reels. Conservation work included rehousing film reels, adding leader tape, removing tape residue, winding loose film onto film cores, and moving the reels to long term cold storage. Roher recorded metadata from reels and original containers, assigned UMBC numbers to all reels, and created digital images of original containers and accompanying material. All original film canisters and boxes have been discarded except for five canisters which have been saved as examples for potential exhibits; they are located in boxes 15 and 16.

Access & Use

This collection is open for research and contains restricted folders. Access to restricted materials requires review by Special Collection staff prior to use by researchers. Users should submit their request to view restricted materials at speccoll@umbc.edu or 410-455-2353.

Permission is required for all reproduction requests. Copyright maintained by the creator. Rights to film materitals are retained by Elaine Eff, Richard Chisholm, and the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore. Credit lines should refer to the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore. “Courtesy of the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore.”

Subject Headings

• Ash, Randi
• Baker, Virginia
• Bennett, Leroy
• Bowman, Charles
• Broere, Monica
• Chisolm, Richard
• Cipolloni, Frank
• Cipolloni, Mary
• Crowley, Sonny
• DiPietro, Dominic
• Eck, Johnny
• Eckhardt, Robert
• Ennis, Ethel
• Fahey, Ruth
• Figinski, Estelle
• Hemsley, Tilghman
• Herget, Dee
• Iampieri, John R.
• Lazarus, Fred
• Lipka, Tom
• Litwack, Alix
• Oktavec, Albert
• Oktavec, Bernard
• Oktavec, Bill
• Oktavec, John
• Oktavec, Richard
• Oktavec, William
• Philipoom, Dutch
• Richardson, Ben
• Richardson, Ted
• Schaefer, William Donald
• Scott, Joyce
• Sims, Lil
• Trams, Penny
• Waters, John, 1946-
• Painted Screen Society of Baltimore — Archives.
• Screen painting — Maryland — Baltimore.
• Folk art — Maryland — Baltimore.
• Painted wire screens — Maryland — Baltimore.
• Baltimore (Md.) — Social Life and customs.
• Eff, Elaine, 1946 — Screen painters.

Series Description & Container List

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Series I: Organizational records

Subseries I.A: Administrative records

Subseries I.B: Publications

Subseries I.C: Field research

Subseries I.D: Objects

Series II: “The Screen Painters” film records

Subseries II.A: Film administrative records

Subseries II.B: Film publications and publicity

Subseries II.C: Film reels and audiovisual materials

Subseries II.D: Objects

Series III: Dee Herget papers