Skip to main content

Lars Luick Papers

 Collection
Identifier: Midwest-MS-Luick

Scope and Content of the Collection

Drawings, sketches, prints, photographs, photoreproductions, notebooks, and cassette mixtapes created by photographer and artist Lars Luick.

Luick’s artwork includes designs he did as an architecture student as well as sketches of people, miniature pencil drawings of buildings and monuments in Europe, collages with found material, photographs, photo-reproductions of photographs, mixtapes, and postal art. He compiled “Notebooks” in 3-ring binders to document all of his activities and interests. The content of the Notebooks vary widely from sheets torn from magazines, art originals and copies, photograph originals and copies, and copies of mail art sent out.

Cassette tapes are an assortment of mixtapes mostly from commercial recordings, created by Luick. Includes opera, jazz, pop and rock, country, and punk genres. The outer cards are often decorated with photographs of Luick and others. One item entitled “Punkumentary” looks to be a telephone interview with Olga De Volga, along with songs by Poison Girls, Flying Lizards, Zounds, Marianne Faithfull, and others.

Dates

  • Creation: 1964-2008

Creator

Language

Materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

The Lars Luick Papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

Conditions Governing Audiovisual Access

Audiovisual recordings in this collection have not been digitized and are unavailable for use at this time.

Ownership and Literary Rights

The Lars Luick Papers are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.

Biography of Lars Luick

Chicago-based artist, photographer, and architect.

Lars Luick was born Lawrence Alan Luick on Jan. 28, 1942, in Des Moines Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1967 from Iowa State University. Afterwards, he taught art and lived in a variety of cities, including New York, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Chicago. His art includes sketches, drawings, collage, photography, design, and mail (postal) art. He was interested in American dance, and photographed several dance companies, including Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company, and Danny Grossman Dance Company. His photographs of George Balanchine’s funeral in 1983 were published in major dance magazines.

Luick was also interested in punk and underground culture; a couple of his photographs are of the punk club scene in San Francisco in 1979 and 1980 (Olga De Volga and others, Mabuhay Gardens), and the drag scene in New York in the early 1980s (Trojan Women).

Luick moved to Chicago around 1990 and had several art shows in small galleries around the city. He died on July 26, 2009.

Extent

4.6 Linear Feet (5 boxes and 1 oversize box)

Abstract

Artistic output of Lars Luick, a Chicago photographer and collage / postal artist. This collection of his work includes photographs of Balanchine's funeral, the Boitsov Classical Ballet Company, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Also includes works of art and collages, notebooks of ideas and inspirations, decorated mixtape cassettes, and mail art.

Arrangement

Papers arranged alphabetically by type of material, with oversize materials in a separate box.

Collection Stack Location

1 37 4; 1 30 4

Provenance

Gift, Lars Luick, 2008.

Processed by

Alison Hinderliter, 2020.

Processing Information note

Materials were weeded to preserve a representative sample of Luick’s output of notebooks and cassette tapes. Duplicates were discarded.

Title
Inventory of the Lars Luick Papers, 1964-2008
Status
Completed
Author
Alison Hinderliter
Date
©2020.
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the The Newberry Library - Modern Manuscripts and Archives Repository

Contact:
60 West Walton Street
Chicago Illinois 60610 United States
312-255-3512