The Ossorio Foundation of Southampton, New York, has donated the papers of Alfonso Ossorio (1916–1990) and Ted Dragon (1921– ) to the Harvard Art Museum. The collection, which documents the lives and careers of Ossorio and his partner, dancer and artist Ted Dragon, includes correspondence, photographs, notebooks, financial records, and ephemera.

A leading member of the Abstract Impressionist movement, Alfonso Ossorio was born on the island of Luzon in Manila, the Philippines. A member of the Harvard Class of 1938, he studied with Edward Waldo Forbes, Langdon Warner, and others. During World War II he served as an Army medical illustrator, while continuing to develop his own artistic style. In the late 1940s he met Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, andJean Dubuffet, as well as Dragon, who would remain his partner until his death in 1990. Ossorio and Dragon’s circle of friends included Pollock, Krasner, Dubuffet, Willem de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, and Clyfford Still—artists who both influenced and were influenced by Ossorio’s work.

The Ossorio Foundation was created in 1995 to ensure that Alfonso Ossorio’s life’s work will be interpreted, organized, and maintained in a manner commensurate with its achievement. Today the Foundation identifies museums and educational institutions nationwide that wish to include Ossorio’s work in their collections, arranges acquisitions, and is in the planning stages for the establishment of a scholarship program.

“Ossorio was a proud graduate of Harvard,” said Ted Dragon, president of the Ossorio Foundation, “He would have been very pleased to know his papers are in the capable hands of the Harvard Art Museum Archives.”

The Harvard Art Museum Archives is the official repository for the administrative records of the institution from 1895 to the present. The Archives also holds artists’ papers, many of which are related to works in the Art Museum’s collection. For more information, contact Archivist Susan von Salis at 4-7903 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .