Ivan Karp was born in the Bronx on June 4th, 1926. He was then raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn where his father, a hat salesman, moved the family shortly after Karp’s birth. In Flatbush, Karp attended Erasmus High School but never graduated. He left to train in the U.S. Army Air Forces shortly after his peers’ graduation in 1944. After returning from service Karp attended The New School and worked an array of part time jobs, from collecting labor statistics for the government to editing films. During this period of irregular employment, Karp educated himself about the arts. A self-titled “rubble rouser,” he would spend his free time searching the city streets for demolition sites in the hope of salvaging architectural relics from the wrecking ball. His interest in salvage work led to the creation of the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society (AARS) which was made up of over 100 dues-paying members.

As a young man Karp was intent on becoming a writer. He began his career as the first art critic of The Village Voice, a position which gave him entrance into the New York art world. He regularly reviewed shows at the Hansa Gallery, which was famed for featuring iconoclastic modern art. After befriending then director Richard “Dick” Bellamy and gaining favor with the artists, Karp was appointed co-director in 1956. Karp was fired in 1958, possibly due to conflicts with the artists. After a brief stint at the Martha Jackson gallery, he was hired as the first director of The Leo Castelli Gallery (Castelli) in 1959. Castelli had already achieved fame and prestige for featuring the work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. In 1961 Karp discovered the work of virtually unknown artists Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and James Rosenquist, all who employed commercial imagery in their art. Karp’s subsequent promotion of the three artists at Castelli was crucial in launching the Pop Art movement.

Karp left Castelli in 1969 to open his own gallery, OK Harris, at 465 West Broadway. Following Richard Feigen and Paula Cooper, Karp’s was only the third gallery to open in SoHo. Though OK Harris was created to house all forms of contemporary art it became best known for featuring hyper-realistic art, such as the work of painter Ralph Goings. Often credited with being one of the populizers of SoHo, Karp fought publicly to protect the neighborhood as an artist enclave. At a hearing held by city planners, Karp spoke against proposed zoning laws, arguing that they threatened to turn the artist’s studios and homes into luxury apartments. In 1927, he publicly opposed a proposal to re-name West Broadway as Jackson Pollock Place, describing the move as a mere effort to commercialize SoHo.

Ivan C. Karp married to Marilyn Gelfman, a sculptor and a professor at New York University, in 1964 and with her raised three children. Karp and his and wife Marilyn were known for their interest in memorabilia and found objects, their home serving as storage for their collection. Marilyn Karp later donated much of the objects they amassed to the New York Historical Society.

The Karp’s were also instrumental in the restoration of significant buildings around their country house in Charlotteville, New York. They eventually used restored structures to open the Museum of the History of Charlotteville and The Anonymous Arts Museum.

Karp died of natural causes on June 28th, 2012.

The Anonymous Arts Recovery Society

President

Ivan Karp’s dedication to salvaging ornamentation from New York buildings began in the early 1950s. As an unemployed youth Karp preoccupied himself with walks through the city. On one of these wanders, he came upon a terra cotta cherub head left on the sidewalk of a demolition site.²¹ The cherub was his first saved object, and it spurred Karp to visit other demolition sites with a shopping cart to carry objects to safety. Karp carried out the work in 1952 largely by himself. His friends Allan Stone and Al Hansen joining him in the mid-1950’s.²² During this time the group began transporting the relics with a car.²³ In the early days, the group went by informal titles, including Rubble Without Applause and The Sculpture Rescue League before finally settling on the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society (AARS).²⁴  The word “Anonymous” was in reference to the immigrant stonemasons who had crafted the objects they saved, as the majority of the pieces they collected were without inscription.²⁵

Karp and his group focused on visiting demolition sites for buildings built between 1875 and 1910. Architectural trim became popular in the 1880’s and reached peak popularity during the 1890’s, and therefore these buildings often had ornamented facades.²⁶ Brownstone allowed for easy carving, and highly skilled immigrants from the British Isles and Italy were typically employed to carve classical and gothic images.²⁷ The workers were provided with handbooks for such ornamentation, among those popular were Gothic Ornaments by James Kellaway or Handbook of Ornament by Franz Sales Meyer.²⁸ However, workers would often stray from the templates provided, in part because of the alcohol consumed while on the job. Often the carvers chose instead to depict their peers and contemporary American subject matter.²⁹ Karp was particularly interested in preserving such works, as he stated, “The stones we save are both art objects and a historical record of one of the greatest building booms New York has ever known… [they] represent the end of artisanship - individual stone-carving - and the last applications to ornament.”³⁰

By 1962 Karp had gathered 125 members for the AARS, of which Karp was President.³¹ Karp initially focused on saving stones from Brooklyn and Manhattan, but as the group gained members they expanded to working in all five boroughs.³² The group used unconventional means of obtaining the architectural relics they sought. In the early 1960s the AARS was an unofficial organization and so Karp found most demolition sites by word of mouth. The $10 given by the dues-paying members were used to bribe foremen, and objects often went for between 5 and twenty-five dollars.³³ If bribery proved unsuccessful the group would sometimes visit the sites at night, bringing along an attractive “Rubble Queen” to distract the watchmen while others retrieved the desired pieces.³⁴ The work was risky, once resulting in six members caught stealing objects at 86th street and 2nd Avenue to be taken to the police. Marilynn Gelfman reported that Mayor Lindsay eventually gave the AARS a letter of permission to prevent police intervention in the groups work.³⁵

Karp’s organization attained non-profit status in 1963. The group was thus enabled to offer tax deductions to contractors in exchange for the donation of desired sculptures and fragments.³⁶ Working as a non-profit enabled the AARS to retrieve objects of significance. Their most famous haul, perhaps, was that accomplished alongside Lipsett Inc. The firm saved the 14-foot column and 11-foot marble statue Night from Pennsylvania Station prior to its extensively publicized demolition.³⁷ The statue of the allegorical figure holding a poppy previously stood beside a clock at the Penn Station entrance. Sculpted by German immigrant Adolph Alexander Weinman, Night is one of the only objects rescued by the AARS with a known artist. Vast amounts of the rubble of Penn Station, including the other statue which flanked the clock, Day, were dumped in the Secaucus flats.³⁸

The salvaging business became profitable in the mid-1960s, as remnants from buildings could be auctioned off as ornamental furnishings for homes. The newfound profitability resulted in the AARS retrieving diminished hauls from demolition sites, as objects that would have been obtained for under twenty-five dollars had tripled in price.³⁹

The AARS accumulated up to 1,500 pieces despite lacking storage space.⁴⁰ In 1961 Karp approached Thomas Buechner, then director of the Brooklyn Museum, and asked if the group could unload the sculptures to a vacant lot behind the museum. Buechner agreed to take in around 400 sculptures.⁴¹ Donor Walter Rothschild funded the creation of a sculpture garden to be designed by Ian White, and so on April 23, 1966, The Frieda Schiff Warburg Memorial Sculpture Garden opened.⁴² About 85% of the 200-piece collection was donated by the AARS with other notable benefactors, including Frederick Fried who donated the roaring lion head that once topped the El Dorado Carousel in Coney Island.⁴³ Karp and several other AARS members attended the opening of the garden, which was celebrated for showcasing Victorian ornamentation so unlike that of the minimalist aesthetic adopted by post-war Modernist architects.⁴⁴

The city would regularly notify the museum about the demolition of buildings with note-worthy architectural detailing, allowing the collection to number nearly 3,000 by 1980.⁴⁵ In 2000 the Brooklyn Museum de-installed the collection, reducing the number from 200 displayed objects to 62.⁴⁶ When the sculptures were reinstalled in 2004, a sizable amount of the collection, roughly 275 pieces, was left in a lot behind the museum. The stones suffered damage from lack of maintenance, as the lot became overgrown by vegetation and the weather eroded several of the sculptures.⁴⁷ Teresa Carbone, then art curator of the Brooklyn Museum, worked with salvage dealer Evan Blum to auction parts of the collection.⁴⁸ Karp expressed frustration about the museum’s handling of artifacts donated by the AARS to press publications The Atlantic and The New York Post. According to Atlantic writer John Freeman Gill, Karp contacted the museum and offered to transport the objects to his own museum but received no response.⁴⁹

In 2017, the Brooklyn Museum transferred a portion of their collection of architectural artifacts to the National Building Arts Center in St. Louis, including 22 AARS-donated pieces. Around 229 artifacts donated by the AARS remain in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection.

Ivan Karp and Marilynn Gelfman Karp opened the Anonymous Arts Museum in Charlotteville, New York in 1985. The modest museum houses roughly 150 artifacts⁵⁰ gathered by the AARS.
After Karp’s passing on June 28th, 2012, his wife Marilynn Gelfman Karp took over the AARS as President to continue the mission set out by her late husband.⁵¹  Family members Amie Karp and Jesse Karp serve as Treasurer and Secretary, respectively.⁵²

• Ivan C. Karp papers and OK Harris Works of Art gallery records, 1960-2014
• Archives of American Art
• Smithsonian
• 600 Maryland Ave Sw
• Washington, DC 20002

• Oral history interview with Ivan C. Karp, 1963 October 18
• Archives of American Art
• Smithsonian
• 600 Maryland Ave Sw
• Washington, DC 20002

• Oral history interview with Ivan C. Karp, 1969 March 12
• Archives of American Art
• Smithsonian
• 600 Maryland Ave Sw
• Washington, DC 20002

• Oral history interview with Ivan C. Karp, 1986 April 17 - 1988 October 18
• Archives of American Art
• Smithsonian
• 600 Maryland Ave Sw
• Washington, DC 20002

• Marilynn Gelfman Karp Collection of Ephemera PR 279
• New York Historical Society
• 170 Central Park West
• New York, NY 10024
• Phone: (212) 873-3400