The entire archive of this American photographer and book artist, and of her Running Woman Press

Largely Sante Fe, 2002. This is the artist's own archive, left to her friend, the bookbinder Priscilla Spitler, on Hocks' death in 2003. Ms. Spitler is committed to seeing this archive in a home where it can be used and studied, and to that end she is willing to work with the buyer to see it properly placed. Paula Jeanne Hocks (1916-2003) was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the daughter of Malcolm and Eileen (Magruder) Neathery. Her talents touched painting, sculpture, architecture, photographic techniques, book making, and writing. But eventually, she concentrated on the creation of photo montages and photo collages which she set into book form, often under the imprint of Running Women Press. A complete inventory is available on request. Paula "first embarked on her artistic career in Denver during the early 1940s. Though her major work would evolve into photomontage and the artist's book, her first art was sculpture. From Colorado, she soon relocated to a more developed art environment in La Jolla, California. The new surroundings nurtured her work of the 1950s and she began to create the figurative stone carvings and wood sculptures which were akin to those of Gaudier-Brezeska and Constantine Brancusi whom she greatly admired. Even as she continued her interest in sculpture, she began to explore abstract form through painting and collage." Throughout the next two decades she balanced her interest in visual art with a world of words found in poetry, language, and philosophy. "Largely a self-taught artist, Hocks studied the work of Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, and the constructions of Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Cornell. She immersed herself in the contemporary religious philosophy of Thomas Merton, forming a life-long friendship with him and his close friend, poet Robert Lax. Hocks recognized the kinship between her art and Surrealist and Dadaist art, gleefully joining in actualizing the possibilities of chance and playful realities. Most importantly, she looked to the writings and friendship of George Steiner for her life-long inspiration and counsel. These advanced thinkers would serve as her panel of experts for life and art" (Tiska Blankenship, Guest Curator for the 2003 Paula Hocks memorial exhibit, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque). This archive includes virtually all her published work, many signed and inscribed, many printed in very small editions, often with manuscript amendments. Also included are all her masters (i.e. production work), the collage pages she created to print (Xerox) the text. They are in folders by book title, as she kept them. As a poet, collage artist and photographer, Paula Hocks began making books in the mid-1970s using the latest Xerox print technology to produce small editions, some as chapbooks she stitched together herself, or others she had bound by local Santa Fe bookbinders, where she lived. Paula worked with the photocopy medium as it (and she) matured for almost 3 decades. Her books are already included in many major book art collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, UCLA, University of Iowa, while also regionally recognized in collections at UNM-Albuquerque and the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe. There are books of photos of herself, promotional material, the collage masters that the books were printed from, but not much of her personal correspondence. She was very private and unfortunately disposed of most letters. Her correspondence with Thomas Merton, with whom she had a long and close relationship, are in his archives: Paula typed Merton's last two manuscripts.