ASSOCIATION THE CENTURY I 060 — lex IGtbrts SEYMOUR DURST -# ' 'Tort nteuw is4mfte.rd<m ov Je JAarJiatarus — -- '/ - FORT NEW TEFX>A NEW YORK ^^^^^|^^^ "When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/centuryassociati1960cent THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION YEAR-BOOK 1960 THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION YEAR-BOOK NEW YORK I 960 mo THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 7 West 43rd Street, New York 36, N. Y. Telephone: MUrray Hill 2-0711 CONTENTS Form of Bequest 6 Historical 7 Report of the Board of Management 9 Act of Incorporation 21 Constitution 23 By-Laws 34 House Rules 40 Requirements of the Committee on Admis- sions 41 Officers, Trustees, and Committees 47 Officers, 1847-1960 50 Founders 54 Honorary Members 55 Members 59 Absent Members 143 Century Memorials 147 Former Members 247 Form of Bequest I give and bequeath to The Century Association, of the City of New York, a New York corporation, the sum of $ HISTORICAL The Century was founded and its first Constitu- tion adopted on January 13, 1847. One hun- dred gentlemen engaged or interested in Letters and the Fine Arts had been invited to join in forming the Association. Forty-two accepted the invitation and became Founders; forty-six others joined during the year. The name, suggested by the number originally invited to be members, was the proposal of Edgar S. Van Winkle. On March 7, 1857, the Association was incorpo- rated by an Act of the Legislature, which was amended on March 29, 1883. During its early years, The Century occupied rooms at 495 Broadway from the spring of 1847 to the spring of 1849, at 435 Broome Street to the spring of 1850, and at 575 Broadway until May, 1852. By this time, it required a house and moved to 24 Clinton Place {now 46 East Eighth Street) . This was its home until the spring of 1857, when it made an- other move, to a house at 109 (old number 42) East 7 8 THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION Fifteenth Street. On January 10, 1891, it occupied its present Clubhouse at 7 West 43rd Street. Successive amendments to the Constitution fixed the limit of resident membership as follows: March 5, 1853, 200 members; March 7, 1857, 250; May 7, 1859, 350; February 1, 1862, 400; April 7, 1866, 500; February 6, 1875, 600; December 5, 1885, 700; May 3, 1890, 800; February 6, 1892, 1000. The limit of non-resident membership has been fixed as follows: February 6, 1892, 300; December 3, 1921, 400; January 14, 1928, 500; June 3, 1941, 600; March 1, 1945, 700; April 3, 1958, 800. The lamp that burns at each meeting of The Cen- tury was designed in 1858 for The Column, a liter- ary society founded in 1825. It was lighted at all subsequent meetings of The Column until Centurions John Bigelow and Parke Godwin, the only surviving members of that organization, presented it to The Century in 1901 as "a silver symbol intended to be a lasting memorial to The Column/' They also pre- sented to "all present and future members" of The Century the privileges of fellow-membership with them. The minutes of their meeting concluded, "The Column then adjourned sine die." Today, more than one hundred years later, the lamp still burns. REPORT OF THE BOARD OF MANAGEMENT HE Board of Management submits the following report FROM THE COMMITTEE ON ART The Exhibitions of the year were as follows: January 14-February 8: Exhibition of Work by John Carroll February 11 -April 26: Exhibition of Work by John F. Folinsbee May 6-May 31: Exhibition of Designs for the Theatre by Robert Edmond Jones June 3-September 27: Retrospective Exhibition of a Variety of Works in the Graphic Arts by T. M. Cleland October 7-November 1: Autumn Exhibition of Work by Amateur Artist Members November 4-November 16: Murals Celebrating the Vintage Festival November 20-January 3: Autumn Exhibition of Work by Artist Members Again this year the Art Committee made several awards for entries in the Autumn Exhibition of Work by Amateur Artist Members, in place of the Art Committee Medal and the Honorable Mentions that had been given in the past. Silver ash trays from Cartier's were presented to the prize winners: Alfred Bendiner, Hugh de Haven, William A. Gardner, Bronson S. Ray, Leonard J. Robbins, Whitney North Sey- mour, Jr., and Harvey Stevenson. Henry R. Mallory's water color, Drifting Snow, was voted the most popular work. 9 10 THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION In the Autumn Exhibition of Work by Artist Members, the Art Committee Medal was awarded to Randall Davey for his oil painting, Ambulances Grand National. Honorable Mention was awarded to Walter Stuempfig for his oil paint- ing, The Connoisseur, and to Nathaniel Choate for his lime- stone sculpture, Family Pride. The largest popular vote was cast for Portrait of Robert Frost, an oil painting by Gardner Cox. During the year, the Association acquired the following works of art: Bronze Medallion, Maitland Armstrong by Augustus Saint Gaudens, presented by Hamilton Fish Armstrong Bronze Medallion, Roscoe H. Hupper by Paul Manship, pre- sented by the artist Oil painting, Portrait of Joseph Hodges Choate by Wil- liam H. Chase, presented by the grandchildren of Joseph Hodges Choate, seventh president of The Century Etching, Male Nude Bathing by Grant Wood, presented by Bethuel M. Webster Oil painting, Still Life with Fruit, Flowers, and Parrot, artist unknown, bequeathed by Charles C. Burlingham Etching, Venetian Filigree by John Taylor Arms, presented by William Adams Delano The following works from the Association's collection were loaned: To the American Federation of Arts and Letters, Westover Virginia by Edward L. Henry To the Adirondack Museum, Eliphalet Terry Fishing from a Boat by Winslow Homer A complete new appraisal of the pictures belonging to the Club was made and the insurance on them brought up to BOARD OF MANAGEMENT REPORT 11 date. All pictures in storage were removed from the unlovely depths of the cellar and placed in proper racks constructed by our engineer, Mr. Henry La Plante, in the new storeroom designed by Lewis G. Adams at the west end of the Billiard Room, which at long last also provides adequate space for the handling of exhibits. Barry Faulkner, Chairman FROM THE COMMITTEE ON LITERATURE During his brief tenure as librarian at the Century, Mr. Henry James, Jr., recommended additional lamps. They ar- rived early in the year and were placed to advantage for both reading and the better appearance of the library. The former librarian also recommended circulation of books for the benefit of members. This was instituted during the year on a limited and experimental scale without, however, interfering with the long-time and useful reserves for regular readers. The present librarian, Mr. Lewis H. Webster, and his assistant, Mr. Andrew Zaremba, accomplished extensive re- shelving and cataloguing, but the end is not yet! For the most part, the classification system in use was retained. Many books can still be found in the same general areas as for- merly, except for large and necessary changes in the lobby of the third floor. To simplify matters, the catch-all classifica- tion, "Miscellaneous, by Author," has been dropped entirely. In the Spring there was a special show-case exhibit on the stairways to the Gallery. It was arranged in connection with the reception for members of the Cosmopolitan Club. The subject was "Century Treasures, Fourteenth through Nineteenth Centuries," and the books were selected from 12 THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION those in the vault and rarely on view. Later show-case ex- hibits included "Autumnal Poems and Pictures" and "Less Familiar Nativity Representations"—making use of the ex- tensive book resources of the Association. Of statistical interest are the following items. By the end of 1959, the total holdings of the Century library amounted to 18,357 volumes. The accessions during the year came to 515 volumes, with 406 of them by purchase, 109 by dona- tion; books by Centurions, or with some other Century con- nection, numbered 85. The annual subscriptions for maga- zines also happened to number 85. The Association has been enriched by the acquisition of a third album of stamps belonging to Theodore E. Steinway. This was the one upon which he was working at the time of his death. All three albums contain stamps which have asso- ciations with the Century. As a special project for the future, it is planned to en- large and bring up to date the poetry collection in the Graham Room. Some of the recent accessions in architecture are serv- ing to round out the collection in the Piatt Room. Space limi- tations, however, prevent the development of any extensive research collections. William L. Savage, Chairman FROM THE HOUSE COMMITTEE The year 1959 marked the first in which the terms of the ap- pointive Committees changed in mid-stream, or June. For the House Committee this meant that the wonderfully able Rich- ard A. Kimball relinquished his Chairmanship. His appoint- BOARD OF MANAGEMENT REPORT 13 ment as the Director of The American Academy in Rome precluded our retaining his services. The stalwart and loyal members of the House Committee have given the succeeding Chairmen every support and assistance, for which he is pleased to express his gratitude. The alteration of the nearby Morgan Guaranty Bank Building caused radical change in our normal summer rou- tines in the Clubhouse.