Stiftung Arp e.V. Papers Hans Arp and the United States Volume 1 Edited by Maike Steinkamp and Loretta Würtenberger Stiftung Arp e.V. Papers Volume 1 Hans Arp and the United States Edited by Maike Steinkamp and Loretta Würtenberger Table of Contents 8 Foreword Engelbert Büning 10 Hans Arp and the United States – An Introduction Loretta Würtenberger 32 Arp’s Reception and Impact in the New York Art World between 1936 and 1966 Catherine Craft 53 One Man Laboratory: Hans Arp and the Museum of Modern Art Cara Manes 69 A Dada Among Pragmatists Brandon Taylor 88 Across the Atlantic: The Correspondence and Friendship between Hans Arp and Frederick Kiesler Stephanie Buhmann 107 The Exile Connection: Walter Gropius’ Commission of the “Harvard Relief“ from Hans Arp Maike Steinkamp 124 Dreams and Projects: Hans Arp and Curt Valentin in New York Eric Robertson 142 The Loyal Underdog: Observations on Hans Arp and Galerie Chalette Arie Hartog 162 Arp and the Sidney Janis Gallery: Fifty Years Carroll Janis 173 Hans Arp in American Collections David Nash 186 Chronology: Hans Arp and the United States 200 Contributors 204 Photocredits Paul Weller: Richard Huelsenbeck, Hans Richter and Hans Arp in New York, 1949, Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin / Rolandswerth Foreword Engelbert Büning After the Second World War the work of Hans Arp (1886 – 1966) achieved widespread renown. Above all, his works resonated with American collec- tors and were recognized by museums and galleries in the United States. The first major solo exhibition of Arp’s career was at Curt Valentin’s gallery in New York in 1949; it was also the artist’s first solo show in the US. Many museum and gallery exhibitions and commissions were to follow. Arp was in close contact with artists, collectors and other important fig- ures in the American art world well before the Second World War. He was friends with both Hilla von Rebay as well as Peggy Guggenheim and was in touch with the American collector and painter Albert E. Gallatin, who pro- moted his work and that of his wife Sophie Taeuber in the United States. Arp’s works were also showcased in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibi- tions Cubism and Abstract Art (1936) and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (1936 / 37), both of which played significant roles in disseminating Europe- an modernism in the US. Thus, by the beginning of the 1950s, the newest generation of American artists began responding to Arp’s work. Jackson Pol- lock, Robert Rauschenberg, Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly engaged in- tensely with the artist’s oeuvre, to name just a few. The present volume, which is the first in the Stiftung Arp e.V.’s new series of scholarly publications, illuminates the wide-ranging aspects of Hans Arp’s influence and reception in the US from multiple viewpoints. This publica- tion is a pioneering effort, as Arp’s influence on post-war American art, his contacts with collectors, patrons and artists have not yet been fully explored. Nor has enough attention been paid to the presence of his art in exhibitions, galleries and on the art market in the US, all of which have informed the reception of his work to this day. Most of the primary sources quoted in the subsequent essays are housed in the archive of the Stiftung Arp e.V. 8 A central aspect of our mission is to continue to make these valuable re- sources available for future research. The following essays represent the findings of the conference Hans Arp and the US, which was initiated and organized by the Stiftung Arp e.V. and took place at the American Academy in Berlin in June 2015. My sincere thanks to our partners in collaboration, the Georg Kolbe Museum and its Director Dr. Julia Wallner and the American Academy and its former Director Gary Smith in particular, who from the very beginning was open to the idea of an Arp conference on the marvelous premises of the Academy on Berlin’s Wannsee. In this regard, I would also like to thank Academy Trustee Dr. Christine I. Wallich and especially Simone Donecker, Program Manager at the American Academy, who ensured that the event ran smoothly. Special thanks goes to Dr. Maike Steinkamp, who has served as our curator since 2012, and who supervised the conceptual and organizational aspects of the conference and publication. We are pleased to publish the findings of the conference, expanded into es- says that enrich our multifaceted theme of Arp in the United States. I would like to thank Pierre Becker and his team at the Berlin agency Ta-Trung for designing and implementing the striking layout of this book. Copyediting lay in the hands of Dr. Sarah McGavran, who was also responsible for translat- ing the German-language essays. Sincere thanks to her for her consistently meticulous work. Additional thanks are extended to Maja Stadler-Euler, the General Secretary of the Foundation as well as to Dr. Loretta Würtenberger and Daniel Tümpel of Fine Art Partners, who have advised the Stiftung Arp e.V. since 2010 and who have been significantly involved in the conception and realization of both the conference as well as the book. Special thanks go to the authors of the book Hans Arp and the United States, who have contributed a host of new insights into the work and sig- nificance of Hans Arp in the US. The authors draw an impressive picture of an artist who was active worldwide, and whose works definitively shaped the history of art in the twentieth century. Highlighting Arp’s significance, furthering the scholarly discourse on his work and opening up new avenues for exploration are the central concerns of the Stiftung Arp e.V. This book is the first step in that direction. 9 Hans Arp and the United States An Introduction Loretta Würtenberger Born as an Alsatian I belong as well to the French as to the German Culture. As a Pioneer of Concrete Art I owe a great deal to America which for so many years has been sympathetic to my work.1 Hans Arp’s (1886 – 1966) relationship with America began during his early days in Dada and still thrives today. Ties were tentatively established in the mid 1920s, when Arp was initially recognized as a member of various European art movements and intensified after the war, when Arp was cele- brated as an artist. At the same time, it was not a relationship that seemed destined from the start. Arp neither spoke English nor was he particularly interested in American culture or ways of life. He was European through and through; as a native Alsatian he spoke French and German and he lived, thought and worked within the European cultural sphere, first in Alsace and Switzerland and later in Paris and Locarno. Nevertheless, Arp’s exposure to the American art world left a distinct impression on American art and on his oeuvre. After World War II, the enthusiasm of collectors and museums made America the most important sounding board for Arp’s work. Arp’s Reception as a Member of the European Avant-Garde from 1926 – 1944 A group exhibition hosted by the Société Anonyme at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York in 1926 showed Arp for the first time in America. The artist was represented by two reliefs, including Bird-Man (1924 – 1925) (fig. 1)2. Founded by Katherine S. Dreier, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp as the “first experimental Museum for Modern Art”, the Société Anonyme or- ganized countless exhibitions, readings, concerts and symposia in order to 10 Fig. 1 Hans Arp: Bird-Man, c. 1920, painted wood, 29 × 20,9 cm, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Gift of Katherine S. Dreier to the Collection Société Anonyme promote the international Avant-Garde. Since the art world was centered in Europe before the war, American artists followed developments there closely. Group shows like this one exposed many other European artists to the American public, including Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brâncusi, Heinrich Campendonk, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger and Piet Mondrian. Arp had lived in Paris, the capital of the European art world, with his first wife Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889 – 1943) since 1925. These were years of fruit- ful exchange, during which Arp oscillated between several artists’ groups. Before making inroads into sculpture in 1930, he had developed his formal language in relief and on paper. It was also in Paris that he first came into contact with American artists such as Man Ray and Alexander Calder. When the latter lived in Paris from 1926 to 1927 and again from 1930 to 1933, 11 he joined the artists’ group Abstraction-Création, to which Taeuber-Arp and Arp likewise belonged. Calder later remembered: “Arp said, ‘What did you call those things you exhibited last year? Stabiles?’”3 This is how the term stabiles, the term used to denote Calder’s stationary sculptures to this day, was born.4 Yet the most important encounter of Arp’s Paris years for the present sub- ject was with Albert E. Gallatin (1881 – 1952). Gallatin was the son of an affluent New York family and founder of the Gallery of Living Art in New York. Having made his early acquisitions in American art of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Gallatin joined the Société Anonyme in 1920. The group sparked his interest in the European Avant-Garde and thereafter he began collecting artists like Braque, Cézanne, Gris and Picasso as well as contemporary European art. Gallatin had a keen interest in transatlantic artistic exchange.