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Unsung heroines: Women patrons and the development of modernism in America

Lesinski, Carolyn Homan, M.A.

The American University, 1992

Copyright ©1992 by Lesinski, Carolyn Homan. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. UNSUNG HEROINES: WOMEN PATRONS AND THE

DEVELOPMENT OF MODERNISM IN AMERICA

by

Carolyn H. Lesinski

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Master of Arts

in

Performing Arts.: Arts Management

Signatures of Committee: Chair: 71c? cT^ZZ Q>

s c

mjJL Dean ofl the College / / J 1 3 Date*

1992

The American University 73? 0 Washington, D.C. 20016

t ; ; : : j ..-.. I-,:....; -...rv

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT

by

CAROLYN H. LESINSKI

1992

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNSUNG HEROINES: WOMEN PATRONS AND THE

DEVELOPMENT OF MODERNISM IN AMERICA

BY

Carolyn H. Lesinski

ABSTRACT

This thesis addresses the question as to the role of

women as art patrons from 1871 through the mid-l900s.

Important women patrons have been largely ignored by

history. The lives and roles of six women who made

catalytic contributions to the development of modernism in

America are examined: Louisine Havemeyer, who helped

introduce Impressionism to America; Elizabeth Coolidge,

who introduced chamber music to the American public;

Gertrude Whittall, who supported free public concerts and

early broadcasting of chamber music; Katherine Dreier, who

pioneered traveling exhibits support for the Avant Garde;

and Gertrude Whitney and Juliana Force, who provide

critical support to contemporary artists.

These women provided visionary support for the arts.

They broke from the traditional roles for women of their

times as well as the traditional tastes of their times.

They were leaders in arts patronage and social change, but

maintained their positions in their social circles. They

affected great change through thoughtful and deliberate

philanthropy.

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude

to those who have studied these women individually, for my

efforts would have been greatly hampered without the work

they did before me. The archives and libraries that hold

materials on these women have been invaluable, especially

the Library of Congress. I would like to express my deep

appreciation and respect for Dr. Naima Prevots, who has

been a constant source of knowledge, inspiration and

support. Finally, I would like to thank my family for

their patience, understanding and support.

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iii

Chapter

1. An Historical Overview...... 1

2. Louisine Elder Havemeyer (1855-1929) The Introduction of Impressionism to America...... 9

3. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953) Patron of New Music...... 29

4. Gertrude Clarke Whittall (1867-1965) Giving Public Access to the Arts & Letters...... 46

5. Katherine Sophie Dreier (1877-1952) Champion of the Avant Garde...... 56

6. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942) and Juliana Reiser Force (1876-1948) Promoting Modern and American...... 72

7. Conclusion 9 3

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 98

iv

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The significant role of women as art patrons from

1871 through the mid-1900s has been neglected. Much is

written of the famous, wealthy men of this country and

their role in supporting high culture in America. Andrew

Carnegie, Henry Ford, John Pierpont Morgan and John D.

Rockefeller are among the most famous who, with great

fortunes, made donations and created foundations to fund

the arts, the sciences and education. This study focuses

on six women patrons who have been largely ignored by

historians. In examining the pivotal role of women

patrons in the evolution of the modern age in the arts in

America, it is important to present their patronage in the

context of the economic, social and political environment

of the time. During the half century following the

American Civil War (1861-1865), this country experienced what is now referred to as the Industrial Revolution with

an accompanying "revolution" in American society,

affecting, among other things, the distribution of wealth,

the uses of excess wealth, the roles of women, and the

concept of public service. The post-Civil War period came

to be known as "The Gilded Age," a term coined by Mark

Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873 when they published

1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 a book with that title and satirized the new industrial,

urban society in America.

The late 1800s were a time of great economic

growth, fueled by the multitude of immigrants who fed the

expansion both as workers and as consumers. The population

of the United States nearly doubled between 1870 and 1900,

growing from 38.5 million to 76 million. By 1900, 40% of

the population lived in urban areas, and 34% of the

population had foreign born parents. The cost of living

and the hours spent working declined, while real income rose.1

A new class of millionaire industrialists appeared,

with such excess wealth that even the most conspicuous o spending did not diminish their fortunes. The social

attitudes of these new millionaires varied greatly. Some

plowed large portions of their earnings back into their

businesses, expanding their holdings and profits even

further. Others hoarded the money for themselves, living

lavishly and putting little back into their businesses, or

into the communities that supported them. There were also

1Charles Sellers and Henry May, A Synopsis of American History, (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963), 209; and Harold U. Faulkner, Politics, Reform and Expansion, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row, 1963), 5. 2 In 1861 it was estimated that there were only 3 millionaires in the U.S. By 1900, that number was increased to at least 3800 millionaires in the U.S. T. Walter Walbank and Alistair M. Taylor, Civilization Past and Present, (Chicago: Scott, Foresman & Company, 1963), 373.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

some, like Andrew Carnegie, who gave great sums for

libraries, museums, educational institutions and other

causes for the public good. The rapid industrialization

and economic expansion that helped create these

millionaires also created an urban under-class. Protests

and strikes over working conditions became common along

with crime, disease and early death for the poor. During

the 1890s, the nation experienced three economic

depressions (1894, 1895 and 1897-98 )3. This decade was characterized by economic instability, labor and political

unrest and general dissatisfaction amongst the American

people.

Many members of the wealthy class insulated

themselves from aspects of society which they found

unpleasant. These rich Americans stayed increasingly

within the cocoons of their own homes and tight social

circles. The number of private clubs rose and wealthy

citizens travelled extensively abroad. Social registers,

private schools and other forms of social segregation grew.

Prior to the Civil War, most philanthropy was done

through personal involvement, volunteering time as well as 4 money. Since the wealth belonged primarily to men, the

giving was done primarily by men. Women were expected to

visit the less fortunate and offer guidance and necessities

3 Faulkner, Politics, 5. 4 Waldemar A. Nielson, The Golden Donors, (New York: Truman Talley Books, E.P. Dutton, 1985), 5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 5 gleaned from their household budgets. Newly codified

property rights of women helped to change this, as women

retained ownership of their own property and inheritances e when they married.

At the same time that great divisions being created

between rich and poor, a new middle class emerged. These

moderately wealthy people, primarily businessmen, had both

the time and money to enjoy such pursuits as education, sports, literature, and the arts as entertainment.

Most of the women to be discussed in this study were born to families that would have been considered

middle or upper middle-class. These women attained various

levels of wealth later through marriage or inheritances.

Only one of the women in this study, Gertrude Vanderbilt

Whitney, was born to a family that had already amassed

significant, inherited wealth.

All of the women patrons in this study were born at

a time when women had few choices and relatively little

power over their own destinies. These women did not grow

up with the right to vote or the freedom to have careers or

lead independent lives.

Another important factor in the development of

these women is that they were well educated for their

5 Jessica Gerard, "Lady Bountiful: Women of the Landed Classes and Rural Philanthropy.:, Victorian Studies, Winter 1987, Indiana University, 189. 0 Kathleen D. McCarthy, Noblesse Oblige, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 49.

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generation. This was a time when few women had the

opportunity to attend college and not all of the women in

this study had college degrees. There were vastly

differing opinions on the subject of women and higher

education. As late as 1870, a professor at Harvard Medical

School spoke out against women receiving an education

because of the risks to their health. His premise was that

educating women made them "puny, nervous, and their whole

earthly existence a struggle between life and death."7

The women in this study were well educated in

school or at home. They were avid readers and pursued

life-long learning with interest and vigor that never

waned. These women also received quality instruction in

various art forms and some of them reached levels of

excellence that rivaled admired professionals.

Middle and upper-class women were in a unique

position because they had both new time-saving technologies

and benefit of household servants, before servants

disappeared from the middle-class and some of the upper-

class. Their knowledge and cultural appreciation, combined

with new wealth, left these women with free time,

education, money and a need to channel their energies in a

manner acceptable to their social circle.

Out of this environment came the women who made

catalytic contributions to the development of the arts in

7Allen F. Davis, American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Adams, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 12.

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America. The six women to be examined are Louisine

Havemeyer, the first to support and introduce the French

Impressionists in America; Elizabeth Coolidge, instrumental

in bringing chamber music to the United States; Gertrude

Whittall, proponent of free access for the public to the

arts and literature; Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and

Juliana Force, advocates for living American artists; and

Katherine Dreier, champion of the avant-garde.

These women had dramatic impact on the development

of modernism in the visual arts in America. Additionally,

all of these women supported modernism in more than one art

discipline. Elizabeth Coolidge and Katherine Dreier

supported early modern dance. Louisine Havemeyer, Gertrude

Whittall, Gertrude Whitney, and Juliana Force all supported

the composition of modern music. The development of modern

music, dance, visual arts, and literature would not have

happened as it did without the actions of these women.

It was not just the money that they put into

various causes. They also committed their time, energy,

and knowledge. These women had agendas to meet in their

patronage as much as their fathers and husbands did in

their business ventures. For the most part, they knew what

they wanted to accomplish and maintained a steady course

with deliberate acts of patronage that eventually met their

goals.

These women were not necessarily power hungry nor

were they the bored wives and daughters of tycoons,

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dabbling in various causes. With their expanded education

and travel came expanded horizons. Careers as patrons

provided these women with richness of experience and

opportunity that they might not have had otherwise.

This study examines the roles of some of these

women who were born and educated during the "Gilded Age" in

America and looks at their unique contributions as patrons O of the arts. Similarities and differences in their

backgrounds, personal histories, and contributions will be

examined as well as their importance as patrons in the Q history of the arts in America.

Due to limitations in the scope of this study,

certain parameters are necessary. Women who have received

a great deal of attention as individuals were considered

less of a priority for inclusion as were women whose

contributions could not be seen as catalytic, however

generous and steadfast.

There are many women who have made significant

contributions to the arts in this country and biographies

have been written on some of these women. However, these

g The time period referred to as "the Gilded Age" was 1871, when Mark Twain first gave the description, to 1914, which marked the start of the first World War. Walbank and Taylor, Civilization, 372. Q Mordechai Feingold, "Philanthropy, Pomp, and Patronage: Historical Reflections Upon the Endowment of Culture.", Daedalus, The Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 1987, 156. As Feingold points out, there is a contemporary distinction between philanthropy, the support of charity, and patronage, the support of high culture. To avoio conrusion, these distinctions will be adhered to in this study.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8

biographies have paid scant attention to the catalytic

nature of some of their contributions. Isabella Gardner,

among the first American women patrons, who founded the

Gardner Museum in Boston, has been a popular and

entertaining subject. Mabel Dodge Luhan and Agnes Ernst

Meyer have also received extensive coverage. Mabel Dodge

captured the public's eye many times. Often written about

by others, she wrote prodigiously about herself. Agnes

Meyer's later contribution to education reform was

particularly well covered, as was her battle with Senator

McCarthy.

For this reason, the women mentioned above and such

important women as Lillie Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

and Mary Sullivan, founders of the Museum of Modern Art,

and Electra Havemeyer Webb, founder of the Shelburne Museum

(American folk art), are not included in this study. There

are other women who did not found large museums but did

support artists and art forms at important stages.

All five of the women included were born or spent

critical years during the "Gilded Age" in America. They

made contributions, through insight, knowledge, timing or

personal taste, that changed the course of history in the

arts.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II

LOUISINE WALDRON HAVEMEYER (1855-1929) THE INTRODUCTION OF IMPRESSIONISM TO AMERICA

Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer was born in 1855

to George W. Elder and Mathilde Adelaide Waldron. While

the family did not have an immense fortune, they lived

comfortably in New York City and apparently traveled

abroad.10

George Elder died suddenly in 1873. Louisine and

her two sisters were subsequently sent to Europe. They

arrived in Paris in early 1874, where they lived as

pensionaires.11 A fellow pensionaire was Emily Sartain, a

young woman and art student from Philadelphia, the daughter

of a famous engraver. Emily introduced Louisine to Mary

Cassatt, the American painter, also from Philadelphia, who

was ten years Louisine's senior. 12 They quickly became

friends.

The following year was an interesting one for these

Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James and Paul S. Boyer, Notable American Women, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 156.

11Alicia Faxon, "Painter and Patron: Collaboration of Mary Cassatt and Louisine Havemeyer," Women's Art Journal (1982-83), 15-20.

12Frances Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986), 20; and Frances Weitzenhoffer, "Louisine Havemeyer and Electra Havemeyer Webb." Antiques, (February 1988), 431.

9

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. women, who expanded their horizons in Europe. Louisine was

young and romantic and quite impressed by Mary Cassatt's

daring travel through southern Europe to pursue her art

studies. In 1874, the Carlista Wars were being fought in

Spain and bandits threatened travelers and residents alike 13 in Italy. Mary Cassatt was undaunted. Many years later, she and Louisine would venture into those same

areas, dressed in numerous disguises, in search of great

art hidden in the homes of impoverished nobility.14

In the fall of 1874, the Elders sailed home to New

York for the winter. They returned to Paris in the late

spring of 1875, where they were reunited with Mary Cassatt

and Emily Sartain. While Louisine was in New York, Cassatt

discovered the Impressionists. 15 Cassatt was particularly

affected by the work of Edgar Degas. She took her young

and interested new friend, Louisine, to see some of Degas'

work, probably at Julien Tanguy's colorshop on rue

Clauzel. 16 In her memoirs, Louisine described the

occasion:

13 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 20. In 1874, some of Cassatt's work was accepted by the Salon in Paris.

14Ibid., 139.

15On April 15, 1874, a group of painters exhibited on the boulevard de Capucines in Paris. These painters became known as Impressionists. This name was given based on Monet's painting Impression: Sunrise and critic Louis Leroy's satiric review on the exhibit, which he detested. Linda Nochlin, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 1874- 1904, Sources and Documents, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1966), 10-14.

16Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 21.

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It was so new and strange to me. I scarcely knew how to appreciate it, or whether I liked it or not, for I believe it takes special brain cells to understand Degas. There was nothing the matter with Miss Cassatt's brain cells, however, and she left me in no doubt as to the desirability of the purchase and I bought it upon her advice.

In 1875, at the urging of Mary Cassatt, Louisine

borrowed her sisters' allowances and put them together with

her own. With a total of 500 francs (about $100 then) she

bought Edgar Degas's Ballet Rehearsal (1874). 18 At the

age of twenty, she became the first American to purchase a

work by Degas. That same year, she purchased The

Drawbridge, Amsterdam (1874) by Claude Monet for 300 francs

(again the first American to purchase his work), Peasant Girls at Normandy by Camille Pissaro and an 1878 self

portrait by Mary Cassatt. 19

Degas' use of color, lines and empty space in

capturing a moment in time intrigued both women; his

intensive use of lines to carry the eye and support the

impression of movement was a characteristic of the

Impressionist's as a group. His ability to capture a point

in time on paper made him one of the Impressionists, even

though his use of empty areas to give depth was not a

17Louisine Havemeyer, Sixteen to Sixty; Memoirs of A Collector, (New York, 1961), 249-250, as quoted in Ibid., 432.

18Ibid. , 431.

19Weitzenhoffer, Frances Renee, "The Creation of the Havemeyer Collection" (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1982), 15; and Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 21-22.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12

characteristic shared by his fellow artists. 20

Mary Cassatt was greatly influenced by the Japanese

prints present in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Like

Degas, she was drawn to using bold colors, asymmetry,

unusual viewer perspective and lines.21

Mary Cassatt met Degas in 1877, when he went to see

her as an admirer of her work shown earlier at the Paris

Salon. He saw immediately that they were drawn to the same

elements, though their end products were different in

style. She was invited to join the Impressionists and

presented her work with them at their fourth show in

1879. 22

Monet was the supreme Impressionist in his

techniques, his use of contrasting and complementary colors and perhaps most of all, his study of various aspects of

light and shadow to achieve an atmosphere. The Drawbridge

exhibits many of these techniques. Shadows are not black

or gray, but rather a composite of colors such as brown,

purple, and white. The light is gray and filtered through

a heavy haze.

The unusual use of light, color and lines in the

20It has been speculated that Degas' use of space and some of his theories on the use of lines were from Japanese prints that had only recently been available in Europe.

21Breeskin, Adelyn D., Mary Cassatt: Pastels and Color Prints, (Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978), 11 & 17.

Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 22.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 depiction of non-traditional subjects seems to characterize

Louisine's early purchases. The year Louisine bought these

paintings, the Impressionists' exhibition outraged

Parisians sufficiently to provoke quite a protest. 23 One

story that comes down to us is that at this time, Degas was

so discouraged about his apparent lack of success that he

was seriously considering abandoning his art. Louisine's

purchase revived his faith and he endured. 24 It is known

for certain that Degas was suffering financially and had

begun to suffer serious vision problems that would plague

him for the rest of his life. 25

The Elders travelled back and forth between their

home in New York and Europe regularly in the ensuing years.

Louisine loaned her art to exhibitions under the names of

her parents. In 1878, she lent Degas' Ballet Rehearsal to the Eleventh Annual Exhibition of the American Water-color

Society, held at the National Academy of Design in New 26 York. This was the first time that the work of a French

Impressionist was shown in America. Degas' 1878 debut in

America was largely ignored. At the 1880 Exhibition of the

23James, et al, Notable American Women, 156.

24There are numerous references to Degas' financial straits at the time, including Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 243.

25Letter from Degas to James Tissot, 1874. Nochlin, Impressionism, 66-67. 2fi Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 23.

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American Water-color Society, he received mixed reviews. 27

The National Academy hung the painting high in a

spot that made it difficult to see the work clearly. The

Academy also painted the frame gold. Degas had personally

framed it for Louisine in a gray and green frame. After

the show, a displeased Louisine had the frame restored. 28

American critics attributed what they perceived as problems

with his canvases to problems with his sight.

Cassatt had spoken to Louisine about Gustave

Courbet from the first day that they met. 29 In 1881, the

two women went to Courbet's exhibition in the foyer of the

Theatre de la Gaiete. Upon finally seeing Courbet's work,

Louisine greatly admired it. She described the occasion:

As usual, I owe it to Miss Cassatt that I was able to see the Courbets. She took me there, explained Courbet to me, spoke of the great painter in her flowing, generous way, called my attention to his marvelous execution, to his color, above all to his realism, to that poignant, palpitating medium of truth through which he sought expression.

This same year, 1881, is estimated to be the year

that Louisine acquired her first works by James McNeill

Whistler. As the story is told, Louisine went to see the

artist in London in order to buy some of his work. She

stated that she had thirty pounds and asked what was

27Ibid., 32.

28Ibid., 26.

^Ibid., 22.

30Weitzenhoffer, "The Creation of the Havemeyer Collection," 190.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 available for that sum. Whistler picked out five pastels

which he titled, signed, and framed for her. Apparently

Louisine and the artist got along quite well and he

encouraged her to obtain a copy of the poems of Oscar Wilde.31

In 1883, Louisine was quietly married to Henry 0.

Havemeyer (known as Harry). 32 Harry, the "Sugar King,"

made his fortune in New England in the family's sugar

refining business, which he built up into a monopoly known

as the Sugar Trust.

Harry was already an avid collector before he

married Louisine. He collected primarily old masters,

Oriental art, and Barbizon artists. 33 He enlarged his

collection of Oriental art at the 1876 Centennial

Exhibition in Philadelphia, which he attended with friend

31 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 22-23.

32The Elders and Havemeyers were old friends. George Elder's older brother was the Elder in Havemeyer & Elder Partners. After Harry's parents died, his older sister took him in for a short while, and then Louisine's parents took over and Harry and Louisine spent many years in the same home. Harry then married Louisine's aunt, Mary Louise Elder, after whom Louisine had been named. They divorced shortly thereafter, reportedly due in part to Harry's drinking. Years later, Louisine agreed to marry Harry on the condition that he never touch another drop of liquor and he never did. Louisine had her name legally changed from Louise to Louisine and always signed her name Louisine Waldron Havemeyer to avoid confusion with her aunt, Harry's first wife, who went by Louise E. Havemeyer. Weitzenhoffer, "The Creation of the Havemeyer Collection," 16; and Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 29.

33Prances Renee Weitzenhoffer, "Louisine Havemeyer and Electra Havemeyer Webb.", Antiques, February 1988, 432.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6

and artist Samuel Coleman. 34 Other important components

of his early collection included paintings by Narcisse

Diaz, Jean Baptist Camille Corot, Jean Francois Millet,

Eugene Delacroix and Samuel Coleman. 35

Harry's taste in art was unlike that of Louisine,

who favored moments captured from daily life depicted with

new and unusual techniques. Delacroix's art, for example,

was dramatic, violent, detailed and the subjects were

usually of a grand or mythological scale. His paintings

aimed at showing the violent, horrible side of man that tied him to nature.

Corot's paintings present ordered forms and

carefully executed attention to changes in the intensity of

light and shadow. Millet focused on painting the peasants

with whom he grew up. His quiet, peaceful paintings seemed

to elevate menial aspects of their difficult lives to a

higher level.

After their marriage, the Havemeyers lived on East

36th Street in New York City. Between 1875 and 1883

Louisine was limited in her purchases of modern art by her

budget. In the six years between 1883 and 1889, Louisine

was limited in her purchases of modern art by her

preoccupation with her growing family. In 1884, Adaline

Havemeyer was born. She was followed by Horace in 1886,

34 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 32.

^Ibid., 33.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 Og and Electra in 1888.

Though limited, collecting was not discontinued.

In 1886, Harry Havemeyer purchased a Manet still life, The

Salmon (1869), from Paul Durand-Ruel during an early

showing of the French moderns in New York. 37

During these years, Harry was spending a great deal

of his time organizing the Sugar Trust. This was one of

the first great monopolies and earned Harry a reputation as

both a genius and a villain. The Trust was formed in 1887

and, in the first two and a half years of its existence,

earned twenty-five million dollars of pure profit.

Harry used some of this profit to begin collecting

old masters. In 1888, he purchased Rembrandt's portraits

of Christian Paul van Beresteijm, Burgomaster of Delft and

his wife Volkera from Cottier and Company in New York for

$60,000. This was considered a remarkable price and the

purchase made the Havemeyers among the first to own such

paintings in the United States.38

The Havemeyers began work on a new home in 1888 to

accommodate their family and their growing art collection.

Harry turned to his old friends Samuel Coleman and Louis C.

Tiffany. Tiffany had recently formed the Tiffany Glass Co.

and worked with numerous architects. Charles Haight was

^Ibid., 44-52.

37Paul Durand-Ruel was a French gallery owner and dealer who was instrumental in supporting the Impressionists and the successive French moderns.

M Ibid., 47.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 thus recommended and selected as the architect. These

three men designed a home that was as unique as the

Havemeyers.39

This home did not have an extravagant exterior,

though it was not small. However, the interior was quite

unusual and elegant, as might be expected of the artists

creating it. Custom furniture was designed to furnish this

home, which featured silk brocade ceilings, made from

fabric Harry had purchased earlier at the Centennial

Exhibition. 40 The walls and floors had beautiful mosaics

and many of the fixtures were gilded. Though the house has

now been demolished, much of the interior decoration was

preserved and is in museums. 41

In 1889, Louisine convinced Harry to travel to

Europe for more collecting and to see Mary Cassatt and the

World's Fair in Paris. Louisine was interested in moving

Harry away from purchases of Old Masters towards more

modern French paintings. Louisine enlisted Mary Cassatt to

help.42

In Paris in 1889, Mary Cassatt and Harry met for

the first time. While Louisine was happy to be back in

Paris and to see her old friend, she was apprehensive about

3Q Ibid., 47-52.

40Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 32-3 3, 51-52.

41Ibid.

42Weitzenhoffer, "The Creation of the Havemeyer Collection.", 432; and Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 55- 61.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 Mary Cassatt meeting Harry. She cared for both of these

individuals. They had strong personalities and Louisine

was worried about what would happen if they did not get

along. Despite these fears, the two got along quite

well.43

It was on this trip that the Havemeyers bought

their first painting by Gustave Courbet. Harry and

Louisine had very different approaches to collecting.

Harry had little concern for price and bought quickly, with

an eye toward art as an investment as well as for

enjoyment. Louisine tended to be the adventurous one, the

pioneer spirit, with the patience to wait for what she

wanted. When the Havemeyers saw Courbet's Landscape with

Deer (1866) Louisine asked for it. Harry scoffed at her

and led her to another painting.

This Courbet sold before Harry relented. Later in

that trip, Harry was chagrined to see it displayed in the

Louvre. Durand-Ruel was asked to find another of similar

quality, but none was available and the Havemeyers had to

settle for a lesser Courbet, Landscape with Cattle, as

their first purchase of the artist's work. Harry was also

quite taken with Courbet's The Stonebreakers (1849), which

never joined their collection and disappeared during World 44 War II.

43 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 58, 60, 112. 44 Ibid., 138; and Horst de la Croix and Richard G. Tansey, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Seventh Edition, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1980), 758.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 After this first trip to Europe together, Harry

Havemeyer began collecting the work of French modern

artists. The Havemeyers took annual trips abroad during

the 1890s and by the end of that decade were purchasing 45 primarily French Impressionist works.

The Havemeyers and Cassatt were aided by art

dealers Paul Durand-Ruel and Theodore Duret. Mary Cassatt,

who spent most of her adult life in France, collaborated

with Durand-Ruel and Duret. She sent descriptions and

photographs of paintings with their recommendations to the

Havemeyers and numerous other collectors in the U.S. Mary

Cassatt, a great artist in her own right, has been quoted

as stating, "It has been one of the chief interests of my

life to help fine things across the Atlantic."46 This

small group became the driving force behind the

introduction of Impressionism in America.

In 1892 Louisine showed Harry Torso of a Woman

(1863), a Courbet nude which she had admired much earlier

at the Theatre de la Gaiete in 1881. He reportedly

responded, "Surely you are not going to buy that." The

Havemeyers had agreed not to purchase any nudes, but

Louisine eventually won. They added four Courbet nudes to

45 Weitzenhoffer, "Louisine Havemeyer and Electra Havemeyer Webb," 433; and Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 95, 107-108. 46 Barbara Stern Shapiro, Mary Cassatt at Home (Boston: Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1978), 9-10, as quoted in Weitzenhoffer, "The Creation of the Havemeyer Collection." 11.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21

their collection over the years: Source (1862); Torso of a

Woman (1863); Woman with a Parrot (1866); and Young Bather 47 (1866).

As late as 1896, even the most advanced American

collectors tended to focus overall on popular taste in

their collections. Modern French work had only token

representation. Despite escalating prices for these works,

Harry and Louisine were still ahead of their time.48

For many years Harry battled foes of the Sugar

Trust. The passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890

signaled serious problems. Harry successfully warded off 49 many attacks and lawsuits between 1890 and 1907. The

cumulative toll on his health was evident. In December

1907, Harry died suddenly of kidney failure while visiting

one of his country properties. He had left the city for a

brief respite from business problems regarding the Sugar

Trust.50

Louisine had stayed behind in New York to tend to

her dying mother and to Adaline, who was confined in bed

with a difficult pregnancy. Louisine was summoned when

47 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 78, 194. During this time, the Havemeyers also hosted regular, private musicales in their home. They did not participate in New York's wealthy social circles. They preferred a quiet private life, partially due to Harry's divorce, which was still somewhat scandalous.

48Ibid, 111. 49 Ibid., Chapters 9, 10, 14 passim. cn Ibid., 180-181.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22

Harry became ill and was present when he died. Two days

later, while Louisine was attending Harry's funeral, her 51 mother died.

Louisine's sorrows grew in early 1908. Adaline's

difficult pregnancy ended in the premature birth of twin

girls who died almost immediately. A grief-stricken

Louisine buried her first grandchildren only months after 52 burying her husband and her mother.

Louisine's daughter Electra arranged a trip to

Europe in an effort to get Louisine out of her ensuing

depression. Traveling did not help Louisine and they

returned to New York. Publicity surrounding the continuing

legal action against Harry's Sugar Trust was very powerful.

Despite a visit from Mary Cassatt, Louisine grew more

depressed.53

Once again, Electra resolved to take a trip

overseas. This trip in 1909 was both to boost Louisine's

spirits and to protect her from intensely negative

publicity surrounding the family. During the crossing,

Louisine tried to throw herself overboard, but Electra 54 stopped her.

51Ibid., 180-183.

52Ibid., 183.

^Ibid., 182-186. 54 Ibid., 187. Also, Weitzenhoffer, "Louisine Havemeyer & Electra", 433. It was during this trip that Electra became a confirmed collector. She later went on to establish the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, which houses an extraordinary collection of American Folk

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23

Louisine recovered from her depression, continued

collecting and became very active in the women's suffrage

movement. She anonymously loaned some of her collection

for a show to benefit women's suffrage. The show, entitled

"Paintings by El Greco and Goya," was held in M. Knoedler

and Co.'s gallery and opened April 2, 1912.55 It was not

well received. There was some criticism of how the show

was hung, but the greater criticism seems to have been that

the beneficiary of the proceeds was the suffrage movement.

Some noted collectors went so far as to threaten a boycott 56 of the gallery in the future.

In addition to her suffrage work, Louisine

continued her collecting. She set a record for the highest

price paid for the work of a living artist when she

purchased Degas' Dancers Practicing at the Bar (1876-77) in

1912 for $95,700. She also purchased Honore Daumier's The

Third-Class Carriage (1863-65), which depicts resigned

travellers in a crowded railroad car, including a nursing

mother and infant, an old woman and a sleeping child.57

The great Armory Show exploded on the New York art

scene in 1913. Here, for the first time, much of the

public was able to see examples of art that Louisine had

begun to purchase thirty-three years earlier. They also

Art. 55 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 206.

Ibid., 207.

57Ibid. , 208-209.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24

were able to see the latest in the European and American

avant garde. Louisine was not involved with the Armory

Show and showed no interest in broadening the scope of her

collecting to include the Fauves and Cubists. By 1913, she

was set in her taste and becoming increasingly absorbed in

women's suffrage.

That year, Louisine helped start the Congressional

Union for Women's Suffrage, which later became the National

Women's Party. She spent much of 1914 and 1915 arranging a

loan exhibition to benefit women's suffrage. Originally

planned to focus on Degas and Cassatt, the show grew and

evolved into "Masterpieces by Old and Modern Painters,"

which was again held at Knoedlers on April 6, 1915. 58

Louisine devoted much of her time to organizing the

show. She was concerned not only with raising money and

publicity, but also with obtaining the loans of art. A

good many of her peers refused to lend because of the ties

to the suffrage movement. Even Mary Cassatt's help was

fruitless in some cases, even though the loans were

anonymous. Among those who did share their art were Henry

Frick, Harris Whittmore, Mrs. Montgomery Sears, and Joseph

Widener, along with Mary Cassatt, Durand-Ruel and 59 Louisine.

The show contained twenty-three Degas', eighteen

Cassatt's, and eighteen Old Master's. At the show,

^Ibid., 222-226.

59Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 Louisine delivered a lecture on the artists and their art.

Durand-Ruel was so impressed with Louisine's ability that

he sent copies of her lecture to clients to aid their 60 understanding of this art.

Later that year Louisine carried the "Torch of

Liberty" for women's suffrage on part of its trip from

Montauk Point to Buffalo and became an active speaker on

the topic. She even designed a "Ship of State," which was

modeled after the Mayflower, which she held up like the

"Torch" during her later speeches. 61

In 1919, Louisine was a member of a group of

suffragists who burned an effigy of President Wilson in

Washington, D.C. and subsequently spent the night in jail.

Louisine stayed despite the protests of her family and the

arresting authorities. Adaline's husband was so angry

about his mother-in-law's behavior that he would not allow

her in their home.

The time spent in a Washington jail, which had been

abandoned years earlier as unfit for humans, qualified the

dignified Louisine to ride on Alice Paul's "Prison

Special." The "Prison Special" was a railroad car that

toured the country attracting attention to women's rights

and how the women were treated. Louisine did not relent in

6fl Ibid., 225.

61James, et al, Notable America Women, 157; and Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 227-229.

62Alicia Faxon, "Painter and Patron," 19.

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her efforts for women's rights, even after the Nineteenth

Amendment was ratified in August, 1920, and women could

finally vote.63

Louisine was still expanding her collection,

focusing on the work of Degas and Courbet. She returned to

France in 1921 and then "became the first owner on either

side of the Atlantic of all Degas' bronze sculptures, those

remarkable studies in form, movement, and balance of

dancers, of horses, of female figures, and several 64 portraits or studies of heads." Also among these was

what is perhaps Degas' most well known sculpture, Little

Dancer of Fourteen Years (c. 1881), a young girl standing

in a muslin dancing skirt with her head held high and her

arms stretching down behind her.

During the 1920s, Louisine was awarded several honors by the French government for her efforts on behalf

of French artists. In 1921, she was awarded the Legion of

Honor. In 1922, she was made a Knight of the Legion of

Honor and in 1928, she was promoted to Officer of the ee French National Order.

Louisine added more Courbets to her collection.

Like the Impressionists, both Courbet and Daumier depicted

the under-class of society. Though their work looks quite

different, there are some similarities in their subjects,

63 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 234-238.

64Ibid., 241.

“ ibid., 243.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 their ability to capture a moment, and the message in some of their works.

The socialist political beliefs and anti-wealth

sentiments of Courbet and Daumier seem at odds with those

of a wealthy woman like Louisine. She had been the wife of

a conservative millionaire and was the mother of three

children. Yet she collected many paintings of dancers,

laborers and nudes, which was particularly unconventional.

As one author has observed, "one must conclude that

Havemeyer was not completely a member of her class and

rebelled against some of their Victorian attitudes toward fifi nudity, the working classes and the role of women."

Louisine died on January 6, 1929, of what appears

to have been pneumonia. An appropriate observation on

Louisine Havemeyer was made in the form of a tribute

written by art critic Royal Cortissoz upon her death:

A collector in whom there glowed the fires of an artist has been lost in Mrs. H. 0. Havemeyer. She loved fine things from her earliest years and all her life long she pursued them with an ardor which was by itself one of the most endearing qualities of her nature... She was intimate for years with the late Mary Cassatt, and it has been said that Miss Cassatt was largely responsible for the collection. There never was a sillier legend. Mrs. Havemeyer thought her own thoughts, garnered her own impressions, framed her own convictions. It helped her to have the counsel of Miss Cassatt... but, in essentials, she and her husband were the "only Begetters" of the great collection that bears their name.

66Faxon, "Painter and Patron," 19. 67 Robinson, Edward, The H.O. Havemeyer Collection, A Catalogue of the Temporary Exhibition, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1930), ix. as quoted in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 In her will, Louisine left 142 works of art

specifically to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

and instructed her children to give to the museum any

additional works that they chose, as long as she had not

already stipulated that they go elsewhere. The Havemeyer

children knew of their parent's appreciation of the

Metropolitan Museum and of Louisine's intention to make the

art in the Havemeyer collection available to the public.

The Havemeyer children voluntarily increased the gift to

the Metropolitan to include 1,972 items, most of which were

freely selected by the museum's curators from Havemeyer's DQ vast collection.

Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 251.

68Faxon, "Painter and Patron," 20.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III

ELIZABETH SPRAGUE COOLIDGE PATRON OP NEW MUSIC

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge was the first child of

Albert Arnold Sprague and Nancy Atwood Sprague. She was

born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 3, 1864. Albert

Sprague, a successful businessman, apparently was a quiet,

gentle man. This was in strong contrast to his wife, who

was energetic, decisive, and, at times, forceful.

Elizabeth was very much like her mother. Women of the

Victorian era were expected to be in the background: to

marry and then stay home and raise families. Volunteer

work for charitable causes, however, was an acceptable

outlet for such talents and energies. 69 The Spragues set

an example for their daughter by helping found the Chicago

Art Institute in 1879 and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in

1890.70

Elizabeth was privately educated and began studying

the piano at the age of eleven, at Regina Watson's "School

69Susan Brainerd and Joan Kuyper, "Volunteerism In The Arts.", The Journal of Arts Management and Law, Summer 1987.

70Carol Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Twentieth Century Benefactress of Chamber Music." The Music Business, photocopied document in Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge vertical file, Music Division, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

29

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0

for the Higher Art of Piano Playing."71 She reportedly

practiced long hours every day. In 1882, at the age of

eighteen, she gave her first solo recital. 72 That same

year, Elizabeth accompanied her parents to Europe, saw

Richard Wagner at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany,

and heard Brahms play chamber music in Vienna, Austria. 73

In 1891 Elizabeth Sprague married Dr. Frederic

Shurleff Coolidge, an orthopaedic surgeon at Rush Medical

College in Chicago. For their honeymoon, the couple spent

a year in Vienna, where Elizabeth studied piano. They

returned to Chicago where, in about 1893, Elizabeth gave

public performances at the Women's Building of the Chicago

Columbian Exposition and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under noted conductor Theodore Thomas.

The Coolidge's only child, Albert Sprague Coolidge,

was born on January 23, 1894 .74 Though now a wife and

mother, Elizabeth continued to study piano and also gave

musicales in her home. She also began composing in the

1890s, although these compositions apparently were never

71Ibid.

72Ibid. 73 "Music's Fairy Godmother Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge: Music Patron, Philanthropist, Founder of South Mountain Concerts." Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, MA, 28 February, 1988. 74 Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge," 138.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. expected to be performed in public. 75

In 1902, Dr. Coolidge contracted an infection while

performing surgery and was confined to a sanitorium for two

years. It is not clear, but the infection could have been

a form of tuberculosis. Afterwards, the Coolidges settled

in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in search of a more temperate

climate for Dr. Coolidge's health.76 Elizabeth was

battling progressive deafness that had begun in her

thirties. She continued playing music in quiet Pittsfield

with her son, who became an accomplished oboist and

violist.

Elizabeth described the benefit of her piano

instructor's "exaction from me, throughout my girlhood, of

reverence for duty, of coordinated self-control, and

uncompromising fidelity to standards" as the source of her

strength in the face of life's difficulties.77 "Without

the mechanical stabilizer of hard piano practice and its

concomitant sense of power and balance, my emotional 78 equilibrium must have been wrecked."

Dr. Coolidge established a medical practice in

75 These compositions are now with her papers in the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Collection at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 76 Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge," 138; and Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, Notable American Women: The Modern Period, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 161.

^Sicherman and Green, Notable American Women, 161.

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Pittsfield until he was disabled by tuberculosis in 1911.

He died of the disease in 1915. Elizabeth Coolidge's

father also died that year. At her father's death, she and

her mother donated over $200,000 to Yale University for the

construction of Sprague Memorial Hall, Yale's first music

building, which housed the music department. 79

Elizabeth's mother died suddenly in early 1916.

At this point in her life, at the age of fifty-one,

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge found herself with a sizable

estate. She needed to fill her time and life with purpose

and now had the freedom to move about as she pleased,

without the constraints of aging parents, an ailing husband

or young children. She was free to channel most of her

energy into her great love of music and through this she

was soon to make significant contributions.

After her mother died, Coolidge endowed the first

pension fund for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She also

gave $100,000 to the Anti-Tuberculosis Association in

Pittsfield and committed to giving $50,000 a year for ten

years to Lucy Sprague Mitchell's Bureau of Educational

Experiments, later chartered as the Bank Street College of

Education. Lucy Sprague Mitchell was Elizabeth's cousin.

Coolidge went forward with her musical plans. Her

purpose, as she stated it, was to assist "the triumph of

Spirit over Brute Force...the immortality of Human

79 Ibid., 161; and Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge", 138.

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Inspiration in the face of threatened mechanical

destruction" and to emphasize "our hopeful privilege and

duty to keep Art alive." 80 Coolidge moved quickly with

her plans for music.

Hugo Kortschak, a violinist who was with the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, wrote to Coolidge in May 1916.

He was playing quartets with other musicians from the

Chicago Symphony who wanted to form their own quartet.

They needed a sponsor so they could devote themselves fully

to the quartet and he had heard of her recent largess. 81

Elizabeth had, in fact, been very interested in sponsoring

a quartet like the Flonzaley Quartet she had been enjoying

at the home of Edward De Coppet in New York City. 82 There

were very few good string quartets in the United States

when Elizabeth heard the Flonzaley Quartet. 83

Elizabeth met with Kortschak shortly thereafter on

a trip to Chicago to settle her late mother's affairs. She

listened to the quartet and, by the time she left Chicago,

80 Sicherman and Green, Notable American Women, 161.

81Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Da Capo, The Library of Congress, 1952, 2.

82Ibid. Edward de Coppet was a prominent banker from Switzerland who maintained a home in New York. In 1902 he founded the Flonzaley Quartet. Coolidge formed her quartet similarly, in that they were to rehearse and perform exclusively together and only in her home. The Flonzaley Quartet is considered one of the most important in the first quarter of the century. They disbanded in 1928. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed., Stanley Sadie, (London: Macmillian Publishers Ltd., 1980), 643.

83Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge", 139.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 she had signed a three year contract with the musicians to

play in her home in Pittsfield, in the Berkshires, and at

her apartment in New York.84 They were named the

Berkshire Quartet and they were to be for her private

enjoyment, although every other weekend she invited guests.

The quartet was forbidden to appear in public until, "by

their concentrated practice, they had reached a oc satisfactory level of excellence." According to

Elizabeth, they reached this level in the 1917-18 season, fifi when they held two well received concerts in New York.

Elizabeth was very active with the quartet and

attended their rehearsals, held in her music room,

regularly. She found the experience quite exciting; "You

can imagine what an education this was for me, whose

musical idiom had hitherto been so largely formed by

keyboard standards. I had never before so well understood

the possibilities of abstract music." 87

Also in 1917, Frederick Stock visited Elizabeth

Coolidge in Pittsfield and heard the Berkshire Quartet.

Stock had joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra shortly

84Coolidge, Da Capo, 2. The 1918 members of the Berkshire Quartet were: Hugo Kortschak, 1st violin; Clarence Evans, viola; Sergie Kotlarsky, 2nd violin; Emmeran Stoeber, Cello. Berkshire Festivals Programs, 1918-1938, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

85Coolidge, Da Capo, 2.

86Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge," 140.

87Coolidge, Da Capo, 2.

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after Elizabeth and her husband left Chicago. Stock became

the orchestra's conductor when Theodore Thomas died in

1905. 88 Stock had been participating in the Litchfield

County Festivals in Norfolk, Connecticut, sponsored by Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel. Elizabeth accompanied Stock to

visit the Stoeckel's and toured the estate and their famous

"shed," built to house the concerts. Stock casually

mentioned having the Berkshire Quartet attend and

participate. Coolidge's equally casual response was, "Why

go so far? Why not have our own festival at our own home?"89

It was at this time that Elizabeth Coolidge made

another important contribution to the development of music

in America - the Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music held

near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 90 The first Berkshire

Festival was held on September 16, 1918. There were five

88 Stock was known for his support of new music, especially that of Debussy, Ravel, Mahler, Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Schoenberg. He was also a pioneer in children's concerts, outreach and benefits for the musicians. Groves Dictionary, 149.

89Coolidge, Da Capo, 3.

90Sources vary on the original name of the festival, with most journal articles and other references calling it the South Mountain Festival, including Coolidge (speaking in retrospect). However, from the first concerts in 1918, the programs are entitled "Berkshire Chamber Music Festivals." Berkshire Festivals Programs, Library of Congress. Additionally, Groves Dictionary states that the Berkshire Festival did not begin until 1934, under Henry Hadley and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. No mention is made here of the start of the festivals in 1918, the annual festivals that occurred between 1918- 1934, or of Elizabeth Coolidge. Groves Dictionary, 564.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36

concerts in three days. The 250 invited guests were

treated to a mix of classical and contemporary chamber

music played by Elizabeth Coolidge, the Berkshire Quartet,

and the new, Elshuco Trio (Elshuco is derived from

Elizabeth Shurleff Coolidge) and other talented

musicians.. . 91

Composers featured on the Berkshire Quartet's

program were Beethoven, Alois Reiser, Thuille, Brahms,

Ravel, and Schubert. Some of the pieces played were prize

winning compositions composed for the festival. A total of

82 compositions were submitted for the first festival. 92

First prize for 1918 was Tadeusz Iarecki's Quartet. 93

The festival was well received and quickly

recognized for its importance in stimulating the

development of chamber music in the United States. It was

also important because the festival took place about two

months before the Armistice of 1918 was signed, and the

stage was shared by musicians whose countrymen were in

combat. As the Italian violinist Ugo Ara later noted, "Who

can ever forget the thrill received at that first

'historical' festival in 1918, when your temple of music

was the only temple of music in the world in which Allies,

91At the first Berkshire Festival, the Elshuco Trio consisted of Samual Gardner, violin; Willem Wieleke, cello; and Richard Epstein, piano. Berkshire Festival Programs, Library of Congress.

92Coolidge, Da Capo, 4; and Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge," 140.

93Berkshire Festivals Programs, Library of Congress.

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Aliens, and Neutrals could come to worship at the same

altar, ennobled by the same ideas and kindled by the same

love.1,94

Original works were commissioned for the festival

competitions. Prizes were awarded for some of these. Some

of the artists supported this way were Ernest Bloch,

Charles Loeffler, Bohuslav Martinu, Gian Francesco

Malipiero, Darius Milhaud, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Ottorino

Resphighi, Albert Roussel, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor

Stravinsky. In 1920, the third festival received 136 entries from all over the world. 95

At the urging of Ugo Ara, Elizabeth broadened her

sponsorship beyond the United States and began working on

festivals in Europe. Her first foreign festival was held

in Rome in 1923. From there, she expanded to Naples,

Venice, Prague, Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam,

Frankfurt, Budapest, Moscow, Mexico City, San Juan and Honolulu.96

94As quoted in Neuls-Bates, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge," 140. Ugo Ara was one of the original members of the Flonzaley Quartet. Interestingly, De Coppet was recognized in the first Berkshire Festival Program as the founder of the Flonzaley Quartet, who performed there, but Coolidge wasn't mentioned regarding the Berkshire Quartet or the Festival itself.

95Coolidge, Da Capo, 4. Among the early prize winners were: Ernest Bloch, Suite for Viola and Piano (1919) and Francesco Malpiero, String Quartet (1920). Also featured in 1920 was Efrem Zimbalist on violin with John Powell on piano.

96"Music's Fairy Godmother Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge"

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 Elizabeth had been looking for a way to perpetuate

the Berkshire Festivals in such a way that they did not

depend on any one person's personal or financial resources.

Yale University and the American Academy of Arts and

Letters both felt unable to accept this responsibility. On

a tour of Virginia with Frank Bridge, Elizabeth stopped in

Washington, D.C. and attended a luncheon at the Library of

Congress. 97 Dr. Charles Moore, head of the Manuscripts

Division, asked Elizabeth about giving some music to the

library.i w 98

Elizabeth made a gift of manuscripts the following

spring and Dr. Herbert Putnam, head librarian, borrowed the

auditorium at the Freer Gallery, where the Pittsfield

Quartet held three concerts. Elizabeth was very pleased

with the results. In 1925, Elizabeth made another major contribution when she endowed the Elizabeth Sprague

Coolidge Foundation at the Library of Congress. 99 In

addition, she gave $60,000 for the construction of the

97 Frank Bridge was an important English composer, violist, teacher, and conductor. His meeting with Elizabeth was probably during his 1923 tour of the United States.

98Coolidge, Da Capo, 8.

99Ibid. The foundation was headed by the Chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress, Carl Engle (the Chief of the Music Division still acts as the administrator of the foundation and the legal department manages the finances). The foundation received the income from two large trust funds with a yearly income of about $25,000. When Elizabeth died, the principle of the funds went to the foundation. Anne McLean, Music Specialist, Music Division, Library of Congress, phone interview, September 29, 1989.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 100 Coolidge Auditorium.

The Library of Congress Trust Fund Board Act was

signed into effect in 1925 by President Calvin Coolidge

(not related).101 Elizabeth Coolidge's goal, as stated at

the ceremonies for the Library of Congress foundation and

concerts, was for

...the composition and performance of music in ways which might otherwise be considered too unique or too expensive to be ordinarily undertaken. Not this alone, of course, not with a view to extravagance for its own sake, but as an occasional possibility of giving precedence to considerations of quality over those of quantity; to artistic rather than to economic values; and to opportunity rather than to expediency.

Elizabeth was also interested in getting the United States

government to recognize and commit to the music needs of

its citizens.

At the inauguration of the concerts, instead of

opening with a prayer as common to the Congressional

tradition, Elizabeth requested that it open with Charles

Loeffler's setting of St. Francis's Canticle of the

Sun.103

Elizabeth and the foundation that bears her name

did not receive any recognition in early programs, although

her name appears as one of the artists performing in

100Sicherman and Green, Notable American Women, 161.

101Richard Dyer, "Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge: Her Gift to American Music." Boston Globe, December 1976.

102Ibid.

103Coolidge, Da Capo, 8-9.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 December 1928. She played Mozart's Sonata for Violin and Piano with William Kroll. 104

Elizabeth was also an early supporter of modern

dance. "The early modern dancers were in a sense crusaders

who sought to create a new, vital, uniquely American form

of dance." 105 On April 27, 1928, the Library of Congress

presented its first performance of dance. Elizabeth gave a

commission to Adolph Bolm, who choreographed Apollo 106 Musagete to music commissioned from Igor Stravinsky.

This performance featured Bolm (Apollo), Ruth Paige

(Terpsichore), Bernice Holmes (Polyhymne), and Elise Rieman

(Calliope).107 George Balanchine used the same score for

his famous ballet Apollo which premiered later that year in

Paris with the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, featuring

Alexandra Danilova and Serge Lifar among the dancers. 108

Elizabeth's patronage of dance spanned many years.

In the 1940s, a friend took her to see Martha Graham and

104 Coolidge Foundation Programs, 1926-1939. By 1938, Elizabeth's foundation and auditorium were named on the cover of festival programs. 105 Richard Kraus and Sarah Alberti Chapman, History of the Dance in Art and Education, (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981), 202.

106Naima Prevots, Dancing in the Sun: Hollywood Choreographers 1915-1937, Theater and Dramatic Studies, No. 44, ed. Oscar G. Brockett, UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor/London, 1987, 163.

107Anatole Chujoy and P.W. Manchester, ed., The Dance Encyclopedia, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 56.

108Ibid.

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she liked Graham's work at once. Graham had been a student

with the Denishawn school. She had left to pursue her own

vision of dance. In her words, "The function of the dance

is communication...Art is the evocation of man's inner

nature. "109

After seeing Graham dance, Elizabeth made an offer

to her. Elizabeth would commission three composers of

Graham's choice, to compose works for Graham to

choreograph. Graham selected Paul Hindemith, Darius

Milhaud and Aaron Copeland. Out of these commissions came

three great works of music and dance, which were premiered

at the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress as

part of a birthday celebration for Elizabeth, October 30, 1944.

Graham choreographed Mirror Before Me, later

renamed Herodiade, to Hindemith's score. Graham danced the

title role and May O'Donnel, another noted dancer and

choreographer, danced the Attendant. Graham choreographed

Imagined Wing, also called Jeux de Printemps, dedicated to

Elizabeth, to Milhaud's score. Among the performers were

Yuriko, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, May O'Donnel,

Pearl Lang, Marjorie Mazia, and Nina Fonaroff. The final

piece, Appalachian Spring, was composed by Aaron Copeland.

This featured the same dancers as in Imagined Wing, along

with Martha Graham as the Bride. The sets for this

109Jean Morrison Brown, ed., The Vision of Modern Dance, (Princeton: Princeton Book Company, 1979), 30.

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"Program Devoted to the Dance" were by Isamu Noguchi, the

costumes were by Edith Gilfond and the music director was

Louis Horst.110

Elizabeth also commissioned Graham's Dark

Meadow.111 Dark Meadow premiered on January 23, 1946 at

the Plymouth Theater in New York. The music was by Carlos

Chavez and the set and costumes were again by Isamu Noguchi

and Edith Gilfond, respectively. This is a group dance

about celebrating birth, life, death and rebirth. 112 The

premiere of Dark Meadow featured Graham, May O'Donnell and Erick Hawkins. 113

Dark Meadow was commissioned at the same time as

the other Graham pieces, but delays in receiving the music

from Chavez kept it from premiering until later.114

Apparently, delays were also experienced with scores for

the works premiered in 1944, which were intended to

premiere earlier.115

Elizabeth was an early supporter of Henri Temianka,

who founded the Paganini Quartet in 1946. The quartet was

named after Paganini because the instruments that the

110Coolidge Foundation Programs; 1940-1949, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

111The Dance Encyclopedia, 271.

112Ibid.

113lbid.

114Wayne Shirley, Music Specialist, Music Division, Library of Congress, phone interview, March 11, 1992.

115Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 players used were once owned by him. This quartet was well

known for premiering works by Milhaud, Lees, Castelnuovo-

11B Tedesco and other contemporary composers.

Elizabeth also brought Rudolph Kolisch, who founded

the Kolisch Quartet, to the United States. Kolisch's

quartet was known for performing new music, as well as for

performing their standard repertory from memory.

Schoenberg was particularly fond of the Kolisch Quartet.

He dedicated his Quartet No. 4 to "its ideal interpreters,

the Kolisch Quartet" and to Elizabeth Coolidge, who commissioned it.117

One of the functions of the Coolidge Foundation in

which Elizabeth took great pride was its outreach program

to educational institutions throughout the country. This

outreach consisted of concerts that were designed not only

to educate students and create further audiences, but also

to give additional opportunities to artists. Another

form of education and audience development was the

broadcasting of chamber music on radio programs, which was

very unusual at the time. In 1934-35, nineteen such

programs sponsored by the Foundation were broadcast. 118

Elizabeth Coolidge continued her efforts in the

116Groves Dictionary, 18, 660.

117Groves Dictionary, 10, 162. According to Groves Dictionary, in 1924 Schoenberg married Rudolf Kolisch's sister Gertrude.

118Coolidge, Da Capo, 9; and Coolidge Foundation Programs.

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arts through the 1930s and '40s, although most of them were

channeled through the Coolidge Foundation. Much of her

wealth was in trusts, stocks and bonds that were adversely

affected by tax law changes and the Great Depression. This

reduced the quantity that she was able to give. However,

she did continue to give and continued to enjoy listening

to music, despite her ever-increasing deafness. Coolidge

was an avid user of early hearing aids that ranged from

huge horns channeled to her ear with electronic wiring that

went directly from microphones near the musicians to her ears.

Over time, Elizabeth maintained residences in

Chicago, Pittsfield, Cambridge, New York, Washington, D.C.

and California. She moved to California in search of a

more comfortable climate in her last years. She died from

a stroke while visiting Cambridge, Massachusetts, on

November 4, 1953.

During her reign as the primary benefactress of

chamber music, Elizabeth Coolidge received many awards and

other forms of recognition for her contributions: the Order

of the Crown and the Order of Leopold (Belgium); the Legion

of Honor (France); Honorary Citizenship of the City of

Frankfurt; the signing of the "Goldenen Buch" along with

the signature of Charlemagne; a tour of the Vatican

Astronomical Observatory; the Cobbett Medal from the

Worshipful Company of Musicians (London); and a "round-

robin" manuscript composed for her on St. Elizabeth's day

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in Naples by Gian Francesco Malpiero, Casella, Ottorino

Resphighi, Castelnuovo and Alfano. She was also awarded

many honorary degrees.119

Although Coolidge was well known just a few years

ago, memory of her has begun to fade. This is largely due

to the decline of the Coolidge Foundation, which has

depleted its funds. The Berkshire Festival and the

community and educational outreach programs were

discontinued about fifteen years ago, though the foundation

does sponsor sporadic Coolidge Festivals and does continue

to commission new works. 120

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge's contributions to the

world, particularly the world of music, were unprecedented.

As she stated at the celebration marking the Foundation's

twenty-fifth, the Library's one hundred and fiftieth, and

her own eighty-sixth birthdays, "I have often felt that my

work for Chamber Music has shaped my own destiny quite as

truly as I have attempted to guide its course. It has

given to my life a significance which had not, before, been revealed to me." 121

119Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Vertical File, The Music Division, Library of Congress. Many of these medals and honorary degrees. The "round-robin" manuscript is also housed at the Library of Congress.

120McLean, phone interview.

121Coolidge, Da Capo, 14.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV

GERTRUDE CLARKE WHITTALL BENEFACTRESS OF PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE ARTS & LETTERS

On October 7, 1867, Gertrude Littlefield Clarke was

born in Bellevue, Nebraska. Her parents, Henry Tefft

Clarke and Martha Fielding Clarke, were originally from

Little Falls, New York. Henry Clarke had first seen

Bellevue, Nebraska on May 10, 1855. He brought his new

wife to Bellevue in 1858, where they were homesteaders. 122

His pioneering spirit had a great effect on his

family and the settlement of the North American continent.

A quick list of Henry Clarke's accomplishments would

include the following: member of the Territorial

Legislature in 1864; member of the Territorial Council in

1865; projected the Omaha & Southwestern Railroad in 1869;

planned and built a bridge across the North Platte river in

Nebraska in 1875, under the protection of U.S. troops;

started the Centennial Pony Express in 1876, serving the

mountain districts with their only source of mail

122"Real Pioneer of the West Arrives; Father of "Mother's Day" Here to Attend Trans-Mississippi Congress." unknown Baltimore newspaper, 1911, Gertrude Clarke Whittall vertical file, Music Division, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

46

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 delivery.123

Additionally, Henry Clarke was president of the

Missouri River Improvement Association, instigator of the

Rivers and Harbors congress and its vice-president, active

member of the National Conservation congress, the first man

to be awarded the Master's degree in Nebraska, builder of

the first north-south railway west of the Missouri river

and covered wagon bridges across Nebraska, and organizer of

a wagon freight service between Omaha and Denver.124

Clarke was also a liberal benefactor of Fairview University

in Omaha. He was involved in a multitude of efforts to

develop Nebraska and the surrounding territory. He

reportedly made, lost, and made again several million

dollars, and was considered a member of the new class of

self-made millionaires that existed at the turn of the century.125

Henry Clarke must have been a rugged individual to

thrive in the harsh environment of turn of the century

Nebraska. Nonetheless, he also seems to have remained a

man of deep caring and appreciation for others and their

efforts. Clarke has been recognized as the founder of

Mother's Day, which began as a tribute to his wife and

other pioneer women who accompanied their husbands into the

123A. T. Audreas, compiler, History of the State of Nebraska, (Chicago, Illinois: The Western Historical Company, 1882), 1367.

124"Real Pioneer of the West Arrives,11

125ibid.

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wilderness and led very difficult lives. He would take

white carnations to the Mother's Home in Omaha with his

only daughter, Gertrude, on May 10 (the day he first saw

Bellevue and decided to move west). He successfully

campaigned locally and then nationally to gain recognition

100 for these pioneer women and mothers everywhere.

Gertrude grew up with this unusual man, her mother

and five brothers on a Nebraska farm. She had no playmates

besides her brothers and was educated by private tutors

until she was sent to private boarding school at the age of

twelve. 127 There, though she suffered greatly from

homesickness, she enjoyed cultivating her interests in

music, literature and art. She also studied French and

Spanish, eventually at the Sorbonne in Paris, and travelled

throughout Europe and South America. 128

In 1906, at the age of 39, Gertrude Clarke married

Matthew John Whittall, from Worcester, Massachusetts.

Matthew Whittall was a successful British manufacturer of

oriental style rugs.129

126Ibid.

127Nona Brown, "At 96, A Green Bough and a Singing Bird." New York Times, 22 December, 1963. 128 Press Release No. 65-50, "Death of Mrs. Matthew John Whittall (Gertrude Clarke Whittall)", Library of Congress, 29 June, 1965, Gertrude Clarke Whittall vertical file, Music Division, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

129Cate Peterson, "She Loved Music: Gifts from Ex- Nebraskan Enrich Library of Congress." Omaha-World Herald, 15 February, 1987.

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In 1908, the Flonzaley String Quartet played at

Whittall Manor in Worcester and Gertrude fell in love with

chamber music. 130 Little else is known about the

Whittall's life together. They had no children, and

Gertrude was widowed on October 31, 1922, at the age of

55. 131 When her husband died, she gave their home in

Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, to the Grand Lodge of Masons of

Massachusetts as a hospital in memory of her husband, who

had been a Mason, as had her father. 132

Gertrude stayed in the Boston area for twelve

years. There she began collecting Stradivari instruments

with the help and advice of concert violinist Louis

Krasner. She first came upon the idea of the collection

after a conversation with musicians about the extraordinary

musical possibilities of a matched set of instruments such

as those by the famous Stradivari family. 133 She obtained

three violins, a viola and a violoncello. She then

obtained five bows made by the master, Francois Tourte, who

130"A Green Bough", Information Bulletin of the Library of Congress, Vol. 22, No. 49, Washington, D.C., 9 December 196 3, 651, Gertrude Clarke Whittall vertical file, Music Division, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 131 "Death of Mrs. Matthew John Whittall", press release, Gertrude Clark Whittall Vertical File, Library of Congress.

132Ibid.

133Nona Brown, "At 96, A Green Bough"

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was the Stradivaris' equal in the art of bowmaking.134

In 1934, Gertrude moved to Washington, D.C., and

almost immediately became involved with the Library of

Congress, surely, at least in part, due to its chamber IOC music activities endowed by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.

In 1935, Gertrude gave her matched set of Stradivari

instruments and the Tourte bows to the Library of Congress

and established the Gertrude Clarke Whittall

IOC Foundation.

Gertrude was very close to Dr. Herbert Putnam, head

librarian at the Library of Congress. Gertrude also kept

in close contact with Harold Spivake, chief of the music

division at the library, and Edward N. Waters, later acting

chief of the music division. Through these men, Gertrude arranged the activities of her foundation.

One of the first activities of the Foundation was

the establishment of a resident quartet to give regular

concerts for the public on the Stradivari instruments. The

purpose of this was two-fold. First, Gertrude wanted the

musicians to become very familiar with the instruments so

that they could achieve their maximum potential together.

Second, she wanted to expand the library's chamber music

134Rembert Herbert, Three Masters: The Stringed Instrument Collection in the Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1983.

135Cate Peterson, "She Loved Music"

136"Autographs, Music and Letters", The Library of Congress Music Division, The Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1953.

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endeavors, which primarily consisted of the Coolidge

Foundation's festivals and its commissioning of new works.

On January 10, 1936, a concert was performed on the

Stradivarius instruments. The program included music by

Beethoven, Alfred Pochon and Ernest Chausson. Music by

Pizzetti appeared on the second program. 137

Starting sometime in early 19 36, broadcasts of

these concerts were begun by the National Broadcasting

Company and the Mutual Broadcasting Service. These

broadcasts of most subsequent concerts continued for many

years.

In 19 36, Gertrude and the foundation paid for the

construction of the Whittall Pavilion at the Library of

Congress as a place for the performance of chamber music

and to house the Stradivari instruments in custom display

cases with climate controls to help preserve the

instruments. The climate control system added $30,000 to

the cost of the pavilion. She wanted the pavilion to be

used only for musical purposes and wanted the Stradivari

collection to remain in the library. 138

The internationally acclaimed Budapest Quartet was

selected as the resident quartet and gave their first

concert on August 3, 1940 in the Coolidge Auditorium at the

137Whittall Foundation Programs, 19 36-June 1941, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

138Brown, "Green Bough." The instruments are not allowed out of the building, even for repairs. Repair technicians are brought to the Library when needed.

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Library of Congress. The quartet performed two series each

year in the Coolidge Auditorium and the Whittall Pavilion.. , . 139

The Whittall Foundation has acquired a significant

collection of autograph manuscripts that focus on classical

European composers. At the outbreak of World War II in

Europe, Gertrude acquired a large, excellent collection of

autograph musical scores that were in need of a safer home.

In 1941, she purchased part of the Jerome Stonborough

collection (Vienna, Austria) and expanded the foundation's

activities to include the acquisition of original 18th,

19th and 20th century manuscripts of European

composers.140

The Library of Congress now has, not only the

largest collection of Brahms manuscripts outside of Vienna,

but one of the largest collection of manuscripts in the

world. 141 Most of these manuscripts are part of the

Whittall Foundation Collection of Autograph Musical Scores and Autograph Letters.

The Foundation acquired the archive assembled by

Mara Banz Hohn for a planned biography of Paganini. It

also has the W. T. Freemantle collection of Felix

1 0 Q Nona Brown, "At 96, A Green Bough;" and Whittall Foundation Programs.

140Annette Melville, Special Collections in the Library of Congress: A Selective Guide, Library of Congress, 1980.

141Nona Brown, "At 96, A Green Bough"

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 Mendelssohn's material and original scores and letters by

Bach, Beethoven, Hayden, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner and

Schoenberg, among others.

In 1950, Whittall endowed the Gertrude Clarke

Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund. This was to provide

for the public's enjoyment of poetry reading, dramatic

presentations, lectures and other programs related to

poetry and literature. 142 The poetry and literature fund

also has an excellent collection of autograph manuscripts

and letters by such renowned writers and poets as A. E.

Housman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Percy Bysshe Shelly and

Robert Frost. Also in the collection are works by St.

Vincent Milay, Poe, Dickenson, Rossetti and Tennyson.

Throughout the years, Gertrude continued to donate

to organizations in Washington. She gave to the National

Symphony Orchestra and the United Givers Fund as well as

additional funds to the foundations bearing her name.

Whenever a guest artist appeared whose fee was larger than

the foundation's budget would meet, Gertrude made up the

difference.143

Gertrude was very considerate of those around her.

After the Budapest Quartet gave its last concert as the

resident quartet of the Library of Congress in 1962,

Whittall arranged to give each of the members an engraved

142"A Green Bough" Information Bulletin, Gertrude Clark Whittall Vertical File, Library of Congress.

143Paul Hume, "Gertrude Clarke Whittall, Was Patroness of Concerts Here." Washington Post, 30 June, 1965.

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sterling silver tray expressing appreciation "for their

years of brilliant service." The Julliard String Quartet

has been the resident quartet since October 1962.

Gertrude Clarke Whittall died on June 29, 1965, in

Washington, D.C. She was 97 years old and still active and

living independently. Her friendships with artists and

authors benefitted the world as well as the individuals.

She was an early supporter of Arnold Schoenberg and

reportedly saved his family from poverty during some hard

times early in his career. 144 She also provided

inspiration for Robert Frost, who frequented the poetry

1 4 5 reading room that she donated to the Library.

The Whittall Foundation usually directs its support to

the performance of more traditional works that Gertrude

referred to as the "music of the masters." Subsequently,

the Julliard Quartet focuses on the performance of this

music and does not commission any new works. Gertrude felt

that the actual performance of music was neglected by the

Coolidge Foundation and sought to provide for it. The

Whittall Foundation also pays for the upkeep of the

Stradivarius instruments, which is quite expensive, and the

acquisition of original autograph music and manuscripts.

The most recent acquisition was in 1983, when some valuable

144 Peterson, Gifts from Ex-Nebraskan.

145Press Release, Whittall Vertical File, Library of Congress.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Brahms' autograph pieces were purchased.146

Gertrude Whittall's legacy to the American people

continues at the Library of Congress, where the public

enjoys literature and concerts as a result of her support.

146 Elizabeth Amman, Head of Music Division's Acquisitions and Processing Division, Coordinator of Public Events, Library of Congress, phone interview by author, October 23, 1989.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V

KATHERINE SOPHIE DREIER THE AVANT GARDE

Katherine Dreier was born on September 10, 1877 to

Johann Caspar Theodor Dreier and his wife, Dorothea

Adelheid Dreier. Johann Dreier was a partner at Naylor,

Benson and Company, a British iron firm. When he left

Germany after the Revolution of 1848, he worked his way up

through the firm. Johann Dreier married his cousin

Dorothea in 1864 and together, they had five children. In

addition to becoming a leader of the company, he also

became a leader in the community.147

The Dreier family lived in Brooklyn until 1887, when they moved to a home overlooking the New York harbor

in a more affluent neighborhood. The Dreier family spoke

only German at home and they travelled back to Bremen each

summer to visit family and friends. They also travelled to

other parts of Europe. 148

Katherine's mother co-founded the German Home for

Recreation of Women and Children, a refuge for poor women

147 Aline Saarinen, The Proud Possessors, (New York: Random House, 1958), 240. 148 Both of Katherine Dreier's parents were from Bremen, Germany and came to the U.S. following the 1848 revolution in their homeland. Ruth L. Bohan, The Societe Anonyme's Brooklyn Exhibition, (UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1980), xviii.

56

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and children. At the age of 21, Katherine became the

Home's treasurer, her first official job. Katherine's

older sisters, Mary and Margaret, were founders of the

Women's Trade Union League and active in the suffrage and

settlement house movements. Katherine Dreier was very

active in the suffrage movement on both national and

international levels. 149

One of Katherine's older sisters, Dorothea, was an

aspiring artist. Katherine was quite musical, like her

mother. She had been expected to have a musical career,

but was set on following Dorothea and began studying art in

1889 at the age of twelve. She studied at the Brooklyn Art

School from 1895 to 1897. Katherine's parents both died in

the 1890s and she and her siblings were left with

sufficient funds to support themselves comfortably.

Key elements in Katherine Dreier's life were

present very early. Katherine had been raised in an

environment of equality and strong social conscience. Her

family and their ancestors had a long history of social,

humanitarian and philanthropic endeavors. Her parents were

very active in the German community and in social causes;

women's rights, immigrants, children, education and

political reform were common topics discussed at home. 150

Katherine became deeply involved in Theosophy,

149Barbara Sicherman, Notable American Women-The Modern Period, 203.

150Bohan, Societe Anonyme, 3.

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which had gained a fair amount of attention between its

birth in 1875 and the early 20th century. Theosophy draws

on Eastern religions and its basic ideas have roots in

concepts of reincarnation and karma; natural laws of

science; and Christian morality.

A basic understanding of the tenets of Theosophy is

necessary to understand not only the context in which

Dreier saw her life, but also choices she made and the

outcome of many of her endeavors. The word "theosophy" is

from the Greek and means "divine wisdom." "Now, if Divine,

it must be all-embracing, must include all truth, ethical,

scientific, philosophical, religious." 151 Theosophy

teaches that there are other planes than the material

plane, which is perceived through our five senses: the

mental, moral, psychic and spiritual planes. Theosophy

emphasizes the study of man in relationship to each of

these planes, in pursuit of the rational order of the

universe.

The first fundamental belief of theosophists is

that all mankind is unified by the "all-pervading Spiritual

Essence." We each carry at the core of our being the same

spirit which is interconnected and inseparable. Therefore,

"..if we first study man, as part of the whole, and

necessarily divine, being, part, we arrive at our

conclusions, step by step— verify our experiments one at a

151Mary F. Lang, Theosophy, (New York: The Alliance Publishing Company, 1904), 5-6.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 152 time, and by knowing ourselves, know God!"

The second fundamental aspect of Theosophy is the

belief in reincarnation as part of the process of spiritual

evolution. Just as our physical forms have evolved over

the millennia, so have our spiritual forms and, with work

and struggle, they will become pure spirit, and we will not

need to be incarnated again. 153 Gaining perfection, or

Godliness, includes separation from needs in the material

plane. Reason is higher than perception and thus reason

will outlast the need for perception.

Karma is the third major aspect of Theosophy.

Instead of man having a soul, man is soul. Through each

life, our destinies are ruled by the natural laws of cause

and effect. Each action is a cause and will have an

effect. The purer the action, the better the effect and we

work out our weaknesses until we reach spiritual

perfection.

Theosophy emphasized attention to feelings and

sensory perception, particularly visual perception. "By

going beyond the material world of nature, Theosophy

profoundly influenced the development of modern abstract

art." 154 Among the many artists who were interested in

152Ibid., 6 .

153Theosophy does not propose that we are reincarnated as or risen from lower animals or plants-only human to human.

154Bohan, Societe Anonyme, 17. Bohan has written extensively on Dreier and the Societe Anonyme, which she spearheaded later in her career.

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and influenced by Theosophy were Piet Mondrian, Hans Arp,

Jackson Pollack, William Butler Yeats, Igor Stravinsky,

Arnold Schoenberg, and Le Corbusier. 155

As a theosophist, Katherine rebelled against the

strict, dogmatic approach at the Pratt Institute, where she

went to study in 1900. She stayed for only one year. She

felt in her study at Pratt a lack of freedom and creativity

and spent 1902 and 1903 travelling in Europe and studying

Old Masters with her sister Dorothea and Mary Quinn

Sullivan.156

From 1903-1909 Katherine took lessons from Walter

Shirlaw, who introduced her to the work of Wassily

Kandinsky. 157 Shirlaw was a member of the National

Academy of Design and an avid supporter of American art,

even though he was Scottish. His reputation was as a

muralist and he was a founder of the "Munich School" with

ICQ Frank Duveneck and William Merrit Chase. Rather than

focus on minutiae in a painting, Shirlaw encouraged

students to cultivate rhythm, color and individuality in

their work. In 1905, when Katherine was twenty-eight, she

155Bohan, Societe Anonyme, 17.

156Sicherman, Notable American Women, 203.

157Ibid., 203; and Bohan, Societe Anonyme, 4.

158Ruth L. Bohan, The Societe Anonyme's Brooklyn Exhibition, (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982), 5. In 1868, Shirlaw had helped found the Art Institute of Chicago, of which Elizabeth Coolidge's parents were also founders; in 1877 Shirlaw was a founder and president of the Society of American Artists.

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received her first commission, which was an altar painting

for St. Paul's School in Garden City, NY. 159

For a short period Katherine studied in Paris with

Raphael Collin. While in Europe in 1907 and 1908, she was

present at some of the soirees of Gertrude and Leo Stein in

Paris. The Stein salons were a gathering place for avant-

garde writers, authors and an unusual collection of people

and art. Here, Katherine was able to listen to artists

discuss their theories and their work as well as to see the

objects of their discussions. She was particularly struck

by the work of the Fauves', whose use of bold clashing

colors stunned her.160

In 1909, Katherine moved to the Chelsea district of

London. Dreier was introduced to the circle of artists and their friends by her brother-in-law's sister,

actress/feminist Elizabeth Robins. In London, Dreier knew

John Singer Sargent, Henry James and was influenced by the

writings of Oscar Wilde and Roger Fry.161 Here, she also

came into contact with the philosophies of Ruskin and

Morris, and developed her own conviction that this new art 1 po was "a global outpouring of repressed spirituality."

In 1911, Katherine returned to Brooklyn to marry

159Sicherman,Notable American Women, 203.

160Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, 6 .

161Martin Green, New York 1913: The Armory Show and the Paterson Strike Pageant, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988), 63.

162Ibid. , 239.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Edward Trumbull, a fellow American artist she had met in

London. Katherine returned to Europe after the marriage

was annulled because Trumbull was a bigamist. He was 163 already married and a father.

Katherine travelled in Europe with her sister

Dorothea, where she met and became friends with Vincent Van

Gogh's sister, Elisabeth du Quesne Van Gogh.164 Katherine

translated and wrote the introduction for Van Gogh's

Personal Recollections, an intimate account of her

brother's temperament and personality. Katherine also

bought a small painting by Van Gogh, Mile Ravoux, painted

in 1890, the year the artist died, which is thought to be 166 the first owned by an American. She apparently made

the purchase in 1912 when she attended The Cologne

Sonderbund Exhibition. This was the first major mounting

of what was then the avant-garde. This exhibition included

works by Paul Cezanne, Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh and 166 Pablo Picasso.

It was also at this time that Katherine read

Vassily Kandinsky's Uber das Gestige inder Kunst, which was

163Sicherman, Notable American Women, 203,

164While travelling in Holland, Dorothea recorded the coal miners' terrible living conditions in her sketchbook. In the process, she contracted tuberculosis. She died from in ten years later. Saarinen, The Proud Possessors, 241.

165Ibid. , 241. 166 "Katherine Dreier, Artist, Dead at 75." The New York Times, March 30, 1952, 92:1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63

published in 1912. She was greatly influenced by this

book, as "his ideas blended naturally with those of

theosophy, and those of the mystical socialism of, for 1*7 instance, Edward Carpenter."

Katherine returned to New York in time for The

Armory Show in the spring of 1913. Two of her paintings 1*Q were included in the show. Katherine also lent Mile

Ravoux to the exhibition. The book on Van Gogh was not

finished in time for the Armory Show, but was released

later in 1913. This was the first book on the artist

available in English and one of the first on modernism.169

Katherine's interest in the avant garde was fueled

by the Armory Show. The criticism and cat-calls that

followed in the press propelled her even more strongly into

the center of the avant garde movement and her initial

action was to get to know these artists. The most

influential artist that entered her life at this time was

Marcel Duchamp, who was to be a friend and advisor for the

rest of her life.

Duchamp was a primary leader, breaking traditions

and leaving what had been known behind. As part of his

protest against the past, he subverted everything,

167 Green, New York, 37. Green also suggests that "modernism had at its roots values of a kind remote from , the reverse of, worldly or materialist values, but transferred or translated out of religious terms into those of art."

168Bohan, Societe Anonyme, 1.

169Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 including himself and his art.170 Out of this protest

would come his "readymades," where he signed such items as

wastebaskets and shovels and then questioned whether or not

they were then art.171

The friendship between Katherine and Duchamps was

one of very different personalities. Duchamps could be

charming, witty, ironic and base. Katherine seems to have

maintained a more staid, purposeful, even intense demeanor.

Though she went to Argentina when he did in 1918, it is

unclear whether or not the relationship was ever romantic.

She did write a study of social welfare institutions in

Argentina, sub-titled Five Months in the Argentine; From a

Woman's Point of View. When Duchamp briefly married

someone else, Katherine said to him, "I know that if she

becomes too powerful that out of self-protection you will vanish as you always have." 172

Following the Armory Show, Katherine founded the

Cooperative Mural Workshop, which drew on the Arts & Crafts

Movement and the writings of John Ruskin, William Morris,

Oscar Wilde and their conviction that art is essential to

170Green, New York, 39.

171Tomkins, Calvin and the Editors of Time-Life Books, The World of Marcel Duchamps, (New York, 1966), 38-39.

172Robert L. Herbert, Eleanor S. Apter, and Elise H. Kenney, Societe Anonyme Catalog, (new Haven, Conn., 1984), 12, as quoted in Green, New York, 240.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65

civilization. 173 Ruskin and Morris saw art as a "powerful

vehicle of social change." 174 Katherine viewed the murals

as a vital form of public art similar in purpose to

pageantry. With the belief that there was no distinction

between "high art" and "arts and crafts" and that all art

was uplifting, she broadened the scope of the workshop.

Furniture and interior decorating were added and Katherine

had plans to add more art forms and crafts. 175 In 1914, 17R the workshop hosted Isadora Duncan. The workshop did

well and was unanimously praised. Unfortunately, its

activities were cut short by the entrance of the U.S. into

the First World War in 1917.

Katherine became a founding member of the Society

of Independent Artists in late 1916, with Walter Pach, John

Quinn, Man Ray, Alfred Steiglitz and their

contemporaries.177 Through the Society and Duchamp, she

was drawn into the group that gathered with Walter

Arensberg, patron and collector. The members of this group

evolved into the New York Dadaists, of which Katherine is

173Ibid., 9. The workshop was modeled after one developed by Roger Fry in England, where Katherine became aware of the concept.

174Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, 8 .

175-.,Ibid., . , 9.

176Green, New York, 15.

177Gertrude Whitney supported the Society, gave $1,500 for their first exhibition and entered a cast from her Titanic memorial in it. Berman, Rebels, 135.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 178 credited as being one of the prime supporters.

An interesting challenge to the group's professed

modernism came from Duchamp in 1917. He submitted an

inverted urinal for their first exhibition of the Society

of Independent artists. The Society had guaranteed that

all submissions would be displayed. The urinal ignited a

storm of debate over artistic freedom that ended with

rejection of the piece and the resignation of Glackens as

president.

Katherine stood by the Society's decision to ban

the Duchamp's urinal, Fountain by "R. Mutt," but also

encouraged Duchamp not to resign his membership because the

society needed his insight. In 1918 Duchamp painted Tu'm

for Katherine, which some consider to be an abstract portrait of her.

Subsequently, Katherine organized this country's

first museum of modern art, The Societe Anonyme in 1920.

With the dedicated help of Duchamp, Man Ray and others, the

Societe presented a wide array of loan exhibitions of

individuals and movements that are now commonly known.

Artists such Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Fernand Leger, Alexander

Archepenko, Francis Picabia, Piet Mondrian and many others

received their first one-man shows in the U.S. through

Dreier and her Societe.

Katherine wanted to expand the appreciation of art

beyond the galleries and museums to reach average people in

178Sicherman, Notable American Women, 203.

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67

their daily lives. Through her work with the Societe, she

pioneered audience development and outreach. 179 There

were ten exhibitions and numerous lectures in 1921. 180

When the Societe Anonyme opened, modern art in the

U.S. was faltering. Steiglitz had closed his gallery 291

in 1917. Art magazines and galleries were closing

steadily. 181 As was noted by Ruth Bohan, a noted writer

on the Societe Anonyme:

The 1920s brought a reaction against the pervasive internationalism generated by the prewar period and disillusionment with purely abstract art. The results were a renewed interest in more representational styles and in American scene imagery.

Katherine expected the Societe to help keep modern

art alive and available to the American public. The

Societe had exhibition space, a library, and published art-

related materials. Dreier also offered interpretations of

modern art, which was unique and viewed as dangerous by

some members of the art community. 183

Although there were a total of 86 members,

Katherine did most of the work. In addition to Katherine,

Duchamps and Man Ray, early members included Marsden

Hartley, Joseph Stella, Elie Nadelman, Henry McBride and

179Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, xvii, 180 Green, New York, 271.

181Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, 27.

182Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, 29.

183Ibid., 31.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 184 Walter Arensberg. Although her dedication continued,

members' attendance to meetings diminished. The magnetic

presence of artists like Duchamps was more important to the

society than was realized. When Duchamps and Man Ray left

the country, many in the Societe did not renew their 185 membership. Katherine continued to run the

organization and provide significant amounts of its

funding.

In 1926-27, the Societe Anonyme held an immensely

successful show for the Brooklyn Museum titled, "The International Exhibition of Modern Art." The exhibition

had 53,000 visitors in its six-week span.186 With 308 works by 106 artists from 23 countries, this was the

biggest exhibition of modern art since the Armory show

nearly fourteen years earlier. 187

The focus of the Brooklyn Exhibition was on showing

what was happening in modern art, rather than providing a

educative chronology showing its history and progression.

The exhibition hall was set up in numerous small rooms

furnished in contemporary home decor showing how modern art

would appear in the public's homes.

By the late 1920s, modern art was flourishing

184Ibid., 35.

185Ibid. 186 Robert J. Levy, "Katherine Dreier: Patron of Modern Art1' Apollo, (May 1981), 316.

187Bohan, Brooklyn Exhibition, 51.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 without Katherine's Societe. Her independence and the

intensity with which she pursued her goals may have

contributed to her inability to work with her peer patrons.

As early as 1921, all eighty-six of the original founders

of the Societe had left except for Katherine. 188 Even

Marcel Duchamp was gone. The Societe Anonyme suspended

operations due to financial insolvency in the fall of 1928,

although the Societe was not disbanded. 189

As Katherine was closing the doors of the Societe,

she was opening a window to dance. In 1928, she began

providing support for dancer/choreographer Ted Shawn.

Shawn, an important pioneer in modern dance, had once been

a divinity student and regarded dance as religious

expression. Shawn, though religious, was less mystic than

his wife and partner, Ruth St. Denis. 190 He focused more

on serious training in dance. He was analytical in his

spirituality, which would have appealed to Katherine.191

188Ibid., 35.

189Dreier did not participate in the organization of the Museum of Modern Art, which opened in New York in 1929. Her response to their plans was that they were copying her and the Societe. Saarinen, The Proud Possessors, 246.

190Kraus and Chapman, History of the Dance, 130. Ted Shawn was and Ruth St. Denis pioneered modern dance in America with their company, Denishawn. St. Denis excelled in fairly accurate portrayals of dance from around the world. Her choreography was tightly intertwined with the music and her subjects reflected her deep involvement with mysticism.

191Kraus and Chapman, History of the Dance, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 In a lecture that Shawn gave at George Peabody College, he

stated, "An art activity is the deepest, richest, most

worth-while activity of mankind.... Art is experience,

vital experience, and nowhere does one experience the

reality of art so greatly as in the dance." 192

In 1929, Katherine painted an abstract portrait of

Shawn. She also did work for his productions, some of

which she financed. In particular she paid for Shawn and

his dancers to tour Germany in 1930 and 1931. 193 It is

not clear whether this was the Denishawn dancers or if it

was an early version of Shawn's future company of male

dancers.j 194

Shawn and St. Denis separated in 19 32 and

dissolved their company. Shawn then formed his company of

male dancers and it is credited with promoting male dancers, American themes and original musical

compositions. 195 He also established a summer school of

dance, Jacob's Pillow, near Pittsfield, Massachusetts,

where Elizabeth Coolidge had started her chamber music

activities years earlier.

The 1929 announcement of the creation of the Museum

192Brown, The Vision of Modern Dance, 31-32. 103 Green, New York, 272.

194Denishawn introduced the first training of Mary Wigman's dance technique in 1930. Like Vfigman, Shawn had studied Dalcroze technique and he must have studied with Wigman during the German tour sponsored by Katherine.

195Ibid., 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 of Modern Art, which had excluded Katherine, was quite a

blow. The Museum of Modern Art's focus on international

modern art would compete with the Societe's. Katherine

tried to continue, but the stock market crash in 1929

reduced her personal funds dramatically. The Societe's

last exhibitions were held in 1931.

By this time, Katherine's activities were greatly

reduced, though she remained close to Duchamp. She

continued writing and in 19 3 3 she published a book on Ted

Shawn.

In 1941 Katherine gave the Societe's collection of

616 works to Yale University. The collection includes

Yellow Bird, a sculpture by Brancusi, Construction by

Burgoyne Diller, Femme Assise by Raymond Duchamp-Villon and

Paris Reve by Max Ernst. In 1950, cataloging of the

collection was completed and in 1951, the collection was

declared closed. 196

Katherine Dreier died just one year later on March

19, 1952. Her contributions to modern art have gone

largely without public recognition, but that does not

diminish them. She was a prophetic champion of modern art

in America.

196Levy, "Katherine Dreier," 317.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI

GERTRUDE VANDERBILT WHITNEY AND JULIANA REISER FORCE PROMOTING MODERN AND AMERICAN

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was on her way to

becoming an accomplished artist in her own right when she

met Juliana Rieser. Gertrude was a very wealthy and

socially prominent woman, which Juliana was not. They

worked together to successfully champion the many American

artists of their time.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was born on April 19,

1877 in New York to Cornelius and Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt.

The Vanderbilt side of her family had come to the United

States from Holland in 1650. Gertrude's great-grandfather

was the famous Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who

accumulated a fortune in the railroad business. 197

The young Gertrude Vanderbilt was educated at the

Brearley School. On August 16, 1896, she married banker

and sportsman, Harry Payne Whitney. They had two children:

197 "Mrs. H.P. Whitney, Sculptor, Is Dead." New York Times, 18 April 1942, 15. Gertrude's family lost some of it's wealth when her father abandoned his business enterprises and his family to run off to Europe with his young mistress. However, when they decided to return to the U.S., they were on the ill-fated, maiden voyage of the Titanic. Gertrude went to the New York docks praying to see her father among the survivors, but all she saw was the mistress walking down the gangplank alone. Her father had gone down with the ship. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney vertical file, National Museum of Women in the Arts.

72

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73

Flora, born in 1897, and Cornelius (Sonny), born in 1899.

The marriage was not particularly happy, as Harry was a

disinterested husband. Soon the children were old enough

to be watched by servants and Harry was busy with his

various mistresses.

Unhappy and restless, Gertrude was toying with

writing as a profession when she went with her husband to

John La Farge's studio to make some purchases for their

home. Gertrude was fascinated with what she saw and soon 198 began art lessons.

By 1900, Gertrude was thoroughly engaged in

studying sculpture. She studied with Hendrik C. Anderson

and James E. Fraser, then went to the Art Students 199 League. Eventually, she went to Paris, where she lived

in the "Quarter," which was occupied primarily by artists.

She studied with Andrew O'Connor and August Rodin, who had

a tremendous impact on her work.200

Gertrude broke with social conventions of the time

when she set about her pursuit of art. For a woman of her

social and economic standing to have a professional career,

particularly in the arts, was scandalous to her peers and a

joke to the art world.

In 1907, she opened a studio in Greenwich Village,

198 Avis Berman, Rebels on Eighth Street, (New York: Atheneum, 1990), 52-54.

199Ibid., 57-61.

200"Mrs. H.P. Whitney, Sculptor, is Dead."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 201 which became a center for experimental art. Her first

critical success came a year later when she (along with

Hugo Ballin and Grosvenor Atterbury) won an award from the

Architectural League for the best design for an outdoor

swimming pool and pavilion. Her contribution to the effort

was a statue featuring Pan on a fountain. 202 It was at

this point that Gertrude Whitney met Juliana Rieser Force,

who soon entered the world of American art and helped to

change it forever.

Juliana Rieser Force was born to Maximilian and

Julia Rieser in Doylestcwn, Pennsylvania in 1876. The

Riesers had immigrated to the United States in the 1840s

and settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Their large

family included twelve children. In 1885, Maximilian's hat

business failed and the impoverished family moved to

Hoboken, New Jersey. This move was resented by Juliana,

who later dropped her years in Hoboken from her resume and

omitted it from personal histories. 203

Juliana Reiser taught English and business at a

business school in Hoboken until about 1906 or 1907, when

she opened a Manhattan office as a free-lance stenographer

and secretary. It was through this that she began working

for Helen Hay Whitney and subsequently for Helen Whitney's

201 Avis Berman, "Juliana Force", Museum News, (1976), 47.

202 "Mrs. H.P. Whitney, Sculptor, Is Dead." 203 Avis Berman, "Juliana Force and Folk Art", The Magazine Antiques, (Sept. 1989), 544.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 sister-in-law, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

In early 1907, Juliana helped Gertrude Whitney

organize an art exhibition for the opening of the Colony

Club in New York on March 12. 204 This club was a women's

club that was a counterpart to the exclusive mens clubs and

offered women the opportunity to indulge in such radical

liberties as smoking and drinking wine and spirits. 205

Gertrude's selection of artists for the Colony Club

exhibition ranged from John Singer Sargent, James McNeill

Whistler, Paul Dougherty, Barry Faulkner, Maxfield Parrish

and John Twachtman. what was truly extraordinary was that

she included Arthur Davies, Ernest Lawson, and Jerome

Myers. These were artists painting in a new manner. They

were close to Robert Henri and the artists who were to

become known as "The Eight," "The Ashcan School," and the

"New York Realists."206 Within days of the show's

opening, the National Academy of Design rejected paintings

by other Henri associates William Glackens, George Luks,

Everett Shinn and John Sloan, Rockwell Kent and Carl

Sprinchorn. Henri withdrew two of his three paintings from

the Academy, in protest of their action. 207

204Berman, Rebels, 82.

205Ibid.

^Ibid., 82.

207Ibid., 83. The week that all this occurred, Sloan and Glackens formulated what was to become the introduction of The Eight. This introductory exhibition was held at the Macbeth Gallery, which was the only gallery aside from Alfred Steiglitz's 291 that showed

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76

Arthur Davies wrote to Gertrude Whitney and praised

her boldness in selecting what were considered radical

paintings. He expressed the hope that she would be the

"turning point in this movement, a means of attainment for

an art of style and true beauty." 208 Davies wrote this to

Gertrude on April 10, the day after the exhibition opened

at the Colony Club. While Davies was penning this letter

of praise and thanks to Gertrude, the Academy was

blackballing him and 35 other artists. 209

The press wrote about the Academy's actions and

Henri publicly called for an exhibition such as Sloan and

Glackens had been formulating. Henri suggested the

inclusion of Davies, Glackens, Lawson, Luks, Prendergast,

Shinn, Sloan and himself. 210 On February 3, 1908, the

first exhibition of "The Eight" opened. On February 2, the

night before the opening, Gertrude Whitney is recorded as

having bought four of the seven paintings sold through out

the run of the exhibition. 211

She bought one each by Henri, Lawson, Luks and

Shinn. Laughing Child, by Henri, is a portrait of a blond

girl; Winter on the River, by Lawson, is a river scene;

Woman with Goose, by Luks is a portrait of an old woman;

living American artists who did not follow Academy dogma,

““ibid.

“ ibid. 210Ibid.

211Ibid. , 91.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77

and Revue, by Shinn, shows a musical theater star taking

her bows. 212 These paintings were considered quite

unorthodox at the time, because of their subject matter as

well as for the techniques used in creating them. New York

Realism grew out of this group of painters who were

centered around Henri. 213

Juliana then worked as Gertrude's literary agent in

1911. In 1912, Juliana married Dr. Willard Burdette Force.

"Doctor," as her husband was called was a successful

dentist from Hoboken, as was Juliana. He was married and

had a small child when he and Juliana met.214 Their

marriage followed a seven year affair and occurred when he

was finally able to obtain a divorce.

Gertrude and Juliana worked well together. Their

different styles and temperaments complemented each other

and helped them attain their goals. Juliana was able to do

many of the things that Gertrude could not, such as dealing

in art world politics and standing up to condescension 215 regarding American Art. While Gertrude went to visit

her various homes around the U.S. and in Paris, Juliana

stayed in New York and acted as her agent. Juliana pursued

sculpture commissions for Gertrude and marketed Gertrude's

literary efforts, which were under a pen name.

212Ibid., 91-92.

213Ibid. , 72.

?14 Ibid., 87-90.

215Berman, "Juliana Force", 46.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 Gertrude began to hold informal shows for unknown

artists who had trouble getting presented. Juliana

continued her arrangement with Gertrude. Juliana was the

manager of Gertrude's studio at 19 MacDougal Alley, which

quickly became a center for experimental art. Juliana

received her education in art directly from the artists

with whom she interacted. Her solicitous attitude toward

artists and her excellence in selling earned respect and

affection. She listened and learned a great deal from the

artists she was helping.

Gertrude was acquainted with Walt Kuhn and the

other organizers of the famous 1913 Armory Show. She was

aware of their intentions as early as 1911, and loaned some 916 pieces to the show. However, she travelled out of the

country before it opened and never saw the Armory Show,

returning only after it closed. This is probably because

she had not been invited to show her own work. Gentle

handling and the knowledge that Daniel Chester French had

also been excluded must have eased the pain of rejection,

as she continued to work with the organizers. 217 Shortly

before the Armory Show opened, $1,000 was donated in

Gertrude's name. As she had already left the country, it

was probably Juliana who wrote the check. It is unclear

whether this was at Gertrude's instruction or if Juliana

recognized the importance of Gertrude's name being

916 Berman, Rebels, 101-102. 917 Ibid., 102.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 associated with what was about to happen to art in

America.218

While the Armory Show shocked the American public,

it also disappointed some of the organizers. 219 One of

their primary motivations had been disable the Academy,

which they did. However, they did not expect the European

moderns to eclipse the American artist. While the Armory

Show did much to advance modernism in America, it advanced

European artists more than Americans, who were said to be

backward by comparison.220

This treatment of the living American artists who

were already close to Gertrude reinforced her support of

them. She spoke out in their defense and expanded her

efforts to aid and promote them. In 1914, with Juliana

there to direct, she opened the Whitney Studio, a place

where young and unknown artists could eat, talk, create,

and display their work. The Studio was very successful.

Many of the artists who started there went on to become

prominent.221

218Ibid., 103.

219Ibid.

^Ibid., 104-105.

221"Mrs. H.P. Whitney, Sculptor, is Dead." Within a few years, Gertrude had earned a reputation as an artist and as a patron. The continuous flow of people wanting her attention and assistance kept Juliana quite busy and Gertrude began to feel besieged. In late 1912, she purchased the lease to the townhouse adjacent to her McDougal Alley studio and had it remodeled. The townhouse was connected to her studio by a back staircase that only a few people ever knew existed. Berman, Rebels,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 In 1914 Juliana and Doctor purchased Barley Sheaf

Farm, near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, as their summer home.

Juliana intended to make the farm a proper return for the

Riesers to Bucks County, which she felt had slighted her

poverty-stricken family when they had left many years

before. Juliana began building an admirable collection of

what we now call American Folk Art. Building her

collection was related to her desire to make the farm a

true showplace. 222

Juliana often took her station wagon and scoured

the countryside for items for the farm. Typical of her

personality, Juliana ignored the rules and conventions of

the day and mixed all her treasures together. This

included sculpture, hand-carved toys, quilts, cigar-store

Indians, Belter settees, unknown nineteenth-century

paintings, lacquered furniture, etc. The effect was

shocking to some, as doing rooms by period was the accepted

fashion. Juliana mixed her treasures together as it struck

her fancy.223

In November 1914, when the first World War broke

out, Gertrude put together a crew of doctors and nurses and

sailed to France on the Lusitania, to set up a

222Berman, Rebels, passim. ^Ibid.

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hospital. 224 She gave $200,000 to the French government

to pay for the hospital, despite Harry's objections. Over

the course of the war, Gertrude put one million dollars of

her own money into the hospital and also donated thirteen 225 ambulances. Her experiences in the war provided the

inspiration for some of her best known art work.

Gertrude's Doughboy was done for New York's Victory

Arch and put up in Madison Square Garden after the war.

She also created His Bunkie, Gassed, and In The Trenches,

based on what she had seen. The sculpture in front of

Memorial Continental Hall, commemorating the founders of

the Daughters of the American Revolution and The Spirit of

the Red Cross were also her work. The sculpture for the

D.A.R. created some controversy because of her use of a

nude woman "as a symbol of Colonial womanhood." Gertrude

also won the competition to design the Titanic Memorial in

New York, which has been called her best work.

Also in 1914, Gertrude and Juliana began arranging

exhibitions to benefit war relief. The first show was held

December 3-10, 1914, and included works by many of the New

York Realists and other notable artists, among them Malvina

224Ibid., Ill; and "Mrs. H.P. Whitney, Sculptor, Is Dead." Whitney supported many other philanthropic endeavors such as the United Hospital Fund. She supported the opera and was a member of many arts organizations and received numerous honorary degrees. In 1915, Gertrude's younger brother died when the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine. Berman, Rebels, 115.

225Berman, Rebels, 111.

^"Mrs. H.P. Whitney is Dead."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82

Hoffman, John White Alexander, Howard Cushing and Cecilia 227 Beaux.

In 1915, Gertrude and several other patrons and

activists in the arts announced "Friends of Young Artists,"

a new program designed to put more young artists in the

public eye and to develop new audiences. Many American

artists were in desperate circumstances due to the war and 228 there were also refugee artists fleeing Europe.

Additionally, most of the public had not seen original,

professional art work before the government programs of the 229 1930s. The founders' intentions were explained by Gertrude Whitney:

to give young artists in this country the opportunity to show their work and make it known to the general public...[and] bring before the public work which they otherwise would have no opportunity of seeing and estimating...[so that] American art will become what it promises to be, fresh and vital expression of a great new art.

That same year, Gertrude and Juliana began to put

227 Berman, Rebels, 112. Juliana and Gertrude were not active in the suffrage movement, but were feminists. They didn't use terms like "paintress" and gave equal access to women artists. Force never held an exhibit of women artists, as she felt it would be condescending, particularly as 30-35% of the artists in Whitney activities were women. Among them, Helen Farnsworth Mears, Laura McLane, Winifred Ward; Berman, Rebels, 134 and passim.

^Ibid., 113.

^Ibid., 5. 230 Announcement made by Gertrude Whitney in 1915, from "Juliana Force and American Art" (exhibition catalogue), 1949, 15-16, as quoted in Berman, "Juliana Force," 47.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. together a show that drew 1,800 visitors in two weeks. 231

William Macbeth of the Macbeth Gallery and Roland Knoedler

of the Knoedler Gallery helped them find canvases in

private collections to include in the show, which was

called "Modern Paintings by American and Foreign

Artists.1,232

In 1916, Juliana arranged for John Sloan to have

his first one-man show. He was forty-four years old and

had exhibited extensively with the Realists, but had only

sold one painting. 233 Sloan asked for and was granted the

show and he was given a free hand in selecting what was to

be shown. The Sloan show received mixed reviews. Critic

Forbes Watson approved of the show and the contents of

Sloan's work. Another critic described the content of

A O J Sloan's work as "sordid," "squalor," and "ugly."

The Whitney announced a new policy in 1917 that was

to be one of the studio's most famous principles. There

would be no juried shows and no prizes. 235 This concept

was already being promoted by Walter Pach, who was one of

231Berman, Rebels, 122.

232Ibid., 121. Knoedler's was the gallery that hosted Louisine Havemeyer's exhibitions to benefit suffrage, despite the likelihood of losing valued clients.

^Ibid., 1 2 2 .

234Ibid., 123.

^Ibid., 135.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 726 the founders of the Society of Independent Artists.

All money previously offered as prizes would be

used for the acquisition of art. The artists in the studio

convinced the women that the traditional policy of judging

shows and awarding prizes was destructive to the artistic

community and any sense of unity within it. 237

Another significant occurrence in 1917 was the

meeting of Juliana and Forbes Watson. 238 Between 1914 and

1917, the philosophy guiding Gertrude and Juliana changed.

This change was hastened by the involvement of Watson, a

critic who eventually was Juliana's lover for twelve years.

Watson disapproved of the uneven content of their shows,

and felt that they should continue with shows like the 239 Sloan show. However, Gertrude and Juliana were trying

to provide relief to artists rather than prove themselves

experts, and the change was gradual.

Gertrude and Juliana's next venture was the opening

of the Whitney Studio Club in 1918. Membership cost $5 per

year, but as there was no real effort to collect from those

236Ibid., 136. This society, which Gertrude gave $1,500, was the same which Katherine Dreier was a founding member. Gertrude was a significant benefactor of the Society until 1930, partially due to the involvement of Sloan, who was very close to Juliana.

237Berman, "Juliana Force," 47. Whitney and Force were early supporters of artists' need to sell their work and make a living. Starting in 1931, they set aside a minimum of $2 0 , 0 0 0 annually for purchasing the work of living American artists.

238Berman, Rebels, 116.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 who could pay, few did. 240 The only real criterion for

membership was talent. A sample of the membership reads

like a "Who's Who" in American Art: George Bellows, Louis

Bouche, Edward Hopper, Ernest Lawson, Reginal Marsh, Carl

Walters, William Zorach and many others. The Studio Club

gave some of these notables their first shows. 241

The club provided many services to its artists,

such as arranging for participation in international shows,

classes, lectures, food and artist's supplies. The club

did not take commissions on sales as the artists negotiated

the sales individually. There were also obligatory

celebrations after openings that would often outlast the

night.242

In 1921, an attempt was made to get the

Metropolitan Museum of Art to reverse its position against

modern art, specifically Post-Impressionism. A letter was

submitted to the president of the Metropolitan urging an

exhibition that would include Degas, Cezanne, Renoir,

Gauguin, Monet, Derain and others. 243 Gertrude signed the

letter along with John Quinn, Lillie Bliss, Arthur Davies,

Paul Dougherty and Agnes Ernst Meyer, all noted and

respected collectors. 244 Between them they represented

241Berman, "Juliana Force," 47.

242Ibid., 47.

243Berman, Rebels, 172.

244Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86

significant collections and significant wealth that the

Metropolitan could not afford to alienate. The museum

consented and the Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and

Post-impressionist Paintings was the first "modern"

exhibition at the Metropolitan. 245

1921 was also the year Juliana received news of yet

another artist in dire straits who was to become

significant in the history of the arts. This time it was

composer Edgard Varese, who was trying to introduce

innovative new music to New York. He and Carlos Salzedo

were trying to start the International Composers' Guild, a

group dedicated to the performance of modern music that was

not played elsewhere. Through Gertrude, Juliana was able

to support the birth of this organization dedicated to the

needs of the individual composer and the premier of new compositions.246

The Guild's first concerts were held in early 19 22

and the audiences apparently loved them.247 In 1925,

Varese premiered Integrales, which he dedicated to Juliana.

The conductor was Leopold Stokowski and the night made

music history, as it marked the advent of "spatial 248 music." In addition, the audience cheering for an

encore performance.

245Ibid.

246Ibid., 174.

247Ibid., 180.

248Ibid. , 216 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87

The International Composers Guild was active until

1927, when Varese felt that his mission had been

accomplished and that he was free to return to Europe. 249

Among the composers and conductors involved with Juliana

and Gertrude through the International Composers' Guild

were Carl Ruggles, Bela Bartok, Paul Hindemith, Darius

Milhaud, Sergei Prokofiev, Ottorino Respighi, Erik Satie,

Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Otto Klemperer, Fritz

Reiner, Artur Rodzinski, and Vladimir Shavitch. 250

Meanwhile, Juliana's passion for folk art spread to

the artists she worked with, and soon many of them were

combing the countryside as well. This was before interest

grew in the 1920s in collecting folk art.

In 1924, Juliana held an exhibition at the Whitney

Studio Club called "Early American Art," organized by Henry

Schnakenberg. The objects included were owned by

Schnakenberg and his friends. The press was not overly

enthusiastic but did not entirely reject the show, either.

The Whitney held another show of what Juliana referred to

as provincial art, in 1927. This show was well received

and shortly thereafter, folk art began to skyrocket in

popularity. 251

By the late 1920s, the Whitney Studio Club had over

400 members. It also had a waiting list of artists who

249Ibid., 248. ORf) Ibid., 177, 248-249.

251Berman, "Force and Folk Art", 548.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88

wanted to be members and participate in its annual

exhibitions, which were now competing with some of the

big, traditional shows. The club had become the largest

center for exhibiting independent American art. 252

The Studio Club was disbanded in 1928 when Gertrude

decided that it had fulfilled its original mission. By

that time she had already begun to plan a museum. 253

Initially, the Club was renamed the Whitney Studio

Galleries and was a semi-commercial enterprise. The goal

was to sell artists work and the Galleries collected a

commission on the sales. 254 This was a temporary measure,

as Gertrude and Juliana had no intention of competing with

galleries and dealers, who had begun to sell more

contemporary American art on their own. 255

Instead, Gertrude used this time to further her

plans for a museum. Originally, she tried to donate her

collection to an existing museum, so that there would be a

repository of contemporary American art where the public,

as well as dealers and critics, could see it.

Officials of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were

very condescending toward modern American art. The Museum

252Berman, "Juliana Force", 48-49. The club helped break the monopoly of the academies over the production and acceptance of art and artistic trends in America. Only the National Academy survived the upheaval. 953 "Mrs. H.P. Whitney, Sculptor, Is Dead"

254Berman, Rebels, 254.

255Berman, "Juliana Force", 50.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 of Modern Art declined to provide any separation of the

collection from its existing holdings, though it did offer

to donate some land for expansion. Gertrude felt that this

lack of respect for American art and the Whitney collection

precluded any further discussion of a merger. She 9RR initiated her own plans for a new museum.

In 1930, Gertrude Whitney announced the

establishment of the Whitney Gallery of American Art. She

remodeled four connecting houses on West 8th Street, and

opened her museum on November 18, 1931.

In 1931, Juliana sold some of her personal

collection at auction, presumably to clear out some of the 257 lesser objects in her collection. In 1932, Juliana

donated the bulk of her personal collection to the Whitney

to help round out its collection of American art.

"Provincial Paintings of the Nineteenth Century" was

mounted that year by Juliana. The show consisted of sixty-

four works, of which fifty-five had been donated by 258 Juliana. Some of the art donated by Juliana was

returned to her in 1938. This was during the Great

Depression and she had taken a cut in salary and a raise in

taxes. In addition, Juliana was supporting six members of

256Ibid., 50. 257 Ibid. Many of the items sold were bought by an agent of Edith Halpert, a prominent folk art dealer, who in turn sold them to Abby Aldrich Rockefeller for her home in Williamsburg, which eventually became the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center.

258Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 her family.259

From 19 31 until 1942, the Whitney Museum grew 260 steadily. However, with Gertrude Whitney's death on

April 18, 1942, the museum entered a period of

uncertainty.

In 1943, the trustees of the Whitney agreed to

merge with the Met. The Met would receive the Whitney1s

assets and the Whitney's endowment would be used to build a

wing to house the collection. The plan was to retain

Juliana Force as an advisor for acquisitions of living

American artists. She essentially lost her job as the

director of the Whitney, along with all power to act in its

best interests. Force had to work with Francis Henry

Taylor, director at the Metropolitan. He disliked

contemporary American art, and published several articles

questioning the value and significance of abstract and

modern art.

From this point on, Juliana and the Whitney

encountered many difficulties. Juliana was forced to sell

most of her collection and no longer had the museum to

focus on. She quickly spent the money from the sale of the

collection and travelled while working on various small

projects. The merger with the Metropolitan was on and off

and Juliana continued to work at the Whitney in some form

when it was active. Juliana was able to put on some shows

259Ibid.

260Ibid. , 54.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 and she continued her struggle to secure the Whitney's future.261

Among the activities that Juliana grasped on to was

working for legislation in New York state that backed the 262 purchase of art by the state. After a lengthy battle,

the proposed legislation was killed in 1947. However, it

was later resurrected and backed by Governor Nelson

Rockefeller in the form of a state arts council. "The work

Juliana and her committee did was the seed of the New York 963 State Council on the Arts."

Meanwhile, plans for an agreement on the territory

of the three primary museums in New York were underway. In

1947, representatives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney got together for a

meeting, primarily to discuss the fate of the Whitney. The

representatives of the Met criticized the policies of the

Whitney, which was communicated to Juliana Force, who was

too ill to be present, and she passed the information on to 264 the trustees. They, too, were deeply disturbed and

canceled the merger between the Whitney and the Met (it had

never been formalized on paper). "They recognized that

sacrificing the personal, the unorthodox or the new would

961 Berman, Rebels, 449-475.

262Ibid., 475. 263 Berman, Rebels, 484.

264Ibid., 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

have been a living death for the Whitney." 265

Soon after the decision was made to keep the

Whitney Museum independent, Juliana Force died. On August

28, 1948, cancer took her life. However, the most visible

legacy of Juliana Force and Gertrude Whitney was preserved.

Today, the Whitney Museum continues to show visitors

important examples of American art which Gertrude Whitney

and Juliana Force championed.

265Ibid., 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSIONS

Creating great art is not the only way for an

individual to have impact on the art world. Thoughtful and

informed creation of and participation in a necessary

infra-structure can have equally significant impact.

The women in this study changed the course of

modernism in America while working within the system.

Although, historically, art has been market driven, these

women supported those who were experimenting and not highly

sought after. They did not focus on art that had already

achieved critical acclaim and public acceptance, though

they could have afforded to do so. Instead they forged

into new and uncharted territory. Through thoughtful and

deliberate action, they effected a change in the course of

the history of the arts in America.

While some may consider it "elitist" that all of

these women possessed wealth, what was unusual about them

is that they did not follow the traditional paths for women

of their class. While they had the time and money to

pursue the interests of the wealthy, they maintained the

tradition of personally involved stewardship. These women

became part of a new cultural class that scholar and author

Martin Green describes as "those who feel themselves

responsible for the quality of life of the whole society—

93

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 OCg better than in economic or political terms."

These women shared several common traits. The

majority of these women were talented artists. All of

these women, with the exception of Gertrude Whitney and

Katherine Dreier, felt unable to pursue their individual

artistic careers because of societal restrictions placed on

them. Although a few rebels such as Mary Cassatt

succeeded, most talented women did not even entertain the

notion of becoming professional artists. Women of their 9R7 class simply were not artists.

All of these women, however, had been well educated

in the arts. Patronage allowed them a way to pursue

artistic interests and expression. It also allowed them to

have an acceptable career without totally abandoning their

security or their position in society.

Most were active in New York simultaneously,

although with different groups. And, though their means

differed slightly, they were eventually all working toward

the same end: the advancement of modernism in America. As

the world now is said to be small, it was even smaller

then. The paths and actions of these women intersected at

different points in their careers. Just as they affected

the development of the arts, they also occasionally

affected each other.

Green, New York, 15. 267 Eileen L. McDonagh, "Profiles of Achievement: Women's Entry Into the Professions, The Arts and Social Reform," Sociological Inquiry, Fall 1983.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95

Gertrude Whitney supported the Society of

Independent Artists, of which Katherine Dreier was a

member. Elizabeth Coolidge and Louisine Havemeyer were

both active patrons in the early years of chamber music in

the United States, particularly in New York City. We can oeo assume that they met under those circumstances.

Juliana Force's early pioneer shows inspired many to

collect American Folk Art. Louisine's daughter Electra

Havemeyer Webb became a noted collector of folk art and

established the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. Elizabeth

Coolidge and Gertrude Whittall crossed paths often at the

Library of Congress and enjoyed friendly rivalry. This

encouraged each to make focused gifts that filled gaps left by the other.

Another similarity between these women is that most

were somehow involved in advocacy efforts on behalf of the

arts. This took the form of fighting for favorable

legislation regarding imports, tariffs, taxes and artists

rights. All of these women at one time or another worked

together on benefit exhibitions and lobbied established

institutions to present the work of the artists they

supported.

These women all supported art that had unusual

content for art at the turn of the century. Workers and

the rituals of common, daily life were the focus of the

268 Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers, 78-79, 176. Louisine and Harry hosted musicales in their home based on those that they had enjoyed in the home of Edward de Coppet.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 visual artists they supported. The musicians and dancers

they supported were using sound and movement in ways that

changed the art form. Ted Shawn, for example, focused on

themes of work and play rather than the princesses and

fairy tales. The musical focus was on dissonance and

atonal qualities, reflective again of the changing society.

All six of these women contributed to society in

many ways. All of them, with the exception of Gertrude

Whittall, were active public speakers and writers. With

the exception of Louisine Havemeyer and Katherine Dreier,

they actively and successfully campaigned for government

support of the arts and culture for the masses. These

women worked for, as well as financially supported, such

causes as women's rights, settlement houses, and workers

rights. William James speaking on the importance of

individual action to the greater community might have been

commenting on them when he wrote, "Without the impulse of

the individual, the community stagnates. Without the

support of the community, the individual impulse dies."

The mutual support between these women and the arts

community nurtured the growth of modernism in America.

Through their individual initiative, these women played

vital roles in its development and in the community at

large.

Studying the lives of these women can provide

individuals with new insight on patronage and the

development of the arts. Supporting art that is considered

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 avant-garde takes courage and strength of conviction, in

addition to courage, these six women had deep understanding

of the arts and were actively involved with the

beneficiaries of their visionary support.

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