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Home , Art dealer, Bird in Space, Hester Diamond, John Quinn (collector), Ronald Lauder, Sheldon Museum of Art

Simon Starling Pictures for an Exhibition Titles & Notes

THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO Club of Chicago Simon Starling: Pictures for an Exhibition 6 June — 27 September 2014

The Arts Club of Chicago

In Pictures for an Exhibition, Simon Starling also took ancillary images of related works of charts both a history and a network. Address- art, historical documents, or evocative ob- ing two vintage installation photographs of jects to track the stories revealed by his re- an exhibition of works by Constantin Bran- search. Certain photographs rely upon the cusi, which was held at The Arts Club of overlaying of multiple images to merge the Chicago in 1927, Starling traces the path- current environments of multiple ways of the nineteen sculptures visible in and thus move towards the complete recon- these images from the moment of the exhibi- figuration of the 1927 exhibition. Others are tion until today. His journeys were both geo- extramural in that they depict the collateral graphic—he covered over a dozen cities, vis- materials or places that he discovered in his iting libraries and archives, as well as twelve travels and investigations. From the compen- different private collections and public insti- dium of resulting images, Starling has curat- tutions that currently house the Brancusi ed a narrative or associative sequence of thir- sculptures—and archival—he intensively re- ty-six images that points toward specificities searched the of each of ownership and power, loss and transaction. and recorded the resulting stories in this vol- The following notes thus elaborate the de- ume. The gelatin silver prints on view at The tails of the Brancusi sculptures’ relation to Arts Club were made with two 8 × 10 inch Prohibition, the diamond trade, the Dallas Deardorff plate cameras, the same Chicago- Cowboys football team, vintage sports cars, built brand that was used for the original in- Nazism, US Customs laws, and more. The in- stallation photographs of the 1927 exhibi- tersections are sometimes significant and at tion. Starling inscribed outline of other times more tangential, but taken over- the 1927 installation images—taken from op- all, they suggest the ways in which artworks posite ends of the gallery—onto his cameras’ demarcate instances of cultural stress and ground-glass viewfinders, and as he jour- revelation. This process of linking art pro- neyed from location to location, sculpture to duction to a broader social and cultural con- sculpture, he sited each Brancusi work in ex- text, realized here through the systematic actly its original position within the photo- unpacking of two seemingly straightforward graphic frame, while allowing the current installation views, remains at the core of locations to be visible in the new images. The Starling’s practice. second camera was regularly used to docu- ment the operations of the first, thus provid- ing a record of the process while clarifying Janine Mileaf the physical space of each exposure. Starling Executive Director

1 Alphabetical List of Sculptures by Constantin Brancusi from the 1927 Arts Club Exhibition

Located and photographed Adam & Eve (1916–21), Mademoiselle Pogany II (1920), by Simon Starling Guggenheim , New York Albright-Knox , Buffalo

Beginning of the World (c. 1920), Newborn I (1915), , Dallas Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Bird in Space (1926), Oak Base (1920), Jon Shirley, Seattle, promised gift Guggenheim Museum, New York to the Seattle Princess X (1915), The Chief (1924–25), Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln Ronald S. Lauder, New York Prometheus (1911), Chimera (1915–18), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Socrates (1922), Endless Column (1918), The , New York The Museum of Modern Art, New York Three Penguins (1911–12), Fish (1922), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Torso of a Young Man I (1917–22), Golden Bird (1919–20), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Torso of a Young Woman (1918), The Kiss (1916), Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Maiastra (1910–12), The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2 3 Titles & Notes A checklist in order of exhibition with annotations written and compiled by Simon Starling

1. 2. Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera miraculously, in illuminating the poorly lit Constantin Brancusi, Socrates (1922), Made- Note In July 1924, less than a year after he photographing the Wrigley Building, and congested exhibition space and bringing moiselle Pogany II (1920), Torso of a Young visited Constantin Brancusi in Paris for the Chicago. a degree of clarity and spatial understanding Man I (1917–22), Three Penguins (1911–12), second time, attorney and art collector John to Duchamp’s complex, chess game-like in- Newborn I (1915), Golden Bird, (1919–20), Quinn died of cancer. He left behind a collec- Note The Wrigley Building (seen here with stallation. The other surviving images of the Fish (1922), Endless Column (1918), Bird in tion of more than 2,500 , prints, the clock-tower amongst a now dense cluster exhibition by the Art Institute’s regular pho- Space (1926), Prometheus (1911), Beginning drawings, and sculptures that—had they re- of high-rise buildings) was designed in 1920 tographer, Frederick O. Bemm, were clumsily of the World (c. 1920), The Chief (1924–25), mained together—would have formed one of by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White for the lit and plagued by awkward shadows and Torso of a Young Woman (1918), The Kiss the most significant collections of modernist chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr.. poor focus. (1916), Oak Base (1920), Chimera (1915–18), art anywhere.II Quinn’s will provided for the While the white-glazed tile-clad building See Note 25 Maiastra (1910-12), Princess X (1915), Adam liquidation of his entire for the was the first air-conditioned office building & Eve (1916–21) (from left to right). benefit of his sister, Julia Quinn Anderson.III in Chicago and the first skyscraper north After months of discussion among Quinn’s of the Chicago River, it was also the first long- Collections The Museum of Modern Art, New executors and heated debate within the New term home of The Arts Club of Chicago and York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, York and the press, the collection the venue of the Constantin Brancusi exhi- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, was sold through exhibition, private sale, and bition installed in January 1927 by Marcel Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Jon Shirley, public auction, all of which occurred within Duchamp.I Seattle, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Ron- three years.IV ald S. Lauder, New York, Kunstmuseum Basel, Brancusi, Duchamp, and Henri-Pierre Roché Note The most successful photographs of The Basel, Switzerland, Guggenheim Museum, (Quinn’s art advisor since 1919) met in Bran- Arts Club’s 1927 Brancusi exhibition were New York, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln. cusi’s studio in June 1926 to discuss the idea made by Chicago-based architectural pho- (Golden Bird was photographed while on of purchasing Quinn’s entire Brancusi collec- tographers Kaufmann & Fabry using some of loan to the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. tion, which included twenty-seven sculp- the first large format plate cameras to be pro- Endless Column was photographed while on tures, in order to avoid its quick and disad- duced by the newly established Chicago-based loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, vantageous dispersal. Roché and Duchamp, camera builders L.F. Deardorff & Sons. Dear- Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for Brancusi, friends who had first met in New York during dorff produced their first cameras using re- Rosso, Man Ray—Framing Sculpture, March World War I, now became business partners.V cycled mahogany bar tops that “had been 2014. Oak Base was photographed while on The Hungarian-born art dealer Joseph scrapped because of prohibition,” down pay- loan to the , Toronto for Brummer, who oversaw the sale of much of ments from both Kaufmann & Fabry and the the exhibition The Great Upheaval: Master- the Quinn estate, including four sculptures Chicago Architectural Photographing Compa- pieces from the Guggenheim Collection, and a by Brancusi, hosted a major ny. Kaufmann & Fabry succeeded, somewhat 1910–1918, January 2014). exhibition of works from Quinn’s collection

4 5 3. 4. 5. in his New York gallery in November 1926.VI Constantin Brancusi, Torso of Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera Constantin Brancusi, Endless Column (1918) Duchamp supervised its installation and a Young Woman (1918). photographing Torso of a and Adam & Eve (1916–21) (left to right). travelled to Chicago with the works to over- Young Woman (1918). see the 1927 exhibition at The Arts Club. Af- Collection Kunstmuseum Basel, Collections The Museum of Modern Art, New ter returning to Paris, Duchamp rented a stu- Basel, Switzerland. Collection Kunstmuseum Basel, York and Guggenheim Museum, New York. dio in which he exhibited his part of the Basel, Switzerland. (Endless Column photographed while on remaining Brancusi collection. During the Note The only sculpture from the 1927 Chi- See Note 3 loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, following two decades, he drew on this re- cago exhibition to enter a collection outside Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for Brancusi, source when in need of funds.VII the , the white marble Torso of Rosso, Man Ray—Framing Sculpture, March a Young Woman was acquired by the Kunst- 2014). museum Basel in 1980 with public and pri- vate funds. The work was sold to the museum Note Displayed on the wall beside Endless through Basel’s Galerie Les Tourettes, but Column in the Rotterdam exhibition is Bran- little is known of its life prior to this. Existing cusi’s photograph The Child in the World, provenance records suggest that it was brief- Mobile Group (1917) that is typical of the ly owned by one Agnes Drey in the early photographs Brancusi made in his studio— 1960s, and then in the hands of the gallerist propositions for constantly shifting relation- Otto Werthheimer. Torso of a Young Woman ships between individual sculptures—an ac- was on loan to the Kröller-Müller Museum, tivity he often referred to as ‘groupes mobiles’ Otterlo, The Netherlands, from 1974–78. (Mobile Groups). In this instance the hybrid, transitory group consists of the unfinished Little French Girl (1914–18) next to the pre- liminary stages of Small Column (later de- stroyed) being used as a base for Cup II (1917). A copy of this photograph was sent to John Quinn on 27 December 1917. See Notes 6, 20 & 31

6 7 6. 7. Former headquarters of Streep his frenetic social life. The couple’s torrid re- Constantin Brancusi, Endless Column (1918), with gray canvas as [it was] at Brummer’s. Diamonds Ltd, Amstel 208, Amsterdam. lationship involved constant fights and end- The Kiss (1916), Oak Base (1920), Princess X Everything got here in good condition: I did less infidelities. On 12 May 1975, United Press (1915), Adam & Eve (1916–21), Bird in Space my best to display things in groups. In the Note In 1957 Jon N. Streep, a Dutch art and International reported that Streep was (1926), Beginning of the World (c. 1920), middle, Steichen’s Bird, at other end, Golden diamond dealer living in New York, acquired “found by police early Sunday morning in his Three Penguins (1911–12), Maiastra (1910- Bird and Maiastra, and, between Steichen’s Endless Column from Henri-Pierre Roché. room at the Hyde Park Hotel bleeding to 12), Mademoiselle Pogany II (1920), Socrates Bird and Golden Bird, the Column. I arranged Originally from Amsterdam, Streep was the death from 16 stab wounds to his and (1922) (from left to right). the rest around these four focal points. The son of the powerful and wealthy diamond stomach” inflicted by Douglas A. Bell, a gay effect is really satisfying; I’ll send you some dealer Nathan Streep. Nathan had joined the hustler using a false identity.VIII Collections The Museum of Modern Art, New photos.” IX family business in 1911 under his father Wolf York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadel- Streep, who established a successful busi- phia, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Shel- ness in association with Bernie Bernato, the don Museum of Art, Lincoln, Jon Shirley, founder of De Beers and the Anglo American Seattle, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Al- Corporation. Bernato’s Diamond Trading bright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. Company (or the Syndicate as it became (Endless Column was photographed while known) controlled 85 percent of the world’s on loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beunin- distribution of rough diamonds and supplied gen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for Bran- Streep Diamonds Ltd. with regular deliver- cusi, Rosso, Man Ray—Framing Sculpture, ies to its headquarters in central Amsterdam. March 2014. Oak Base was photographed Nathan joined the family business just as while on loan to the Art Gallery of Ontario, large-scale exports of diamonds to the Unit- Toronto for the exhibition The Great Up- ed States began. heaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Jon Streep was independently wealthy and Collection, 1910–1918, January 2014). sporadically successful as an art and dia- mond dealer, initially specializing in Dutch Note Along with the surviving photographs, Old Masters and later Modernist and Impres- Duchamp—a prolific letter writer—provided sionist works. He was perhaps best known a rare description of the Chicago exhibition. within art circles as the lover and “sugar dad- On 4 January 1927, he wrote to Brancusi from dy” of the Richard Bernstein, who was Chicago to report on the installation and its himself best known for his celebrity covers logic: “Opening today—big success. The room for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and [is] quite large, 13 m by 7 m, specially hung

8 9 8. 9. 10. Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera re- Kaufmann & Fabry, Reconstruction of Bohe- Constantin Brancusi, Newborn I (1915) to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which in- photographing a photograph by Kaufmann mian Paris, A Century of Progress Interna- and Prometheus (1911) (far left and center). cluded seventeen Brancusi sculptures, some & Fabry Co. of plans for the unrealized Bank- tional Exposition, Chicago (1933). forty works by Duchamp, fifteen Picasso ing Exhibit, A Century of Progress Interna- Collection Philadelphia Museum of Art, drawings and paintings, eight Braques, and tional Exposition, Chicago (1933). Courtesy Ryerson & Burnham Libraries, Art Philadelphia. an equally impressive number of other key Institute of Chicago. modernist works.XII Original image courtesy Ryerson & Burnham Note Walter and Louise Stevens Arensberg The groundbreaking 1913 Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago. Note Despite their prolific work document- acquired Brancusi’s Newborn I (1915) twice, changed Walter Arensberg’s life. Walter, a See Note 1 & 9 ing the rapidly evolving architectural land- in 1916–17 and 1933. Due to a combination of writer and literary scholar, was completely scape of early twentieth-century Chicago, poor investments and extreme generosity— transfixed by the new kind of art he saw there, Kaufmann & Fabry are best known as the of- Walter had a habit of lending his friends and by 1914 he and his wife Louise had moved ficial photographers of Chicago’s 1933–34 large sums of money, which were rarely re- to New York and started a collection. While international exposition, A Century of Prog- paid—the Arensbergs were forced to sell a Walter’s father was president and partial ress. The hugely successful exposition, which number of works through de Zayas’s Modern owner of a Pittsburgh crucible company, the marked Chicago’s centennial, had a theme of Gallery in the early 1920s.XI Few were sold, fortune of Louise’s father, Edward Stevens, technological innovation and portrayed a na- but in 1922, Quinn bought the tiny marble largely fueled the Arensbergs’ . Ste- tion very much on the road to recovery from head Newborn I for $500. (Notably, too, Kath- vens, the manager of a successful textile mill the Great Depression (1929–40). It is clear, erine Dreier paid $2,000 for Duchamp’s then- in the small factory town of Ludlow, Massa- however, from Kaufmann & Fabry’s highly unbroken The Large Glass [1915–23]). More chusetts, died suddenly of a heart attack in detailed photographs that—while optimistic than a decade passed before the Arensbergs 1905, leaving his only daughter a consider- in mood and aspiration—the wildly ambi- were able to buy back the work from Duch- able inheritance.XIII tious fair was built on a shoestring budget. amp and Roché—again for $500. The Arens- During World War I, the Arensbergs’ apart- Its reconstructions of the streets of bohemian bergs added five more of Quinn’s Brancusi ment at 33 West Sixty-Seventh Street became Paris, for example, were no more than crude- sculptures to their collection during the fol- the headquarters of the avant-garde and sec- ly painted plywood sets.X lowing decades, making it the largest US col- ond home to the likes of Duchamp (for whom lection of his works after Quinn’s. In 1950, the Arensbergs rented a studio in their build- Newborn I (1915), Torso of a Young Man I ing), Francis Picabia, de Zayas, Charles De- (1917–22), Prometheus (1911), Fish (1922), muth, Dreier, Roché, and Mina (née Löwry) Chimera (1915), The Kiss (1916) and Three Loy. XIV Salons held almost daily in the apart- Penguins (1911–12), all shown in Chicago in ment’s large studio whose “seventeen-foot- 1927, became part of the Arensbergs’ bequest high walls were overcrowded with examples

10 11 11. of the most recent expressions of the modern Constantin Brancusi, for Comedy (1939). He also wrote many screen- Lorentz, a Virginia-born journalist, critic, school,” often went on until the early hours of Torso of a Young Man I (1917­–22). plays including the surprise hit Hallelujah, and filmmaker, who became her husband. the morning, and it was there that “the most I’m a Bum—a left-leaning Depression-era Lorentz is best known for his work for Presi- important avant-garde theories were formu- Collection Philadelphia Museum of Art, comedy starring Al Jolson as a NewYork tramp dent Franklin Roosevelt’s US Resettlement lated and discussed,” according to Francis Philadelphia. that opened in cinemas the year Behrman ac- Administration and US Farm Administra- Naumann. In 1922, possibly because the shy quired The Chief. tion, for which he wrote and directed two Louise wanted to seek refuge from the end- Note In the early 1930s the film director As Duchamp suggested in his letter to highly influential, politically motivated doc- less evenings of entertainment, but no doubt Josef von Sternberg (1894–1969) acquired Brancusi,XVIII it is likely that Elizabeth Meyer, umentaries about the misuse of America’s also for financial reasons, the Arensbergs Brancusi’s Torso of a Young Man I from Marcel then a twenty-year-old aspiring screenwriter, natural resources: The Plow That Broke the moved to Hollywood, California.XV Duchamp and Henri-Pierre Roché. In 1948, introduced Behrman to Brancusi’s work and Plain (1936) and The River (1938). Scribner’s this truncated maple figure was sold to Walter to the Brummer Gallery exhibition. This very magazine quoted as saying that and Louise Arensberg through the Hollywood exhibition included an imposing, black mar- The River, which won the award for best doc- based Earl Stendahl Gallery. ble sculpture titled Mrs. Meyer (1930–33) af- umentary at the 1938 Venice Film Festival, Another of the sculptures from the 1927 ex- ter her mother Agnes, a journalist, Chinese “contained the most beautiful prose I have hibition with links to the history of cinema is art scholar and wife of the banker and pub- heard in ten years.” The Chief.XVIAfter its brief appearance at The lisher Eugene Meyer.XIX Elizabeth Meyer (a.k.a. Arts Club in 1927, The Chief was again in- Bis) became the next owner of The Chief—a stalled by Duchamp at Brancusi’s second ex- grinning, patriarchal counterpart to Brancusi’s hibition at the Brummer Gallery in New York powerful depiction of her mother. in 1933.XVII Held in the depths of the Great In 1920, a seven-year-old Elizabeth Meyer Depression, at a moment when the was photographed by none other than Ed- was at a near standstill, the exhibition gener- ward Steichen, a family friend who intro- ated few immediate sales, but as Duchamp duced the Meyers to Brancusi and his work. proudly announced in a letter to Brancusi, Before she visited the Brummer Gallery ex- The Chief was acquired by the successful and hibition in 1933, Meyer was in London work- prolific American playwright Samuel Na- ing with Alexander Korda on the film The thaniel Behrman. In the 1930s and 1940s, Scarlet Pimpernel. From there, she travelled Behrman was widely regarded as Broadway’s to Paris to spend time “working, talking and finest writer of “high comedy,” having major drinking” with her old family friend Bran- successes with plays such as The Second Man cusi in his studio at Impasse Ronsin.XX On her (1928), End of Summer (1936), and No Time return to the United States, Meyer met Pare

12 13 12. 13. 14. Constantin Brancusi, Endless Column (1918), some seventy years later, Bird in Space be- Constantin Brancusi, Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera Adam & Eve (1916­–21), Bird in Space (1926), came the most expensive sculpture known to Golden Bird (1919–20). photographing Christopher Williams, Main Three Penguins (1911–12), Socrates (1922) have been sold at the time. Ironically, a num- Staircase for the Arts Club Chicago,1948–51 (left to right). ber of additions to the 1913 Tariff Act made Collection Art Institute of Chicago. Steel, travertine marble 359.4 x 458.8 x by none other than Brancusi’s greatest pa- (Photographed while on loan to the 609.3 cm; 141 ½ x 180 5/8 x 239 7/8 inches Collections Guggenheim Museum, New York, tron, Quinn, became the sticking points for Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth). Arts Club 1948–1951 Ludwig The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Jon the work’s smooth, tax-free passage into the Mies van der Rohe 109 East Ontario Street, Shirley, Seattle, Philadelphia Museum of Art, US. According to Quinn’s expanded 1922 def- Note The Arts Club acquired Brancusi’s Gold- Chicago, Illinois, 1951–1995 Repositioned Philadelphia (Endless Column was photo- inition, sculptures and had to be en Bird in 1927 from Duchamp and Roché for by John Vinci, 210 East Ontario Street, Chi- graphed while on loan to the Museum Boij- “original,” were to have “given rise to no more $1,200. cago, Illinois, October 1, 1998, 1998, in the mans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Neth- than two replicas or reproductions of the The second in a three-phase development storeroom of the Art Institute of Chicago. erlands, for Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray—Fra-­ same,” had to have been produced by “profes- from the earlier Maiastra-type birds through ming Sculpture, March 2014). sional sculptors,” “cut, carved or otherwise the highly stylized Bird in Space series, The Courtesy Christopher Williams and wrought by hand” or “cast in bronze or any Arts Club’s Golden Bird marks a transition Art Institute of Chicago. Note Of all the Brancusi works exhibited at other metal or substance.” Furthermore, the to an essentialist representation of flight,XXII The Arts Club of Chicago in 1927, Bird in words “,” “sculpture,” and “statuary” and as such is often linked to Brancusi’s visit Note Following its purchase, Golden Bird Space (1926), originally acquired from the were not to be understood to include any “ar- to the 1912 Paris Air Show in the company of was regularly displayed at The Arts Club un- artist by the photographer Edward Steichen ticles of utility.” Unpacking the highly pol- Duchamp and Léger. While Brancusi was not til 1990, when it was sold to the Art Institute for $600, is perhaps the most notorious. ished bronze sculpture on its arrival in New a great advocate of the Machine Age aesthet- of Chicago for $12 million through a partial Part of a shipment of Brancusi sculptures York, the US Customs Service found what it ic that marks so much of what his contempo- gift from The Arts Club as well as prior be- that Duchamp accompanied from Paris to considered to be an “article of utility” or “an raries produced at that time—Duchamp, quests and donations from a number of Art swell the mass of works from Quinn’s collec- object of manufacture” and taxed it accord- Léger, and their car-collecting colleague Institute patrons. The money from the sale tion at the Brummer Gallery and Arts Club ingly—at 40 percent of its declared value. On Picabia being among the forerunners in this facilitated The Arts Club’s move to its cur- exhibitions, Bird in Space was refused the 26 November 1928, after a bizarre and well- field—accounts of his visit to the Air Show rent home at 201 East Ontario Street from its tax-free entry into the United States normal- documented trial involving a number of ex- suggest he was somewhat overcome by ma- previous Mies van der Rohe–designed rooms ly afforded to artworks under US customs pert witnesses brought in to both vouch for chine-inspired zeal. According to art histori- just down the street at 109 East Ontario.XXIV regulations. It became embroiled in a land- and besmirch the artistic status of Brancusi’s an Dora Vallier, Duchamp challenged Brancusi During the move, Mies van der Rohe’s for- mark court case that hinged on the very defi- Bird, Justice Waite, the presiding judge, ruled with the words, “Painting is finished. Who mer student John Vinci rescued and restored nition of a sculpture within American law in favor of the artist and the plaintiff’s import could make something better than that pro- the architect’s elegant white staircase, and (Brancusi vs. United States Customs, 1928). tax was duly reimbursed.XXI peller? Tell me, could you do that?”XXIII transposed it to the new Norman-brick Arts No doubt in part because of its notoriety, See Note 30 Club building. Whereas the staircase once led

14 15 15. 16. visitors directly from street level to the gal- Christopher Williams, Main Staircase for the Constantin Brancusi, including the New York Central Railroads. leries and reception rooms on the second floor, Arts Club Chicago,1948–51 Steel, travertine Beginning of the World (c. 1920). Clark was also responsible for advising it is set back into the new building. Once marble 359.4 x 458.8 x 609.3 cm; 141 ½ x Murchison’s two sons, John and Clint Jr., on again surrounded by striated Italian traver- 180 5/8 x 239 7/8 inches Arts Club commis- Collection Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas. their rapidly expanding business invest- tine, sourced by Vinci from the same Tuscan sion 1948–1951 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ments, which included the ski resort of Vail, quarry as the original Miesian stone, the 109 East Ontario Street, Chicago, Illinois, Note In 1961, James H. “Jim” Clark paid Colorado; the Caribbean island Spanish Cay; staircase forms a slightly offset centerpiece, 1951–1995 Repositioned by John Vinci, 210 $55,000 to the Sidney Janis Gallery in New a short-lived Swedish offshore commercial affording access from the spacious ground- East Ontario Street, Chicago, Illinois, Octo- York for Beginning of the World (c. 1920). radio station called Radio Nord; and the Dai- floor galleries room to the lounge, restaurant, ber 1, 1998, 1998, in the storeroom of the Art The gallery—renowned for its work with ab- sy Manufacturing Company, which made BB and performance rooms above. In 1998, the Institute of Chicago. stract expressionist painters such as Rothko guns. Clint Jr. is best known in Texas for artist Christopher Williams marked this ar- and Robert Motherwell, many of whom left founding the Dallas Cowboys football team, chitectural transposition with a black-and- Courtesy Christopher Williams and Art Insti- when Janis began working with the emerging following the purchase of a $600,000 fran- white photograph that portrays the staircase tute of Chicago. generation—acquired the work in chise from the NFL. and an accompanying Alexander Calder mo- See Note 14 1960 from Roché’s widow, Denise. The artist Chapman Kelley wrote in his bile, Red Petals (commissioned by The Arts Clark was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew memoirs: “Along the line Clark had misap- Club in 1942), set behind glass, at a some- up in Daytona Beach, Florida. After studying propriated some funds and was severely what museological remove from their new at the University of Florida, in 1932 he moved dressed down by Clint Murchison Sr. The epi- context. The glass partition, a direct quota- to New York, where he worked as a securities sode was verified to me by my art student Vir- tion of The Arts Club’s former elegant facade analyst for Laurence M. Marks and Co., gain- ginia, Clint Sr.’s wife. After a period of time at 109 East Ontario Street, becomes a vitrine ing a reputation as a financial whiz kid. In Clark recovered from the Murchison Sr. rep- for Mies van der Rohe’s modern masterpiece. 1935, Clark met his future wife Lillian Bell, rimand and decided to become an art the daughter of a labor organizer with the collector.”XXV Sources closer to Clark attribute United Mine Workers, who, following her fa- his split with the Murchisons to a bout of in- ther’s lead, studied labor relations and copy- tense clinical depression brought about by writing at New York University and Colum- the pressures of his job. Whatever the reason bia University. After World War II, the couple for Clark’s premature retirement from the moved to Dallas, where Clark took a position Murchison empire, in 1958 he and Lillian left as the financial advisor and senior associate Dallas for extensive travels through of Clint Murchison Sr., the oil and gas devel- and Asia, a journey that brought them into oper. At the height of his powers, Murchison contact for the first time with some of the owned controlling interest in 117 companies, world’s finest art collections.

16 17 17. 18. 19. Following their return to Dallas, the Clarks Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera Dallas Cowboys Autograph Football. Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany began collecting Asian art, then Impression- photographing Constantin Brancusi, See Note 16 II (1920), Endless Column (1918), Princess X ism and Post-. After they met Beginning of the World (c. 1920). (1915) (from left to right). the gallery owner Sidney Janis in the early 1960s, their interests shifted to , Collection Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas. Collections Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buf- and despite fairly limited means, they built a See Note 16 falo, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, considerable collection centered on the work Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln.(Endless of Mondrian and Léger. In 1982, following Column was photographed while on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art’s (DMA) tempo- the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rot- rary failure to finance a new building project, terdam, The Netherlands, for Brancusi, Rosso, Clark wrapped Beginning of the World in a Man Ray—Framing Sculpture, March 2014). towel, packed it in a Pan Am flight bag, and presented it to DMA director Harry Parker Note Facing the often-repeated serial works and his staff as a morale-boosting gift.XXVI Endless Column and Princess X sits Made- moiselle Pogany II. This work, of which twelve versions in marble and bronze are known, was first modeled in clay after the Hungarian artist Margit Pogany, whose sharp, petite features Brancusi noticed at a pension where he often dined. When William M. Hek- king, then the director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, borrowed Mademoi- selle Pogany II from Duchamp in 1927, he hoped someone would buy the piece for the museum.XXVII The Albright-Knox eventually acquired the work from Duchamp through the Société Anonyme with the help of the Charlotte A. Watson Fund.XXVIII Originally part of a job lot of sculptures— including a bronze and a marble Bird in Space, and a marble Mademoiselle Pogany—

18 19 20. 21. that Quinn acquired directly from the artist Constantin Brancusi, upon advice she received from her profound- Constantin Brancusi, Princess X (1915), in 1920 for a total of $3,500, Mademoiselle Endless Column (1918). ly intelligent son, David Hayes, who, we will Maiastra (1910–12), Mademoiselle Pogany II Pogany II was originally priced at $1,000 at recall, was entrusted by Walter Hopps to pro- (1920) (from left to right). Brancusi’s Arts Club exhibition. On 14 May Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New duce the replicas of Duchamp’s work used for 1997, Christie’s auctioned a similar bronze York. (Photographed while on loan to the the Pasadena retrospective in 1963. Hayes Collections Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, from the series in New York for $7,042,500. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotter- was well aware that Duchamp’s conceptual The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Al- dam, The Netherlands, for Brancusi, Rosso, approach to art prefigured some of the most bright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. Man Ray—Framing Sculpture, March 2014). important ideas and artistic strategies of the Pop movement, concerns that were well be- Note Princess X was originally sold to John Note In the early 1960s, Streep sold Endless yond the grasp of his mother, who later con- Quinn by Marius de Zayas of the Modern Column to Mary Sisler (formerly Hayes) for fessed that of all the works by Duchamp she Gallery in New York, and purchased by Roché an unknown sum.XXIX Sisler, who in 1983 do- owned, her favorites were the artist’s early from Quinn’s estate upon the collector’s nated her entire collection to MoMA, had in- Impressionist paintings.” death. The sculpture was momentarily in the herited a large fortune from her first hus- of the Staempfli Gallery, New York, band, who, according to the art historian which acquired it for $90,000 in 1962 from Francis Naumann, owned controlling stock Denise Roché, whom George Staempfli de- in the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. scribed in a letter to Norman Geske (director In ‘, The Art of Making of the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Ne- Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ braska) as a “crafty widow.” It was soon re- (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1999), Fran- sold to Olga N. Sheldon for $135,000. Olga cis Naumann writes: “Mrs. Sisler began to purchased the work as a gift to the Sheldon collect modern art in the early 1960s, shortly Museum of Art in memory of her late hus- after the death of her second husband. By band Adams Bromley Sheldon, a wealthy 1965 she had assembled an impressive early lumberyard owner and farmer whose fortune collection of Pop Art, which included works facilitated the building of the museum.XXX A by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy photograph commemorating this donation Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, George Se- depicts a smiling Olga flanked by a line of gal, and others. But if the truth be told, Mrs. men in evening dress (including the museum’s Sisler knew virtually nothing about modern architect, ), and Brancusi’s art, and even less about Pop Art and Duch- phallic sculpture installed on a somewhat amp. Her entire collection was purchased fanciful new base, since abandoned, which

20 21 22. Johnson and Joseph Ternbach designed for influenced by Brancusi’s earliest attempts at Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera technical strategies for reproducing the the Sheldon.XXXI direct stone —the caryatid-like base photographing Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Bride on glass, not in its original colours but (1907–08) that later became part of the multi- Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even as a black and white photograph, reveals that Note The now ghostly painting seen hanging part Maiastra sculpture exhibited in Chicago. (The Large Glass) (1915–23). the graphic dimensions of this work may be to the left is ’s 1906 canvas La less in its iconographic content than in the Toilette depicting a nude gazing into a mir- Note In 1982, the gallery owner Sidney Janis Collection Philadelphia Museum of Art, projection of the material and technical con- ror held for her by another woman. At the wrote, “In time I found out that Brancusi was Philadelphia. ditions of its production. Duchamp’s efforts Albright-Knox this image was fittingly in- not the only person who made theatre out of to strip bare painting coincide with the strat- stalled in relation to Mademoiselle Pogany the display of his sculptures. When we be- Courtesy Rights Society (ARS), New egy of reproduction of the Bride, one that de- II but forms an equally fitting alliance with came friends with Henri-Pierre Roché—col- York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duch- lays its pictorial becoming through its defer- the now super-imposed Princess X. This lector, critic and author of Jules et Jim, from amp / Succession Marcel Duchamp ral as a series of impressions, as photographic sculpture, which has clear links to both Bran- which a memorable film was made—he used © Succession Marcel Duchamp. or engraved prints.” See Dalia Judovitz, Un- cusi’s Woman Looking Into a Mirror (1909), to take us to his apartment on the Boulevard packing Duchamp: Art in Transit (Berkeley: now lost, and Narcissus (1910), is said to be Arago. In this, a special room was set aside for Note Marcel Duchamp’s enigmatic master- University of California Press, 1995). based on the beautiful, wayward, notoriously his Brancusi sculptures, which numbered piece The Large Glass, which is on perma- See Notes 10 & 13 vain Princess Marie Murat Bonaparte, who about a dozen in all. Every one stood on a nent display in a room adjacent to the Phila- carried a mirror with her at all times, even at turntable, and Roché liked to put on a little delphia Museum of Art’s extensive Brancusi dinner parties, where she would look at her- show in which the room was darkened and a collection, addresses itself to the Machine self while eating. spotlight played on his favourite sculpture. Age through its mechanomorphic protago- In this collaged threesome of works, a fur- This was Princess X, a monumental bust- nists (the wiry Bride, the Bachelors’ appara- ther connection can be drawn between Prin- cum-phallus. As the turntable slowly rotated, tus) but also through the technical means of cess X and the adjacent Maiastra via the the shadow on the wall moved in time with its production. As Dalia Judovitz writes “Du- work of Brancusi’s close friend Amedeo Mo- the spotlight, rising and falling in a strange champ had attempted to transfer the painted digliani, whose work also appears here in the sensuous dance. Roché really put that shad- Bride by projecting a negative of the Bride company of Maiastra as currently displayed ow dance to work, too—above all when his onto the surface of the glass treated with a at MoMA, New York. Modigliani, who first lady friends, who were many, came to call.” photosensitive emulsion. Since this print did met the Romanian sculptor in 1909, made a Press clipping, Sheldon Art Museum, uncata- not develop properly, he then used lead fuse series of Caryatid drawings at that time, logued. wire to draw the silhouette, which he painted which bare remarkable formal similarities to in by using graduations of black and white, Princess X—sharing the same attenuated in order to simulate a photograph of the grace. These drawings where, it seems, in turn Bride. The deployment of these elaborate

22 23 23. 24. 25. Modified Deardorff 8 × 10 Field Camera Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss (1916) Seagram Building, New York (1958). share in the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Com- photographing Constantin Brancusi, and Oak Base (1920) (left). pany, a business that his heirs sold to Sun Oil The Kiss (1916). Note Elizabeth Meyer-Lorentz and her hus- Co. in 1980 for $2.3 billion.XXXII Collections Philadelphia Museum of Art, band, the filmmaker Pare Lorentz, put The In an eight-page letter to her father dated Collection Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia and Guggenheim Museum, New Chief up for sale in 1946 through the Pierre 28 June 1954, Lambert made the case for Philadelphia. York. (Oak Base was photographed while on Matisse Gallery. In 1947, it was sold to Patri- building a progressive, modern New York See Note 24 loan to the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto for cia Kane Matta (later Patricia Matisse), then headquarters for Seagram Co. Ltd. This rea- the exhibition The Great Upheaval: Master- the wife of the Chilean surrealist painter Ro- soned but impassioned letter, which defied pieces from the Guggenheim Collection, berto Matta. In 1956, the sculpture was ac- her father’s own ideas and plans, led to Lam- 1910–1918,­ January 2014). quired, again through Pierre Matisse, by the bert heading the team that commissioned architect and philanthropist Phyllis (née Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (her future archi- Note In a letter to dated 16 Au- Bronfman) Lambert. tecture professor) and Philip Johnson to de- gust 1916 Brancusi advised that the new During Prohibition, Phyllis Lambert’s fa- sign the ground-breaking Seagram Building owner of The Kiss, the attorney and art col- ther, Samuel Bronfman, made his fortune as (1958) at 375 Park Avenue, New York, a lector John Quinn, should not install the one of the most entrepreneurial bootleggers 512-foot-high functionalist skyscraper with sculpture on a base for fear it might make the of the era. In 1924, he founded the Distillers an open plaza that changed the way sculpture look amputated. However, in Chi- Corporation, which specialized in low-grade developed in the ensuing decades.XXXIII Along cago in 1927 Marcel Duchamp chose to in- whiskey—the infamous “chickencock.” Bron- with commissioning major artworks by Pica- stall the sculpture on Oak Base (1920)—a fman legally manufactured this mixture of sso, Rothko, and Richard Lippold, in 1955 configuration that was never repeated. pure alcohol, sulfuric acid, caramel, water, Lambert visited Brancusi in his Paris studio and aged rye whiskey in Montreal, Quebec, to discuss the idea of a major sculpture for and distributed it by establishing a whole- the Seagram Plaza. Interestingly, given that sale drug company, the Canada Pure Drug he shunned the Diamonds’ proposal a year Company, thus taking advantage of a legal later, XXXIV Brancusi offered to enlarge a ver- loophole that allowed alcohol—otherwise sion of Le Coq for the Seagram Building–but prohibited in Canada—to be sold as medi- Lambert never followed up, due to her doubts cine. In 1928, he moved upmarket, acquiring about the integrity of enlarging an existing Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, a producer of sculpture in this way. quality brand-name whiskeys, and eventu- ally renamed his company Seagram Co. Ltd. In 1963, Bronfman purchased a controlling

24 25 26. 27. English Close Helmet (early 16th century). Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space (1926) Mary (1940 – 2013), Jon Shirley became a col- In 2001, Lauder founded the Neue Galerie, a Steel, 27.9 × 25.1 × 34.6 cm / and The Chief (1924-25) (left to right). lector of modern and , de- museum specializing in early twentieth-cen- 11 × 9 7/8 × 13 5/8 in. veloping an illustrious, if particular, collec- tury art from Germany and , which is Collections Jon Shirley, Seattle and tion of several hundred works by artists situated a few blocks from the Metropolitan Collection Ronald S. Lauder, New York. Ronald S. Lauder, New York. including Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Museum of Art on New York’s Fifth Avenue. See Notes 11 & 27 , Franz Kline, Susan Roth- In June 2006, he famously paid $135 million— Note This image reunites the last two sculp- enberg, and Gerhard Richter. the highest price ever paid for a painting at tures from the 1927 Brancusi exhibition to Bird in Space, a promised gift to the Seattle that time—for Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bau- remain in private hands. Art Museum, is housed in Jon Shirley’s lake- er by , a highly gilded painting In 2000, the polished bronze Bird in Space side Medina home where it sits in pride of with its own dark provenance, having been (1926) became the most expensive sculpture place in the spacious living room on a pur- seized from the Bloch-Bauer family follow- known to have been sold, when the gallery pose-built earthquake-proof base. ing the Nazi Anschluss in March 1938. Along owner Vivian Horan, brokered the more than In October 1993, Phyllis Lambert sold The with his collection of European art, which in- $30 million sale of Hester Diamond’s sculp- Chief through the Pace Gallery, New York, to cludes a staggering number of works by ture to the collectors and patrons Jon and Ronald Steven Lauder, one of the heirs to the Brancusi, Lauder owns the world’s largest Mary Shirley. Estée Lauder cosmetics empire. For twenty of medieval and Renais- Born in San Diego, California in 1938 Jon years, Lauder, who has an estimated net sance armor. The Chief seems strangely at Shirley spent his early years in Pearl Harbor, worth of $3.7 billion, worked for the firm that home among both the European Modernism Hawaii where his father, a Naval officer, was his parents, Joseph and Estée Lauder, found- and the ornately muscular armor—a subver- posted until soon after the surprise attack by ed in 1946. In 1984, he moved into politics, sively grinning parody of power. the Japanese in December 1941. He later becoming the Deputy Assistant Secretary of studied at MIT but left higher education to Defense for European and NATO Policy at take up a position at the electronics supply the Pentagon, and in 1989 he joined the Re- store Radio Shack. From there he moved to publican race to become mayor of New York the Tandy Corporation and then Microsoft, City, only to lose to Rudolph Giuliani. In 2007, where he served as President from 1983– after Lambert’s brother Edgar Bronfman Sr. 1990, guiding the then world’s most valuable resigned from the post, Lauder, who is an company through its initial public share of- outspoken supporter of Israeli Prime Minis- fering in 1986 and in the process, creating ter and the Party, three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires was elected president of the World Jewish among company employees. With his wife Congress.

26 27 28. 29. 30. Giallo Fly (yellow) Ferrari 275 GTB/ Giallo Fly (yellow) Ferrari 275 GTB/ Francis Picabia, The Disks, This Thing is devoid of context or design history. It has 4 N.A.R.T. Spyder (1967). 4 N.A.R.T. Spyder (1967)/Interior View. Made to Perpetuate My Memory (1915–16)/ been suggested that Machine Art, with its in- Detail with reflection of a modified Dear- sistence on the primacy of Platonic form, was Collection Jon Shirley, Seattle. Collection Jon Shirley, Seattle. dorff 8 × 10 Field Camera. as much about bolstering both the machine- See Note 28 centric preoccupations of Modernism’s visual Photograph courtesy Spike Mafford, Seattle. Collection The Arts Club of Chicago. artists, and their tendency towards abstrac- tion, as it was about celebrating design cul- Note While well known as a collector and pa- Note In 1955, The Arts Club acquired Francis ture. Indeed Lewis Mumford wrote in his re- tron of the arts, Jon Shirley is perhaps more Picabia’s The Disks, This Thing Is Made to view of Machine Art: “If you like ball bearings widely known as a collector of classic sports Perpetuate My Memory (Les disques, cette and springs, you are prepared for Brancusi, cars. Since 1990, he has amassed one of the chose est faite pour perpétuer mon souve- Moholy-Nagy, and Kandinsky.” most impressive and valuable collections of nir), with the Arthur Heun Purchase Fund. In While used with great specificity and effect in museum standard, rare Ferraris and Alfa Ro- 1927, Heun, the interior designer of the origi- the exhibition’s publicity, documentation, meos, as well as significant racing cars from nal Arts Club rooms at the Wrigley Building and catalogue, photography was notably ab- the 1950s and 1960s. One of the rarest Fer- and a board member, had purchased a Bran- sent from Machine Art, compounding the raris in existence, only two alloy versions cusi drawing from The Arts Club’s Brancusi sense of dislocation and abstraction embod- were ever made, the soft-top N.A.R.T. Spyder, exhibition and would later sell it to the Chi- ied in Johnson’s exhibition design. See Jenni- was the brainchild of Luigi Chinetti, a racing cago-based artist Peggy Burrows. The Pica- fer Jane Marshall, Machine Art, 1934 (Chica- driver turned US Ferrari dealer. A red 275 bia, a diagrammatic machine-like motif in go: University of Chicago Press, 2012): 84. GTB/4 N.A.R.T. Spyder was famously driven oil and metallic paint on board, remains on See Note 13 by Faye Dunaway in the 1968 film The Thom- permanent display in The Arts Club’s salon as Crown Affair. Dunaway’s car-crazy co- space. star Steve McQueen later owned a N.A.R.T. Spyder. Jon Shirley recently stated that the Note Modernism’s machine aesthetic culmi- two most beautiful objects that he owns are nated, one might argue, in Philip Johnson and Brancusi’s Bird in Space and the Giallo Fly Alfred Barr’s 1934 exhibition Machine Art at Ferrari. MoMA. The exhibition—which toured the country, making a stop at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry—contained no art per se but presented machine-made objects in a highly rarefied environment completely

28 29 31. 32. 33. 34. Constantin Brancusi, Constantin Brancusi, Socrates (1922), Constantin Brancusi, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Adam & Eve (1916-21). Maiastra (1910-12), Adam & Eve (1916-21). Maiastra (1910-12) and Adam & Eve Allegory of Autumn (1616). (1916-21). Collection Guggenheim Museum, New York. Collections The Museum of Modern Art and Collection Hester Diamond, New York. New York, Guggenheim Museum, New York. Collections The Museum of Modern Art and Note Originally executed separately in 1916 New York, Guggenheim Museum, New York. Note In 1980, the interior designer Hester but brought together as a single work prior Note As is evident from a number of photo- Diamond and her husband Harold, a school to its sale to John Quinn in 1922, Adam & Eve, graphs made by Brancusi in his studio, the Note The Maiastra type bird exhibited at The teacher turned collector and art dealer, who which was on long term loan to The Museum carved wooden Socrates was originally con- Arts Club in 1927, the first of seven sculptures met Brancusi in June 1956 at his Paris studio, of Modern Art, New York between 1946–52, ceived to include Cup II (1917) which is seen in this series, was made between 1910 and acquired Bird in Space (1926) from Gene was finally sold by Duchamp and Roché to (prior to 1922) perched, hat-like, on top of the 1912 while its schematically carved Caryat- Thaw, a dealer representing the estate of Jo- the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1953 sculpture’s punctured head. By contrast, both id-like base can be dated to Brancusi’s earli- anna Steichen, Edward Steichen’s widow. for $15,000. It was the then-director James Maiastra and Adam & Eve are accumulative est attempts at direct stone carving (1907–08). Hester recalls: “We paid $750,000. At that Sweeney’s first acquisition. Two years later, works pieced together from originally inde- Katherine Dreier (1877–1952) purchased the time, it may have been the highest price ever the Guggenheim opened the first major Amer- pendent fragments. work in 1930 from Duchamp and Roché (who paid for any sculpture! We were so fright- ican museum exhibition of Brancusi’s work— See Notes 5 & 21 had priced the work at $1,800 at The Arts ened by our own daring that we sold four of an exhibition that included 59 sculptures and Club) and installed it in her garden in West the five Brancusis we then owned, specifi- ten drawings. Although never published, the Redding, Connecticut. In 1953, Maiastra was cally to help pay for the Bird. It’s a risible exhibition records include extensive research bequeathed to The Museum of Modern Art, price compared to what I got for it, but even and planning for an exhibition catalogue. New York. more so compared to what it would bring Found within these files is one of the rare in- now… . Buying it was financially the smart- stallation views of Brancusi’s 1927 exhibition est thing we ever did; selling the four others at The Arts Club of Chicago. was the dumbest. Esthetically, it was definite- ly the smartest. My love for it never altered” (from correspondence with Hester Diamond, 2013). For 20 years the sculpture graced the Dia- monds’ New York apartment in the company of gilded Empire and Georgian furni- ture and an astonishing array of modernist masterpieces including major works by Mon-

30 31 35. 36. drian, Braque, Kandinsky, Léger and Picasso. Autumn was part of a larger commission by Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space (1926), Three Penguins (1911–12). From 1989 onwards, in an extraordinary Prince Leone Strozzi for the Four Seasons for Three Penguins (1911–12), Socrates (1922) turn-around, Hester began to dispose of her the gardens of the Villa Strozzi in Rome. (from left to right). Collection Philadelphia Museum of Art, and her husband’s entire collection of Mod- Philadelphia. ernism. Much of the collection was sold in a Collections Jon Shirley, Seattle, Philadelphia single Sotheby’s auction on 4 November 2004, Museum of Art, Philadelphia, The Museum of Note Between 1918 and 1919, the painter and which included Brancusi’s The Kiss (c. 1908) Modern Art, New York. photographer Charles Sheeler (1883–1965) and the first ‘Boogie-Woogie’ photographed the Arensbergs’ New York painting New York, 1941/Boogie-Woogie apartment. While perhaps best known for his (1941–42), which once sat beside Bird in highly composed photographs of the Ford Space in the Diamonds’ apartment, and sold plant in River Rouge near Detroit, Sheeler for $21,008,000. The proceeds from this and was frequently called upon to apply his com- other sales fuelled Hester’s new passion for positional rigor to the documentation of art- Old Master paintings. As the Modernism was works and exhibitions. Sheeler’s photo- sold off to be replaced by high quality Re- graphs of the Arensberg residence depict a naissance masterpieces, so too were the pe- cluttered living space combining simple rus- riod furnishings, to be replaced by a bold and tic furnishings with a densely hung avant- highly colored interior designed by Jim Wal- garde art collection peppered with carved rod, a friend of Hester’s son Michael Diamond wooden artifacts. One such image depicts (the Beastie Boys’ ) and Nick Dine, the Three Penguins nestled in a brick fireplace. son of the painter Jim Dine. Above the mantelpiece hangs Marcel Duch- In 2000, the polished bronze Bird in Space amp’s The King and Queen Surrounded by (1926) became the most expensive sculpture Swift Nudes (1912). known to have been sold, when the gallery owner Vivian Horan, brokered the more than $30 million sale of Hester Diamond’s sculp- ture to the collectors and patrons Jon and Mary Shirley. Diamond claims that the sale of the Brancusi allowed her to purchase Gi- anlorenzo Bernini’s Autumn (1616). A rare adolescent work by the then teenage sculptor,

32 33 I) The year Marcel Duchamp arrived V) As Ann Temkin observed in XIII) Alfred Noon, ed., The History of XVIII) Francis M. Naumann and XXVII) Steven A. Nash, Painting and XXXIV) In 1956, the Diamonds were in Chicago to install Constantin “Brancusi and his American Ludlow, Massachusetts (Springfield, Hector Obalk, eds., Affectionately, Sculpture from Antiquity to 1942 offered a finders’ fee of $5,000 to Brancusi’s exhibition at The Arts Club Collectors,” “The details of the MA: Springfield Printing and Binding Marcel: The Selected Correspondence (Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, acquire a Brancusi sculpture for the of Chicago, thirty-six major new negotiations are poorly documented. Company, 1912). of Marcel Duchamp (Ghent and 1979, distributed by Rizzoli Pittsburgh-based businessman G. buildings were constructed in the city, However, an invoice from the estate of Amsterdam: Ludion Press, 2000): 183. International Publications). David Thompson. Thompson, who had including high-rise apartment and John Quinn, dated 12 August 1926, XIV) In 1922, Loy—an artist, poet, an extensive collection of Modernism, office buildings, five hotels, and a and made out to Brancusi, specifies playwright, actress, and lamp XIX) In 1904, Eugene Meyer founded XXVIII) Charlotte (née Sherman) was involved in the stainless steel number of important university the total cost of $8,500 for a list of designer—wrote a poem titled an investment firm focusing on the Watson (1827–1900) was the second industry and dreamed of casting a larger buildings. The architectural firm twenty-nine works, less than half of “Brancusi’s Golden Bird.” The poem, gold, copper, automobile, and wife of Stephen Van Rensselaer Watson version of Brancusi’s Le Coq (1949) Burnham Brothers—sons of Daniel what Quinn originally paid altogether which describes the sculpture as “an chemical industries, and amassed a (1817–1880), a property developer and in stainless steel for a New York office Burnham, one of the most influential for these sculptures. A deposit of incandescent curve licked by chromat- large fortune in the ensuing years. He philanthropist who owned the Watson building. According to Hester, architects and city planners in $4,500 was paid in cash, with $4,000 ic flames . . .” is initially published in went on to found Allied Chemical Co. Grain Elevator in Buffalo and Brancusi (who died the following year) Chicago’s history—designed the to be paid in six months. Duchamp the literary journal The Dial along (now a subsidiary of Honeywell) and established the Erie Savings Bank. had no interest in this idea. tallest building of the year: the signed checks of $3,500 on 11 August with T. S. Eliot’s “” but in 1933, purchased the failing Charlotte followed her husband’s forty-one-story Bankers Building or and $1,000 on 17 September 1926. was later reprinted in the catalogue Washington Post, transforming it philanthropic lead as a patron of the Clark Adams Building at 105 West Mary Rumsey lent $1,500 of the $8,500 for The Arts Club’s Brancusi through considerable investment into arts and founded the domestic science Adams Street. On 12 December, total cost. Of the remaining $7,000, exhibition in 1927. a journalistic powerhouse. In 1946, department at the Women’s Educa- Chicago Municipal Airport was Roché later recalled the division to President Harry Truman invited tional and Industrial Union in Buffalo. dedicated. Renamed Midway Airport have been three-sevenths Duchamp, XV) Francis M. Naumann, “Walter Meyer to head the new World Bank, an See H. Perry Smith, ed., History of in 1949, it became the world’s busiest four-sevenths Roché. Lydie Sarazin- Conrad Arensberg: Poet, Patron, and international financial institution the City of Buffalo and Erie County, airport by 1959, serving ten million Levassor, Duchamp’s wife at that time, Participant in the New York established to reduce global poverty. Volume II (Syracuse: D. Mason, 1884). passengers a year. The year 1927 also recollected that he ‘had devoted all his Avant-Garde, 1915–20,” Philadelphia saw the completion of the Clarence resources to this purchase.’” See Museum of Art Bulletin 76, no. 328 XX) “Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz XXIX) Francis M. Naumann, The Buckingham Fountain, which Friedrich Teja Bach, Margit Rowell, (1980): 17–19. 1913–2001,” memorialized by the Mary and William Sisler Collection included four identical pairs of and Ann Temkin, Constantin Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz Fund in The (New York: The Museum of Modern twenty-foot-high bronze seahorses by Brancusi (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT XVI) In 1927, Hollywood released two New York Community Trust (New Art, 1984). French artist Marcel François Loyau Press, 1995). films set in Chicago. The eponymous York: New York Community Trust, that won the Prix National at the 1927 Chicago, a comedy-drama directed by 2011). XXX) Norman A. Geske and Paris Salon. (Buckingham had been a VI) Brancusi: Exhibition November Frank Urson and produced by Cecil B. Henry-Russell Hitchcock, The former trustee and benefactor of the 17–December 15, 1926 (New York: DeMille, retold the true story of XXI) Margit Rowell, Brancusi vs. Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago). On 1 May, Brummer Gallery, 1926), exhibition Beulah Annan (the film’s Roxie Hart) United States, The Historic Trial, University of -Lincoln the architect (and lifelong gymnast) catalogue. and her spectacular murder of her 1928 (Paris: Vilo Publishing, 2001): (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, Irving K. Pond, president of the lover, while Josef von Sternberg’s 7–11. 1963): Unpaginated. American Institute of Architects, VII) Pontus Hulten, Natalia somewhat sentimental Underworld, celebrated his seventieth birthday by Dumitresco, and Alexandre Istrati, considered to be the first American XXII) Athena T. Spear, Brancusi’s XXXI) Kimberly Golden, ed., “The performing a backflip on the roof of Brancusi (London: Faber and Faber, gangster movie, depicted a gritty and Birds (New York: New York University Legacy of the Nebraska Art Chicago’s YMCA. 1988). corrupt Chicago populated by hoods Press, 1969). Association,” Nebraska U: A and hoodlums with names like Bull Collaborative History, II) Judith Zilczer, The Noble Buyer: VIII) “Art Dealer Stabbed to Death,” Weed, Rolls Royce, and Buck Mulligan. XXIII) Dora Vallier, “La Vie dans http://unlhistory.unl.edu. John Quinn, Patron of the Avant- United Press International, 12 May l’oeuvre de Léger,” Cahiers d’art 29, Garde (Washington, DC: Smithsonian 1975. XVII) Duchamp again commissioned no. 2 (1954):140. XXXII) Nicholas Faith, The Institution Press, 1978). a photographer—this time, the Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the IX) Pontus Hulten, Natalia Japanese artist Soichi Sunami XXIV) James M. Wells, The Arts Club House of Seagram (New York: St. III) Judith Zilczer, “The Dispersal of Dumitresco, and Alexandre Istrati, (1885–1971)—to document the of Chicago: Seventy-Fifth Anniver- Martin’s Griffin, 2007). the John Quinn Collection,” Archive of Brancusi (London: Faber and Faber, exhibition, and annotated the images sary Exhibition, 1916–1991 (Chicago: American Art Journal 30, no. 1/4 1988): 180. on the reverse with the catalogue Arts Club of Chicago, 1992): 9. XXXIII) Phyllis Lambert, Building (1990): 35–40. numbers corresponding to the Seagram (New Haven and London: X) A Century of Progress World’s positions of the sculptures on the XXV) Chapman Kelley, “Chapman Yale University Press, 2013): 240–47. IV) B. L. Reid, The Man from New Fair Souvenir : Photography by front, so that the exhibition appeared Kelley’s Memoirs York: John Quinn and His Friends Kaufmann and Fabry (Chicago: as an esoteric-looking cloud of —Chapter 3,” Dallas by (New York: Oxford University Press, Regensteiner Corporation, 1934). floating numbers. See Paola Mola, ed. Sam Bain (blog), 18 December 1969). Brancusi: The White Work (Venice: 2011, dallasarthistory.com/2011/12/ XI) Marius de Zayas, How, When, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 2005, chapman-kelleys-memoirs-chapter-3. and Why Modern Art Came to New distributed by Skira Editore S.p.A.): html. York (Cambridge, Mass., and London: 181–85. The MIT Press, 1996). XXVI) Heather MacDonald, “Private Collecting, Private Obsessions: A Look XII) Constantin Brancusi exhibition at Dallas” (Art in Focus Lecture, files, 1995, Philadelphia Art Museum. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, 6 January 2010).

34 35 Published on the occasion of Copyright 2014 Board of Directors Simon Starling: Pictures for an Simon Starling and Nada Andric Exhibition The Arts Club of Chicago Kate Bensen 6 June – 27 September 2014 All works by Constantin Brancusi Gerhard Bette © 2014 Artists Rights Society Heather Bilandic Black (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Suzette Bross All Rights Reserved. Wynne Delacoma Robert Feitler William Gofen Inside Front Cover Photos Helyn Goldenberg Kaufmann & Fabry, An Exhibition of Chandra Goldsmith Gray Sculpture by Brancusi, The Arts Club Michael Halberstam of Chicago, 1927. Manuscripts Caryn Harris Collection, The Newberry Library, Katherine Harvey Chicago. Leslie S. Hindman Edward W. Horner, Jr. Design Richard H. Hunt Philipp Arnold, Berlin / Munich Justine Jentes Welz Kauffman The Arts Club of Chicago Thomas E. Keim 201 East Ontario Street Robert D. Kleinschmidt Chicago, Illinois 60611 Alexander Krikhaar Telephone 312 787–3997 Dirk Lohan Facsimile 312 787–8664 Suzanne Folds McCullagh www.artsclubchicago.org Savi Pai Andrew Patner Dale R. Pinkert Neil Ross Officers Lincoln Schatz President Franz Schulze Helyn Goldenberg Sophia Shaw Harrison Steans Vice President Laura Washington Dirk Lohan Keven Wilder Cynthia Winter Treasurer Dale R. Pinkert

Secretary Cynthia Winter

Honorary Directors Marilynn B. Alsdorf Richard Christiansen Stanley M. Freehling Helen Harvey Mills Norman Perman Patricia M. Scheidt Patrick Shaw James Wells

36 Simon Starling Our thanks go to Matthew Affron, Pictures for an Exhibition Kaspar Akhøj, Emil Rønn Andersen, 2013­­ – 2014 Susan Anderson, Philipp Arnold, Tracey Bashkoff, Carlos Basualdo, 36 framed gelatin silver prints John Bennett, Shelley Bennett, Image size: 48 60 cm Sarah M. Berman, Jack Perry Brown, Framed size: 90 115 cm Kim Bush, Kelly Carpenter, 2 vitrines (140 75 20 cm), MaryKate Cleary, Laura Comerford, 2 modified Deardorff 8 10 in. Stephanie d’Alessandro, Michael Darling, field cameras, film holders, Hester Diamond, Lotte van Diggelen, tripods, archival photographs Genevieve Ellerbee, Sebastian Fessel, Christian Froghmar, Gloria Groom, Jeffrey Grove, Madeleine Grynsztejn, Carmen Hermo, Uffe Holm, Karl Isakson, Adrienne Jeske, Alex Kauffman, Norman Keyes, Elizabeth Kujawski, Phyllis Lambert, , Andrew Lins, Heather MacDonald, Brian MacElhose, Spike Mafford, Ashley McKeown, Maja McLaughlin, Lisa Meyerowitz, Elizabeth Neely, Roberta Prevost, Loring Randolph, Nicola Reiter, Nora Riccio, Dieter Roelstraete, James Rondeau, Martin Samuel, Salome Schnetz, Kitty Scott, George Shackelford, Jon Shirley, Samantha Sizemore, Josh Sumner, Lilian Tone, Anne Umland, Karole Vail, Hadrien Viraben, Stacey Walsh, Lauren Weinberg, Christopher Williams, Yechen Zhao and Nina Zimmer.

We would also like to acknowledge Casey Kaplan, New York Galleria Franco Noero, Turin The Modern Institute, Glasgow neugerriemschneider, Berlin