Granite Islands With Roses 3.15.18 30.5" X 38" Framed Watercolor Building C, 120 Tillson Ave., Rockland, ME 04841 Open by Appointment, Chance, or Event Eric Hopkins 207.975.4785 [email protected] www.erichopkins.com THE ARTS I II III IV So Much More Than _ _ EN S AR L LLEN E Waldo s Wives EIRCE; ’ P Waldo Peirce, proto-hipster, American Renoir. The more we see him LZIRA A through his wives, the clearer his life and times become. BY COLIN W. SARGENT VY TROUTMAN; I ); ss abelaisian, bawdy, witty, robust, wild, lusty, protean, lecherous, luscious, the kind of man Ernest Hemingway wished he could be, Waldo Peirce (1884-1970) is Maine’s satyr prince of the art world. He devoured life. So whatever happened to his wives? ICE (LIBRARY OF CONGRE It’s well known Waldo was pals with fellow Harvard classmate John Reed (played by War- R ren Beatty in Reds); ran with the bulls at Pamplona with Hemingway; appeared as a charac- ter in The Sun Also Rises; and painted Hemingway across Europe and Key West, one canvas gracing the October 18, 1937, cover of Time magazine. But it’s not so well known that Waldo’s four wives were doorways for his perceptions. Most survey stories about the strapping six-foot, two-inch Bangor native barely get to his wives, or FROM LEFT: DOROTHY leave them out entirely. Let’s instead begin with them. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 8 5 1 THE ARTS DOOR NO. I THE WILD CHILD Dark-haired, dark-eyed Dorothy Rice (1889-1960) was 18 when “Girl on Mo- tor Cycle Laughs at Speedy Police” rocked Manhattan’s society pages in 1907. The heiress was “charged with driving motor- cycles on Broadway at 35 mph… Bicycle Policeman Merritt was at Eighty-fifth and Broadway when Miss Rice and her party [of six millionaire teenagers] flashed by him, ‘burning up the asphalt…’ He pursued, but at Ninetieth street was still trailing by a block. Bicycle Policemen Walsh joined him, but the speeding sextette gave them their gasoline odor and dust… Miss Rice made them hustle for 12 blocks.” Daddy, I want a brand new car. Who was Dorothy Rice, really? Daddy left a $40M fortune when he died, according to the New York Times. Born in Bavaria, Isaac Rice was a New York lawyer (Columbia Law), professor of law, musician, chess genius and impresario (the Rice Gambit was his signature), publisher (Forum Dorothy Rice— artist, aviatrix, and first woman to receive a U.S. motorcycle license. Magazine), railroad counsel, and tycoon (Reading Railroad, etc.). He wasn’t just a board piece— he was the entire game of Monopoly. All of which pales when compared to his founding the Holland Torpedo Boat Co.—later named Electric Boat (now known as General Dynamics Electric fficer Mallon finally “overhauled Boat). He and his subcontractors (including Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts) built her at One Hundred and Twelfth stunning fleets of U.S. Navy submarines for World War I and II, as well as submarines for Britain! street, where he coaxed her to He took us under the waves. throw out the clutch” on her beloved blue The Rice mansion, “Villa Julia” on Riverside Drive (still standing at 343 West 89th Street), is a Indian™. “She begged and pleaded, shook Beaux Arts masterpiece named for her mom, Julia Rice, M.D., an intellectual, activist, and social her curls and stamped her feet, but Mallon powerhouse. When tugboats on the Hudson River rattled her teacups, she triumphed in a suc- was firm…” Dragged into 100th Street cessful community and newspaper movement to control their noise. Station, her gang was photographed “in forlorn attitudes.” But Dorothy wasn’t vanquished. ther owned Electric Boat. He didn’t just ther’s money, either. They suggested a one- When the patrol wagon arrived to take build the Navy’s submarines, he held the artist show. Splashy venue, unbelievable them all to the courthouse for immedi- patent for them. The Rice kids and their press anticipation, jealousy from other art- ate sentencing, “Miss Rice asked to be al- friends were so rich their clubhouse was ists. Likely, Dorothy sensed it was time for a lowed to sit beside the driver. Mallon, the St. Regis. new address. however, insisted on accompanying her Dorothy studied sculpture and painting Cruising to Europe, she painted in a cas- to court on his motorcycle. When ar- in the Art Students League, with private in- tle in Madrid and studied under Joaquín raigned before Magistrate Hoffman her struction and encouragement from Robert Sorolla when she wasn’t in Paris (she met cheeks were radiant and she seemed to Henri, William Merritt Chase, John Sloan, Rodin at his studio days after theTitanic enjoy the episode.” and George Bellows. These men in capes went down). “My work went very well, part- From whence the insouciance? Her fa- liked her art, and they didn’t mind her fa- ly due to me and partly to my subconscious, 5 2 P OR T LAND MONTHLY MAGAZINE LAURIE RUSSO-SMITH ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST WATERCOLORS SACO , ME 207-321-9386 LAURIERUSSOSMITH . COM LIROS GALLERY 1966 – Our 52nd Year – 2018 All About the Sea June 30-August 17 TON PLACE S ; THOMA .COM S .MORPHYAUCTION www , S UCTION A James G. Tyler 1887-1931 Three-masted Schooner 27.5 x 39 ORPHY M FINE PAINTINGS RUSSIAN ICONS ION OF S IVI D OLD PRINTS & MAPS APPRAISALS Above: Dorothy in Spanish Costume, W. Peirce, 1912. Sirens of Searsport, , . CUSTOM FRAMING RESTORATION D. JULIA, A Top: W. Peirce 1966 S JAME ; which I discovered one morning. I was very ss tired, so I took strong coffee for breakfast. PO Box 946 14 Parker Point Road Coffee always makes me slightly nauseated; it did then, but I had to finish a picture, so Blue Hill, ME 04614 207.374.5370 I worked anyway. I began to feel worse and worse; I continued working, but practical- lirosgallery.com [email protected] LIBRARY OF CONGRE S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 8 5 3 THE ARTS ly never looked at my canvas, concentrating his family). They were a dream couple, with entirely on my condition… When [Igna- talent overload. Nothing could stop them. cio] Zuloaga came in he was terrifically im- “We lived in Spain in the summer and pressed. He said it was by far the best pic- Paris in the winter, but we fought in both ture I’d ever done. From then on, whenever places,” Dorothy writes. “We couldn’t agree I’d reached the finishing touches, I would who was the better artist. In 1914 Father drink black coffee and turn the matter over and Mother and the family were in St. Pe- entirely to my subconscious.” Dorothy’s tersburg. I was on the way up to meet them canvases grew close to room size. when the War broke out, so I went with them to England, and then home. Waldo Peirce uses some free time to paint while an ambulence lassmate George Biddle intro- driver during the War. joined an ambulance corps and stayed be- duced her to her future husband hind.” In France. during her second winter in Paris, channel their romance so deeply? To be- when she was 23. “It seemed he had a friend gin with, these sexy ex-pats were a perfect UNDER THE NET called Waldo Peirce who, he assured me, match as risk-takers. Harvard football star AN AMERICAN VENUS was just as crazy as I was,” Dorothy writes Waldo had once hopped aboard a freight- “But while her husband was away, the ad- in her 1938 autobiography Curiouser and er bound for England with classmate John venturous Dorothy learned to fly at the Curiouser. “I was interested… I inquired Reed, then dove overboard halfway out Wright School in Mineola, New York, and Waldo’s height—he was six feet two. This of Boston Harbor, leaving Reed to defend earned pilot’s license No. 561 from the seemed a dignified height. I told George to himself from charges of Waldo’s “disap- Aero Club of America on August 23rd, produce Waldo, which he did. pearance” and “murder.” Waldo’s punch- 1916, becoming the tenth woman in the “We got married in Madrid, in a Ger- line for that prank was to meet Reed at the United States to be licensed to fly,” reports man Methodist Church, with the Amer- docks when he reached England, having check-six.com. Dorothy was seven full S ican vice-consul, who was a Filipino, to caught a faster ship. years ahead of Amelia Earhart, tearing up make it legal.” They also shared vast fortunes (for Wal- the clouds with her dashing flight instruc- How droll. Why did the world press do, it was timber money on both sides of tor, a Navy lieutenant junior grade whose FILE PHOTO 5 4 P OR T LAND MONTHLY MAGAZINE dad, Elmer Sperry, had invented the gy- Check.six.com resumes: “The [gashed, end, in the autumn of 1917, Dorothy Peirce ro compass. Young Lawrence Sperry used sinking] plane became entangled in fish- filed for divorce [while Waldo was off win- his father’s invention to invent the world’s ing nets” when “a pair of duck hunters ning the Croix de Guerre for his heroism], first turn-and-bank indicator, the world’s who witnessed the plane’s plummet to citing non-support and cruel treatment. first retractable landing gear, and the Earth rowed out to the crash site to help Mr.