UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title American Tan: Modernism, Eugenics, and the Transformation of Whiteness Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/48g022bn Author Daigle, Patricia Lee Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara American Tan: Modernism, Eugenics, and the Transformation of Whiteness A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Art and Architecture by Patricia Lee Daigle Committee in charge: Professor E. Bruce Robertson, Chair Professor Laurie Monahan Professor Jeanette Favrot Peterson September 2015 The dissertation of Patricia Lee Daigle is approved. __________________________________________ Laurie Monahan __________________________________________ Jeanette Favrot Peterson __________________________________________ E. Bruce Robertson, Chair August 2015 American Tan: Modernism, Eugenics, and the Transformation of Whiteness Copyright © 2015 by Patricia Lee Daigle iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In many ways, this dissertation is not only a reflection of my research interests, but by extension, the people and experiences that have influenced me along the way. It seems fitting that I would develop a dissertation topic on suntanning in sunny Santa Barbara, where students literally live at the beach. While at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), I have had the fortunate experience of learning from and working with several remarkable individuals. First and foremost, my advisor Bruce Robertson has been a model for successfully pursuing both academic and curatorial endeavors, and his encyclopedic knowledge has always steered me in the right direction. Laurie Monahan, whose thoughtful persistence attracted me to UCSB and whose passion for art history and teaching students has been inspiring. Seminars in Latin American art with Jeanette Favrot Peterson allowed me to explore several concepts that later informed my dissertation. It was also at UCSB where a casual conversation with art historian Sally Stein of UC Irvine on the peculiarities of suntanning sparked what would become a full-fledged dissertation project. I am also appreciative of the generous funding I have received from UCSB's Department of the History of Art and Architecture for financial support during my graduate career and from UCSB's Graduate Division for aiding with travel and research directly contributing to this dissertation. I am grateful for the opportunities I had to curate, write, and grow professionally while working as Curatorial Assistant in Contemporary Art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Julie Joyce, Curator of Contemporary Art, was an incredible mentor whose flexibility and unrelenting support allowed me to thrive in graduate school while building my curatorial skills. Colleagues similarly bridging academia and the museum world, Kimberly Beil and Lisa Volpe, generously offered their time, insight, and snacks as members of an invaluable dissertation writing group that allowed me to sharpen my ideas and write with greater clarity. These academic and professional pursuits would not have been possible without the love and encouragement of my family. It is with fondness that I remember my late uncle, Reverend Chansoo Lee, who eagerly listened to me explain my entire dissertation on the way to my grandmother's 100th birthday celebration. I extend my deepest gratitude to my remarkable parents, Sooja and Heon Cheol Lee. Their empathy, having once been graduate students themselves, has comforted me throughout this rigorous process. They are living proof of the value of hard work and persistence, and they have always helped me focus on the bigger picture. My dedicated and fearless brother, Paul Lee, provided endless laughter and advice when I needed it most. And finally, to my husband, Bernie Daigle, who has supported me from beginning to end with his quiet patience and roaring cheers while working on this dissertation. Thank you for everything you have done—from listening to me rant about eugenics over dinner to taking the time to understand the things of this world that fascinate me. iv VITA OF PATRICIA LEE DAIGLE August 2015 EDUCATION Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Art and Architecture , University of California, Santa Barbara, September 2015 (expected) Master of the Arts in the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 2008 Bachelor of the Arts in Art History and Anthropology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 2006 (Highest Distinction with Honors) PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT Santa Barbara Museum of Art Santa Barbara, CA Curatorial Research Assistant, Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Nov. 2014 – Jul. 2015 Department of Black Studies (UCSB) Santa Barbara, CA Consulting Curator, A Vision of Change Apr. 2013 – Jun. 2014 Santa Barbara Museum of Art Santa Barbara, CA Curatorial Assistant, Contemporary Art Nov. 2008 – Oct. 2014 Department of the History of Art and Architecture (UCSB) Santa Barbara, CA Teaching Associate Jun. 2011 – Dec. 2012 Courses: American Art, 1900-Present, American Art, 1865-1915 Department of the History of Art and Architecture (UCSB) Santa Barbara, CA Teaching Assistant Sep. 2006 – Mar. 2012 Courses: Introduction to Western Art Series (ancient through contemporary); Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Native North America FELLOWSHIPS, HONORS, AWARDS Critic’s Pick on www.artforum.com for exhibition Living in the Timeless: Drawings by Beatrice Wood (organizing curator), Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2014 Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, Graduate Division, UCSB, 2011 Department Special Fellow, UCSB, 2006-2011 Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society The John and June Allcott Undergraduate Travel Fellow, UNC, 2005 Singapore Summer Immersion Program Alumni Research Fellow, UNC, 2004 v PUBLICATIONS Biographical essays on Tonico Lemos Auad, Wim Delvoye, Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel, Theaster Gates, Tim Hawkinson, Josiah McElheny, and David Thorpe in Labour and Wait. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2013. Exhibition brochure for Myth and Materiality: Latin American Art from the Permanent Collection, 1930-1990, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2013. Biographical essays on Karl Benjamin, William Brice, Sam Francis, John McLaughlin, and Richards Ruben and “Timeline” in Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2012. “Chronology,” in Charles Garabedian: A Retrospective. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2011. “No More Chop Sewie for Me”: African Americans, Chinese Immigrants, and Nativism in the United States, ca. 1850-1900 (M.A. thesis) FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Twentieth-Century American Art, Professor Bruce Robertson Minor Field: Visual Culture Studies, Professor Laurie Monahan vi ABSTRACT American Tan: Modernism, Eugenics, and the Transformation of Whiteness by Patricia Lee Daigle This dissertation explores the emergence of the suntanned white body in the United States between the World Wars and its dual significance to modernism and the eugenics movement. The suntan serves as a revealing lens for examining the nexus of health, class, gender, and race in early American modernist art and visual culture. Rather paradoxically, as Euro-Americans were trying to preserve certain racial boundaries through eugenics, they also experimented with their own skin color in unprecedented ways. Yet through the popular practice of suntanning, Euro-Americans often transgressed the very racial color lines they sought to maintain. Suntanning—a physical transformation whose most visceral form is the visual—has yet to be critically examined as a subject of art history. This study considers the nineteenth-century medical origins of suntanning as heliotherapy, modern notions of the skin as surface in the consumer culture of the 1920s and ‘30s, and the primitivist impulse of early American modernist artists in their appropriation of Native American cultural references as well as skin tone. I examine a broad spectrum of visual material ranging from travel, fashion, and cosmetic advertisements to Alfred Stieglitz’s photographic portraits of a suntanned Georgia O’Keeffe “playing Indian.” I also assert that suntanning is a visual phenomenon in and of itself, a performative process by which skin changes color and texture and becomes a natural canvas. The tanned white body, therefore, serves as a floating vii signifier suggesting everything from eugenic health to primitivist desire. This dissertation adds richer dimension to our understanding of early American modernism by exposing the colored side of whiteness. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…..……………………….…………………………………………………….....1 Chapter 1….…………………………………………………………………………….........19 Health and Whiteness: The Nineteenth-Century Transformation of Pale Skin Chapter 2………………………………………………………………………………..........84 When the Suntan was in Vogue: Leisure, Consumerism, and the Modern Body Chapter 3………………………………………………………………………………........149 Sun Worship: Modernist Primitivism and the Native American Body Conclusion………………………….……………………………...………………….........214 Bibliography………………………….……………………………...……………………..223 ix LIST OF FIGURES Chapter 1 Figure 1.1 Charles Willson Peale (American, 1741-1827) Portrait of Thomas Jefferson, 1791 Copyprint of oil on canvas Courtesy of Independence National