The art of feisty and exuberant Florine Stettheimer is currently being
featured in a delightful exhibition at The Jewish Museum in NYC.
The exhibit comprises over 50 paintings and drawings, a selection of
costume and theater designs, photographs and ephemera, as well as
some of her critically acclaimed poems.
Although she's not a household name today,
in her heyday Stettheimer was well-known as a prolific Jazz Age painter,
costume designer, poet, saloniste and feminist. The strongest influences
on her colorful, stylish artwork were the European Symbolist painters
and the costume designers of Ballets Russes. Born in 1871 in Rochester, NY,
she was the daughter of refined German-Jewish parents.
Above: Florine Stettheimer,
photograph by Peter A. Juley & Son, c. 1917.
Florine enjoyed being seen as eccentric and avant garde.
Her salon, which met regularly on NY's Upper West Side or in
rented mansions on the New Jersey shore, was co-organized by Florine
and her two sisters, Ettie and Carrie. The Stettheimers were “an exotic if somewhat strange trio: Ettie in wig, brocades, and diamonds; Carrie, who dressed in the elegance of a past era; Florine in white satin pants. They were all extremely fashionable, though often they appeared as though they were of another age."
Portrait of My Sister, Ettie Stettheimer (1923)
"The Stettheimer sisters typified the idea of the new woman of the 20th century, they declared men impossible but worthy of flirtation. They wore pants, smoked cigarettes, disdained marriage, romance and children, and were constantly surrounded by artists and writers who were drawn to their soigné gatherings.”
... from Extravagant Crowd: Carl Van Vechten's Portraits of Women
Their circle of friends, many of them luminaries of New York's artistic vanguard, included Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Elie Nadelman,
Man Ray, Gaston Lachaise, and Marcel Duchamp.
° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
NEW YORK
At last grown young
with noise
and color
and light
and jazz
dance marathons and poultry shows
soulsavings and rodeos
gabfests and beauty contests
sky towers and bridal bowers
speakeasy bars and motor cars
columnists and movie stars
—Florine Stettheimer
° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
Asbury Park South, 1920. Oil on canvas
Birthday Bouquet (Flowers with Snake), 1932. Oil on canvas
Picnic at Bedford Hills, 1918
Florine enjoyed being seen as eccentric and avant garde.
Her salon, which met regularly on NY's Upper West Side or in
rented mansions on the New Jersey shore, was co-organized by Florine
and her two sisters, Ettie and Carrie. The Stettheimers were “an exotic if somewhat strange trio: Ettie in wig, brocades, and diamonds; Carrie, who dressed in the elegance of a past era; Florine in white satin pants. They were all extremely fashionable, though often they appeared as though they were of another age."
"The Stettheimer sisters typified the idea of the new woman of the 20th century, they declared men impossible but worthy of flirtation. They wore pants, smoked cigarettes, disdained marriage, romance and children, and were constantly surrounded by artists and writers who were drawn to their soigné gatherings.”
... from Extravagant Crowd: Carl Van Vechten's Portraits of Women
Their circle of friends, many of them luminaries of New York's artistic vanguard, included Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Elie Nadelman,
Man Ray, Gaston Lachaise, and Marcel Duchamp.
° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
NEW YORK
At last grown young
with noise
and color
and light
and jazz
dance marathons and poultry shows
soulsavings and rodeos
gabfests and beauty contests
sky towers and bridal bowers
speakeasy bars and motor cars
columnists and movie stars
—Florine Stettheimer
° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
Birthday Bouquet (Flowers with Snake), 1932. Oil on canvas
"It’s not that Stettheimer, who died in 1944, at the age of
seventy-three, needs rediscovering. She is securely esteemed for her ebulliently faux-naïve paintings of party scenes
and of her famous friends and for her four satirical allegories of
Manhattan: symbol-packed phantasmagorias
of Fifth Avenue, Broadway, Wall Street, and Art, in the collection of
the Metropolitan Museum. She painted in blazing primary colors, plus
white and some accenting black, with the odd insinuating purple. Even
her blues smolder. ... Zealously urbane,
Stettheimer wasn’t much for nature, except, surreally, for the glories
of the outsized cut flowers that barge in on her indoor scenes. She
painted grass yellow. She seemed an eccentric outlier to American
modernism, and appreciations of her often run to the camp—it was likely
in that spirit that Andy Warhol called her his favorite artist."
... New Yorker magazine
Spring Sale at Bendel's (1921)
Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry runs through Sept. 24, 2017
For more information, visit the Jewish Museum's website
BONUS:
If you walk about 10 blocks north from the Jewish Museum,
you'll come to the Museum of the City of New York -- another
favorite place of mine. On display there is a dollhouse
designed by Carrie Stettheimer over the course of 20 years.
The dollhouse is one of the Museum’s most popular artifacts.
Every detail of the house was created with meticulous authenticity,
from the post WWI wallpaper, furniture and fixtures
to the miniaturized versions of actual art, which include a
3-inch version of Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp, Limoges vases in the chintz bedroom and crystal-trimmed candelabra in the salon. Stettheimer infused her artistic sensibility into every aspect of the house.
Hot tip: show your ticket to the MCNY
at the Jewish Museum, and
you'll get in for free!
~oOo~
Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry runs through Sept. 24, 2017
For more information, visit the Jewish Museum's website
BONUS:
If you walk about 10 blocks north from the Jewish Museum,
you'll come to the Museum of the City of New York -- another
favorite place of mine. On display there is a dollhouse
designed by Carrie Stettheimer over the course of 20 years.
The dollhouse is one of the Museum’s most popular artifacts.
from the post WWI wallpaper, furniture and fixtures
to the miniaturized versions of actual art, which include a
3-inch version of Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp, Limoges vases in the chintz bedroom and crystal-trimmed candelabra in the salon. Stettheimer infused her artistic sensibility into every aspect of the house.
Hot tip: show your ticket to the MCNY
at the Jewish Museum, and
you'll get in for free!
~oOo~
