Florine Stettheimer
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Florine Stettheimer (August 19, 1871 – May 11, 1944) was an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
painter,
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
, theatrical designer, poet, and
salonnière A salon is a gathering of people held by an inspiring host. During the gathering they amuse one another and increase their knowledge through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "ei ...
. Stettheimer developed a feminine, theatrical painting style depicting her friends, family, and experiences in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. She made the first feminist nude self-portrait and paintings depicting controversies of race and sexual preference. She and her sisters hosted a salon that attracted members of the avant-garde. In the mid-1930s, Stettheimer created the stage designs and costumes for
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
and Virgil Thomson's avant-garde opera, '' Four Saints in Three Acts.'' She is best known for her four monumental works illustrating what she considered New York City's "Cathedrals":
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
,
Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
,
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...
, and New York's three major art museums. During her lifetime, Stettheimer exhibited her paintings at more than 40 museum exhibitions and salons in New York and
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
. In 1938, when the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
sent the first American art exhibition to Europe, Stettheimer and
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
were the only women whose work was included. Following her death in 1944, her friend
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
curated a retrospective exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946. It was the museum's first retrospective exhibition of work by a woman artist. After her death, Stettheimer's paintings were donated to museums throughout the United States. In addition to her many paintings and costume and set designs, Stettheimer designed custom frames for her paintings and matching furniture, and wrote humorous, often biting poetry. A book of her poetry, ''Crystal Flowers'', was published privately and posthumously by her sister Ettie Stettheimer in 1949.


Early life and education

Florine Stettheimer was born in
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
, on August 19, 1871. Her mother, Rosetta Walter, was one of nine daughters from a wealthy German-Jewish family in New York. Stettheimer's father, Joseph, had five children with Rosetta Walter but deserted his family for
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. Stettheimer grew up between New York City and
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, in a matriarchal family. By the time Stettheimer was ten, Rosetta and her five children spent part of every year in Europe. By the early 1890s, two of Rosetta's children, Stella and Walter, had married and left the household. Caroline (Carrie), the next eldest, Florine, and Henrietta (Ettie), the youngest, formed a close bond with their mother until she died in 1935. Stettheimer demonstrated artistic talent as a child. From 1881 to 1886, when she was ten to fifteen, she attended
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...
's ''Priesersches Institut'', a girls' boarding school. She took private art instruction with the director, Sophie von Prieser. The Stettheimers lived in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
from 1887 to 1889, where Stettheimer continued taking private drawing lessons. Regularly traveling through Europe with her mother, Carrie, and Ettie, Stettheimer taught herself art history by visiting museums and art galleries in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
, and
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
. She studied the
Old Masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...
, and critiqued their work in her diaries, and she continued to take private art lessons in media such as
casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...
. In 1892, Stettheimer enrolled in a four-year program at the Art Students League in New York, a school modeled on the private art schools of Paris. While in Germany, she learned the style of German academic painting. At the Art Students League, she studied with teachers such as Kenyon Cox,
Harry Siddons Mowbray Harry Siddons Mowbray (August 5, 1858 – 1928) was an American artist. He executed various painting commissions for J.P. Morgan, F.W. Vanderbilt, and other clients. He served as director of the American Academy in Rome from 1902–1904. Biog ...
, and James Carroll Beckwith, who had studied French academic painting in Paris. By graduation, she had mastered painting realistic, traditional, academic portraiture and nudes in both of the primary European styles. Returning to Europe, Stettheimer visited museum collections, contemporary salon exhibitions, and artists' studios. She saw the work of the Cubists, Cézanne,
Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...
,
van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
, Morisot, and
Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primar ...
years before the
Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
, the first large exhibition of
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...
in America. With varying success, she tried her hand at a variety of media and styles, from Symbolism and
Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...
to
Pointillism Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" ...
, resulting in a series of works that are reminiscent of Matisse's ''
Luxe, Calme et Volupté ''Luxe, Calme et Volupté'' is a 1904 oil painting by the French artist Henri Matisse. Both foundational in the oeuvre of Matisse and a pivotal work in the history of art, ''Luxe, Calme et Volupté'' is considered the starting point of Fauvism. ...
''.


Early opera set designs

The performances of Serge Diaghilev's
Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
in Paris in 1912 were a key influence on Stettheimer's painting. Captivated with the staging and choreography of the Ballets Russes, she created the
libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major li ...
, costumes, and sets for an opera of her own: '' Orphée des Quat'z Arts''. She based the libretto on the annual art students' Bal des Quat'z'Arts. The resulting
maquette A ''maquette'' (French word for scale model, sometimes referred to by the Italian names ''plastico'' or ''modello'') is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture. An equivalent term is ''bozzetto'', from the Italian word for "sketc ...
s, with their costumed characters made from intricately sewn and beaded materials, display theatrical, active, dance-like movements and individualized personalities that prefigure her mature paintings that emerged in 1917. While working on ''Orphée'', she still painted conventional landscapes and portraits. Many of the female figures wear a newly invented transparent material; cellophane. The use of cellophane became the hallmark of her interior design and, two decades later, the stage sets for the opera '' Four Saints in Three Acts''. ''Orphée des Quat'z Arts'' has never been staged. The libretto was published in its entirety in biographer
Barbara Bloemink Barbara J. Bloemink (born 1953) is an American art historian and former director and chief curator of five art and design museums. She has published several works on the modernist painter Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944) and is considered an exp ...
's ''The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer'' and the 2010 reissue of ''Crystal Flowers''.


Return to New York and the Stettheimer salon

In 1914, the Stettheimers were stranded in
Bern, Switzerland german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese , neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen , website ...
, by the outbreak of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, and eventually boarded a ship for New York. On returning to New York harbor, Stettheimer decided to reject her traditional academic training and create a new painting style, capturing the immediate, expressive emotions she felt on seeing the sights, sounds, and people of 20th-century New York City. The four Stettheimer women moved into an apartment on West 76th Street in Manhattan, where they began holding
salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon ( ...
s, inviting recent expatriate artists such as Marcel Duchamp,
Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
, and
Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...
, as well as members of
Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
's circle, such as
Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was born ...
and Georgia O'Keeffe, and other musicians, writers, poets, dancers, and members of New York's avant-garde. A unique aspects of the Stettheimer salon was that their numerous gay, bisexual, and lesbian friends and acquaintances did not need to disguise their sexual orientation at the gatherings as they did at other salons (such as the Arensberg Salon), despite the fact that non-heterosexual relationships were illegal in New York at the time. Stettheimer often previewed her newest paintings to her friends at her salons, as in her painting ''Soirée'' (1917–19) prior to sending them to exhibitions. Stettheimer's older sister Carrie created special cocktails and dishes, such as feather soup, for the salons. During the summers, the Stettheimers often held day-long, salon-like parties for friends at rented summer houses. Stettheimer painted a number of these gatherings of her family members and friends enjoying outdoor festivities, including ''Sunday Afternoon in the Country'' (1917).


Mature painting style

During her lifetime Stettheimer had only one solo exhibition, at Knoedler in 1916. It was organized by painter Albert Sterner's wife, Marie Sterner, one of the first women gallerists in America, who worked at Knoedler and acted as an intermediary between the artist and the gallery. The show consisted of a number of the artist's early Matisse-derivative works, painted with bright, pure colors, thick
impasto ''Impasto'' is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provide ...
, and heavy contours. When nothing sold, she was, as her friend the art critic Henry McBride noted, "vaguely dissatisfied." In the year that followed, Stettheimer's style evolved to an idiosyncratic visual language, rejecting both traditional formalism and modernist abstraction. Stettheimer transformed her painting style by returning to the miniaturized, theatrical, colorful influence of her designs for ''Orphee des Quat'z Arts''. In Stettheimer's mature work, each canvas is arranged like a stage, filled with easily identifiable family members, friends, and acquaintances. Her use of what Duchamp called ''multiplication virtuelle'', continuous narrative, was highly sophisticated; with roots in the Ballets Russes and the ideas of
Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson Le Roy, ...
and
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous ...
about time and memory. In all her paintings but the portraits, Stettheimer filled her painting with bright, often unmixed, primary colors against a flat white background, often using various media. Many contain many, small, highly detailed, humorous touches. Among the many distinctive features of her paintings is the biting humor evident in many compositions' small narrative details, like the small altar boy trying to peek under the bride's gown in ''Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue'' (1931). Stettheimer also filled her compositions with visual performances of individually recognizable figures, arranged around actual prominent locations and detailed, accurately rendered, well-known architecture.


The 1920s

The 1920s were Stettheimer's most prolific period. She painted a number of individual portraits of male friends and herself and family. Like her literary contemporaries Proust and
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
, instead of trying to reproduce what the sitter looked like, Stettheimer's portraits reveal their sitter's personality through illustrating a mixture of their habits, vocations, accomplishments, and contexts. In her ''Portrait of Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy'', for example, she included images of a number of his " readymades," as well as his feminine alter ego,
Rrose Sélavy Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
. Barbara Bloemink has proposed that Duchamp based his persona as
Rrose Sélavy Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
in the well-known 1920-21 photography by
Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
on Stettheimer. The artist also painted individual portraits of her sisters and her mother, and a self-portrait in which she is wearing an artist's beret, transparent cellophane-wrapped sheath, and red-winged cape and is floating upward towards the sun. Stettheimer also painted several monumental works dealing with controversial subjects, such as ''Asbury Park South'', which shows
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
s enjoying a well-known, segregated
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
beach. The painting is remarkable in that it is among the earliest work by a white American artist to paint black figures with the same non-caricatured features as the Caucasian figures. In ''Lake Placid'' (1919), Stettheimer painted herself and friends of various religions (including Jews and Catholics) enjoying a day at Lake Placid, a site known for its institutionalized anti-Semitism. Recalling the premiere of a controversial Ballets Russes performance Stettheimer saw in Paris in 1912, in ''Music'', Stettheimer painted herself asleep, dreaming of the dancer
Nijinsky Vaslav (or Vatslav) Nijinsky (; rus, Вацлав Фомич Нижинский, Vatslav Fomich Nizhinsky, p=ˈvatsləf fɐˈmʲitɕ nʲɪˈʐɨnskʲɪj; pl, Wacław Niżyński, ; 12 March 1889/18908 April 1950) was a ballet dancer and choreog ...
, ''en pointe'', with the body of both a man and a woman.


The 1930s

During the 1930s, Stettheimer continued to paint large works, some of which were increasingly introspective and returned to her familial subject matter and locations. She continued to paint a floral still-life each year on her birthday that she referred to as an "eyegay," a play on the word " nosegay" (small bouquet) and her dislike of any "symbolism" in art. She spent much of her time during this decade on her designs for the opera ''Four Saints in Three Acts'' and two of her ''Cathedral'' paintings.


''Cathedral'' paintings

Beginning in 1929, and continuing until the mid-1940s, Stettheimer painted four monumental works she titled ''Cathedral'' paintings. She commemorated in these what she considered the main "secular shrines" of New York City: the new theater and movie districts of
Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
and
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
;
Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
as the center of finance and politics;
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...
's upper-class stores and society; and the elitism and in-fighting among New York's three major art museums, the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, and the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
. She continued to work on ''The Cathedrals of Art'' until a few weeks before she died. It remains unfinished. All four paintings are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


''Four Saints in Three Acts''

In 1934, ''Four Saints in Three Acts'', the first avant-garde opera in America, opened to sold-out audiences in
Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
. The libretto was written by
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
and the music by
Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclass ...
. The cast of performers were entirely African Americans, many of whom went on to achieve significant musical careers. Stettheimer designed the stage and the costumes. Thomson invited Stettheimer to design the opera when he saw her paintings in their custom frames, her matching furniture designs, and the studio's cellophane curtains. In preparation for the production, Stettheimer made dolls with fully sewn costumes for each of the characters. She created designs for each scene setting in small shoe boxes. Stettheimer covered the entire back of the opera stage with layers of cellophane, created palm trees with cellophane and feathers, and, for the stage sets, copied her own furniture. The opera received mixed reviews, but Stettheimer's costumes and sets won universal acclaim.


Feminism

During her twenties and thirties, Stettheimer engaged in flirtations and romantic relationships, and her paintings, diaries, and poems reveal her admiration for the male anatomy. However, they also demonstrate that she adamantly opposed the idea of marriage, believing like many feminists that it constricted women's freedom and interfered with creativity. This idea is readily apparent in her poetry and diary entries. She wore white pantaloons, which at the time were only worn by feminists and suffragettes and also provided freedom for working on larger canvases. During her years in Europe, Stettheimer and her sisters sought out theatrical productions that featured feminist themes and women performers. Among the flyers in the family scrapbooks is a copy of the proceedings of the First International Feminist Congress held in Paris in 1896. In 1915, at the age of 45, Stettheimer painted a naked, over life-size self-portrait, ''A Model (Nude Self-Portrait)''. Combining elements of past controversial nudes including Manet's painting of the prostitute '' Olympia'' and
Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
's '' Nude Maja'', Stettheimer's ''Nude Self-Portrait'' is one of the earliest nude self-portraits by a woman in Western art history. Holding a flower bouquet above her blatantly painted pubic hair, Stettheimer's humorous, mocking expression in the portrait markedly contrasts with traditional paintings of nudes, making it to date the earliest known overtly feminist nude self-portrait by a woman. She painted several works of unusual, female-oriented contexts such as her monumental 1921 work ''Spring Sale at Bendel's'', in which she humorously captured wealthy women of varying body shapes trying on clothing in an expensive department store; or ''Natatorium Undine'', which portrays nude women riding on floats or swimming on half-oyster shells. On the right, in a sexual reversal from traditional subject matter, a group of women dances around a handsome male exercise instructor whom they admire for his physical appearance.


Poetry

Stettheimer wrote her poems on little scraps of paper. They were gathered and privately published by her sister Ettie. Some of her poems are written in nursery style, some offer witty social critiques, and others present satiric portraits of fellow modernists, such as Gertrude Stein ("Gertie") and Marcel Duchamp ("Duche"). Her poems show an awareness of contemporary consumer culture and offer an acerbic indictment of marriage, as her poem dedicated to Marie Sterner, a New York gallerist who curated her exhibition at Knoedler's, "who intended to be a musician/ but Albert married her." Stettheimer's poems were posthumously assembled in ''Crystal Flowers'', collected and edited by her sister Ettie and privately published in a limited edition in 1949 that Ettie sent to her family and friends. In 2010 Gammel and Zelazo re-issued Stettheimer's poems and her early ballet libretto, stating that in Stettheimer's "hands and on her tongue, the surface for Stettheimer is depth." They continue, "A close look at the poems reveals equally glittering surfaces and glossy protective veneers" that may be found in the paintings. Gammel and Zelazo see in Stettheimer's work a "grammar of artifice ... designed to cultivate an acute awareness of aesthetic perspective in the reader," as well as "an aesthetics of cellophane," a decidedly modern material she used to decorate her stages and her bedroom, occasionally mixing it with old-fashioned laces.


Death

On May 11, 1944, Stettheimer died of cancer in
New York Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center (previously known as New York Hospital or Old New York Hospital or City Hospital) is a research hospital in New York City. It is part of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the teaching hospital for Cornell University. ...
. She was attended daily by her sisters Ettie and Carrie (the latter died unexpectedly a few weeks later) and her lawyer Joseph Solomon. Unlike the other members of her family who were buried in the family plot, Stettheimer asked to be cremated, and, several years later, her ashes were scattered during a boat trip on the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
by Ettie and Solomon. For many years, Stettheimer had expressed her wishes that all her work be given, as a collection, to a museum. However, realizing that it might prove too difficult to find one museum to take the entire collection, she revised her will, asking that her sisters "follow her wishes" that her works not be sold, but be donated to museums around the country. Ettie left this task to Solomon and Stettheimer's friends, who donated Stettheimer's paintings to most major art museums in the United States, including giving the ''Cathedral'' paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On hearing of her passing, Duchamp wrote Ettie from France and asked if he could organize a retrospective of Stettheimer's paintings. The exhibition, the first full retrospective of a woman artist organized by the Museum of Modern Art, included a catalog essay written by Stettheimer's friend, art critic Henry McBride. Following its run in New York, the Stettheimer retrospective traveled to the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum and the Arts Club of Chicago.


Legacy

Throughout her life, gallerists in New York, including
Julien Levy Julien Levy (1906–1981) was an art dealer and owner of Julien Levy Gallery in New York City, important as a venue for Surrealists, avant-garde artists, and American photographers in the 1930s and 1940s. Biography Levy was born in New York. Aft ...
and
Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
, asked Stettheimer to join their galleries. Although she did exhibit at a number of retail galleries and was often asked to sell her work, she priced each painting at the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars, so no one could afford them. As McBride noted, "She used to smile and say that she liked her pictures herself and preferred to keep them. At the same time, she did lend to public exhibitions." Beginning in 1919, Stettheimer submitted or was invited to exhibit paintings in almost every important exhibition of contemporary art. These included the first
Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
, several of the earliest group exhibitions and the Museum of Modern Art, the
Carnegie International The Carnegie International is a North American exhibition of contemporary art from around the globe. It was first organized at the behest of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on November 5, 1896 in Pittsburgh. Carnegie established th ...
exhibitions, and the
Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...
in Paris. In all, she exhibited in over forty-six exhibitions, and her large, colorful works were usually singled out by art critics for praise. By the 1930s, she was second to
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
as the best-known woman artist in New York. In a ''
Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the ...
'' article after her death, the writer Carl Van Vechten stated that Stettheimer "was both the historian and the critic of her period and she goes a long way toward telling us how some of New York lived in those strange years after the First World War, telling us in brilliant colors and assured designs, telling us in painting that has few rivals in her day or ours." Following her death in the late 1940s, when Stettheimer's works were donated to art museums, the taste in art had moved to
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
, and her paintings were frequently not displayed. In addition, because her paintings were not sold at art galleries or at auction, they received no publicity and so her name and work were not as well known. Author
Parker Tyler Harrison Parker Tyler (March 6, 1904 – June 1974), was an American author, poet, and film critic. Tyler had a relationship with underground filmmaker Charles Boultenhouse (1926–1994) from 1945 until his death. Their papers are held by the New ...
's biography, ''Florine Stettheimer: A Life in Art'', was released in 1963. In the 1970s Stettheimer's work was revived by feminist art historians including, most prominently,
Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art h ...
. Stettheimer went through another revival in 1995 with a retrospective exhibition of her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the publication of another biography, Bloemink's ''The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer''. From this point on, her work influenced a number of contemporary women and gay artists, drawn to her female gaze and decorative, theatrical style. Beginning in 2015 with the first retrospective of Stettheimer's work in Europe at the Lenbachhaus in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
, Stettheimer's work has been included in numerous exhibitions in the United States, and her significance as an early feminist artist and her widespread influence on contemporary artists is more fully recognized. Andrew Russeth, the executive editor of ''
ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...
'', stated that Stettheimer's paintings "elegantly make the case that she is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century and could serve as a useful model for those of the 21st."


Critical reception

During her lifetime, Stettheimer's work was specifically mentioned and cited favorably by critics reviewing the many exhibitions in which it was shown, as well as by the writer/photographer Carl Van Vechten and the painter
Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was born ...
. Van Vechten, contrasting her work to that of
Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ame ...
, wrote that Stettheimer's work possessed a very modern quality: "At the risk of being misunderstood, I must call this quality jazz." Hartley praised her "delicate satire and iridescent wit." In their essay, "Wrapped in Cellophane: Florine Stettheimer's Visual Poetics," Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo review the various positions voiced by scholars and biographers regarding Stettheimer's unique modernist sensibility, whose whimsy seems very different from mainstream modernists. They write:
Unapologetically domestic and über-feminine, Stettheimer's work has been variously described as 'faux naïf', reveling in simplified shapes and Fauve-like colors (Tatham); as 'rococo subversive', embracing a camp sensibility (Nochlin); and as 'temporal modernism' influenced by Bergsonian concepts of time as heterogeneous durée, aligning Stettheimer with Marcel Proust and other literary modernists ( Bloemink).
Representing an international style of modernism that integrates various art forms, Stettheimer's paintings, like her poems, are sensorily as well as sensually charged. Because she refused to affiliate herself with a single, well-known art gallery, such as the Stieglitz "Group", or with a specific style such as
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
or abstraction, Stettheimer's work was always received and reviewed as uniquely her own. Her unique, feminine style and consciously female gaze set her work directly against the critical tastes of the male-dominated
Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
and
Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
of the 1960s and 1970s.


Collections

* ''Asbury Park South'' - halley k harrisburg and Michael Rosenfeld, New York * ''La Fete A Duchamp'' - private collection * ''West Point'' - This painting was given by Ettie to the West Point Military Academy after Stettheimer's death. It is missing since the 1950s. * The largest collection, with 65 of Stettheimer's works (mostly her early student works, but also ''Portrait of Myself'' and her portraits of her two sisters), is at the
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is a library located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the New York City. It is the largest architecture library in the world. Serving Columbia's Graduate Scho ...
at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. Columbia also has the dolls and maquettes for ''Four Saints in Three Acts'' and ''Pocahontas'', and the Stettheimer sisters' scrapbooks of theater programs. * The second-largest collection, with 56 works, is at the Museum of Modern Art. Along with ''Family Portrait #2'' and ''Portrait of My Mother'', these include all of her drawings and maquettes for her ''Orpheus'' ballet and her two extant three-dimensional screens. *
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
- the ''Cathedral'' series: ''Cathedrals of Broadway'' (1929), ''Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue'' (1931), ''Cathedrals of Wall Street'' (1939), ''Cathedrals of Art'' (1942–) *
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
''- New York/Liberty'' (1918–19), ''Sun'' (1931) Most art museums in large cities across the United States that were established prior to 1950 have a single painting by Stettheimer in their collections, as do a few university art museums, including the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
and the Stanford University Museum of Art, as these works were distributed after the artist's death according to her wishes by her lawyer Joseph Solomon and her friends Carl Van Vechten and Kirk Askew.


Exhibitions


Solo exhibitions

* Exhibition of Paintings by Miss Florine Stettheimer, Knoedler & Co. Gallery, New York, October 16–28, 1916


Selected group exhibitions

The following are a selection of group exhibitions to which Stettheimer lent work during her lifetime. Posthumous group exhibitions are not listed. * ''25th Anniversary Exhibition of the Arts Students League of New York'',
American Fine Arts Society The Art Students League of New York Building (also the American Fine Arts Society and 215 West 57th Street) is a building on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in the Frenc ...
Building, New York, 1900 (listed as a non-resident member) * ''First Annual Exhibition of Society of Independent Artists'', Grand Central Palace, April 10–May 6, 1916 (her friend Marcel Duchamp's infamous ''
Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were ori ...
'' urinal was also exhibited) * ''American Paintings and Sculpture Pertaining to the War'', Knoedler & Co Gallery, New York, curated by Marie Sterner, 1918 * ''Salon d'Automne'', 15eme Exposition, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, November 1–December 20, 1922 * ''Seventh Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists'', February 24–March 18, 1923 (Stettheimer exhibition annually at the Society through the 1920s) * ''Twenty-Second Annual International Exhibition of Paintings'', Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1924 * ''Twenty-Third Annual Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art'', Art Institute of Chicago, December 23, 1924 – January 25, 1925 * ''Chicago Women's World's Fair'', April 1925 * ''100 Important Paintings by Living American Artists'', Arts Council of the City of New York, Architecture and Allied Arts Exposition, 1929 * ''First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painters'', The Whitney Museum of American Art, 1932 * ''Modern Works of Art: 5th Anniversary Exhibition'', The Museum of Modern Art, November 19, 1934 – January 20, 1935 * ''Twenty-Third Annual International Exhibition of Paintings'', Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1934 * ''Three Centuries of American Art, 1609-1938'',
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume Jeu de Paume ( en, Real Tennis Court) is an arts centre for modern and postmodern photography and media. It is located in the north corner (west side) of the Tuileries Gardens next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. In 2004, Galerie Nationale ...
, May 24–July 17, 1938 * ''Art in Our Time: 10th Anniversary Exhibition: Painting, Sculpture, Prints'', The Museum of Modern Art, May 10–September 30, 1939 * ''Twentieth Century Portraits'', The Museum of Modern Art, January 9, 1942 – February 24, 1943 * ''Painting, Sculpture, Prints'', The Museum of Modern Art, May 24–October 15, 1944


Posthumous exhibitions

* ''Florine Stettheimer,'' Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut, 1945 * ''Florine Stettheimer'', The Museum of Modern Art, October 1–November 17, 1946 * ''Exhibition of Paintings by Florine Stettheimer'', The Arts Club of Chicago, 1947 * ''The Flowers of Florine Stettheimer'', Durlacher Brothers Gallery, New York, 1948 * ''Florine Stettheimer Exhibition'', Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1949 * ''Florine Stettheimer Exhibition'', Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts, organized by Durlacher Brothers with Ettie Stettheimer, 1950 * ''Twelve Paintings by Florine Stettheimer'', The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1951 * ''Exhibition of Paintings of Florine Stettheimer'', Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1952 * ''Florine Stettheimer: Her Family, Her Friends'', Durlacher Brothers Gallery, New York, 1965 * ''Florine Stettheimer, An Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings'', Columbia University, New York, February 8–March 8, 1973 * ''Florine Stettheimer : still lifes, portraits and pageants, 1910 to 1942'', Institute of Contemporary Art, 1980 * ''Friends and Family: Portraiture in the World of Florine Stettheimer'',
Katonah Museum of Art The Katonah Museum of Art is a non-collecting institution geared towards visual arts, located in Katonah, New York. It does not have a permanent collection, but holds temporary exhibitions. The museum was founded in 1953, in one room at the loca ...
, ??–Nov. 28, 1993 * ''Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica'', Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, July–November 15, 1995 catalogue distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York * ''Florine Stettheimer'', Lenbachhaus, Munich, September 27, 2014 – January 4, 2015 * ''Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry'', May 5 – September 24, 2017, The
Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. List of Jewish museums Notable Jewish museums include: *Albania ** Solomon Museum, Berat *Australia ** Jewish Mu ...
and October 21, 2017 – January 28, 2018,
Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...


See also

*
Stettheimer Dollhouse The Stettheimer Dollhouse is a two-story, twelve-room dollhouse, created by Carrie Walter Stettheimer (1869-1944) over the course of two decades, from 1916 to 1935. It contains miniature art made for the dollhouse by artists like Marcel Duchamp, Al ...


Notes


References


Sources


Books

* *Bloemink, Barbara J (2022). Florine Stettheimer: A Biography Munich, Germany: HIRMER. ISBN 978-3-7774-3834-4 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Articles

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Websites

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Solo exhibition catalogs

* * Columbia University in the City of New York. ''Florine Stettheimer: An Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings''. New York: Columbia University, 1973 * * * *


Further reading


Original work and primary sources

* Ettie and Florine Stettheimer Papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Ct. YCAL MSS 20, Gift of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967 * Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Gift of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967 * Museum of Modern Art, Art Library Archives, New York, N.Y. Gift of Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967 * Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Austin, Texas * Peter Juley Photographs, Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C. * Florine Stettheimer, ''Crystal Flowers'', privately printed in limited edition of 250 by Ettie Stettheimer, circa 1946.


Theses

* *


Books

*


External links


Florine Stettheimer Collection at Columbia University

Finding aid to Florine Stettheimer papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Triple Canopy
a short piece on Stettheimer's poetry
Florine Stettheimer at The Jewish Museum
* Florine and Ettie Stettheimer Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. * *
Stettheimer, Florine (1871–1944)
at
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stettheimer, Florine American women painters 20th-century American painters Opera designers Painters from New York City Art Students League of New York alumni American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish painters 1871 births 1944 deaths 20th-century American women artists Artists from Rochester, New York Jewish American artists Feminist artists American salon-holders