The Woman Behind Société Anonyme

(Above) Photograph of Jean Arp with one eye covered, white paint encircling his head, 1926. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Photograph of P.Mondrian, undated. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Check out this beautifully illustrated and signed letter from “Matta” Echaurren, addressed to “Miss Dreier, N.Y.C.” Note the expressive and creative use of color, circled areas of emphasis and signature. This is letter worthy of framing. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Typewritten letter from El Lissitzky, Nov 7, 1926, Moscow, [to] Katherine Dreier, New York. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Painted and postmarked postcard, to Katherine Dreier, Paris, from Paul Klee, no date. (1879-1940). Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Stella. New York, Published by Societe Anonyme, 1923. Click for larger view.
© Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) International Exhibition of Modern Art (1926-1927: Brooklyn Museum, catalog cover, pencil and paint drawing. New York, 1926. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Flyer for New York 1927, Machine-Age Exposition Architecture, Engineering, Industrial Arts, Modern Art. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(Above) Photograph of Katherine Dreier standing in the middle of exhibition hall at Yale University Art Gallery, c. 1930. Click for larger view. © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

(You are reading an Accidental Mysteries blast from the past)

ARTIST AND COLLECTOR KATHERINE DREIER JOINED MARCEL DUCHAMP and Man Ray in 1920 to found the Société Anonyme, an organization designed to support and generate awareness of modernist art; the group’s name, a French phrase meaning “incorporated,” highlighted the fact that the organization was not allied with any particular artistic school. The Société Anonyme promoted new artists by arranging exhibitions to introduce audiences to their work and develop their reputations among galleries and collectors. Critics praised the Société Anonyme for its commitment to new artists and its inclusion of their work in exhibits and catalogs. Between 1920 and 1940 they held 80 exhibitions showing mostly abstract art.

Katherine Dreier played an essential role in generating American interest in and acceptance of modern art. She ran the Société Anonyme’s small gallery, curated exhibitions, and wrote essays and gave lectures in support of modern art. Dreier was also an accomplished painter—two of her paintings hung in the legendary Armory Show of 1913. The Katherine S. Dreier Papers / Société Anonyme Archive documents the life of Katherine S. Dreier and the activities of the Société Anonyme. The collection is part of the amazing Beinecke Library at Yale University. The collection consists of correspondence; manuscripts and notes for articles, books, fiction, and lectures; clippings; brochures; programs; press releases; advertisements; tax records; photographs and artwork; meeting minutes; and ephemera and printed material. The papers span the years 1818 to 1952, but the bulk of the material is from 1920 to 1951. Currently, only a portion of the Katherine S. Dreier Papers / Société Anonyme Archive is available in digital form.

All images copyright © Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

The World According to Josh

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JOSH KEYES IS A GRADUATE OF YALE. HE’S A PAINTER, AND A CONCERNED HUMAN BEING WHO IS USING HIS GIFTS TO MAKE A STATEMENT about the planet. His visual projections are grim. In Josh’s world, we see a landscape where man has vanished—and only the remnants of his folly exist. Rusting heaps of automobiles, wartime equipment, monuments to generals—this is nature run amok in face-to-face confrontations with the machines, signs and other debris of man left behind. His paintings sit frozen in action on small tableau’s, presenting a stage for us to ponder a scene in his imagination.

Josh’s protagonists are deer with flaming antlers, pissed off buffalo, curious hyenas and other creatures of land and sea—facing the remains of mankind. Other creatures he represents are hideous manifestations of man’s other nasty legacy—the chemicals and pollutants which have altered the DNA of several species, resulting in two-headed geese and God knows what else.

Learn more about Josh Keyes by visiting his web site here.

All images are © Josh Keyes.

A Most Amazing Group of Drawings

(Above) The slave named Pona.

(Above) The slave girl named Marqu.

(Above) The slave named Little Kale.

(Above) The slave named Kimbo.

(Above) The slave named Kezzuza.

(Above) The slave named Grabo.

(Above) The slave named Saby.

(Above) The slave named Bar.

(Above) The slave named Bana.

(Above) The slave named Suma.

IN 1839, THE SPANISH SLAVE SHIP AMISTAD SET SAIL FROM HAVANA to Puerto Principe, Cuba. The ship was carrying 53 Africans who, a few months earlier, had been abducted from their homeland to be sold as slaves. The captives revolted against the ships crew, killing the captain and others, but sparing the life of the ships navigator so that he could set them on a course back to Africa. Instead, the navigator surreptitiously directed the ship north and west. After several weeks, the Amistad was seized by the U.S. Navy off the coast of Long Island and the Africans were transported to New Haven to await trial for mutiny, murder, and piracy.

Slavery advocates held that the Amistad prisoners were slaves and thus they should be punished for their uprising and immediately returned to Cuba. Abolitionists, on the other hand, argued that though slavery was legal in Cuba, the importation of slaves from Africa had been outlawed; thus, they claimed, the prisoners were not slaves, but freemen who had been kidnapped and thus had every right to escape their captors and even to use violence to do so. The case was important to the proslavery-abolitionist debates that were raging in the U.S., and to the international debates about treaty obligations with regard to slavery and the legality of the international slave trade.

After two years of legal battles, their case was successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841 by former President John Quincy Adams and the Amistad captives were freed. They returned to Sierra Leone in 1842.

History of the Collection

New Haven resident William H. Townsend made pen-and-ink sketches of the Amistad captives while they were awaiting trial. Twenty-two of these drawings were given to Yale in 1934 by Asa G. Dickerman, whose grandmother was the artists cousin. Townsend, who was about 18 years old when he made the drawings, is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery.

The Collection includes 22 pencil drawings by William H. Townsend (1822-1851), varying in size, 18.3 x 14 cm. and smaller

© All images copyright Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.