twentieth-century art collector and New York attorney, John Quinn

John Quinn, Art Advocate
Introduction
Today I’m going to talk briefly about John Quinn (fig. 1), a New
York lawyer who, in his spare time and with income derived from a
highly-successful law practice, became “the twentieth century’s most
important patron of living literature and art.”1
Nicknamed “The Noble Buyer” for his solicitude for artists as
much as for the depth of his pocketbook, Quinn would amass
an unsurpassed collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
American and European art. At its zenith, the collection contained more than 2,500 works of art, including works by Constantin Brancusi, Paul Cézanne, André Derain, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska,
Paul Gaugin, Juan Gris, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges
Rouault, Henri Rousseau, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van
Gogh.2
More than a collector, Quinn represented artists and art associations in all types of legal matters. The most far-reaching of these engagements was Quinn’s successful fight for repeal of a tariff on im-
ALINE B. SAARINEN, THE PROUD POSSESSORS: THE LIVES, TIMES
TASTES OF SOME ADVENTUROUS AMERICAN ART COLLECTORS 206
(1958) [hereinafter PROUD POSSESSORS].
1
AND
Avis Berman, “Creating a New Epoch”: American Collectors and Dealers and
the Armory Show [hereinafter American Collectors], in THE ARMORY SHOW AT
100: MODERNISM AND REVOLUTION 413, 415 (Marilyn Satin Kushner &
Kimberly Orcutt eds., 2013) [hereinafter KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY
SHOW] (footnote omitted).
2
ported contemporary art3 – an accomplishment that resulted in him
being elected an Honorary Fellow for Life by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.4 This work, like much Quinn did for the arts, was undertaken pro bono.5
Quinn was also instrumental in organizing two groundbreaking art
exhibitions: the May 1921 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition
of “Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings” (that museum’s
first exhibition of modern art),6 and the landmark 1913 “International
Exhibition of Modern Art”7 – otherwise known as the Armory Show.
The Armory Show was the most important American art exhibition
ever mounted, and exerts an influence on American art that lasts to
this day – an influence in which the city of Milwaukee played a surprisingly pivotal role.
See generally B.L. REID, THE MAN FROM NEW YORK: JOHN QUINN AND
HIS FRIENDS 157-160 (1968) [hereinafter MAN FROM NEW YORK].
3
4 Accessions and Notes, 10 METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ART BULL. 56, 57
(1915) (Quinn elected “[i]n recognition of his services to Art through his
efforts in advancing the recently enacted Tariff Bill”).
Art Society Muddle, AM. ART NEWS, June 13, 1914, at 1, 1 (“Mr. Quinn
took no fee, and gave his own time and that of his office, to the cause,
which he had at heart as a collector of modern art. His campaign, conducted single-handed, was completely successful, although a similar one, when
prosecuted years before by the combined art bodies of the country, was a
complete failure.”).
5
Judith Zilczer, John Quinn and Modern Art Collectors in America, 1913-1924,
15 AM. ART J. 57, 65 (1982) [hereinafter Quinn and Collectors]; see generally
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 498-99; see also Hamilton Easter Field, The Metropolitan French Show, THE ARTS, May 1921, at 2 (reproducing seven works
Quinn lent to the exhibition – a Derain, a Gauguin, a Picasso, and four by
Odilon Redon).
6
American Collectors at 414-15; see generally MAN FROM NEW YORK at 14252; JUDITH ZILCZER, “THE NOBLE BUYER:” JOHN QUINN, PATRON OF
THE AVANT-GARDE 25-27 (1978) [hereinafter AVANT-GARDE].
7
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Quinn died in 1924 at the early age of fifty-five (fig. 2).8 Fittingly,
his death resulted in a final, perhaps permanent, impact on American
art and artists. Quinn directed in his will that his artwork be liquidated, and fellow patrons of the arts considered the resulting dispersal of
the Quinn collection a tragedy. Unease over the breakup of Quinn’s
collection prompted founding of the Museum of Modern Art,9 and
lead to formation of many of America’s public modern art collections10 – collections often counting as part of their most treasured
holdings works bearing the label “ex-Quinn Collection.”11
A Practicing Attorney
Quinn grew up in Fostoria, Ohio, the son of a well-to-do baker.12
He graduated from high school in 1887, and spent a year at the University of Michigan.13 When Charles Foster (former Governor of
Ohio and close friend of the Quinn family) was appointed Secretary
of the Treasury, Quinn left Ann Arbor to serve as Foster’s private
secretary.14
Quinn studied law at night, graduating in 1893 from Georgetown
University.15 He then studied international law at Harvard, obtaining
a second law degree in 1895.16 Quinn passed the New York bar in
8
Obituary, ART NEWS, Aug. 16, 1924, at 4.
9
PROUD POSSESSORS at 364-366.
10
American Collectors at 425.
11
PROUD POSSESSORS at 237.
12
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 4; AVANT-GARDE at 15.
13
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 5; AVANT-GARDE at 15.
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 5-6; AVANT-GARDE at 15; Richard Campbell, Memorial of John Quinn, in ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF
NEW YORK, YEAR BOOK 513 (1925), reprinted in 72 BULL. N.Y. PUB. LIBR.
584, 584 (1968) [hereinafter Quinn Memorial].
14
15
AVANT-GARDE at 15; MAN FROM NEW YORK at 6.
16
AVANT-GARDE at 15; MAN FROM NEW YORK at 6.
-3-
1896, and joined the firm of General Benjamin F. Tracy.17 Tracy’s
firm “enjoyed a lucrative practice,” and it clients “included many of
the prominent figures of that time in finance and industry.”18 In
1900, Quinn moved to the firm of Alexander & Colby, coming on as
a junior partner.19
While at Alexander & Colby, Quinn took on a matter that made
his career – the battle for control of the Equitable Life Assurance
Society (at the time one of the three largest insurance companies in
the world, with a valuation of $400 million).20 Fought in 1905, this
battle had its roots in 1899, when the company’s founder died, leaving his controlling stake in the company (502 of the company’s 1,000
shares) to his 23-year old son, James Hazen Hyde, but placing the
shares in trust until James turned thirty in 1907.21 On January 31,
1905, James held a Versailles-themed costume party (fig. 3).22 This
private event became a matter of public scandal when other Equitable shareholders circulated untrue rumors James that had paid for the
party with $200,000 of company money.23 The rumors had a tremendous impact on the insurance industry:
The squabble which had begun quietly ended in a noisy scandal
of earthquake proportions, shaking open the devious passages of
manipulative high finance. Public demand for investigation of
the Equitable’s affairs, which was bound to involve scrutiny of
insurance company financing generally and thereby draw in the
17
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 6; AVANT-GARDE at 15.
18
Quinn Memorial at 584.
19
Id.; MAN FROM NEW YORK at 7.
20
See generally MAN FROM NEW YORK at 33-35.
21
Id. at 33.
PATRICIA BEARD, AFTER THE BALL: GILDED AGE SECRETS, BOARDROOM BETRAYALS, AND THE PARTY THAT IGNITED THE GREAT WALL
STREET SCANDAL OF 1905 169-178 (2003) [hereinafter AFTER THE BALL].
22
23
Id. at 4.
-4-
country’s greatest money men and the largest investment trusts
and syndicates, forced Governor Higgins of New York to appoint a legislative investigating committee, the Armstrong
Committee. The Committee’s examining lawyer, Charles Evans
Hughes, by his incisive, scrupulous, and implacable conduct of
fifty-seven public hearings in the four months at the end of
1905, established his own reputation, ruined a good many other
reputations that needed ruining, and prepared the way for a
thorough reformation of insurance practice by legislative action
in the first months of the following year.24
The rumors also resulted in James eventually selling his 502 shares
(for only $2.5 million) to Thomas Fortune Ryan, “one of the more
private Gilded Age tycoons,” who made much of his money through
“developing urban transit systems” and would die “with nearly double the fortune of J.P. Morgan.”25 Quinn was Ryan’s counsel in the
fight for control of the Equitable,26 and “Quinn’s performance during
the legal battle for control of the Equitable Life Assurance Society in
1905 established his reputation as a brilliant financial lawyer.”27
Alexander & Colby dissolved in 1906, and Quinn opened his own
firm at 31 Nassau Street.28 He was sole counsel for the National
Bank of Commerce (then the country’s second-largest bank), “whose
adviser he remained until his death.”29 He eventually became tax
counsel to the New York Stock Exchange.30 Quinn was known as
24
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 34-35.
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 34; AFTER THE BALL at 96, 259; see generally
id. at 261-63.
25
26
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 34.
27
AVANT-GARDE at 15 (footnote omitted).
28
PROUD POSSESSORS at 209; MAN FROM NEW YORK at 45.
Quinn Memorial at 584; AVANT-GARDE at 15; PROUD POSSESSORS at
210.
29
30
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 156.
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“cool-headed, astute and respected by the respectable in corporation
and financial law,”31 and his practice grew accordingly:
In the years intervening between 1906 and the time of his death,
he built up a great practice and his advice and counsel were
sought by many of the leaders in finance and industry. Year by
year his success at the Bar grew and long before his death he had
attained a place of the first eminence. He was not only regarded
as a man who had made a signal success, but he was recognized
and known as a lawyer who held rigidly to the best and highest
traditions of the profession. He cared nothing for fame and still
less for great wealth. He labored incessantly to keep his clients
out of court, chiefly on the old Spanish principle that he who
wins lawsuits loses. As a trial lawyer he made no attempt to indulge in flights of oratory, but he was a master of that real eloquence which consists in presenting facts and ideas in the tersest, clearest, most convincing way. He was often heard to say
that he considered oratory the lowest of the arts, but he was
none the less a formidable opponent.32
The high point in Quinn’s career was his defense of the Trading
with the Enemy Act.33 Quinn had lobbied for enactment of the stat31
PROUD POSSESSORS at 210.
Quinn Memorial at 584-85. For all his accomplishments, Quinn was difficult to work for, reputedly discharging a law clerk once a month, and occasionally leaving a secretary in tears. PROUD POSSESSORS at 207, 213; see
also MAN FROM NEW YORK at 153 (“He was reluctant to delegate labor or
trust, and almost never satisfied with the way a job was done by anyone but
himself. Whenever he left his office he left the most minute instructions
for his subordinates’ tasks in his absence; while he was away, he felt, nothing was done, or done well; when he returned he had all their work to do
over, with rage and vituperation.”).
32
33 MAN FROM NEW YORK at 458 (describing the case as “perhaps the
most important of his career”); Quinn Memorial at 585 (“It is universally
acknowledged that his conduct of the case up to the Supreme Court of the
United States in the controversy involving rights over enemy property under the ‘Trading with the Enemy Act’ was one of the great achievements of
his life.”).
-6-
ute, and “much of the language of the Act came directly from his
brief arguing for its adoption.”34 When the Alien Property Custodian
seized “about two-thirds of the capital stock of the Botany Worsted
Mills, a ‘thirty million concern’ based in Passaic, New Jersey,”35 the
former owners sued, and the seized company retained Quinn to defend the constitutionality of the Act.36
Quinn and his staff put in months of solid work preparing their
case in the winter of 1919-20, and he went to court in the first
days of March with a printed brief of 179 pages with 51 pages of
appendices. Mrs. Foster read the brief to him twice before the
trial, held before Judge Learned Hand . . ., and Quinn then argued his case without further reference to the brief. He spoke
for five hours one day and four hours the next. He was able to
prove to Judge Hand’s satisfaction that the transfer of the German-owned shares in the company to ostensible American ownership on February 15, 1915, had been a fabrication . . . contrived to forestall what had actually occurred, the seizure of the
property of an enemy alien.37
After Judge Learned Hand ruled in favor of the Custodian,38 Quinn
was retained on the appeal to the Supreme Court.39 The Supreme
Court affirmed, explicitly upholding the statute’s constitutionality.40
34
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 322, 459.
35
Id. (footnote omitted).
36
Id. at 376.
37
Id. at 459.
Stohr v. Wallace, 269 F. 827 (S.D.N.Y. 1920), aff’d sub nom. Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U.S. 239 (1921).
38
39
MAN FROM NEW YORK at 479.
40
Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U.S. 239 (1921).
-7-
The Armory Show
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood,
leads on to fortune. . . .41
The Armory Show was not the first American exhibition of modern art. Precursors included the 1908 exhibition of Ashcan School
artists, and the “Exhibition of Independent Artists” held in 1910.42
In addition, Alfred Stieglitz displayed cutting edge art at his Little
Galleries of the Photo-Secession (also known as 291, after its address
on 291 Fifth Avenue).43 But the Armory Show was the exhibition
that occurred at the right place at the right time,44 with the result that
it is “now considered one of the important art exhibitions ever
mounted in the United States.”45
The genesis of the Armory Show can be traced back to Henry
Fitch Taylor, a New York art gallery director who on December 19,
1911 invited a dozen area artists “to meet here this evening to take
active steps toward the formation of a national association of painters
41
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, JULIUS CAESAR, act 4, sc. 3.
Barbara Haskell, The Legacy of the Armory Show: Fiasco or Transformation?
[hereinafter Legacy], in KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY SHOW 395, 395-96.
42
43
American Collectors at 413-14.
AVANT-GARDE at 25 (“On the eve of the Armory Show indigenous and
foreign forces had begun to transform the American art world.”).
44
Marilyn Satin Kushner, A Century of the Armory Show: Modernism and Myth
[hereinafter Century of the Armory Show], in KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY
SHOW 13, 13; see also MILTON W. BROWN, THE STORY OF THE ARMORY
SHOW 9 (2d ed. 1988) [hereinafter BROWN, ARMORY SHOW] (the Armory
Show was “[p]robably the most important art exhibition in our history”);
PROUD POSSESSORS at 206 (“the Armory Show, the exhibition of modern
art which jolted the American public as no other artistic event has before or
since”); MAN FROM NEW YORK at 142 (“the Armory Show was the Continental Divide of American art, beyond question the most important event
in the history of American taste in painting and sculpture”).
45
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and sculptors – an association of live and progressive men and women who shall lead the public taste in art rather than follow it.”46 This
group took the name Association of American Painters and Sculptors
(A.A.P.S.).47 On July 1, 1912, A.A.P.S. was incorporated by “the
group’s pro bono legal advisor and most avid supporter, self-made
lawyer and collector John Quinn.”48
Quinn did more than just incorporate A.A.P.S. He “agreed to take
over all legal matters” involving the Armory Show.49 Quinn “was an
honorary member of the Association, acted often as its front, and
delivered the welcoming address at the opening of the Show.”50 He
escorted President Roosevelt through the exhibition.51 Quinn wrote
an article52 for a special Armory Show issue of Arts & Decoration, “released in time for the Armory Show’s February 17 opening in New
York and available at the exhibition.”53
Quinn also worked with the Press, and a photograph (fig. 4) shows
him at the head table of an “all you can eat and drink” beefsteak dinner thrown at Healy’s Restaurant on March 8, 1913 for “our Friends
and Enemies of the Press.”54 Finally, Quinn “stopped by the show
46
BROWN, ARMORY SHOW at 49 (quoting minutes of the meeting).
47
American Collectors at 414-15.
48
Id. at 416; MAN FROM NEW YORK at 142.
WALT KUHN, THE STORY OF THE ARMORY SHOW 7 (1938) [hereinafter KUHN, ARMORY SHOW]; see also MAN FROM NEW YORK at 142, 146.
49
50
BROWN, ARMORY SHOW at 121.
51
PROUD POSSESSORS at 216; MAN FROM NEW YORK at 148.
52
John Quinn, Modern Art from a Layman’s Point of View, 3 ARTS & DECO155 (1913).
RATION
Kimberly Orcutt, “Public Verdict”: Debating Modernism at the Armory Show
[hereinafter Debating Modernism], in KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY SHOW
327, 337.
53
54
BROWN, ARMORY SHOW at 151 (quoting menu).
-9-
almost daily,”55 and was “the single biggest lender to and buyer from
the Armory Show.”56
Four thousand people attended on opening day.57 Attendance
then dwindled – but picked up when:
critics began lambasting the show and cartoons deriding its vanguard inclusion began appearing regularly on the front pages of
newspapers. . . . Who would not have wanted to see “faces that
look as if their owners were dying of strangulation, bodies
whose knees are larger than their torsos, soulful young women
with the mouths stuck in the middle of their cheeks, landscapes
that look like stacks of dried-kindling wood, portraits that have
no human resemblance, paint smeared on canvases in rectangles
and wedges and circles”? The very outlandishness of the pictures compelled attention, one critic remarked. Coverage of the
show’s “psychopathic ward,” where Cubist and Fauvist works
were located, became a daily item in the press. As reports on
the new art multiplied, so too did interest. “Everybody it seems
is talking about post-Impression and Cubism,” observed the
New-York Tribune.58
Ultimately, the Armory Show proved “hugely successful in terms of
attendance. Approximately 87,000 people saw the Armory Show in
New York, another 188,650 saw it in Chicago, and almost 14,400
people visited the Boston venue.”59
55
American Collectors at 416.
56 AVANT-GARDE at 27; see also Legacy at 399 (“New York lawyer and
Amory Show spokesperson John Quinn spent more money in the show
than any other collector.”); MAN FROM NEW YORK at 144 (“Quinn’s loan
would be by far the largest to the show”).
57
Legacy at 396.
58
Id. (footnotes and citations omitted).
59
Century of the Armory Show at 16.
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The Impact of the Armory Show
The Armory Show holds a recognized place in American culture
(figs. 5-6). One reason for this status is because the Armory Show
intentionally invited “broad public observation of, and even involvement in, debates that were formerly conducted largely in specialized
journals among an educated elite.”60 For this reason, the Armory
Show is credited with “changing overnight the American art market
and the public’s awareness of modern art.”61
The Armory Show also effected a shift in what art was considered
“modern.” Comparison of two works – Robert Henri’s Figure in Motion (fig. 7)62 and Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2)
(fig. 8) – highlight this aspect of the exhibition. Figure in Motion was
finished “just weeks before the exhibition opened.”63 Nude Descending
a Staircase (No. 2) was prepared a year earlier, in 1912.64 Both are
acknowledged great works of art, but Henri’s work fared the worst
from their inclusion in the same exhibition. Even though “a commanding artistic statement,” Figure in Motion was “greeted with bewilderment” because of its “counterrevolutionary impulse” that some
“would have considered painfully retardataire.”65 In short, while “the
independent realists in Henri’s circle had been considered America’s
Debating Modernism at 336 (citing The Mob as Art Critic, 46 LITERARY
DIG. 708 (1913).
60
61
Legacy at 395.
I wish to thank the Terra Foundation For American Art for granting
permission to reproduce this work.
62
63
Kimberly Orcutt, Robert Henri’s Manifesto [hereinafter Henri], in KUSH267, 270.
NER & ORCUTT, ARMORY SHOW
Francis M. Naumann, “An Explosion in a Shingle Factory”: Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), in KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY SHOW 203, 205.
64
65
Henri at 272 (footnote omitted).
- 11 -
aesthetic vanguard,” the Armory Show changed that “by unwittingly
casting realism as antiquated.”66
For the public, the arrangement of the exhibition would have reinforced this slighting of realism. One of the organizers, Arthur B.
Davies, intended the Armory Show to be “didactic.”67 The Armory
Show issue of Arts & Decoration contained a “Chronological Chart
Made by Arthur B. Davies Showing the Growth of Modern Art” (fig.
9),68 and the exhibition layout (fig. 10) was designed to carry “the
viewer through a history of modern art.”69 Taken together, however,
these educational efforts erroneously suggested artwork nearer the
entrance was more “advanced” than those farther in.70 Such a suggestion further hurt Henri, as Figure in Motion was shown in Gallery N
(adjacent to the entrance), while Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) was
shown in Gallery I (at the rear of exhibition hall).71
The Milwaukee Exhibitions
There is a well-developed contrary school of thought rejecting the
view that the Armory Show made Americans more conscious of
modern art (much less altered their perception of what was “modern”), and relegating the Armory Show to the status of “a stunt” – a
view summed up with venom in the following comments made in
1963 by Amherst Professor Frank Anderson Trapp:
66
Legacy at 401.
Kimberly Orcutt, Arthur B. Davies – Hero or Villain? [hereinafter Davies],
in KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY SHOW 29, 36.
67
68
3 ARTS & DECORATION 150 (1913).
69
Davies at 36.
70
Legacy at 401.
71 KUSHNER & ORCUTT, ARMORY SHOW at 467, 469 (“Appendix B: List
of Works in the 1913 Armory Show by Gallery”).
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It seems fair to say that the Armory Show was at best a mixed
success. For the general public and for most of the press it was
an entertaining but ephemeral event. It was regarded as a kind
of circus who freakish exhibits had nothing to do with the realities of their lives. Their curiosity was alerted, but not their love
or understanding. Any supposition that the exhibition would
dent – far less penetrate – the armor of entrenched “bourgeois”
philistinism was very vain indeed. The net effect was, if anything, contrary to such expectation. Those already distrustful of
artists and convinced of the traditional values (as they understood them) found all their prejudices confirmed or even intensified by what they say there. . . . As a result, most people left
the exhibition the more convinced of their own superior sanity
and comfortably released from any sense of further obligation
towards an activity they found unintelligible and unrewarding:
In its failure to elicit a groundswell of popular interest in “modern” art the Armory Show was a conspicuous failure. . . . Those
who criticized the Armory Show as a stunt were not altogether
off the mark. There was more than a little adolescent bravado in
the minds of some, if not all, of its organizers.72
But a dismissive view of the Armory Show is erroneous, as it overlooks the immediate adoption by American business of the exhibition’s
cubist and futurist motifs. Walt Kuhn, Armory Show organizer and
one of Quinn’s favorite painters,73 recognized this in his short (yet
flowery) volume on the exhibition:
Business caught on immediately, even if the artists did not at
once do so. The outer appearance of industry absorbed the lesson like a sponge. Drabness, awkwardness began to disappear
from American life, and color and grace stepped in. Industry
certainly took notice. The decorative elements of Matisse and
the cubists were immediately taken on as models for the creation
of a brighter, more lively America. The decorative side of Brancusi went into everything from milliners’ dummies to streamliner
Frank Anderson Trapp, The Armory Show: A Review, 23 ART J. 2, 4-5
(1963).
72
73
PROUD POSSESSORS at 212.
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trains. The exhibition affected every phase of American life –
the apparel of men and women, the stage, automobiles, airplanes, furniture, interior decorations, beauty parlors, advertising
and printing in its various departments, plumbing, hardware –
everything from the modernistic designs of gas pumps and added color of beach umbrellas and bathing suits, down to the merchandise of the dime store.
In spite of the number of admittedly first class pieces of “fine
art” in the Armory Show, the thing that “took” was the element
of decoration. American business, perhaps unconsciously, absorbed this needed quality and reached with it, into every home
and industry and pastime.74
Interestingly, this adoption/adsorption started in Milwaukee:
In May, 1913, an exhibition of ten major cubist paintings was
brought from Paris to Milwaukee to be exhibited as a small version of the Armory Show. The sponsor of the exhibition was
Gimbel Brothers, the department store chain headquartered in
Milwaukee. That summer the exhibition traveled to Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, New York and Philadelphia where it was shown in
Gimbels’ branches and other department stores. Finally, in
April, 1914, the exhibition was again shown in Milwaukee along
with a group of over a hundred pictures by local modernists.75
Gimbel Brothers announced the exhibit in the Milwaukee Sentinel on
May 11, 1913 (fig. 11),76 a date on which the Armory Show was still
showing in Boston.77 The Gimbel Brothers exhibition “was orga74
KUHN, ARMORY SHOW 24-25.
Aasron Sheon, 1913: Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions in America, 57 ARTS
MAGAZINE 93, 93 (1983) [hereinafter Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions] (footnote
omitted).
75
First Exhibit of “Cubist” Paintings, MILWAUKEE SENTINEL, May 11, 1913,
at 8.
76
77 Century of the Armory Show at 15 (“the Armory Show closed in Boston on
May 19”).
- 14 -
nized to capitalize on the Armory Show’s notoriety and to gain favorable publicity for the store.”78 As an advertising effort (rather than an
attempt to create a private collection), “little more than a thousand
dollars was spent on the project.”79 Notwithstanding the modest outlay, the exhibition “may . . . be the first one to have been sponsored
by an American department store, thus setting a precedent for later
corporate sponsorship of exhibitions.”80
Use of the avant-garde to promote store sales was a shrewd business decision, premised on a simple truth about such art:
While the popular press was flooding the country’s front pages
with diatribes against the vanguard art in the Armory Show, a
host of other writers were broadcasting a simple, accessible message about it: far from being the products of madmen, the new
art was a legitimate effort to convey emotions without representation. The explanation was so reasonable – so aligned with the
country’s nascent fascination with the unconscious – that accepting it became a mark of sophistication. . . . Soon, business
began to exploit the implied link between vanguard art and cultural sophistication.81
And perhaps because the show was sponsored by a department store
(rather than some artists group), and the paintings displayed in the
store itself (and not in an armory or museum), “[i]nstead of the outright hostility that the Armory Show caused, there was . . . a greater
willingness to look at modern pictures, not to treat them as a joke.”82
In any event, “[b]y the time the show reached Gimbel Brothers’ New
78
Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions at 94.
79 Id. (footnote omitted); see also id. (“A flat fee of $100, or about 500
francs, was paid for each work.”).
80
Id. at 93 (footnote omitted).
81
Legacy at 396-97 (footnote omitted).
82
Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions at 105.
- 15 -
York branch in July, modern art’s position seemed secure.”83 On this
point, the art critic for The New York Globe predicted:
Now that the new art movement has found its way to a department store there ought to be no further doubt of its establishment as part of our American daily life, and its ultimate acceptance must be considered only a question of time. The latest
examples to reach these shores are shown at the art gallery in the
store of Gimbel Brothers. . . The show is open to the public,
and truth to tell, attracts a large attendance.84
Two final points. Before the Gimbel Brothers exhibition returned
to Milwaukee in 1914, the Milwaukee Art Society hired a new director, Dudley Crafts Waston.85 Watson had been a member of the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was “sympathetic to the modernists.”86 Watson expanded the number of pictures exhibited to over 100, and held the exhibition at the Milwaukee
Art Society’s Jefferson Street gallery.87 An April 11, 1914 article from
the Milwaukee Free Press reported on the show (fig. 12), including
statements from Watson.88 So much for Professor Trapp’s supposition that the Armory Show failed to “dent – far less penetrate” the
American mainstream (though to be fair to the eminent Professor
83
Legacy at 398.
84 Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions at 101 (quoting Arthur Hoeber, Arts and Artists, THE GLOBE & COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, July 25, 1913 at 6) (ellipsis
in Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions); see also Legacy at 398 (discussing Hoeber).
Andrew Martinez, A Mixed Reception for Modernism: The 1913 Armory
Show at The Art Institute of Chicago, 19 ART INST. CHI. MUSEUM STUD. 31,
104 n.72 (1993).
85
86
Id.
Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions at 101; Milwaukee Art Notes, MILWAUKEE
FREE PRESS, April 19, 1914, at 18.
87
88 Art’s Latest Fads Will Be Exhibited, MILWAUKEE FREE PRESS, April 11,
1914, at 5.
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Trapp, by 1963 the Gimbel Brothers exhibition appears to have been
largely forgotten).
Finally, two of the original cubist paintings are owned by the Milwaukee Art Museum: Pierre Dumont’s Rouen Cathedral and Fernand
Léger, Study for Three Portraits (Essai Pour Trois Portraits) (figs. 13-14).89
Quinn’s Estate
Quinn died in 1924. His estate included “more than 2,500 paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture”90 of unsurpassed quality. British art critic C. Lewis Hind wrote in 1921 that Quinn “possesses the
best collection of modernist pictures in America, perhaps in the
world.”91 In 1926, American art critic Forbes Watson commented
that “many of the artists of his day considered Quinn the most intrepid American collector.”92
Quinn provided in his will that nearly all of his artworks were to be
sold.93 (The principal exception was his gift of Seurat’s Circus to the
Louvre, which at that time owned no works of that artist.94) Quinn
decided to dispose of his collection in this manner in part because he
thought no American museum “would accept, much less appreciate,
a bequest of contemporary art.”95
I wish to thank the Milwaukee Art Museum for granting permission to
reproduce these works.
89
Judith Zilczer, The Dispersal of the John Quinn Collection, 19 ARCHIVES AM.
ART J. 15, 15 (1979) [hereinafter Dispersal].
90
91
C. LEWIS HIND, ART AND I 158 (1921).
Forbes Watson, Forward to PIDGEON HILL PRESS, JOHN QUINN 18701925: COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS, WATER COLORS, DRAWINGS &
SCULPTURE 5-6 (1926).
92
93
Dispersal at 15.
94
PROUD POSSESSORS at 233.
95
Dispersal at 15.
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The estate was liquidated over a three year period through a series
of private sales and auctions, culminating in a New York auction in
1927.96 Unloading such a large amount of art in such a short time
resulted in some works being sold for less than what Quinn paid
originally; nonetheless, the 1927 auction “represented the most important and financially lucrative public auction of modern art to be
held in the United States before 1930.”97
The auction was important because it enriched collections that later found their way into museums across the country:
[T]he dispersal of Quinn’s collection enabled other pioneering
American collectors to build and enlarge their own modern art
collections with Quinn’s riches. Many of these “second generation” modern art collections would form the nuclei of Museum
collections. The Arensberg collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Goodyear Collection of the Albright-Knox Art
Gallery, and the Howald Collection of the Columbus Gallery of
Fine Arts are among the notable public collections which owe
part of their fame to masterpieces originally acquired by John
Quinn. Other major works from the Quinn collection eventually entered such important institutions as the Museum of Modern
Art which now owns two dozen works from the Quinn collection. Another two dozen items are distributed among the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and
the Fogg Art Museum each of whose holdings include eight
works from the Quinn collection.98
And while not listed, the Art Institute of Chicago likewise owns eight
works from Quinn’s collection (figs. 15-22).99
96
See generally id. at 16-19.
97
Id. at 19.
98
Id. (footnote omitted).
99 I wish to thank Ms. Marie Kroeger, AIC Archives Volunteer, who identified these works for me.
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More importantly, dissatisfaction over dispersal of such a great collection all lead to the formation of many of America’s public modern
art collections. “In January 1926, American art critic Forbes Watson
published an editorial in his magazine The Arts deploring the breakup
of the Quinn collection and regretting that no individual had stepped
forward to purchase everything for a new museum of modern art.”100
A few years later, certain New York collectors, “fretting since the
dispersal of the Quinn collection,”101 met to establish the Museum of
Modern Art.102 And while not every collector would establish a museum, many would give their collections to the public rather than
place them up for auction:
Arensberg, Dreier, and Bliss bought significantly from the
Quinn estate. So did Ferdinand Howald, A. Conger Goodyear,
and Mary and Cornelius Sullivan. These four became prominent
as collectors in the 1920s and were committed to donating art to
public institutions. Doubtless, the sad fate of the Quinn collection further influenced the first wave of collectors to keep their
collections more or less intact by memorializing them through
gifts to art institutions.103
American Collectors at 425; see also BROWN, ARMORY SHOW at 239 (“It is
one of the tragedies of American art history that the Quinn collection . . .
was ultimately dispersed.”).
100
PROUD POSSESSORS at 364. The “fretting” collectors were Mary Sullivan and Lillie Bliss, id., both of whom were close friends of Quinn. Quinn
and Collectors at 60.
101
102
See generally PROUD POSSESSORS at 364-366; American Collectors at 425.
103
American Collectors at 425.
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Conclusion
In 1954, Yale art historian George Heard Hamilton aptly captured
the contribution to American art made by Quinn and his contemporaries, describing them as:
the notable company of American artists and collectors who
created the conditions for a serious and meaningful understanding of the modern movement in painting and sculpture. The
names of these men and women are not many but they are important: John Quinn, Arthur B. Davies, A. E. Gallatin, Walter
C. Arensberg, and Katherine S. Dreier. Without them the enthusiastic appreciation of modern art which now distinguishes
American culture from that of other countries would have come
much later and perhaps with less effect.104
Sixty-one years later, Professor Hamilton’s summary still holds true.
A city’s ownership of modern art (either privately by its residents or
publically in its museums) is still a measure of its cultural cachet.
That Milwaukee hosted a Cubist art exhibit in 1913 and still owns
two works from that exhibition is undeniably cool. And strange as it
sounds, the country’s awareness of modern art, the availability of that
art in public collections, and even the ability to import such art tax
free all flow from the efforts of one attorney, John Quinn.
David A. Westrup
104 George Heard Hamilton, Katherine S. Dreier’s Library on Modern Art, 28
YALE U. LIBR. GAZETTE 129, 129 (1954).
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Figure 1
John Quinn105
ALINE B. SAARINEN, THE PROUD POSSESSORS:
AND TASTES OF SOME ADVENTUROUS AMERICAN
THE LIVES, TIMES
ART COLLECTORS
(1958). Quinn’s niece provided this photograph to Ms. Saarinen. Id. at xv.
105
Figure 2
John Quinn Obituary 106
106
Obituary, ART NEWS, Aug. 16, 1924, at 4.
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Figure 3
The Hyde Ball, January 31, 1905107
PATRICIA BEARD, AFTER THE BALL: GILDED AGE SECRETS, BOARDROOM BETRAYALS, AND THE PARTY THAT IGNITED THE GREAT WALL
STREET SCANDAL OF 1905 170 (2003).
107
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Figure 4
Photograph from March 8, 1913 Healy’s Restaurant dinner for “our
Friends and Enemies of the Press”108 (seated at the head table, left to
right, are Walt Kuhn, Frederick James Gregg, Arthur B. Davies, John
Quinn, Walt Pach, J. Mowbray-Clarke, and Royal Cortissoz109)
(Quinn )
108 Photograph by Percy Rainford, reprinted in Kimberly Orcutt, “Public Verdict”: Debating Modernism at the Armory Show, in THE ARMORY SHOW AT 100:
MODERNISM AND REVOLUTION 327, 328 fig. 255 (Marilyn Satin Kushner
& Kimberly Orcutt eds., 2013).
109 MILTON W. BROWN, THE STORY OF THE ARMORY SHOW 150 (2d ed.
1988).
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Figure 5
Armory Show postage stamp110
[Permission requested]
Celebrate The Century 1910s: 1913 Armory Show Stamp ©1998 United States Postal Service, reprinted in Marilyn Satin Kushner, A Century of the
Armory Show: Modernism and Myth, in THE ARMORY SHOW AT 100:
MODERNISM AND REVOLUTION 13, 23 fig. 6 (Marilyn Satin Kushner &
Kimberly Orcutt eds., 2013).
110
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Figure 6
New Yorker Armory Show cartoon111
[Permission requested]
Robert Censoni, I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now!, NEW YORKER,
Apr. 20, 1963, at 39, reprinted in Marilyn Satin Kushner, A Century of the Armory Show: Modernism and Myth, in THE ARMORY SHOW AT 100: MODERNISM AND REVOLUTION 13, 21 fig. 5 (Marilyn Satin Kushner & Kimberly
Orcutt eds., 2013).
111
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Figure 7
Robert Henri, Figure in Motion112
Robert Henri, Figure in Motion, 1913, Oil on canvas, Image: 77 1/4 x 37
1/4 in. (196.2 x 94.6 cm) Frame: 83 1/2 x 43 3/8 in. (212.1 x 110.2 cm),
Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1999.69
Photography ©Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago.
112
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Figure 8
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) 113
[Permission requested]
Marcel Duchamp (French, worked in America, 1887-1968), Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912, Oil on canvas, 57 7/8 x 35 1/8 in (147 x
89.2 cm) Frame: 59 3/4 x 36 3/4 x 2 in. (151.8 x 93.3 x 5.1 cm), Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950,
1950-134-59 © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Estate of Marcel
Duchamp.
113
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Figure 9
Armory Show modern art chart114
114
3 ARTS & DECORATION 150 (1913).
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Figure 10
Armory Show gallery plan115
115 ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS, INC., INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF MODERN ART CATALOGUE 70-71 (1913).
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Figure 11
Milwaukee Sentinel announcement of Cubist Exhibition116
116 First Exhibit of “Cubist” Paintings, MILWAUKEE SENTINEL, May 11, 1913,
at 8.
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Figure 12
Milwaukee Free Press article regarding return of Cubist Exhibition117
117
Art’s Latest Fads Will Be Exhibited, MILApril 11, 1914, at 5.
WAUKEE FREE PRESS,
- 32 -
Figure 13
Pierre Dumont, Rouen Cathedral118
Pierre Dumont (French, 1884-1936), Rouen Cathedral, ca. 1912, Oil on
canvas, 75 3/4 x 54 5/8 in. (192.41 x 138.75 cm), Milwaukee Art Museum,
Anonymous Gift, MX.6 Photographer credit: Larry Sanders.
118
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Figure 14
Fernand Léger, Study for Three Portraits (Essai Pour Trois Portraits)119
Fernand Léger (French, 1881-1955), Study for Three Portraits (Essai Pour
Trois Portraits), 1910-11, Oil on canvas, 76 3/4 x 45 7/8 in. (194.95 x 116.52
cm), Milwaukee Art Museum, Anonymous Gift, MX.5 Photographer credit:
John R. Glembin, ©2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York /
ADAGP, Paris.
119
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Figure 15
Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist120
[Permission requested]
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, worked in France, 1881-1973), The Old Guitarist,
late 1903–early 1904, Oil on panel, 48 3/8 x 32 1/2 in. (122.9 x 82.6 cm),
signed, l.r.: “Picasso”, Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926.253 ©2015 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York.
120
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Figure 16
Raoul Dufy, Pears in a Garden121
[Permission requested]
Raoul Dufy (French, 1877-1953), Pears in a Garden, n.d., Watercolor,
with graphite on cream laid paper, 649 x 508 mm, signed recto, lower left,
in graphite: “Raoul Dufy”, Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Robert Allerton, 1926.256 ©2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP,
Paris.
121
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Figure 17
Gino Severini, Guitarist and Spanish Dancer122
[Permission requested]
Gino Severini (Italian, 1883-1966), Guitarist and Spanish Dancer, n.d.,
Charcoal, with stumping and traces of red chalk on cream wove paper, 641
x 475 mm, signed recto, lower right, in graphite: “Severini”, Art Institute of
Chicago, Gift of Robert Allerton, 1926.257 ©2015 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.
122
- 37 -
Figure 18
Henri Matisse, Apples123
[Permission requested]
Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954), Apples, 1916, Oil on canvas, 46 x 35
in. (116.8 x 88.9 cm), Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Florene May
Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx, 1948.563 ©2015 Succession H. Matisse /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
123
- 38 -
Figure 19
Pablo Picasso, Mother and Child124
[Permission requested]
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, worked in France, 1881-1973), Mother and Child,
1921, Oil on canvas, 56 1/4 x 68 in. (142.9 x 172.7 cm), signed and dated
l.r.: “Picasso / 21”, Art Institute of Chicago, Restricted gift of Maymar
Corporation, Mrs. Maurice L. Rothschild, and Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey
McCormick; Mary and Leigh Block Fund; Ada Turnbull Hertle Endowment; through prior gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin E. Hokin, 1954.270 ©2015
Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
124
- 39 -
Figure 20
Juan Gris, Glass and Playing Cards125
[Permission requested]
Juan Gris (Spanish, 1887-1927), Glass and Playing Cards, 1915, Oil and
sand on cardboard, 11 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. (29.2 x 19.7 cm), Signed, l.r.: “Juan
Gris”, Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Mima de Manziarly Porter,
1989.51.2.
125
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Figure 21
Constantin Brâncusi, Golden Bird126
[Permission requested]
Constantin Brâncusi (French, born Romania, 1876-1957), Golden Bird,
1919/20 (base c. 1922), Bronze, stone, and wood, 86 x 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.
(217.8 x 29.9 x 29.9 cm), Signed underneath: “C. Brancusi”, Art Institute of
Chicago, Partial gift of The Arts Club of Chicago; restricted gift of various
donors; through prior bequest of Arthur Rubloff; through prior restricted
gift of William E. Hartmann; through prior gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H.
Harrison, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold H. Maremont through the Kate Maremont
Foundation, Woodruff J. Parker, Mrs. Clive Runnells, Mr. and Mrs. Martin
A. Ryerson, and various donors, 1990.88 ©2015 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.
126
- 41 -
Figure 22
Georges Seurat, Seated Woman with a Parasol (study for La Grande Jatte)127
[Permission requested]
Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891), Seated Woman with a Parasol (study
for La Grande Jatte), 1884/85, Black Conté crayon on ivory laid paper, 477 x
315 mm, Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller,
1999.7.
127
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