This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000361203 Reproduction Date:
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of modern art in America. The three-city exhibition started in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913. The exhibition went on to show at the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston,[1] where, due to a lack of space, all the work by American artists was removed.[2] The show became an important event in the history of American art, introducing astonished Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant garde, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism. The show served as a catalyst for American artists, who became more independent and created their own "artistic language."
On 14 December 1911 an early meeting of what would become the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS) was organized at Madison Gallery in New York. Four artists met to discuss the contemporary art scene in the United States, and the possibilities of organizing exhibitions of progressive artworks by living American and foreign artists, favoring works ignored or rejected by current exhibitions. The meeting included Henry Fitch Taylor, Jerome Myers, Elmer Livingston MacRae and Walt Kuhn.[3]
In January 1912, James E.Fraser, Allen Tucker, and J. Alden Weir.[4] AAPS was to be dedicated to creating new exhibition opportunities for young artists outside of the existing academic boundaries, as well as to providing educational art experiences for the American public.[5] Davies served as president of AAPS, with Kuhn acting as secretary.
The AAPS members spent more than a year planning their first project: the International Exhibition of Modern Art, a show of giant proportions, unlike any New York had seen. The 69th Regiment Armory was settled on as the main site for the exhibition in the spring of 1912, rented for a fee of $5,000, plus an additional $500 for additional personnel.[6] It was confirmed that the show would later travel to Chicago and Boston.
Once the space had been secured, the most complicated planning task was selecting the art for the show, particularly after the decision was made to include a large proportion of vanguard European work, most of which had never been seen by an American audience.[5] In September 1912, Kuhn left for an extended collecting tour through Europe, including stops at cities in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, visiting galleries, collections and studios and contracting for loans as he went.[7] While in Paris Kuhn met up with Pach, who knew the art scene there intimately, and was friends with Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse; Davies joined them there in November 1912.[5] Together they secured three paintings that would end up being among the Armory Show’s most famous and polarizing: Matisse’s “Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)” and “Madras Rouge (Red Madras Headdress),”and Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.” Only after Davies and Kuhn returned to New York in December did they issue an invitation for American artists to participate.[5]
Pach was the only American artist to be closely affiliated with the Section d'Or group of artists, including Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Duchamp brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Villon and others. Pach was responsible for securing loans from these painters for the Armory Show. Most of the artists in Paris who sent works to the Armory Show knew Pach personally and entrusted their works to him.[8]
The Armory Show was the first, and, ultimately, the only exhibition mounted by the AAPS. It displayed some 1,300 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over 300 avant-garde European and American artists. Impressionist, Fauvist, and Cubist works were represented.[9] News reports and reviews were filled with accusations of quackery, insanity, immorality, and anarchy, as well as parodies, caricatures, doggerels and mock exhibitions. About the modern works, former President Theodore Roosevelt declared, "That's not art!"[10] The civil authorities did not, however, close down, or otherwise interfere with, the show.
Among the scandalously radical works of art, pride of place goes to New York Evening Sun, entitled it The rude descending a staircase (Rush hour in the subway).[12] The painting was purchased from the Armory Show by Fredric C. Torrey of San Francisco .[13]
The purchase of Paul Cézanne's Hill of the Poor (View of the Domaine Saint-Joseph) by the Metropolitan Museum of Art signaled an integration of modernism into the established New York museums, but among the younger artists represented, Cézanne was already an established master.
Duchamp's brother, who went by the "nom de guerre" Jacques Villon, also exhibited, sold all his Cubist drypoint etchings, and struck a sympathetic chord with New York collectors who supported him in the following decades.
The exhibition went on to show at the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston,[1] where, due to a lack of space, all the work by American artists was removed.[2]
While in Chicago, the exhibition created a scandal that reached the governors office. Several articles in the press recounted the issue. In one newspaper the headline read: Cubist Art Will be Investigated; Illinois Legislative Investigators to Probe the Moral Tone of the Much Touted Art:
Chicago, April 2: Charges that the international exhibition of cubist and futurist pictures, now being displayed here at the art institute, contains many indecent canvasses and sculptures will be investigated at once by the Illinois legislature white slave commission. A visit of an investigator to the show and his report on the pictures caused Lieutenant Governor Barratt O'Hara to order an immediate examination of the entire exhibition. Mr. O'Hara sent the investigator to look over the pictures after he had received many complaints of the character of the show. "We will not condemn the international exhibit without an impartial investigation," said the lieutenant governor today. "I have received many complaints, however, and we owe it to the public that the subject be looked into thoroughly." The investigator reported that a number of the pictures were "immoral and suggestive." Senators Woodward and Beall of the commission will visit the exhibition today. (Ottumwa Tri-Weekly Courier, Iowa, 3 April 1913)[14]
Tour the galleries
The original exhibition was an overwhelming success. There have been several exhibitions that were celebrations of its legacy throughout the 20th century.[15]
In 1944 the Henry Street Settlement in New York, which included more than 300 works.[15]
performance art presentations that united artists and engineers. Ten artists worked with more than 30 engineers to produce art performances incorporating new technology. The performances were held in the 69th Regiment Armory, as an homage to the original and historical 1913 Armory show.[16][17]
In February 2009, the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) presented its 21st annual Art Show to benefit the Henry Street Settlement, at the Seventh Regiment Armory, located between 66th and 67th Streets and Park and Lexington Avenues in New York City. The exhibition began as a historical homage to the original 1913 Armory Show.
Starting with a small exhibition in 1994, by 2001 the "New" New York Armory Show, held in piers on the Hudson River, evolved into a "hugely entertaining" (New York Times) annual contemporary arts festival with a strong commercial bent. The 2008 and 2009 Armory Shows did not hold back on the more crude and vulgar works, which are not unknown for the show, which has been less tame in past years.
Five physical exhibitions in 2013 celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Armory Show, as well as a number of publications, virtual exhibitions, and programs. The first exhibition, “The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913,” opens at the Montclair Art Museum on Feb. 17, 2013, a hundred years to the day from the original.[5] The second exhibition will be organized by the
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother 1871, popularly known as Whistler's Mother, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Although Whistler was represented by four paintings in the Armory show this was not included.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, In The Garden 1885, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Mary Cassatt, Mère et enfant (Reine Lefebre and Margot before a Window), c.1902
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, c. 1887, oil on canvas, 40 x 34 cm (15 ¾ by 13 ⅜ in). Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Adeline Ravoux 1890, Cleveland Museum of Art
Vincent van Gogh, Mountain in Saint-Rémy, 1889, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Albert Pinkham Ryder, Seacoast in Moonlight, 1890, the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Paul Gauguin, Words of the Devil, 1892, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Paul Gauguin, Nature morte à l'estampe japonaise (Flowers Against a Yellow Background), 1889, oil on canvas, 72.4 × 93.7 cm (28.5 × 36.9 in), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran
Paul Gauguin, Tahitian Pastorals, (Reo Mā`ohi: Faa iheihe (Fa'ai'ei'e)), 1898, National Gallery on loan from the Tate
Henri Rousseau, The Centenary of the Revolution, 1892
Edvard Munch, Vampire 1893–94, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
Paul Cézanne, Old Woman with Rosary, 1895–1896
Paul Cézanne, Baigneuses, 1877–1878
Julian Alden Weir, The Red Bridge, 1895
Claude Monet, Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge, 1897–1899
John Twachtman, Hemlock Pool, c.1900
Henri-Edmond Cross, Cypresses at Cagnes, c.1900
Paul Signac, Port de Marseille, 1905, Metropolitan Museum of Art
André Derain, 1912, Window on the Park (La Fênetre sur le parc), 130.8 x 89.5 cm (51.5 x 35.25 in), Museum of Modern Art, New York
André Derain, Landscape in Provence (Paysage de Provence) (c. 1908), Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn
Odilon Redon, Le Silence, 1900, pastel, 54.6 x 54 cm (21.5 x 21.3 in), Museum of Modern Art, New York
Odilon Redon, Roger and Angelica, 1910
George Bellows, Both Members of This Club, 1909
Othon Friesz, Landscape with Figures, 1909, oil on canvas, 65 x 83 cm
Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Saut du Lapin, 1911
Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Avant la Corrida, 1912, oil on canvas, 60 x 92 cm, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
Robert Winthrop Chanler, Leopard and Deer, 1912, gouache or tempera on canvas, mounted on wood, 194.3 × 133.4 cm (76.5 × 52.5 in), Rokeby Collection
Edward Middleton Manigault, The Clown, 1910–12, oil on canvas, 86.4 × 63.2 cm (34 x 24.9 in), Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
Patrick Henry Bruce, Still Life, ca. 1912
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Naked Playing People, 1910
Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II), 1912, oil on canvas, 47 3/8 x 55 1/4 in. (120.3 x 140.3 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Maurice Prendergast, Landscape With Figures, 1913
Robert Henri, Figure in Motion, 1913
Arthur B. Davies, Reclining Woman (Drawing),, 1911, Pastel on gray paper
Henri Matisse, Madras Rouge, The Red Turban, 1907, Barnes Foundation
Henri Matisse, Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), 1907, Baltimore Museum of Art
Henri Matisse, Le Luxe II, 1907–08, distemper on canvas, 209.5 x 138 cm (82 1/2 x 54 3/4 in), Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Henri Matisse, L'Atelier Rouge, 1911, oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm., The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Pablo Picasso, 1910, Woman with Mustard Pot (La Femme au pot de moutarde), oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
Entrance of the Exhibition, 1913, New York City
Interior view of the exhibition, 1913, New York City
Armory Show artists and members of the press at the beefsteak dinner given by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, 8 March 1913. Percy Rainford, photographer. Walt Kuhn family papers and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Installation shot of the Matisse room, 1913 Armory Show, published in the New York Tribune (p. 7), February 17, 1913. From the left: Le Luxe II, 1907–8, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; “Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), 1907, Baltimore Museum of Art; L'Atelier Rouge, 1911, Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Installation shot of the Cubist room, published in the New York Tribune, February 17, 1913 (p. 7). Left to right: Raymond Duchamp-Villon, La Maison Cubiste (Projet d'Hotel), Cubist House; Marcel Duchamp Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train; Albert Gleizes, L'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony; Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2; Alexander Archipenko, La Vie Familiale, Family Life
The List of women artists in the Armory Show includes women artists from the United States and from Europe who were exhibited in the Armory Show of 1913. Approximately 1/5 of the artists showing at the armory were women, many of whom have since been neglected.[25]
Below is a partial list of the artists in the show. These artists are all listed in the 50th anniversary catalog as having exhibited in the original 1913 Armory show.[15]
American filmmaker Michael Maglaras produced a documentary film about the Armory Show entitled, "The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show". The film premiered on September 26, 2013, at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut.[24]
[23] in producing the show.Henry Fitch Taylor and Elmer Livingston MacRae, from October 9, 2013, through January 12, 2014. The show will focus on the effects of the Armory Show on the Cos Cob Art Colony, and highlight the involvement of artists such as The New Spirit and the Cos Cob Art Colony: Before and After the Armory Show In addition, the Greenwich Historical Society will present [22], from April 4 to June 16, 2013.For and Against Modern Art: The Armory Show +100 The DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, Illinois will be presented [21], which was the only museum to host the 1913 Armory Show, presented works February 20 – May 12, 2013, the items drawn from the museum's modern collection that were displayed in the original 1913 exhibition.The Art Institute of Chicago [20] Showing contemporary work, a third exhibition, The Fountain Art Fair, was held at the 69th Regiment Armory itself during the 100th anniversary during March 8–10, 2013. The ethos of Fountain Art Fair was inspired by Duchamp's famous, "Fountain" which was the symbol of the Fair.[19], 1912, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 61 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Albert Gleizes, 1910, La Femme aux Phlox (Woman with Phlox), oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Albert Gleizes, L'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud), 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Published in the Record Herald, Chicago, 25 March 1913 (see page 140)
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Marcel Duchamp, 1911-1912, Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train (Nu, esquisse, jeune homme triste dans un train), oil on cardboard mounted on Masonite, 100 x 73 cm (39 3/8 × 28 3/4 in), Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
Francis Picabia, Grimaldi après la pluie (believed to be Souvenir of Grimaldi, Italy), ca. 1912, location unknown
Francis Picabia, The Dance at the Spring, 1912, oil on canvas, 47 7/16 x 47 1/2 inches (120.5 x 120.6 cm), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Francis Picabia, The Procession, Seville, 1912, oil on canvas, 121.9 x 121.9 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
Robert Delaunay, Window on the City, No. 4, 1910-11 (1912)
Jacques Villon, 1912, Girl at the Piano (Fillette au piano), oil on canvas, 129.2 x 96.4 cm (51 x 37.8 in), oval, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, New York, Chicago and Boston. Purchased from the Armory Show by John Quinn
Aristide Maillol, Bas Relief, terracotta. Exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, New York, Chicago, Boston. Catalogue image (no. 110)
Alexander Archipenko, 1910–11, Negress (La Negresse), Armory Show catalogue photo
Alexander Archipenko, La Vie Familiale (Family Life), 1912. Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, Paris and the 1913 Armory Show in New York, Chicago and Boston. The original sculpture (approx six feet tall) was accidentally destroyed
Alexander Archipenko, Le Repos, 1912, Armory Show postcard published in 1913
Constantin Brâncuși, 1909, Portrait De Femme (La Baronne Renée Frachon), now lost. Armory Show, published press clipping, 1913
Constantin Brâncuși, 1912, Portrait of Mlle Pogany, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Armory Show postcard
Constantin Brâncuși, The Kiss, 1907-1908, published in the Chicago Tribune, 25 March 1913
Constantin Brâncuși, Une Muse, 1912, plaster, 45.7 cm (18 in.) Armory Show postcard. Exhibited: New York (no. 618); The Art Institute of Chicago (no. 26) and Boston, Copley Hall (no. 8)
Andrew Dasburg, ca. 1912, Lucifer, plaster of Paris, no. 647 of the catalogue. Dasburg extensively reworked by carving directly into a sculpture of a life-size plaster head by Arthur Lee.(American Studies at the University of Virginia)
Abastenia St. Leger Eberle, 1912–13, The White Slave. Photograph from The Survey, Journal Publication, Ohio, 3 May 1913
John Frederick Mowbray-Clarke, ca. 1912, Group, sculpture, Armory show postcard
Wilhelm Lehmbruck, 1911, Femme á genoux (The Kneeling One), cast stone, 176 x 138 x 70 cm (69.2 x 54.5 x 27.5 in), Armory Show postcard
Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1910–11, Torse de jeune homme (Torso of a young man), terracotta, 60.4 cm (23 3/4 in), Armory Show postcard, published 1913. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Jacob Epstein, The Rock Drill, 1913, in its original form, it is now lost.
Antoine Bourdelle, Herakles the Archer, 1909
George Grey Barnard, The Birth, c. 1913, marble
At the 1912 [26] "Mare's ensembles were accepted as frames for Cubist works because they allowed paintings and sculptures their independence", writes Christopher Green, "creating a play of contrasts, hence the involvement not only of Gleizes and Metzinger themselves, but of Marie Laurencin, the Duchamp brothers (Raymond Duchamp-Villon designed the facade) and Mare's old friends Léger and Roger La Fresnaye".[27] La Maison Cubiste was a fully furnished house, with a staircase, wrought iron banisters, a living room—the Salon Bourgeois, where paintings by Marcel Duchamp, Metzinger (Woman with a Fan), Gleizes, Laurencin and Léger were hung—and a bedroom. It was an example of L'art décoratif, a home within which Cubist art could be displayed in the comfort and style of modern, bourgeois life. Spectators at the Salon d'Automne passed through the full-scale 10-by-3-meter plaster model of the ground floor of the facade, designed by Duchamp-Villon.[28] This architectural installation was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, New York, Chicago and Boston,[29] listed in the catalogue of the New York exhibit as Raymond Duchamp-Villon, number 609, and entitled "Facade architectural, plaster" (Façade architecturale).[30][31]
Avant-garde, Dada, Cubism, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John Cage
Marcel Duchamp, Cubism, Abstract art, Man on a Balcony, Jean Metzinger
Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum, Fauvism, André Derain, Museum of Modern Art
National Register of Historic Places, Central Park, Islamic art, Rembrandt, El Greco
Van Gogh Museum, Paul Gauguin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Post-Impressionism, Impressionism
Albert Gleizes, Joseph Csaky, Auguste Rodin, Pablo Picasso, Cubism
Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Albert Gleizes, Futurism
Philadelphia Museum of Art, France, Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Modernism
Albert Gleizes, Pablo Picasso, Dada, Jean Metzinger, Abstract art