| 1913 Armory Show | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Othernames | The International Exhibition ofModern Art |
| Participants | See List of artists in the ArmoryShow |
| Location | 69th Regiment Armory, NewYork, New York |
| Date | February 17, 1913 toMarch 15, 1913 |
ArmoryShow poster
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. NationalGuard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 InternationalExhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association ofAmerican Painters and Sculptors, the first large exhibition of modern artin 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 showat the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art inBoston,[1] where, due to a lack of space, all the work by Americanartists was removed.[2] The show became an important event in thehistory of American art, introducing astonished Americans, who wereaccustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the Europeanvanguard, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism. The show servedas a catalyst for American artists, who became more independent andcreated their own "artistic language."
History
"A slight attack of third dimentia [sic] broughton by excessive study of the much-talked ofcubist pictures in the International Exhibitionat New York" by John French Sloan, April1913.
69th Regiment Armory in 2008
On 14 December 1911 an early meeting of what would become theAssociation of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS) was organized atMadison Gallery in New York. Four artists met to discuss the contemporaryart scene in the United States, and the possibilities of organizing exhibitions ofprogressive artworks by living American and foreign artists, favoring worksignored or rejected by current exhibitions. The meeting included Henry FitchTaylor, Jerome Myers, Elmer Livingston MacRae and Walt Kuhn.[3]
In January 1912, Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, and Arthur B. Davies joinedtogether with some two dozen of their colleagues to reinforce a professionalcoalition: AAPS. They intended the organization to "lead the public taste in art,rather than follow it."[4] Other founding AAPS members included D. PutnamBrinley, Gutzon Borglum, John Frederick Mowbray-Clarke, Leon Dabo,William J. Glackens, Ernest Lawson, Jonas Lie, George Luks, Karl Anderson, James E.Fraser, Allen Tucker, and J. Alden Weir.[4] AAPS wasto be dedicated to creating new exhibition opportunities for young artistsoutside of the existing academic boundaries, as well as to providingeducational art experiences for the American public.[5] Davies served aspresident of AAPS, with Kuhn acting as secretary.
The AAPS members spent more than a year planning their first project: theInternational Exhibition of Modern Art, a show of giant proportions, unlike anyNew York had seen. The 69th Regiment Armory was settled on as the mainsite for the exhibition in the spring of 1912, rented for a fee of $5,000, plus anadditional $500 for additional personnel.[6] It was confirmed that the showwould 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 afterthe decision was made to include a large proportion of vanguard European work, most of which had never been seen by anAmerican audience.[5] In September 1912, Kuhn left for an extended collecting tour through Europe, including stops at citiesin England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, visiting galleries, collections and studios and contracting for loans as hewent.[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 thatwould 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 Daviesand Kuhn returned to New York in December did they issue an invitation for American artists to participate.[5]
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, andCubist works were represented.[8] 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 PresidentTheodore Roosevelt declared, "That's not art!"[9] The civil authorities did not, however, close down, or otherwise interferewith, the show.
Among the scandalously radical works of art, pride of place goes to Marcel Duchamp's cubist/futurist style Nude Descending a Staircase, painted the year before, in which he expressed motion with successive superimposed images, asin motion pictures. Julian Street, an art critic, wrote that the work resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory" (this quote isalso attributed to Joel Spingarn[10]), and cartoonists satirized the piece. Gutzon Borglum, one of the early organizers of theshow who for a variety of reasons withdrew both his organizational prowess and his work, labeled this piece A staircasedescending a nude, while J. F. Griswold, a writer for the New York Evening Sun, entitled it The rude descending astaircase (Rush hour in the subway).[11] The painting was purchased from the Armory Show by Fredric C. Torrey of SanFrancisco .[12]
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 artistsrepresented, 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]
Floor plan
Three brothers, left to right: Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, and Raymond Duchamp-Villon in the garden of JacquesVillon's studio in Puteaux, France, 1914. Allthree brothers were included in theexhibition.
- Gallery A: American Sculpture and Decorative Art
- Gallery B: American Paintings and Sculpture
- Gallery C, D, E, F: American Paintings
- Gallery G: English, Irish and German Paintings and Drawings
- Gallery H, I: French Painting and Sculpture
- Gallery J: French Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings
- Gallery K: French and American Water Colors, Drawings, etc.
- Gallery L: American Water Colors, Drawings, etc.
- Gallery M: American Paintings
- Gallery N: American Paintings and Sculpture
- Gallery O: French Paintings
- Gallery P: French, English, Dutch and American Paintings
- Gallery Q: French Paintings
- Gallery R: French, English and Swiss Paintings
Legacy
The original exhibition was an overwhelming success. There have beenseveral exhibitions that were celebrations of its legacy throughout the 20thcentury.[13]
In 1944 the Cincinnati Art Museum mounted a smaller version, in 1958Amherst College held an exhibition of 62 works, 41 of which were in theoriginal show, and in 1963 the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute inUtica, New York organized the "1913 Armory Show 50th AnniversaryExhibition" sponsored by the Henry Street Settlement in New York, whichincluded more than 300 works.[13]
Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was officially launched bythe engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and the artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman when they collaborated in 1966 andtogether organized 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, a series ofperformance art presentations that united artists and engineers. Ten artistsworked with more than 30 engineers to produce art performancesincorporating new technology. The performances were held in the 69th Regiment Armory, as an homage to the original and historical 1913 Armoryshow.[14][15]
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 LexingtonAvenues 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. The2008 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.
Commemorating the Centennial
Five physical exhibitions in 2013 celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Armory Show, as well as a number ofpublications, 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 exhibitionwill be organized by the New-York Historical Society, titled "The Armory Show at 100," which will take place from October18, 2013 through February 23, 2014.[16] The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, which lent dozens of historicdocuments to both the New-York Historical Society and Montclair for the exhibitions, has created an online timeline of events,1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, to showcase the records and documents created by the show'sorganizers.[17] Showing contemporary work, a third exhibition, The Fountain Art Fair, will take place at the 69th RegimentArmory itself during the 100th anniversary from March 8-10th, 2013. The ethos of Fountain Art Fair is inspired by Duchamp'sfamous, "Fountain" which is the symbol of the Fair.[18] The Art Institute of Chicago, which was the only museum to host the1913 Armory Show, is presenting works from the museum's modern collection that were displayed in the original 1913exhibition February 20–May 12, 2013. This presentation is complemented by a special online exhibition that traces thehistory and legacy of the revolutionary show in Chicago and a display of archival materials in the museum's Ryerson andBurnham Libraries, opening April 23, 2013, that offers a glimpse of the museum 100 years ago.[19] The DePaul Art Museumin Chicago, Illinois will be presenting For and Against Modern Art: The Armory Show +100, from April 4 through June 16,2013.[20] In addition, the Greenwich Historical Society will present, The New Spirit and the Cos Cob Art Colony: Beforeand After the Armory Show, from October 9, 2013 through January 12, 2014. The show will focus on the effects of theArmory Show on the Cos Cob Art Colony, and highlight the involvement of artists such as Elmer Livingston MacRae andHenry Fitch Taylor in producing the show.[21]
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