#marie's roob

[vlidy]

[chicinsilk]

US Vogue December 1960 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Anne St. Marie in an azalea pink dress and jacket with braided buttons, by Maurice Rentner, in Lesur fabric of mohair, wool and nylon. Frances Denney makes up for bright, pastel colors.

Anne St. Marie dans une roobe rose azalée et veste à boutons tressés, par Maurice Rentner, en tissu Lesur de mohair, laine et nylon. Frances Denney maquille pour des couleurs vives et pastel.

Photo Gordon Parks

vogue archive

[theressomethinghappeninginparis]

Here's the rest of my luggage I've been carrying around. I hope it relieves me to share that. I surely can't talk to the police, or show my face, or reveal any other information. But I wish to not be all alone in this.

Transcript of the first page: This is Fayolah's second mail I had access to. She talked about her collegue scanning two pages for her and she attached that to the mail. The two pages contain one head that looks...kinda evil or at least mean spirited with three knives(?) surrounding it, and the other image is the symbol I've seen- in Vasiley's faxes to Werner von Croy. I also see Lux Veritatis next to it. So- does Vasiley skinwalk an ancient Templar club now? Or is it just an aesthetic choice to pick their symbol? Or, tinfoil: is he related to them in any way?

Transcript of the second and third page: Here's the list I found with books on alchemy and magic by another friend of Margot, Alessia. None of the books is available in my library and I hope to get to read them online. If you want to support my research and help me, you're welcome to look for clues there, too.

Leah DeVun: Prophecy, Alchemy and the End of Time, John of Rupecissa in the late Middle Ages

Richard Kieckhefer: Magic in the Middle Ages

Stepfen A Mitchell: Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages

Michael David Bailey: Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Consise History from Antiquity to the Present

Arthur Versluis: Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism

Mark Stavish: The Path of Alchemy: Energetic Healing & the World of Natural Magic

Robert Allen Bartlett: Real Alchemy: A Primer of Practical Alchemy

Stanislas Klossowski De Pola: Alchemy: The secret Art

Alexander Roob: Alchemy & Mysticism

Transcript of the fourth and fifth page: Here I start the introduction to alchemy before I get more into detail. Alchemy is an Arabic name, coming from the word al-kimiya and the Greek word khumeia. It's a branch of natural philosophy with parts of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, mysticism, spiritualism and art. The idea is not to only purify materials and perfect them but to also cleanse the body, soul and mind. Most commonly alchemy is associated with the search for immortality, a panaceas (cure for all diseases) and to create gold out of base, cheaper metals. The first ever known alchemist was a woman: Mary the Jewess. She had a lot of other names like Maria Hebrea (meaning the same as Jewess), Mariya the Sage (Mariya is the Arabic spelling of Maria) and Miriam the Prophetess. A guy named Zosios of Panapolis wrote abouther in a text called "On Furnuces and Apparatuses". She described different metals like sexes in mammals as female or male. By melting they would eventually receive gold.

Transcript of the sixth and seventh page: Her apparent slogan was "Join the male and the female and you will find what is sought" and she also invented tools for alchemy:

the Tribikos, an alembic with three arms used for destillation, still used today

the Kerotakis, a device to collect vapors and heat substances

Mary's bath, a container that limits maximum temperature.

Arab people also called her "Daughter of Plato", used in alchemic texts to describe white sulfur. Her main goal was to create gold, the process is called Chrysopoeia, trying to get gold out of non-noble metals.

[tattooed-alchemist]

Alchemy is one of the most misrepresented and poorly understood aspects of Western Esotericism. This video takes a look at five misconceptions from both the scientific dismissal of alchemy to the purely spiritual/psychological interpretation of its processes and symbolism.

Recommended Reading:

Linden, Stanton J. (ed.) The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. 978-0521796620. Nicely edited collection of alchemical primary texts.

Principe, Lawrence. The Secrets of Alchemy. 978-0226103792. An up-to-date history of alchemy.

Newman, William. Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire" 978-0691174877. Cutting edge research on alchemy in the 17th century. An amazing wok of scholarship.

Roob, Alexander(ed.) Alchemy & Mysticism. 978-3836549363. A collection of alchemical imagery and symbolism, also a nice coffee table book!

Spiritual / Psychology School of Interpretation

Atwood, Mary Anne. A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery….(many re-print editions). The first text to introduce the ‘spiritual interpretation” of alchemy.

Eliade, Mircea. The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy. 978-0226203904. Religious-philosophical interpretation of alchemy.

von Franz, Marie-Louise. Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology. 978-0919123045. An introduction to the Jungian psychological interpretation of alchemy.

[mirandamckenni1]

Liked on YouTube: Alchemy - Maria the Jewess & Prophet - Greco Egyptian Alchemy & Hermetic Philosophy || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRb9vwk14OA || Perhaps the longest refenced alchemist in history was Mary or Maria the Jewess who lived in Egypt around the year 200 ce. In this episode of Esoterica we explore the legends, inventions, and alchemical theories developed by this early female scientist and mystic. Recommended Readings: Patai - The Jewish Alchemists - 9780691006420 Berthelot - Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs - https://ift.tt/k8IjopL Maier - Atalanta Fugiens - https://ift.tt/a9cgTCE Artis Auriferae - https://ift.tt/wcOZN6C Linden, Stanton J. (ed.) The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. 978-0521796620. Nicely edited collection of alchemical primary texts. Principe, Lawrence. The Secrets of Alchemy. 978-0226103792. An up-to-date history of alchemy. Newman, William. Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire" 978-0691174877. Cutting edge research on alchemy in the 17th century. Roob, Alexander(ed.) Alchemy & Mysticism. 978-3836549363. A collection of alchemical imagery and symbolism, also a nice coffee table book! Spiritual / Psychology School of Interpretation Atwood, Mary Anne. A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery….(many re-print editions). The first text to introduce the ‘spiritual interpretation” of alchemy. Eliade, Mircea. The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy. 978-0226203904. Religious-philosophical interpretation of alchemy. von Franz, Marie-Louise. Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology. 978-0919123045. An introduction to the Jungian psychological interpretation of alchemy. #alchemy #marythejewess #hermetic

[divinum-pacis]

Divinum Pacis’s  Reference Guide- UPDATED 2021

Let’s face it, schooling is expensive, and you can’t cram everything you want to know into 4+ years. It takes a lifetime (and then some). So if you’re like me and want to learn more, here’s an organized list of some books I find particularly insightful and enjoyable. NEW ADDITIONS are listed first under their respective sections. If you have any recommendations, send them in!

African Religions  🌍

African Myths & Tales: Epic Tales by Dr. Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr

The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: Prayers, Incantations, and Other Texts from the Book of the Dead by E.A. Wallis Budge

Prayer in the Religious Traditions of Africa by Aylward Shorter (a bit dated but sentimental)

The Holy Piby: The Black Man’s Bible by Shepherd Robert Athlyi Rogers

The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santeria by Marta Moreno Vega (autobiography of an Afro-Puerto Rican Santeria priestess)

African Religions: A Very Short Introduction by Jacob K. Olupona

Buddhism ☸

The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Dhammapada by Eknath Easwaran (collection of Buddha’s sayings)

Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan by William R. LaFleur 

The Tibetan Book of the Dead by John Baldock (the texts explained and illustrated)

Teachings of the Buddha by Jack Kornfield (lovely selection of Buddhist verses and stories)

Understanding Buddhism by Perry Schmidt-Leukel (great introductory text)

Essential Tibetan Buddhism by Robert Thurman (collection of select chants, prayers, and rituals in Tibetan traditions)

Christianity ✝️

The Story of Christianity Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation by Justo L. Gonzales

The Story of Christianity Volume 2: The Reformation to Present Day by Justo L. Gonzales

By Heart: Conversations with Martin Luther's Small Catechism by R. Guy Erwin, etc.

Introducing the New Testament by Mark Allen Powell

Who’s Who in the Bible by Jean-Pierre Isbouts (really cool book, thick with history, both Biblical and otherwise)

Synopsis of the Four Gospels (RSV) by Kurt Aland (shows the four NT gospels side by side, verse by verse for easy textual comparison)

Behold Your Mother by Tim Staples (Catholic approach to the Virgin Mary)

Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary by Miri Rubin (anthropological and historical text)

Systematic Theology by Thomas P. Rausch

Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Fr. Michael Romazansky (Eastern Orthodox Christianity)

Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska (very spiritual)

The Names of God by George W. Knight (goes through every name and reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Bible)

Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church by Alfredo Tradigo (for those who like art history AND religion)

The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God by St. John Maximovitch (the Orthodox approach to the Virgin Mary)

East Asian Religions  ☯️

Shinto: A History by Helen Hardacre

Tao Te Ching by Chad Hansen (a beautiful, illustrated translation)

The Analects by Confucius

Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell

Shinto: The Kami Way by Sokyo Ono (introductory text)

Understanding Chinese Religions by Joachim Gentz (discusses the history and development of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism in China)

Taoism: An Essential Guide by Eva Wong (pretty much everything you need to know on Taoism)

European (various)

Iliad & Odyssey by Homer, Samuel Butler, et al.

Tales of King Arthur & The Knights of the Round Table by Thomas Malory, Aubrey Beardsley, et al.

Early Irish Myths and Sagas by Jeffrey Gantz

The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology by Snorri Sturluson and Jesse L. Byock

Mythology by Edith Hamilton (covers Greek, Roman, & Norse mythology)

The Nature of the Gods by Cicero

Dictionary of Mythology by Bergen Evans

Gnosticism, Mysticism, & Esotericism

The Gnostic Gospels: Including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene (Sacred Texts) by Alan Jacobs and Vrej Nersessian

The Kybalion by the Three Initiates (Hermeticism)

The Freemasons: The Ancient Brotherhood Revealed by Michael Johnstone 

Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob (Art and symbolism in Hermeticism)

The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity by David Brakke

What Is Gnosticism? Revised Edition by Karen L. King

The Essence of the Gnostics by Bernard Simon

The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions by Andrew Harvey (covers Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist traditions)

The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall (huge book on esoteric and occult religions)

Freemasonry for Dummies by Christopher Hodapp

Hinduism 🕉

The Ramayana by R.K. Narayan

7 Secrets of Vishnu by Devdutt Pattanaik (all about Vishnu’s various avatars)

7 Secrets of the Goddess by Devdutt Pattanaik (all about Hindu goddesses, myths and symbolism)

Hinduism by Klaus K. Klostermaier (good introductory text)

Bhagavad Gita As It Is by Srila Prabhupada (trans. from a religious standpoint)

The Mahabharata, parts 1 & 2 by Ramesh Menon (super long but incredibly comprehensive)

The Upanishads by Juan Mascaro (an excellent introductory translation)

In Praise of the Goddess by Devadatta Kali (the Devi Mahatmya with English & Sanskrit texts/explanations of texts)

Beyond Birth and Death by Srila Prabhupada (on death & reincarnation)

The Science of Self-Realization by Srila Prabhupada

Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God (Srimad Bhagavatam) by Edwin F. Bryant (totally gorgeous translation)

The Perfection of Yoga by Srila Prabhupada (about “actual” yoga)

Islam  ☪️

The Handy Islam Answer Book by John Renard (a comprehensive guide to all your questions)

The Illustrated Rumi by Philip Dunn, Manuela Dunn Mascetti, & R.A. Nicholson (Sufi poetry)

Islam and the Muslim World by Mir Zohair Husain (general history of Islam)

The Quran: A Contemporary Understanding by Safi Kaskas (Quran with Biblical references in the footnotes for comparison)

Essential Sufism by Fadiman & Frager (select Sufi texts)

Psychological Foundation of the Quran, parts 1, 2, & 3 by Muhammad Shoaib Shahid

Hadith by Jonathan A.C. Brown (the history of Hadith and Islam)

The Story of the Quran, 2nd ed. by Ingrid Mattson (history and development of the Quran)

The Book of Hadith by Charles Le Gai Eaton (a small selection of Hadith)

The Holy Quran by Maulana Muhammad Ali (Arabic to English translation, the only translation I’ve read cover-to-cover)

Mary and Jesus in the Quran by Abdullah Yusuf’Ali

Blessed Names and Attributes of Allah by A.R. Kidwai (small, lovely book)

Jainism & Sikhi

Understanding Jainism by Lawrence A. Babb

The Jains (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) by Paul Dundas

The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories by Phyllis Granoff

A History of the Sikhs, Volume 1: 1469-1839 (Oxford India Collection) by Khushwant Singh

Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction by Eleanor Nesbitt

Judaism  ✡

Hebrew-English Tanakh by the Jewish Publication Society

Essential Judaism by George Robinson (this is THE book if you’re looking to learn about Judaism)

The Talmud: A Selection by Norman Solomon

Judaism by Dan & Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok (introductory text)

The Jewish Study Bible, 2nd edition by the Jewish Publication Society (great explanations of passages)

The Hebrew Goddess by Raphael Patai

Native American

God is Red: A Native View of Religion, 30th Anniversary Edition by Vine Deloria Jr. , Leslie Silko, et al. 

The Wind is My Mother by Bear Heart (Native American spirituality)

American Indian Myths and Legends by Erdoes & Ortiz

The Sacred Wisdom of the Native Americans by Larry J. Zimmerman 

Paganism, Witchcraft & Wicca

Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians (Religion in the First Christian Centuries) 1st Edition by Naomi Janowitz

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: Including the Demotic Spells: 2nd Edition by Hans Dieter Betz

Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy & Practice by Thea Sabin

The Path of a Christian Witch by Adelina St. Clair (the author’s personal journey)

Aradia: Gospel of the Witches by C.G. Leland

The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, & Witchcraft, 3rd ed. by Rebecca L. Stein

Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions by Joyce & River Higginbotham

Christopaganism by Joyce & River Higginbotham

Whispers of Stone by Tess Dawson (on Modern Canaanite Paganism)

Social ☮

Tears We Cannot Stop (A Sermon to White America) by Eric Michael Dyson (concerning racism)

Comparative Religious Ethics by Christine E. Gudorf 

Divided by Faith by Michael O. Emerson (on racism and Christianity in America)

Problems of Religious Diversity by Paul J. Griffiths

Not in God’s Name by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (on religious terrorism)

The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade (difficult but worthwhile read)

World Religions  🗺

Understanding World Religions by Len Woods (approaches world religions from a Biblical perspective)

Living Religions, 9th ed. by Mary Pat Fisher (introductory textbook)

The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Hinduism, Buddhism & Daoism by Jack Miles, etc.

The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Judaism, Christianity, & Islam by Jack Miles, etc.

Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices by Mary Boyce

The Baha’i Faith by Moojan Momen (introductory text)

Saints: The Chosen Few by Manuela Dunn-Mascetti (illustrated; covers saints from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and more)

The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong (the evolutionary history of some of the world’s greatest religions)

Roman Catholics and Shi’i Muslims: Prayer, Passion, and Politics by James A. Bill (a comparison of the similarities between Catholicism & Shi’a Islam)

God: A Human History by Reza Aslan (discusses the evolution of religion, specifically Abrahamic and ancient Middle Eastern traditions)

A History of God by Karen Armstrong (similar to Aslan’s book but much more extensive)

The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions by Keith Crim

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[caveartfair]

The Women Who Built the New York Art World

Over the course of 10 years, between 1929 and 1939, four of New York City’s most iconic museums emerged in Manhattan: the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, The Frick Collection, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. These institutions are now world-famous. But their founders—predominantly women—are relatively unknown.

During this period, other women—like Peggy Guggenheim, Grace Nail Johnson, and Florine Stettheimer—also helped carve out the New York art landscape by establishing influential galleries and salons that fostered avant-garde art.

Today, their work is still visible in the fabric of Manhattan’s landmark art scene, filled with progressive museums, galleries, and experimental art spaces. Rarely, however, are these women heralded as the pioneers they were. Below, we highlight the radical tastes and essential contributions of the women who shaped the New York art world we know today.  

Lillie P. Bliss (1864–1931)

Co-founded MoMA in 1929

Lillie P. Bliss. c. 1924. Rona Roob Papers, II.C.3. Courtesy of The Museum of Modern ArtArchives, New York.

Installation view of the exhibition “Bauhaus: 1919–1928,” on view December 7,1938 through January 30, 1939 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photo by Soichi Sunami.

Lillie P. Bliss, the daughter of a wealthy textile merchant from Boston, didn’t conform to late-19th century expectations of women. Bliss never married, she owned her own shiny Pierce Arrow limousine (she loved cars), and she developed a voracious and discerning appetite for art. “She was an advocate for modern art when it had few admirers, a patron when it had almost no market,” wrote philanthropist Eleanor Robson Belmont of Bliss in a 1931 catalogue commemorating her iconic art collection.

Bliss was one of New York’s first major collectors of modern art. Her lovingly cultivated cache of great works by Cézanne, Daumier, Redon, Seurat, Gauguin, Modigliani, Monet, and more would become the foundation of one of the most important public collections in the United States.

In November 1929, at the age of 65, Bliss and friends Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Mary Quinn Sullivan (budding collectors themselves), met for lunch to discuss opening a public museum devoted to contemporary art, which didn’t yet exist in New York. Later that year, they opened The Museum of Modern Art at 730 Fifth Avenue. Bliss devoted the last two years of her life to shepherding the museum’s early growth—and gifted 150 of her prized pieces to the new institution.

Bliss’s renegade tastes and support of young artists also helped to set the stage for collecting in America. At the legendary 1913 Armory Show, where European paintings by the likes of Matisse and Duchamp shocked American critics, she had bought her first works of art: three by Renoir and a whopping eight by Redon.

When she died in 1931, a new apartment that she’d purchased specifically for the display of her collection brimmed with works like Daumier’s The Laundress (c. 1863) and Cézanne’s Pines and Rocks (No. 9) (c. 1897). Paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro, and Davies covered her living room, while woodcuts by Gauguin and etchings by Picasso decorated her hallways.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874–1948)

Co-founded MoMA in 1929

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr.) seated at her desk. 1922. Photo by H.T. Koshiba. Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center.

In the early 1900s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art routinely refused to show or accept donations of  contemporary artwork. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who began collecting art in 1925, was an avid opponent of this conservative approach. (In 1929, the Met declined the donation of her own significant modern art holdings.) She believed that radical contemporary artists like Matisse, Diego Rivera, and Georgia O’Keeffe should be patronized, and given a public platform too.

A society girl from Providence, Rhode Island, Aldrich Rockefeller married the quiet, rigid, and wildly wealthy John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (son of famed oil baron John D. Rockefeller) in 1901. She fast established a reputation as one of New York’s most prominent hostess-philanthropists. But the causes she chose to support—women’s advancement and art—were unconventional. And though her passions were often questioned by her husband and his circle, she pursued them vigorously until her death.

She’d developed her interest in avant-garde art during a European sojourn in her late teens. After returning to New York and settling into her 10-story mansion with her husband, Aldrich Rockefeller continued to surround herself with art and artists. She invited Matisse to dinner, befriended bohemian painters like Marguerite Zorach, and invited Rivera to paint a massive mural in her husband’s swankiest property: the Rockefeller Center. (The mural was famously destroyed in 1934, following controversy surrounding the artist’s inclusion of a portrait of Lenin.)

Her reigning achievement, though, was co-founding MoMA with Bliss and Sullivan. It was Aldrich Rockefeller who convinced her husband to underwrite the museum and give up a prime slice of real estate to use as its sculpture garden. And it was she who donated 181 gems from her collection, by the likes of Seurat and Van Gogh, to the museum, as well as gifting important works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters.

Mary Quinn Sullivan (1877–1939)

Co-founded MoMA in 1929

Mary Quinn Sullivan. (no date). Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.

Installation view of the exhibition “Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh,” on view November 7, 1929 through December 7, 1929 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photo by Peter Juley.

Mary Quinn Sullivan began her adult life as an artist and art teacher, surrounding herself with pioneering women. (For a short stint, Sullivan roomed with artist and suffragist Katherine Dreier, and her various New York homes became stomping grounds for creatives of all stripes.) After studying at Pratt, she left for Europe to school herself in its art education strategies, and became enamored with avant-garde European movements like Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

The excursion spurred her collecting habits. And upon returning to New York, she, like Bliss, acquired some of her first art at the 1913 Armory Show. Later, with her husband (lawyer and rare book collector, Cornelius Sullivan) she scooped up works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Picasso, Derain, Modigliani, and more.

When Sullivan joined forces with Bliss and Aldrich Rockefeller to establish MoMA in 1929, she shaped its educational mission, which remains an integral facet of the institution today. She remained a museum trustee until 1933, leaving a year after she’d opened a commercial art gallery that showed work by American and European artists like Chaim Soutine. There, Sullivan hired Betty Parsons, who would later open her own legendary New York gallery.

Florine Stettheimer (1871–1944)

Hosted an influential salon for avant-garde artists and writers

Florine Stettheimer in her Bryant Park garden, c. 1917-1920. Florine Stettheimer papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

Florine Stettheimer's studio at the Beaux-Arts Building, New York, 1944. Photograph by Peter A. Juley & Son. Courtesy of the Florine Stettheimer Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

Painter Florine Stettheimer’s Bryant Park-facing studio doubled as the Jazz Age’s most idiosyncratic, and by many accounts, fruitful, salon. One of Stettheimer’s paintings captures the carnivalesque scene that many of her contemporaries recounted. In Studio Party (1917-1919), cultural figures lounge and pore over the art displayed on almost every surface of the pink room. They include Stettheimer, her sister and fellow saloniste Ettie, sculptor Gaston Lachaise and his wife and muse Isabel, Cubist painter Albert Gleizes, playwright Avery Hopwood, critic Leo Stein, Hindu poet Sankar, and—for good measure—a harlequin.

It was common for Stettheimer to gather a similarly diverse group of artists within the studio she legendarily decorated with iridescent cellophane, profusions of flowers, and a large nude self-portrait. Other regular Stettheimer salon attendees included friends like Georgia O’Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, Harlem Renaissance patron and documentarian Carl Van Vechten, and Marcel Duchamp. Like Gertrude Stein’s contemporaneous salons in bohemian Paris, Stettheimer offered an environment that encouraged open creative exchange between artists of all genders, backgrounds, and chosen mediums.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942)

Founded Whitney Museum in 1930

Portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, via Wikimedia Commons.

Installation view of Opening Exhibition –Part I of the Permanent Collection (Painting and Sculpture),  November 18, 1931—January 2, 1932. Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho. Courtesy of the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Unlike many of her collector-philanthropist peers, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney focused on American art, rather than European. While she studied sculpture in Paris (and was once critiqued by Auguste Rodin), she established her studio in New York’s Greenwich Village. There, she forged bronze objects depicting soldiers at war or busts of mythical figures—and created massive public sculptures. She would later transform the space into the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Vanderbilt Whitney’s studio became her second home, where she could make work and entertain creative friends away from the traditional tastes of her husband, Harry Payne Whitney, who didn’t take her art practice seriously. (He also refused to let her hang Robert Henri’s striking portrait of her in their shared home, because he didn’t want his friends to see a picture of his wife, as he said, “in pants”—the mark of the era’s “new woman.” She hung it her studio instead.)

The space also became a haven for young artists who were attracted to her free spirit, adventurous taste, and penchant for throwing parties. In 1914, she turned the network of apartments that surrounded her studio into Whitney Studio, where she exhibited the work of emerging, unrepresented painters and sculptors from her community. In the process, she amassed a collection of over 500 pieces of American art, including works by the then-unknown John Sloan, Edward Hopper, and Joseph Stella.

In 1929, she offered the trove, along with a several-million-dollar endowment, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When they refused it, she turned Whitney Studio into an unprecedented institution: one that focused solely on emerging American art. The Whitney Museum of American Art came to life in 1931 on West Eighth Street. Today, while the institution has outgrown its original home many times over, its focus remains the most influential and radical art made in this country.

Grace Nail Johnson (1885–1976)

Patron and mentor of Harlem Renaissance artists

Grace Nail Johnson bridal photo in Panama, 1910. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Postcard of Augusta Savage’s Lift Every Voice from Carl Van Vechten to Grace Nail Johnson. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Grace Nail Johnson was known as “the grand dame of Harlem.” She earned the title by tirelessly supporting the arts and activist causes, primarily Civil Rights and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The Harlem home she shared with her husband (the poet, writer, and activist James Weldon Johnson) became a sanctuary for Harlem Renaissance writers, painters, and musicians. There, Nail Johnson would survey their work and offer sage advice, in turn assuming the role of mentor for young artists.

As the only black member of Heterodoxy, a feminist debate club in Greenwich village, she also voiced her passionate commitment to equal rights for women and the black community. Among other activist achievements, she founded the NAACP Junior League in 1929, and made a trip to the White House in 1941 at Eleanor Roosevelt’s invitation, to discuss race relations.

Her fight for equality extended to art, too. After her husband’s death, she and Harlem Renaissance photographer Carl Van Vechten established the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of American Negro Arts and Letters (now called the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection) at Yale University. An essential act of artistic preservation when many established museums and institutions ignored art made by people of color, it remains one of the most important archives of art, writing, and ephemera documenting the Harlem Renaissance’s vast creative output.

Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984)

Opened The Frick Collection in 1935

Helen Clay Frick in Belgium, August 1920. Courtesy of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives.

West Gallery, Frick New York Residence, 1927. Photo by Ira W. Martin. Courtesy of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives.

When Helen Clay Frick was 31 years old, she inherited $38 million—and subsequently became the richest woman in America. At a young age, she’d already taken a shine to her father’s collection, which included masterpieces by Turner, Constable, Gainsborough, and Vermeer, among other great Old Master and European artists. Just after she turned 21, she assembled a two-volume catalogue detailing the family’s art.

Clay Frick had always been independent and ambitious: she never married and after her father died, she took it upon herself to oversee a stipulation in his will that his collection should become a public museum. In 1935, under Clay Frick’s guidance, The Frick Collection opened in the family’s mansion on 5th Avenue. And she breathed life into it by encouraging new acquisitions. Along with eight other trustees, she purchased works by Piero della Francesca, Duccio, Goya, Monet, Ingres, Rembrandt, and others to add to the museum’s ornate halls.

Clay Frick also led the creation of another New York art world treasure: the Frick Art Reference Library. Originally housed in the mansion’s subterranean bowling alley, it moved to a building on 71st Street and opened to the public in 1924. Including over 228,000 books, it houses a vast reservoir of information documenting European and American art from the 4th to the mid-20th centuries.

Hilla Rebay (1890–1967)

CO-FOUNDEd THE MUSEUM OF NON-OBJECTIVE PAINTING in 1939, LATER RENAMED THE SOLOMON R. Guggenheim Museum

Hilla von Rebay in her Connecticut studio, late 1930s; Courtesy of Hilla von Rebay Foundation Archive © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Archives, New York. All Rights Reserved.

A baroness born into an aristocratic family in Alsace, Germany, Hilla Rebay refused to heed her father’s wishes for her future. “You are my virtuous daughter, go find a husband, end of story,” he once said. “I will not tolerate having any artists in my family.” Instead, she forged her own path. Rebay never married. Instead, she became an artist, moved to America, and inspired the creation of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She also led the institution’s trailblazing program of abstract art as its first director.  

Rebay’s interest in art emerged at a young age; the Guggenheim Museum Archives contain a delicate self-portrait Rebay drew at the age of 14. After honing her skills in art schools across Europe, where she was exposed to the Der Blaue Reiter movement, she took up non-objective (or abstract) painting. Her interest in the style was stoked by friendships with pioneering artists Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp, who introduced her to Wassily Kandinsky’s seminal manifesto on abstraction. She would soon become one of its most outspoken champions.

When she immigrated to New York in 1927, she carried with her a passionate dream: to establish a “museum-temple” where the public could be exposed to non-objective art. A year later, she met wealthy businessman Solomon R. Guggenheim, who sat for a portrait in her studio. The fateful event led to a lifelong personal and professional partnership that precipitated the formation of the Guggenheim Museum.

Through Rebay’s connections, she, Guggenheim, and his wife Irene met Kandinsky on a group trip to Europe. There, Guggenheim made a watershed acquisition: the painter’s masterful Composition 8 (1923). It sparked his appetite for collecting, which was guided by Rebay’s expertise. Together, they established The Museum of Non-Objective Painting at 24 East 54th Street in Manhattan in 1939. She became its director and filled the space with the era’s most daring and influential art—Calder, Klee, and Mondrian—along with wafts of incense and melodies by Bach and Beethoven.

When the museum’s collection outgrew its 54th Street home, she and Guggenheim commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design new headquarters for the institution. The resulting white temple spiraled into the sky, reflecting the ideals of abstract art that Rebay cherished.

Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979)

Founded Art of this Century Gallery in 1942

Peggy Guggenheim with Alexander Calder’s “Arc of Petals.” Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Venice, early ’50s. © Fondazione Solomon R. Guggenheim, foto Archivio CameraphotoEpoche, donazione Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia, 2005.

Berenice Abbott, Surrealist Gallery, Art of This Century, 1942. Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Venice. Purchased with funds donated by Alberto and Gioietta Vitale, the Guggenheim Circle of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Sotheby's, and through prior gifts of the M.R. Taylor Bequest and Asbjorn Lunde, 2016.

“Not until Art of This Century did it occur to Americans that a gallery could be a cross between an amusement park, a haunted house, and a Paris cafe,” wrote Peggy Guggenheim’s biographer, Francine Prose, of the gallery Guggenheim established on West 57th Street in 1942.

By that time, Guggenheim was known in bohemian art circles for her eccentric tastes. The daughter of a family with a 19th-century mining fortune to its name (and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim), she began traveling and buying art in her early twenties. She rubbed elbows with the likes of Dada master Marcel Duchamp, sculptor Constantin Brancusi, and novelist Djuna Barnes in the early 1920s in Paris. Later, after she moved to London, she developed a passion for art by Salvador Dalí, Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian, and Francis Picabia, and added to her collection at a breakneck pace. In her tell-all memoir Out of This Century (1979), she wrote: “My motto was ‘buy a picture a day’ and I lived up to it.”

It was this vast collection of avant-garde art that she hastily brought back to New York in the early 1940s, as World War II intensified, with the help of her lover, artist Max Ernst. In 1942, dissatisfied by the museums she visited upon returning to the States (she described The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, founded by her uncle and Rebay, as “a joke”), she opened her own museum-cum-gallery, which she dubbed Art of this Century. The space would show facets of her permanent collection, as well as sell art by experimental artists of the Surrealist, Dadaist, and Cubist movements.

Jackson Pollock had his first solo show there in 1943. Guggenheim was also famously committed to showing women artists—rare for art institutions of the time. She was one of the first gallerists to exhibit the work of Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Louise Bourgeois, and mounted two large-scale group shows and 12 solo presentations of work by women.  

While Guggenheim closed Art of this Century in 1947, she established a model for commercial galleries and art institutions interested in experimental art over the course of its five-year existence. Later, she brought her iconic collection back to Europe where she opened the Peggy Guggenheim Collection—a public exhibition space nestled in an 18th-century Venetian palazzo. There, she’d famously live out her days in the company of 14 Lhasa Apso dogs and her prized cache of paintings and sculptures.  

Betty Parsons (1900–1982)

Founded Betty Parsons Gallery in 1946

Betty Parsons at one of her solo exhibitions at Midtown Galleries, New York, 1937–38. Photo by William H. Allen. Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates and Betty Parsons Foundation.

Parsons was introduced to art at the age of 13, when she visited the infamous 1913 Armory Show. It was then that she vowed to devote her life to the medium, becoming first an artist and later a legendary gallerist.

Parsons opened her eponymous gallery in 1946 on Manhattan’s 57th Street. Her tastes in art had always been progressive, and she immediately brought the radical work of the burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement into the space. “People would slash the paintings,” said Hedda Sterne, a painter and friend of Parsons. “Everybody was telling Betty everything she showed was nonsense, but she had the courage of her opinions.”

Famously, Parsons represented Abstract Expressionism’s most venerated painters: Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Clyfford Still, who she affectionately called the “Four Horsemen.” But she also represented female, African-American, Latin American, and Asian artists when few other American galleries did. They included Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Roberto Matta, Kenzo Okada, and Thomas Sills. “I never thought about whether the artist was a male or a female,” she said in a 1977 interview. “I always thought: ‘Are they good or not good?’”

Parsons forged the model for the modern American gallery, an accomplishment noted by both the artists who surrounded her and the gallerists who came after her. “Betty and her gallery helped construct the center of the art world,” said Helen Frankenthaler. Leo Castelli, who opened his own influential gallery in 1957 said: “It was the beginning of a great moment in American art that started there at Betty Parsons’s. For the first time, a great original art movement took place in America.”

—Alexxa Gotthardt

Header video: Clip from Hans Richter, 8x8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements, 1957. Hans Richter Archive, A.III.2. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art Archives.  

from Artsy News

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Liked on YouTube: Alchemy - Where to Begin - Introduction to the Summa Perfectionis (Sum of Perfection) Pseudo-Geber || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKDbXSgurys || Alchemy is one of the most difficult fields of study in Western Esotericism for a host of reasons: texts are often in ancient languages, practically encoded, full of arcane symbolism and obscure instructions. One of the most daunting tasks is even where to begin. There are thousands of alchemical texts spread over 1500 years - which is the best starting point if you want to study alchemy? In this episode of Esoterica, we argue that the Summa Perfectionis (c. 1310) is the best answer. We explore the question of the text's authorship, transmission, composition, alchemical theory of substance, change, and, of course, metallic transmutation. Recommended Readings Newman - The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A Critical Edition, Translation, and Study - 978-9004094642 (ILL this one) Summa Perfectionis (Latin Reprint of 1542 edition) - 978-0282332815 - read online - https://ift.tt/tC6gQ84 Works of Geber (including the Summa Perfectionis) (English translation of 1678 reprinted in 1928) 978-1162568676 - read online - https://ift.tt/6Sp7j01 Other Readings: Linden, Stanton J. (ed.) The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. 978-0521796620. Nicely edited collection of alchemical primary texts. Principe, Lawrence. The Secrets of Alchemy. 978-0226103792. An up-to-date history of alchemy. Newman, William. Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire" 978-0691174877. Cutting edge research on alchemy in the 17th century. Roob, Alexander(ed.) Alchemy & Mysticism. 978-3836549363. A collection of alchemical imagery and symbolism, also a nice coffee table book! Spiritual / Psychology School of Interpretation Atwood, Mary Anne. A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery….(many re-print editions). The first text to introduce the ‘spiritual interpretation” of alchemy. Eliade, Mircea. The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy. 978-0226203904. Religious-philosophical interpretation of alchemy. von Franz, Marie-Louise. Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology. 978-0919123045. An introduction to the Jungian psychological interpretation of alchemy. #alchemy #geber #hermeticism #occult #chemistry