In America…
Lawyer and art collector John Quinn, 44, has plenty to worry about.
John Quinn, 1870-1924
He is looking out for—and financing—Irish painter John B. Yeats, 75, father of his friend, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, 49. When the younger Yeats was visiting New York recently, the two friends agreed that Quinn would buy some of WB’s original manuscripts, and the poet would use the proceeds to pay for some of his father’s expenses.
But Quinn is more worried about Walter Pach, 31, one of his partners in the Armory Show of
the year before. They have decided that the Germans probably won’t occupy Paris soon, so Walter can sail off to France for a full month to convince European artists like Pablo Picasso, about to turn 33, Henri Matisse, 44, and others that they should lend their latest works to galleries in New York.
Pach and Quinn are determined to continue the work of the Armory show by organizing
–and financing—continual exhibits of the latest in art from Europe.
Once in Paris, Pach gets in touch with Matisse through fellow American Michael Stein, 49, who encourages the French artist to lend his works. Quinn had just bought Matisse’s Blue Nude from Michael’s brother Leo, 42, for a bargain basement price.
Blue Nude by Henri Matisse, 1907
Leo is eager to get out of Paris, away from his sister, Gertrude, 40, and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, 37. The siblings have been fighting over who owns which paintings, so Leo is happy to sell what he can rather than leave it to Gertrude.
Quinn decides he will make good use of his own political contacts to help Pach on his
mission. He writes to the son of a friend, who is working in the American embassy in Paris,
‘I don’t want to burden you with unnecessary things, but I have told Mr. Pach that I was a
personal friend of your father’s…and that there was some poetic justice in my writing you about Mr. Pach’s mission, because it was your father and I that were really responsible, I feel, for the free art provisions in the Underwood Tariff Bill.’
Quinn and Congressman Oscar Underwood senior, 52, had managed the year before to get
US law changed so that works of art less than 20 years old would no longer be subject to higher import taxes. That was a big enough battle. Quinn is not going to let something like a world war stop his fellow Americans from experiencing the latest in European art.
Pach gets the paintings.
For more information about John Quinn, see the page to your right, https://suchfriends.wordpress.com/about-such-friends/i-want-to-tell-you-about-an-amazing-man/
And for more about the Armory Show, see the piece: https://suchfriends.wordpress.com/about-such-friends/the-armory-show-1913/
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