Making his way down the stairs to the basement of this art gallery, art buyer and dealer Henri-Pierre Roche, 44, has his hopes up.
Rue d’Astorg
He has dealt with the gallery owner, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 39, many times before, buying numerous works of art for Roche’s clients both here in Paris and also in New York City.
Today he is visiting on behalf of one of his best clients, American corporate lawyer John Quinn, 53, who has amassed one of the most substantial collections in America—particularly of French works. One of the painters Roche deals with often, Spaniard Pablo Picasso, 42, has tipped him off that Kahnweiler has a special work by Henri Rousseau in his basement. Roche is thinking that Quinn might be interested.
And then he sees it.
The Sleeping Gypsy.
J’eus le coup de foudre, Roche thinks. Love at first sight. Sweet ghastly splendor. With a dark soul.
Don’t forget! This Saturday, February 3, we will be celebrating the 150th birthday of my fellow Pittsburgher Gertrude Stein, at City Books from noon to 4 pm on the North Side, a five-minute walk from where she was born. Details are here.
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Overall, her lecture tour is going quite well, but tonight is a real low point for Pulitzer-prize winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, soon to turn 32.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna was booked to appear in a private home here, and she realized instantly that they just wanted to get a good look at her. Feeling like a prostitute throughout the evening, she kept repeating to herself,
Never mind—it’s $150.”
She should have bought a new dress.
Millay has been feeling quite well physically, despite her many health issues last year. And she’s learned to write in periods of rest during this exhausting 20-city, month-long tour.
In lecture halls, she’s been knocking them dead, like an opera star. She starts the evening off by suddenly appearing on stage in her green silk dress and auburn hair wrapped in a red scarf. Between recitations she chats intimately with the audience. Then in a theatrical tone she berates latecomers or coughers. Her fans love it.
Millay’s show climaxes with her reading her first big hit, “Renascence,” and then she goes through a planned encore of her short, witty, best-known bits.
Her biggest disappointment has been that the audiences seem to only know her poems from A Few Figs from Thistles of almost four years ago, not from her most recent collection, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems, which she is touring to promote.
“First Fig” from A Few Figs from Thistles
At this point, Millay feels lonely and wants to get home to her new husband of less than a year, Eugene Boussevain, 43. In his letters, Gene has mentioned that he might give up his lucrative import business to manage her career full-time.
*****
Meanwhile, back in Millay’s home state of Maine, her mother, Cora Buzzell Millay, 60, is starting her own lecture tour, billed as the mother of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She begins each reading by reciting Edna’s latest, “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver,” but then segues into her own lesser-known works.
Cora Millay
Just as theatrical and chatty as her more famous daughter, Cora dresses-to-shock in man’s trousers and tie to go with her short-cropped hair. She tells stories about all four of her independent daughters, all married off now, but all keeping their maiden names.
Cora is hoping that this tour will result in publication of her poems, and eventually a national newspaper syndication deal.
“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, and Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
Join us next Saturday, February 3, from noon to 4 pm, to celebrate the 150th birthday of my fellow Pittsburgher Gertrude Stein, at City Books on the North Side, a five-minute walk from where she was born. Details are here.
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
At the foot of Mont Blanc, the I Olympic Winter Games begin, with athletes from 16 nations (not Germany) competing. Highly anticipated is the appearance of Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie, 11.
Join us on Saturday, February 3, from 1 to 4 pm to celebrate the 150th birthday of my fellow Pittsburgher Gertrude Stein, at City Books on the North Side, a five-minute walk from where she was born. Details are here.
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
The Stein family welcomes their fifth child, Gertrude, to their comfortable middle-class home here in Allegheny, adjacent to the industrial powerhouse of the Steel City, Pittsburgh.
The author in front of the Stein house with plaque
In honor of Gertrude’s 150th birthday—proclaimed Gertrude Stein Day by the City of Pittsburgh—we’re having a party!
Join us at City Books, 908 Galveston Avenue, just a few short blocks away from Gertrude’s house, on Saturday, February 3, from noon to 4 pm. There will be “little cakes”—like the ones Gertrude’s partner, Alice B. Toklas, served at their salons in Paris—and your humble blog host may be persuaded to make a few remarks and answer questions.
City Books
If weather permits, we can walk over to Beech Avenue and toast one of Pittsburgh’s most famous daughters.
Conveniently, copies of all four volumes of my series, “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, covering 1920 through 1923. will be for sale, and I’m happy to sign them.
“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volumes I through IV
When Gertrude was born, her father, Daniel, about 30, owned a shop with his brother, called, of course, Stein Brothers, in downtown Pittsburgh at Fourth Avenue and Wood Street.
The brothers’ families lived side by side in identical houses on Beech Avenue. Unfortunately, Gertrude’s Mom, Amelia, 31, didn’t get along so well with her sister-in-law next door.
So when their newborn was only six months old, Daniel, Amelia and their five kids left Pittsburgh and took off for a tour around Europe, never to return to Pennsylvania.
The Stein family in later years
Gertrude was only with us for six months, but we ‘burghers are extremely proud. Come by City Books on February 3rd between 1 and 4 p.m. and help us celebrate her 150th!
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe is available directly from me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
As they have since the beginning of the decade, Americans are still arriving in waves, motivated by three major changes:
The Great War has made them much more global. Men who were stationed in Europe in 1917 and 1918 want to bring their new wives and girlfriends to the places where they served.
U. S. soldiers arriving in Paris
The exchange rate is fantastic. Europe has been devastated so the dollar buys much more in Rome, Vienna and Paris. Including alcohol—not currently available back home thanks to Prohibition.
The cruise companies have come up with a new fare, “Tourist Third,” which makes the trip affordable for almost everyone.
The American Way to Europe brochure
For Dr. William Carlos Williams, 40, and his wife Flossie, 32, all three of these apply. In addition to continual nagging by his old college buddy from the University of Pennsylvania, fellow poet Ezra Pound, 38. Pound helped Williams get his first book of poetry, The Tempers, published in London, and he has been entreating Williams to come to Paris ever since.
So the good doctor has taken a year off from his New Jersey medical practice, spent half of it working on The Great American Novel—no, really, that’s the title—and he and Flossie are going to spend the next three months traveling around Europe.
First stop—Paris.
In addition to Pound, Williams is reuniting with another old friend, Robert McAlmon, 28. They had produced a magazine together, Contact, back in Greenwich Village a few years ago. McAlmon lives here now and has started Contact Publishing, using money from his British-heiress wife, Bryher, 29, to publish the new writers and artists appearing on the Left Bank.
Since the Williams’ arrival a few days ago, McAlmon has booked them into the expensive hotel where he is currently staying, the Lutetia on Boulevard Raspail, and introduced them to some of the leading characters in the Paris literary scene. Williams was pleased to finally meet Sylvia Beach, 35, owner of the Shakespeare and Company English-language bookstore, with whom he has corresponded. A couple of years back, McAlmon had convinced Beach to carry Williams’ books of poetry, and Williams had bought a copy of Ulysses from her—the controversial novel by Irish ex-pat writer James Joyce, 41, which Sylvia published two years ago.
Tonight, McAlmon is hosting a party for Bill and Flossie here at Joyce’s favorite restaurant, the Trianon, so they can meet other Left Bank literati. The crowd nearly fills up half the restaurant. Beach is here with her partner, Adrienne Monnier, 31, who operates the French-language bookstore across the street from Shakespeare and Company. Another American ex-pat, artist Man Ray, 33, whom Williams had known a bit back in Greenwich Village, is here with his chess buddy, French painter Marcel Duchamp, 36.
Rue de Rennes
Joyce has had too much to drink and is starting to loudly sing Irish ditties. His frequent drinking partner McAlmon responds by belting out Negro spirituals and cowboy songs; someone else is singing the blues.
Williams is starting to feel uncomfortable with this crowd. McAlmon asks the guest of honor to make a speech, and Williams feels as if he makes a fool of himself.
Williams thinks both the food and the conversation are disappointing. And that maybe being a pediatrician in Passaic would not be such a bad life after all.
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like McAlmon and Pound at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, 32, is so excited. She is writing to her boyfriend, economist John Maynard Keynes, 40, currently in Cambridge, to tell him the good news.
Despite the feuds they had working together last year, noted Russian choreographer Leonide Massine, 27, has been in touch and has offered Lydia the opportunity to be his lead ballerina in a new company he is putting together, Soirees de Paris.
Lydia Lopokova and Leonide Massine
Both Massine and his funder, patron of the arts Count Etienne de Beaumont, 40, are determined to create a rival to the dominant company, the Ballets Russes, headed by Serge Diaghilev, 51, for whom both Lopokova and Massine used to dance.
Late last year, de Beaumont hired Massine and leased La Cigale music hall in Montmartre to begin building the Soirees de Paris company. He has been commissioning top artists to create new programs, including two involved with Massine in Diaghilev’s radical ballet Parade almost seven years ago—Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, 42, and French composer Erik Satie, 57.
Costume designed by Pablo Picasso for Parade in 1917
The contract means Lydia will be spending six weeks this spring in Paris dancing in many different roles; the program may transfer to London after that; and she can name her own price.
Lydia is thrilled to be asked to join this troupe. She writes to Maynard that Massine has promised
new channels in choreography…All that is best in painting and music shall unite.”
Join us on Saturday, February 3, to celebrate the 150th birthday of my fellow Pittsburgher Gertrude Stein, at City Books on the North Side, a five-minute walk from where she was born. Details are here.
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
James Alexander Cowan, 22, is one of the only real friends fellow reporter Ernest Hemingway, 24, has made at the Toronto Star during the past horrible four months he has spent working in their offices.
Article by James Cowan in the Toronto Star
Ernie turned in his resignation effective January 1st. Today, he and his wife Hadley, 32, are hosting Jimmy’s wedding to the daughter of the dean of Canadian journalists and Star columnist, Fred Williams, who turns 61 tomorrow, as sort of a combined wedding celebration/going away party.
Ernie and Hadley had moved back here from Paris for the birth of their first child, John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway, in October. Hemingway did fine as the Star’s foreign correspondent during the past two years they’ve been living in Paris. What finally got to him was working in the office, surrounded by the politics.
Hadley agreed they should leave now and not fulfill their planned one-year commitment to Toronto.
In addition to serving as best man, as a wedding present Ernest has given Jimmy a copy of his first published book, Three Stories & Ten Poems, one of 300 copies printed by the small Contact Press back in Paris. He has inscribed it thus,
This book is the property of James Cowan—he is not responsible for it—nor did he buy it. It was presented to him by the author.”
James Cowan’s copy of Three Stories & Ten Poems by Ernest Hemingway
Tomorrow, the Hemingway family will leave from Union Station for New York City, where they will board the Cunard ship Antonia, bound for Cherbourg.
Their biggest fear is that, when the ship stops in Halifax, the police will arrest them for skipping out on hundreds of dollars of unpaid rent on this apartment.
N.B.: The Cowans’ wedding present has been valued at $125,000. If you live on any Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus route, I am happy to come sign your copy of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s. Who knows?!
Join us on Saturday, February 3, to celebrate the 150th birthday of my fellow Pittsburgher Gertrude Stein, at City Books on the North Side, a five-minute walk from where she was born. Details are here.
Next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats.
Novelist Virginia Woolf, 41, is feeling quite proud of herself.
Of course she is proud of her most recent novel, Jacob’s Room, which has gathered good reviews as well as strong sales. And she’s proud of her short story in last year’s Dial magazine, “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street,” which she is now expanding into a novel.
But today she’s feeling particularly proud of her skill negotiating a lease for a new home in Bloomsbury’s Tavistock Square for herself, her husband Leonard, 43, and their publishing company, Hogarth Press.
Tavistock Square
Nine years ago the Woolfs bought a printing press, with the idea of publishing Virginia’s works along with those of some of their friends out of their home here in Richmond, southwest London. Two years later they got started and have been expanding ever since.
In the past seven years they have produced 18 handset and hand-printed books and 18 set by commercial printers. They’ve added—and subtracted and added again—staff and filled up Hogarth House with books, books and books.
Their new home, No. 52 Tavistock Square, has a law firm, Dollman and Pritchard, on the ground floor, so Virginia and Leonard will occupy the top two floors. Hogarth Press’ equipment, office and inventory will be set up in the basement, a former kitchen, scullery and pantry. The large back room with a skylight, formerly used for billiards, will become Virginia’s studio, where she can write. Although part of this room will probably fill up with books as well.
Despite Leonard’s role as the businessman on the team, Virginia has usually handled the details of any leases they have signed in the past. She admits she has sometimes enjoyed playing the naive, unwitting female to get what she wants.
This will be a good move for the Woolfs and the Press. But there is emotion wrapped up in leaving their Richmond home, where Virginia found relative “stability and calm” during the Great War. She writes in her diary,
nowhere else could we have started the Hogarth Press, whose very awkward beginning had risen in this very room, on this very green carpet. Here that strange offspring grew & throve; it ousted us from the dining room, which is now a dusty coffin; & crept all over the house.”
On Saturday, February 3rd, we will be celebrating Gertrude Stein’s 150th birthday at City Books, 908 Galveston Avenue, north side, Pittsburgh, a five-minute walk from where Stein was born. For more details, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
Early this year, I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts such as the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Novelist Edna Ferber, 38, is walking around the New York City reservoir with her friend, Franklin P. Adams, 42, the dean of Manhattan columnists known to the whole city as “FPA.”
Central Park Reservoir
At the start of this new year, Edna is concerned that she is fresh out of ideas. Her publisher is quite pleased with her latest novel, So Big, due to come out in the spring. They predict it will sell 50,000 copies.
But what if that’s it?! What if she has peaked at only 36?! (Well…)
Adams dismisses her whining. What about his problem? If he runs out of ideas, it is clear to everyone who reads his daily column. If Edna never has another one—or good one—no one else will know.
But Edna will know. And that’s bad enough.
*****
Mrs. Jeanne Robert Foster, 44, looks forward to these walks with her, er,…really good friend, lawyer and art collector John Quinn, 53.
As long as there is no snow on the ground, each Sunday they drive outside the city—today their choice is John’s country club, Sleepy Hollow, about an hour north of his Central Park West apartment.
Tea at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club
But since this fall, when they returned from their European trip, buying art and meeting with the writers and artists Quinn supports, she’s noticed that John is looking more haggard; he’s cranky and seems weak. He almost crawls to his law office each day, does some work, and then crawls home.
John insists on having Jeanne with him all the time. And their weekly walks are getting shorter. He seems more tired after each one.
But John says the walks are good for him and he needs the exercise.
In addition to taking care of his corporate clients, Quinn is continuing his efforts with Congress to get the sales tax on art imports reduced. He is also awaiting one of his latest purchases, a second portrait of Jeanne by French painter Andre Derain, 43. Quinn did not like the first one Derain painted at all. His buyer in Paris, Henri-Pierre Roche, 44, has cabled that this one is much better and captures her “atmosphere.”
Quinn has started off this new year by re-organizing his law office; getting rid of deadwood and moving some of his loyal employees up to partner. He is sure that, if they would all just do their jobs and let him have a good rest, he would feel much better.
Early this year, I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like John Quinn at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
SuchFriends Blog 