Review of Bohemian Lives: Three Extraordinary Women: Ida Nettleship, Sophie Brzeska, Fernande Olivier, by Amy Licence

Amy Licence, also the author of Living in Squares, Loving in Triangles, about the Bloomsbury group, has form for writing about late 19^th and early 20^th century European bohemians, my favourite topic. She has a real talent for telling stories about these three women whose lives overlapped, but never actually physically intersected.

By choosing the partners of three major artists of the time—Ida Nettleship’s husband, painter Augustus John; Sophie Brzeska’s partner, sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; and Fernande Olivier’s lover, Picasso—Licence tells the story of the art and culture of the early 20^th century through the lives of these women in unusual and unique relationships.

Ida Nettleship John (1877-1907)

I share her fascination with the possibility that the three women’s paths may have crossed in Paris:

Sophie, Ida and Fernande share so many friends and locations that it is tempting to speculate on their proximity; perhaps they followed a similar route through the Luxembourg Gardens or met mutual acquaintances in the same Montparnasse Café.

Gertrude Stein could have been strolling past them with her partner, Alice B. Toklas; Hadley and Ernest Hemingway could have been dining at the next table.

Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1873-1925)

Licence bases her stories on solid research, and her descriptions of the buildings and neighbourhoods that these women inhabited come alive. She must have visited them personally to get the feel for the physical space surrounding her three heroines. Never underestimate the value of primary research.

Fernande Olivier (1881-1966)

For me, it was a delight to see some of my writers—Stein, Roger Fry—appear, along with side characters I always wanted to know more about—artists Nina Hamnett and Gwen John, for example. And I felt the spirit of my John Quinn, Irish-American lawyer and collector of Augustus and Gwen John, as well as Gaudier-Brzeska, hovering in the background, supporting their work.

In a few spots, there is perhaps too much detail about the women’s extended families. Always interesting, but with so many fascinating characters, it’s hard to keep up.

Overall, a great read about three ‘extraordinary’ women in interesting circumstances. Who needs fiction?!

Bohemian Lives:  Three Extraordinary Women:  Ida Nettleship, Sophie Brzeska, Fernande Olivier, by Amy Licence (Amberley Publishing, 2017; £18.99)

 

Manager as Muse explores Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe and is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

To walk with me and the ‘Such Friends’ through Bloomsbury, download the Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group audio walking tour from VoiceMap.

 

In Tiffin, Ohio, 145 years ago, on April 24, 1870…

…John Quinn was born, the first son of two Irish immigrants. He grew up in middle-class Fostoria, Ohio, and went to the University of Michigan. While working full-time in a government job in Washington, DC, he went to Georgetown University law school at night. After receiving his law degree, he earned an advanced degree in international relations from Harvard. Not bad for the son of a shanty-Irish baker.

Quinn then moved to New York City, which was to be his home for the rest of his life, so he was there when the Algonquin Round Table wits were in the newspapers every day. He predictably landed a job with a major New York law firm and worked on high profile corporate cases. During a two-year period there were quite a few deaths in his family—parents, sisters, etc.—and he began to explore his Irish roots by going back to ‘the old sod.’ While attending a Gaelic language festival in the west of Ireland, he met Lady Augusta Gregory and other friends of W B Yeats involved in the Irish Literary Renaissance. While helping them found the Abbey Theatre, he started his own law firm in 1906.

John Quinn, 1870-1924

Quinn became involved in New York’s Tammany Hall politics, but when his candidate didn’t get the nomination at the 1912 Democratic Party convention, he became disgusted with the whole system (go figure). After that he turned his considerable energies to art and literature.

During the first two decades of the 20th century he managed to:

• Help organize the Armory Show, securing paintings from Roger Fry’s Second Post-Impressionist Exhibit in London, and Leo and Gertrude Stein’s collection at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris,
• Fight Congress to have the tariff on contemporary art changed,
• Bail out the Abbey Theatre after they were arrested for performing The Playboy of the Western World in Philadelphia,
• Have an affair with Lady Gregory and a number of other much younger women,
• Support Yeats’ father in New York City by buying his paintings,
• Argue the original case to have excerpts of Ulysses published in the United States,
• Support James Joyce in Paris by buying his manuscripts of Ulysses as he wrote them,
• Fund the transatlantic review where Ernest Hemingway worked when he first came to Paris, and
• Amass an incredible collection of modern art, stashed around his Manhattan apartment, focused primarily on European painters and sculptors.

During that time he kept up a detailed correspondence with all of the above as well as Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, Augustus John and other cultural luminaries of the early 20^th century. When I did my research, Quinn kept popping up, Zelig-like, in photos such as this one:

James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, and John Quinn in Paris

Quite a guy. I get tired just thinking about all he accomplished.

Quinn died of intestinal cancer at the age of 54, and, having no heirs, willed that his art collection be sold off and dispersed among museums and collectors around the world. And it was.

This summer I’m planning to visit the States—including Ohio, where he grew up, and New York City, where his papers are. And [you read it here first], on this date, five years from now, 2020, his 150^th birthday, I plan to publish an autobiography of this amazing man.

So happy birthday, John Quinn!