[Note: Bertha is 33 and has asked Marie about how to get her start as a commercial artist (the equivalent of a graphic designer today). It doesn’t appear that Bertha ever went down that path. She received a fellowship from the Tiffany Foundation that year, which likely encouraged her to pursue her art.]
I am posting this on my way to lunch. Have been doing a couple of color jobs – a very fluffy “fairy queen” effect in a paper face looking negligee for a folder advertising bedroom slippers. 4 pairs are sketched in color – blue, yellow and black, raspberry and gold, and pink and blue. It really has been fun and I somewhat forgot my headache. I have in prospect this afternoon a cover for a history I’m doing – white seagulls on intense blue sky, a salmon sun, blue and white and salmon ocean, with silhouette of an ancient “Balboa and Drakey” looking vessel (which I love) “Pacific History” in salmon with Topside and Harr Wagner Publishing Company beneath.
The cover Marie Schubert designed
I have an extra special Christmas card order – a Life Insurance company whose building makes a picture at Twilight against Twin Peaks. I’m going to go up Market St. some (late) afternoon and do it and then make a small poster effect reproduction for the card and use that with “Greetings” and so forth to make it appropriate and I have a cover for a golfing and sporting magazine that I was told about three weeks ago to have a try at and haven’t touched it yet and there are a stack of toys here waiting. I love drawing cunning dolls and pups and cats and elephants but the circular trains and toy typewriters aren’t so much fun.
Wouldn’t it be fun if Dorothy would join us two in Paris next fall? I would come through the Orient up by Spain sketching.
Once more, au revoir.
Marie
Part II
In your letter, you spoke of commercial art. The way to begin is to look at advertisements in the papers, for instance a “quite swell” hat sketch. Then take one of your own and put it on and do a Higgins waterproof ink sketch on Strathmore 2 or 4 play rather slick surface (in pen and ink not wash.) Pen and ink makes line cuts or Zimco’s, some people call them costing about half what wash drawings amount to for they have to be halftones. Always remember that space in a newspaper costs dollars per inch and don’t do a hat with lots of body sticking down or a coat with arms sticking out in the air eating up valuable space.
To get together samples, take your own stuff and do a preliminary sketch, a dress, a coat, a suit, a fur piece, stockings, gloves, handbags, blouse, etcetera. First studying those in the newspapers and working about half again as large. If you are given a job ask, “How wide by how deep?” If he says 4×10, he means four columns wide by 10 inches or 10 lines. Be sure to find out whether they measure depth by lines or inches. If the former, get a line ruler such as engravers use, a column is about 9 inches wide. Measure a newspaper if in doubt. Before you start your sketches, go to the library and look at the International Correspondence School books on Illustration and Commercial Art and Advertising. Even if you get old books with antique and wildly funny pictures, the technique of the thing is underneath and I do truly think you will find it fascinating once you get started.
When your samples are ready to go to the advertising manager of department stores and advertising agencies, tell them you have had years of art training and are sure you can give them something a little out of the ordinary and that to get started, you will be very reasonable in your prices. Figures average from $2.50 to $10.00 apiece. Shoes are hard for beginners but bring $2.50 to $10.00 also. A child’s figure takes less time than women’s so the prices are from a dollar up in quantities. Never do a sketch less than $2.50 if you make a special trip for it (going to see about it and going to deliver it eats up time you know.) A blouse or hat or glove or stocking think will be about $2.00 up to most anything depending on how many you get in a bunch you know. I have turned out 20 sketches from 10AM to 2PM but the ideal rate is about seven figures in a day.
Example of newspaper fashion illustration from 1924
Do your sketches very lightly in a rather hard pencil every time just as you want it then ink it. Don’t use a soft pencil. This makes a messy drawing. Clean well with art ____ afterward and if you smear, use Ruhl’s intense white or Devoes show card white. Put on with pen. Study pattern sheets to see how stitching pleats and folds are handled. It is hard for beginners to make folds without making it look like wrinkles and if there aren’t any folds, it looks tight as a sausage so one has to make folds.
Get a book on lettering (Blairs, if you can) but one with lots of alphabets and lots of sizes. If you get a letter job, get some onionskin paper and space the letters correctly by tracing it till it looks right.
Don’t ever admit that you can’t do anything on Earth, you can if you try. Scout round and see how other people handled it and then pitch into it.
I take anything. I’ve drawn kitchen stores and brass monkeys and I don’t hesitate an instant. Never flicker an eyelash no matter what they spring. I say somethings, “I have a number of ideas. Let me feel around with roughouts till I see which will fill the space best.” And, in taking a job, never fail to ask, “When do you have to have this?” Newspapers are like trains – you just can’t be late you know. You will win their hearts by always getting you stuff to them a little earlier than they say though they generally make it from 2 to 24 hours ahead of schedule at that for safety’s sake. So, if you get too hurried say to them, “You know, I can do much better work if I don’t have to rush it so can’t you let me have just a little bit longer?”
How I do wish I could be with you and start you off right. Once you get going, you can go anywhere in the world and earn a good living at commercial art. I have proved that and now is a wonderful time to start with the Christmas rush coming on.
III
This is part three and I have been delayed by hearing the death of dear grandma Lubbs of whom I know you’ve heard me speak. She was my good angel during months and months of anxiety and struggle and bitter headaches. Dorothy’s letter dropped the funeral notice into my hand and though I can’t yet realize that I’ll never see grandma gain. It has been a terrible shock. I feel as if I had been pounded and I couldn’t help getting more behind with my work than ever. So, now, I am working very hard to catch up again.
Dolores is married. Mrs. H Bryant now. She was painfully shy and never admitted to people that she was engaged till her wedding was announced. A girl chum of hers (whose husband disappeared some months ago, leaving her alone with two or three little children and believing him murdered) is taking a house or apartment and I may go to her instead of remaining where I am. I’m to see her Tuesday.
I have to go home now. It is late and _____ _____ has gone out of town a few days, leaving Sonny Boy with a young daughter _____ is a darling but I worry so because if any emergency arose, she is only a child herself after all.
I’ll write again soon. I do so love to hear from you and we may meet in Paris next fall. I have about a thousand in bank and bills out right now for another thousand and work averaging a hundred a week probably till after Christmas (maybe till after Easter) so I’m thinking of a trip around the world next fall. More next time.
To Bertha from Marie Schubert – (Date is approximate)
(First part missing)
Sunday –
My letters have to be of the installment variety it seems so here comes the second chapter.
You know when I first began with Hecht’s [Note: A large chain of department stores at the time] I was on the official role but the girls were jealous of my many privileges so after much trouble, I was put to punching a time clock. When I came in in the morning, when I went out to lunch, when I returned from lunch, when I went home. I couldn’t leave the building without a pass signed by my ”boss” and countersigned by the superintendent and so forth and so forth. Mr. Cassett got in the habit of sending me home early with a pass signed “business” and his assistant would punch my card for me at six o’clock. I had misgivings all the time that would start something unpleasant eventually but when my boss said, “go home” and I said, “WE are going to be spoken to some day severely I think if I do.” And he said, “Let them try it. Go on home to your kiddie.” What could I do? I went. Then the girls in the time keeper’s booth docked me for a quarter of a day when I went out on a pass signed by Mr. Cassett and marked by him, “business.” When I said, “Mr. Cassett, they have docked me,” he went berserker. I held my breath. He flew into the office of the “Highest One” where a conference was going on. It is next door to the advertising department. He slammed the door as he went in and I heard him simply “hollering” at them. He made a regular speech – said that because I was clever enough to finish my drawings quick by they were stupid enough to dock me – said I was conscientious and breaking my back right at that moment to save them from having to pay almost fifty dollars for inferior outside art work for their “sale” and, in return, they were rewarding me with such low down penny pinching cheap brainless foolishness as penalizing me for being a quick worker. He howled at them that to take a person of such highly specialized training and put her on a time clock basis was FUNNY. And he finished, “Does she punch the time clock? – I leave it to you – or doesn’t she?”
They answered in a chorus, “She does not.”
“Does she go home when she finishes her work?”
“She goes.”
So, now, I sail past the time clerks sometimes at three o’clock, take as long as I please for lunch and am altogether an eyesore to the girls who started the whole trouble.
There is a girl in the advertising department who tries to make a “buddy” of me. She is one of these born mischief makers. The time clerk girls use her for a “telephone” to send insulting messages. They know that she will dash up to me with any unpleasant remark they make so it relieved their feelings immensely to tell Miss Mullin that the “whole advertising department act like darned fools” and that “the artist is a stuck up pill” – that they’re “glad they aren’t geniuses if geniuses are such nuts.” It really is very comical for they are so polite to me. The other day, Miss Mullen flew in – all excited – and wanted to know if I had been “spoken to” about violating the dress regulation. As a matter of fact, some time ago when the question arose, I decided to “conform” although Mr. Casset said I need not. I am not out in the shop (you haven’t been told that I now have my own private studio with special electric lights, desk table, cushioned arm chair, file cabinet, materials galore and everything I ask for) and there really isn’t any reason for my dressing in navy blue except that the girls are jealous of my every privilege. However, I decided that I would wear navy blue and bought two navy blue dresses – one with a deep cape collar of navy and roman stripes – the other has a vest of vermillion velour.
Dress from 1924
You know I detest myself in navy blue anyways and thought I was being very virtuous to put my money in the unbecoming dresses just because I didn’t want to excite envy.
Well – in flew Miss Mullion – demanding if I had been spoken to about violating the dress regulations. I was amazed I said, “But I haven’t. I’ve worn only navy blue.” “But you have some color on it,” she said, “and they called me down for wearing an écru waist [Note: beige] instead of white and said they were going to speak to you.” (That was what she came to find out.) “Did they?” I said, “No.” “What are you going to say to them if they do?” (Just itching to carry back an insult to them from me.) I shrugged my shoulders. “What are you going to say?” I shrugged again and laughed. She said, “Well, they’re just jealous cats.”
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she went down and told them that I said so. However, it doesn’t annoy me in the least. When my boss heard that I might receive a calling down, he said, “Send ‘em in to me.”
My studio is just as comfortable as it can be made. (I even have a little electric device to heat water and I have hot tea with my lunch when I bring my own lunch as I prefer to do.) It has a north light. I see only the heads of the departments. The chief buyer, the superintendent, the manager and the more intelligent sort.
Everybody is just as pleasant to me as desired and I do love my work. I really do. It’s like playing paper dolls and being presented with fat checks every few days. The brains of the shop really defer to me, which does make such a difference in the atmosphere. It might have been so irksome.
I have been rereading your delightful letter. It did warm my heart so to find it waiting for me after my long hours downtown. It was just sweet of you to sympathize with my struggles and I certainly can sympathize with that horrid strange city feeling. I have been filled with real panic once or twice in times gone by just from that utter loneliness of being in a crowd of strangers.
It made me feel something of a “bluff” to have you praise my courage. Good gracious. I’m not brave and I’m certainly not a bit pious or resigned – I’m just seething with rebellion and all sorts of feelings that I suspect aren’t a bit Christian. I firmly believe that the meek shall inherit the Earth only when everybody else gets through with it. I’m furious with fate for every blow and I just wouldn’t admit that I was beaten if I were pounded to a jelly. I don’t know whether it’s pride or perversity or what but it isn’t courage. I’m sure because there have been more times than I like to think about when I couldn’t see any hope in the future and my heart has been sick.
One evening, I was just stamping along in a perfect fury. It was cold and bleak and I suddenly saw a big red light on the corner. In the chilly gloom, it shone out intensely hot and vivid and it seemed to me that I was so filled with passionate feeling that I ought to shine out just as flaming red and incandescent. It was during Sonny’s brief illness and I’m sure anybody who came anywhere near me should have received violent electric shocks and heard hissing noises and seen shooting sparks. So when anyone praises me, I feel that there is a misunderstanding somewhere for I cannot feel that I am a commendable character – on the contrary – I am very rebellious, weak, and human, and a meek and submissive spirit is not in me.
Dorothy, Catharine, and Elise Somebody have been reuniting Miss Critcher’s studio Sunday mornings. They had a Romanian Jewess who had posed for Henri. She had the bluest black hair, a natural complexion and a mouth the color of pomegranate flesh – that pale delicate pink – vivid but exquisite. They put her against a faded satin (between salmon and vermilion) background. It was stunning.
This week, they have a red haired girl in a yellow smock against silver gray.
I went down to see and came away nearer to the Demon driven state of mind than I would have believed considering the many things for which I have to be thankful. They had asked me to paint too – but Sunday is Ethele’s day off and there are a million little fiddling duties and a button here, a darn there, laundry lists, checks to be written and mailed, my hair to wash, dinner to prepare and twenty two pounds of wiggle tail to tended, lifted and rocked and washed and changed and fed and frolicked with – and so forth – there, too, my paints are in storage so I can’t paint. I can’t. The time is not yet.
So I do not see much of Dorothy and it does feel very lonely sometimes.
Congenial friends are a treasure indeed.
Which reminds me of what you say about men. You perhaps know that Hafiz several thousand years ago sang this – “In all this city, not one girl for me. Oh, girls and girls. But not the one I mean.”
I have often marveled at the number of utterly impossible men in this vale of tears. One feels like exclaiming with Napoleon, “My God how rare men are!”
I find some consolation in the thought that occasionally one finds a congenial spirit once or twice in a lifetime. I have found a girl or a man I felt I could talk to and trust to have the ideas of honor and beauty and life-in-general that I have. Though like you, I have had some very lonely moments in the midst of crowds of people. Hafiz speaks of “the immortal lonely ones.” So, perhaps there is hope for us.
Sunday after Thanksgiving Day
My dear – This is the third chapter – I had planned to use Thanksgiving Day to catch up on all my leftover affairs. Sew the button on Sonny’s shoe, darn the lace on his pillow cover, extend the vest in my new frock so that the silk lining would not shine out when I stooped over, write my sister and tell her what I thought of letting me go two whole weeks in suspense (and I still do not know if it’s a boy or a girl or – what its name???) and so forth and so on. But, as usual, my plans were knocked into a cocked hat.
The night before Thanksgiving, I received a telegram in the middle of the night – scared me horribly. Of course I thought something had gone wrong with my sister or her baby – not hearing a word has worried me. It was my brother Walter Mitchell saying his ship docked at New York instead of Charleston and he would spend Thanksgiving with me. I leaped into my cloths and dashed down to meet him (it was one o’clock) and the disturbance of uncle’s arrival roused Norman _____. So, on the whole, it was a wild night.
Thanksgiving Day, we went to see Lenore _____ in a David Belaco-adaptation of a French comedy in which a divorced-red-haired wife and a gutter snipe chorus girl struggle for the love of a rather nice man – sort of Bernard Shaw effect. I do not like to see women rowing over a man or pursuing him madly or wooing him and luring him and all that and I had my doubts of the kind of matrimonial life the poor chat would lead “ever afterward” with “that little devil” Kiki even if she did really love him wildly. However, she was entertaining even if she did walk out of her clothes and parade around very unconsciously in nothing much made of pink wash satin and she was pretty in a bizarre sort of way and everybody in the audience was wildly in love with her – she received I-didn’t-count-how-many curtain calls and at last, Mr. Belase himself came out and said how proud he was of his little girl.
It was wonderful to see Walter Mitchell again (after two years of traveling.) He is just back from abroad and the things he relates as everyday occurrences are very picturesque to me. All sorts of character studies in his casual descriptions of people. The French Admiral for instance who sucked snails out of their shells and was furious because, by mistake, the waiter presented him with the bill for Walter’s party. The Captain of the ship with whom Walter made a hit by permitting him to instruct Walter on various obvious naval issues. The mate (who holds a Captain’s or Master’s certificate and is only a mate because of the vast unemployment in Marine shipping just now) was always at daggers points with the Captain because the old man insisted on telling him how everything should be done.
The Hawaiians who mutinied and then accused the mate of sleeping on watch when brought before the court when the vessel docked in New York and the fight afterward as they came back to the ship for their belongings.
And so on and so forth – all in a day’s work for Walker but very entertaining to his big sister. The ship sailed for Africa and the Mediterranean cost. Walter was feeling quite virtuous for having renounced such a trip in order to go back to school (he is now a sophomore at Fla. University) and I think I would feel rather heroic myself if I had given up a trip like that to go back to school.
Speaking of traveling – Do you still think of Paris next summer with Dorothy? She talks of it constantly as something to look forward to, to build for, to hope and plan and save for, something worthwhile to do with this money she has earned so tediously. “Elise is going in June with an aunt and might make the trip with them if you are already there” – she says.
Dear me, here it is half past one and my mother-in-law expecting me over there this afternoon. Karl has taken Sonny Boy over this morning. Perhaps Dorothy has told you that one Sunday some time ago my mother-in-law got so irritated with that she told me to go home. I left her house of course – utterly dumbfounded. I didn’t know what I had said to make her so provoked and it seems like the last straw – with all I have to stand, and struggle with to have my husband’s mother unpleasant was just unbearable. I just couldn’t go to those two rooms which I now call home. I knew I would cry my eyes out if I went there feeling as I did and I had a busy days drawing before me Monday and had to save my eyes for that. So, I went to Dorothy’s.
And together we went to see Miss Perrie’s exhibit. Poor soul. She died deeply in debt and the proceeds of the exhibit were to be used to pay her bills.
And I dumped my woes on Dorothy who was very sweet and patient. I still do not know what I said I was sick to begin with and had run a great splinter through the sole of my shoe the day before into my foot which was very sore in consequence and my head was splitting with a headache from my eyes and I was wondering if I had to wear glasses when on Earth I could have my eyes examined without interfering too much with my work. I suppose Mrs. Rathvon thought I was complaining about having to work and casting reflections at Karl. That must be what was the matter. I cannot conceive any other reason why my saying that I ached all over would anger her. I did ache and just said no because it rather obtruded itself upon my mind and I didn’t mean to appear in a martyr’s role in the least. I hadn’t thought of such a thing. She said crossly that it was very amusing to hear a person who was never ill constantly telling how frail she was. I was surprised and I guess my jaw dropped with amazement as she went on to say that if I really felt so bad I’d better go home and that I never had been sick a day in my life and so forth and so on and as I stood there silent, I didn’t know what to say to that you know. She said, “Go on home.” And I turned without a word and went and she said “you’re not going home angry, I hope.” Not in an apologetic way but crossly – so I said, “no.” But I can’t tell you how it made me feel.
Two weeks later, she called up as if nothing had happened and chatted over the phone and – I chatted back – as if nothing had happened. It is very uncomfortable to go there now. I’m afraid some other quite innocent remark will stir her resentment and it is horrid not to be at least on terms of neutrality with one’s mother-in-law, it seemed to me she always tried to be nice to me and this was a shock – in fact, a blow.
I can’t feel that I quite deserved it though I suppose I should have spoken more guardedly. Though Heaven knows if I had felt like complaining of Karl I certainly would not have carried my grievances to his mother. Of course, I may err in my solution of her irritation. But, isn’t it tough to have that happen. I’ll never feel free to say what I think before her. I detest having to review each sentence before uttering it for fear of annoying or hurting over sensitive feelings. It is so lovely to say what one thinks and he assured that the listener knows you well enough to know you wouldn’t say slurry, spiteful, complaining, or sarcastic things, that your heart is in the right place, and you think no evil or malice.
I have been reading in the Literary Digest about Sargent’s paintings in Boston (how lucky you are) and about De Lazlo in the Rotogravure section of the Sunday papers – showing more of his not just “successful” but “triumphant” portraits. The man is a wonder and I don’t care how many Jarbells say he is “flashy” and “tricky” and things like that. I am like Dorothy, inclined to be “De Lazlo dizzio” (as her brother termed it.)
I am looking forward so to the contemporary artists’ exhibit at the Corcoran soon. I hope that the next or at the latest the one after next will have canvases of yours, mine, and Dorothy’s gracing it – it’s time some of us began “arriving.” Began evoluting into a professional. Do think up a picture and I’ll try to and I’ll urge Dorothy and let’s at least submit something and get started submitting and keep on submitting till we weary them or startle them into recognizing us as “contemporary” artists. Please let’s the three of us band together and bolster each other’s courage and see if we can’t surprise ourselves pleasantly by discovering that we are in the stage of “knowing, but knowing not that we know.”
Wouldn’t it be fun!
Bertha – there is so much that I’d like to chatter about but I have to snatch moments for any of my pleasures so that I feel that my letters are very disjointed and even incoherent. Perhaps the time will soon come when I will not be so hurried all the time then I’ll write you a “real” one instead of such patchworks.
There’s no use waiting for a space of time sufficient for writing all I have to tell you. So, I’m going to make a start and let it grow. Twenty minutes now and perhaps plenty minutes later on.
Where did I leave off and where shall I begin? I suppose I told you of the book I illustrated, Mother Goose Rhymes, adapted for use in the primary grades of school and as a reader. I simply adored doing it. It is difficult to realize how very inspiring Mother Goose can be. One would think it had been done to death but it never will be – it can’t. I turned out cover and _______ piece in color and over 25 illustrations in a month (doing all my regular accounts besides and part of the time Mr. Pavies’ besides, which was going some even for a Speed Queen. I admit that it was) and somehow managed to do stuff I was willing to sign.
Catherine Melton arrived out her just at the hectic finish of the book and I dashed about with her quite amazingly considering everything else I had to do. We had one wonderful meal at Twilight at the Cliff House, a silver and hyacinth blue Twilight outside a dark hulk of a Tramp ¬-steamer disappearing out to sea, and inside, a very subdued honey-colored glow of light and a stringed orchestra playing Kashmiri songs. It was most entrancing.
I hardly dare plan anything but I feel that anything is possible if I mortify my flesh by labor-unceasing and fix my hopes and struggle for that something like a Demon. I feel that I have learned to struggle like that, and perhaps if I fixed on some huge glittering goal, it might be a pleasure to fight like that with a fierce abandon.
My twenty minutes are up. Santa Claus has my nose to the grind stone just now. Hales Department Store have me already drawing toys every spare moment.
(More later.)
Sunday AM, at office.
Such hopeless quantities of work to do. I want get finished anyway so may as well take ten minutes and scribble a PostScript to my disjointed letter.
I fear my friends cannot understand how very, very much they do mean to me. I am forced by circumstances to scramble so that it is difficult to settle down and collect my thoughts sufficiently for a real letter and by the time I get around to the letter writing, so much has happened that I can’t put it all on paper.
You know in the commercial game, you cannot say to a client, “I am too busy to do your orders this week.” You lose the account instantly if you are ever “too busy” for them. Each client things his orders should have precedence over all others and I am in a dilemma. I have to do Mr. Davies stuff. He gives me a corner in his office you know rent free and helped me get started which meant so much. His work is the most exacting and of course pays less. Hales would take all my time from now till after Easter but they would have none at all through summer Wermen’s account pays best of all but is occasional all year round and Harr Wagner the publisher pays very fitfully but the work is marvelous experience. There are other accounts which for one reason or another I want to handle.
So I keep wildly violently busy and thank the Good Lord that I get enough so I don’t have to worry about money at any rate – and dream of a more leisurely _____ _____ later when I have saved some not for a rainy but for a sunny day.
To Bertha from Marie Schubert – Date is approximate
Dearest Bertha,
Perhaps Dorothy has told you how bad luck has piled upon back luck with me. How Karl [Note: Her husband] has not only been out of work since before Christmas but has discovered that he has been ruptured on the other side. (You know he nearly died of paralysis of the stomach following an operation for rupture several years ago.) We just feel terribly about it for even if he had the money and the time (six months at least to recover.) He still would hardly have the courage to undergo such an ordeal again and if he doesn’t, well it means that he never will be quite well and added to this I have been having the darndest time with my sprained back. It is nearly three months now it is not as bad as it was but it is still quite sufficiently trying.
However, all is well with the most adorable Sonny Boy in the world. He’s just a little blessing.
To continue my melancholy news however (I’m so sorry to have so much of it). Catherine Melton isn’t at all well. It’s nerves which is, it seems to me, harder to bear than some more specific ailment. One day, it’s a swollen face, the next it’s shooting pains in her arms and another day it’s a rash and always a profound depression. It really is a pity. She’s thinking of giving up her position. She won’t tell her brother or let anyone else tell him. Dorothy and I are quite worried over her condition.
The three of us went to the Washington Society exhibit at the Corcoran. This year they had awards medal and mentions. Felicia Howell took the medal (It’s funny and again it’s rather tragic but I think a number of Washington artists were much chagrined at this). The medal picture was a foreground full of complicated forests of masts and ropes and a little patch of still water seen thru them. Very difficult but not beautiful particularly, really no excuse for such a picture except to display technique. Sort of a trick painting. Interesting as pulling rabbits out of one’s sleeve or infants nursing bottoms out of a bachelor’s pocket or something equally astonishing.
Painting by Felicie Waldo Howell (1921)
And guess who took the First Honorable Mention! SaraH Munroe. Also a trick picture sort of a puzzle picture, little-dabs-of-paint effect which did have sunshine in it. The subject so far as I could make out was an original damsel wearing a parasol to serve tea to an ultra-modest maiden who sits absolutely devoid of pedal extremities in a bunch of shrubbery, or perhaps it is a ghost rising like Venus from some troubled waters, but it wears a hat (at least I thought it was a hat). Well, anyway. Louise Herron loathed it and Dorothy Davidson contended that she could see why it took a mention. The discussion was becoming gesticulatory when an absolute stranger who had studied art at school (“taken a course of some kind” you know) couldn’t help but joining in. The picture had shocked her to say nothing of the shock of finding that the jury had awarded it a mention. Catherine and I had nothing to contribute to the discussion other than shrugs, the interchange of hopeless glances, and dumb misery. Sarah also had “an invalid” hung on the flat wall. Poor creature! Not only an invalid but hopelessly deformed! If you could have seen what came out of her sleeve… Good night! Dante never dreamed of anything hopeless looking as that. She looked like one of Henrik Jensen’s characters and amateur’s rendition of “addio del Passato.” There’s one thing about Sarah’s stuff one notices it.
Painting by Sarah Sewell Munroe (Date unknown)
Let me see who else was there. Miss Critcher had two children-on-a-beach-by-the-sea. Both Catherine and Dorothy gave themselves away by exclaiming when I said, “Why it’s Miss Critcher’s. It’s different from her usual style isn’t it? _____ sakes hush! There she is right behind you!”
I hadn’t been enticing, merely remarking, but their tones made me involuntarily cast a guilty glance about. Do you suppose she heard and saw?
Jerry Tarnsworth was there with a quite remarkable head of a man (a large canvas) and Wynne Johnson with a little pleasant landscape. Gertrude Heilprin had two nice things, a strangely looking bouquet in a beautifully rendered glass receptacle and a portrait of Corinne Cunningham. (Who was strolling about with her friend, husband, by the way, and cut Dorothy and Catherine and they cut her back and were both amused and indignant.)
The picture which I liked far away best of all and wanted was a wee little jewel of snow scene “_____” by entrance of the hemicycle. It was signed by somebody I never heard of and every stroke and tone and line was just right.
A number of the, what I call, professional art students were represented and or once in her life, Leila Mechlin was astoundingly gracious to everybody. My word, she was positively flowery in her write up, said that Washington artists had in this exhibit taken leading places in the ranks of our foremost contemporary geniuses and so forth for half a page, with a personal hat on the head for nearly every exhibition. Karl insisted that somebody had presented her with a little bootlegged Christmas cheer. It is certain that such condescension is unique in my knowledge of her career as a critic.
Everybody went about beaming and congratulating everybody else and the atmosphere radiated and wriggled with joy.
By the way, one of these Greenwich village effects explaining art to a blonde passed us on the way out (we had all been cordially requested to beat it by Mrs. Maier) and said to her, “that” pointing to the dancing maiden capering in the _____ draperies in front of the bull in the “Feast of Europa” (You know that big canvas in the room adjoin the hemicycle.) “That is the most beautiful female figure I’ve ever seen painted.” He would have continued but the blonde exclaimed gushingly, “yes, isn’t she dear!”
Catherine convulsed us by murmuring under her breath, “she’s a perfect pet!”
Speaking of pictures, Catherine wore a leaf brown coat with a jet black fur collar and a white camelia, a black hat (which shaded her eyes) across the top which was deaped the most delicious shade of velvet. I don’t know whether it was vermillion or orange but somehow it had a silvery tone thru it that took off the glare of the red. And as we came home at sunset, there was a golden light on one side of her face and twilight blue lights not shadows on the other side and I felt the long crushed desire to paint leaping up in me and that tantalizing miserable pleasure or pleasurable misery that feeling of “I could do something worthwhile if I could out down the beauty I can see and if I keep on trying maybe someday some happy day…?” I wonder…
Dorothy and I had quite a chat with Miss Millarde who tells us that Mr. Merryman is expecting an addition to his family soon. She told us her brother exclaimed at first view of his “infant. Oh, nurse. Haven’t you made a mistake?” And here is some news which comes I think two years too late. They are “never going to have that horrid Mr. Peiffer again!” It seems he has been putting all the models up to boosting their prices after their arrival here and the morning before beginning a pose. So poor Miss _____ has no choice but to pay it or do without a model till one can be telegraphed from New York and who may also boost the price upon arrival.
She also told us how Mr. Merryman is painting Secretary Daniels and what an amiable entertaining spirit he is and how a model the freshest of the fresh flounced in to have lunch with her (Miss M you know) and how she disposed of the creature. (This was not as snobbish as it sounds for the model was a terror.) Miss _____ said she could stand them almost any way but young bold ignorant and flip.
Speaking of models, it seems that a young woman accosted Mr. Mimmegerode in the school and asked if there was a free dispensary near as she had a fall and hurt her back, thinking her a student Mr. Mimmergerode took the greatest pains to the very most gracious thing and called up a friend (a physician and surgeon here) and told him that he was sending a “little friend” of his to be treated and “anything done for her would be a favor” to Mr. M and so forth. A little later, Mr. M was called to the phone and the physician’s wife (a happy spirit) wanted to know how long since Powell Minnegerode began taking such an interest in be backs of the models.
His “little friend” was a life model and talked volubly about how lovely Mr. M was to her. He’s been “living it down” ever since. Fancy it, Mr. M. Isn’t it lovely!
Speaking of Lee Daniels a few minutes ago reminded me of the furor at the Navy Department of which you have perhaps heard. The dear man retires in a din of battle. You know he has completely revised the whole “regulations” beginning by changing even the name of the book (for the better I think, U.S. Navy Regulations is less of a mouthful than Rules for Regulating the Government of the Navy of the United States) and then coolly sent the revised version to the Chief of “Operations” for his O.K. when he (Mr. See had struck out Chief of Operations a dozen time substituting Mr. Secretary in place of that outraged official – over and over again, the Secretary delegated to himself powers _____ vested in Board of Operations. They revised the M.S.S. and sent it back with “Secretary” struck out and “Chief of Board of Operations” replaced Mr. Secretary then once more revised it in his favor again, sent it to be printed and when the copies arrived instead of sending the to all the Bureau Chiefs and Rear Admirals etcetera. He merely handed a copy to each of his personal friends. Well, keeps the navy in fighting form.
I seem to be rambling on and on but before I finish I must tell you about last Sunday. Catherine had raved about Sonny Boy’s adorable little curves and dimples and so I called her to ask her to come over Sunday morning and see his fatness in the tub. He looks so darling splashing about and cooing in his bath, very paintable, rose leaf flesh tones in the bright water blue from the blue tub, his little reddish brown pompadour sitting up all over his topknot in wet little rings and his dark blue eyes so interested looking. So, as I said, I called her up and invited her to witness the bath. She said she would like to but that I reminded her that Laddie needed a bath so she couldn’t come.
Karl read a joke last night in the paper about friend husband reading to wifie about the millions of babies starving in Europe and China and wifie cries “_____ sakes that reminds me. I forgot to give fido his chop!”
To change the subject, there is the “original company of grand opera stars here this week at the national in Booth _____ “Monsieur Beaucaire” made into an operetta by a famous French composer. This company comes direct from London triumphs. I have always adored the story and considered it a masterpiece and I hope nothing will prevent me from hearing the musical version which I understand is excellent. It has always been a source of wonder to me that light opera and musical comedy should have such impossible plots or rather such a lack of plot. They are so patchy and helter-skelter and silly and farfetched as a rule. Dialogue and songs thrown together hit or miss and the kind of a story that it wouldn’t matter if the first act came last and the second act came first. It would be just as logical and certainly no more absurd one way than another.
Dear me, I’ve scratched upon a great deal of paper without saying anything of much importance I fear. At any rate, you will understand that the “spirit was willin’ even if the brains were feeble.” I’d love to have you at my _____ tea table just about now for I can still think of a number of things to chatter about. Add garrulity to an artistic temperament and result costs postage. So in order that stamps will leave space for the address I think. I’ll cork up my bottle and search for half a lemon to remove these mournful stains.
Take care of yourself and do write soon.
Loads of love, as always,
Marie
P.S.
Dolores’ address is “The Clearing” Ukiah, California. Catherine’s is 1911 Eye St., still, that apartment she hoped to get has not yet been vacated and she has almost given it up.
You have been in my thoughts so many, many times. I do hope this year has been, when all is told, a pleasant one for you. And this is to wish a happy and prosperous New Year.
So our friendship is nearing the half century mark; imagine that! Sometimes it seems a long while; other times it seems like yesterday. For example, when I picked up this card, it brought back so vividly a trip that we made once to Mount Vernon: Your mother, Sally, you and I. You were going to sketch; it was Springtime, Sally was “setting” your palette, and commented that you would need a lot of bright yellow – it was a golden day. I remember thinking that seeing the chair Washington sat in, and the curtains his wife embroidered, and all that, made it seem as if they just had stepped out and would return in a few moments. My-MY! I wonder what those “founders” would think of our USA, today???
I have been toiling, by fits and starts when the spirit moved me, to assemble a family history, with photographs. It proved to be enormously interesting to me, anyway. The rest of the clan have expressed interest, too. My Father was from the ancient regime nobility in Bohemia as it was struggling to win free from the hated “usurper” (Emperor Fraz Josef of Habsburg); his Mother was a lady from Poland whose family had emigrated to Bohemia when Russia, Prussia and Australia dismembered Poland. Father was educated at the University of Prague (Praha). My Mother’s Father was of Florida-pioneering Huguenot-French stock who fled from Normandy in 1597 and escaped the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Night (1578). His ancestors settled on the Southeast coast of Florida. They were of Viking stock originally; sea-fairing men; crusading ancestry. His (Grandfather Tancre’s) Mother was a lady from Holland; whose sister married a Prussian officer attached to the court of the German Emperor. Gran’pere was educated in the University of Leyden because Holland at that time was the haven for all Church Reformists being persecuted in Europe and England. Thus it came about that Gran’pere played as a child with Wilhelm von Hohenzollern [Note: A European royal, Wilhelm was once the heir presumptive to the Romanian throne.] – and followed “Willie’s” career with deep interest, thereafter. Gran’pere was snatched from school and conscripted into the French Army while still ‘teenaged, to fight as the Restoration of the French Kings gave way to Napoleon. He returned to France during the Civil War with his father as secret agents to the Court of Napoleon III trying to buy warships for Jefferson Davis (whose first wife) daughter of President Taylor, was Grandmother’s kinswoman; other cousins were General Cherman, and General Beauregard.
And speaking of Grandmother; Her Parents were a blend of British background, Down East Yankee, Puritans and Pilgrims (Mayflower, Nantucket Island, Gardiner’s Island, ect) with Cavaliers. My sister married a descendant of the second wife of Isaac Allerton (Feare Brewster) who was ancestress of the Balls (Mary Ball was Washington’s mother), the Lees, Taylors, ect. My branch of the family descended from Allerton’s first wife.
When you go ghost-hunting up a Family-tree, it gives you a fresh interest in history and geography. It makes you feel like a like in a chain-of-important-events – maybe just a tiny link, and inconspicuous in the chain, but it makes one wonder where it all leads. There must be some reason; some pattern; some over-all plan or goal for Mankind. It began in the mists of long-gone time, and will end no man knows when, where, or how?
One wonders about the next phase of existence, after this earthly one? I do feel that there is such an existence. Not only is it promised by seers, but science tells us energy can be transmuted from one aspect to another, but never destroyed… Life is a form of energy. One approaches the Unknowable at my age, and one speculates. I do not presume to try to imagine what it will be like – but I do know that I am not tremendously keep on the halo-and-harp promises. Wings are something else! And Heavenly harmonies sounds persuasive – I adore music. Was it dear Hopkinson Smith who postulated employment for artists in the Next World? Dawn and Sunset, and Autumn effects, and so on, for painters; cloud masses, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, and so forth for sculptors? I choose color.
Once more, Holiday Greetings, Best Wishes, and may the Lord take a liking to you.
