Letters of Charles Demuth, American Artist, 1883-1935: With Assessments of His Work by His Contemporaries [Hardcover]

Charles Demuth (Author), Bruce Kellner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 13, 2000

Charles Demuth is widely recognized as one of the most significant American modernists. His precisionist cityscapes, exquisite flowers, and free-wheeling watercolors of vaudeville performers, homosexual bathhouses, and cabaret scenes hang in many of the country's most prestigious collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Demuth's Lancaster, Pennsylvania, family residence, now home of the Demuth Foundation. At a time when many American artists remained tied to Europe, Demuth 'Americanized' European modernism. This collection of 155 of his letters offers valuable views of the arts and letters colonies in Provincetown, New York, and Paris. Besides offering information on Demuth's own works, the letters also shed light on the output of his contemporaries, as well as references to their trips, liaisons, and idiosyncrasies. Demuth numbered among his correspondents some of the most famous artists and writers of his time, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Eugene O'Neill, John Reed, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, and William Carlos Williams. In his travels in the United States and abroad, he encountered many other talented contemporaries: Peggy Bacon, Muriel Draper, Marcel Duchamp, the Stettheimer sisters, artists and writers, patrons, and gallery owners. Whether he is offering to pick up a copy of Joyce's Ulysses for Eugene O'Neill or trying to convince Georgia O'Keeffe to decorate his music room ('just allow that red and yellow 'canna' one to spread until it fills the room'), Demuth is always in the thick of art and literary life. Flamboyant in attire but discreet in his homosexuality, Demuth also reveals in his letters the life of a talented homosexual in the teens and twenties. With his best friends Robert Locher and Marsden Hartley, he circulated through the art colonies of Greenwich Village, Provincetown, and Paris, meeting everyone. The book also contains reprints of some short appraisals of Demuth and his work that were published during his lifetime, long out of print, including pieces by A. E. Gallatin, Angela E. Hagen, Marsden Hartley, Helen Henderson, Henry McBride, Carl Van Vechten, Rita Wells, and Willard Huntington Wright. Bruce Kellner is Emeritus Professor of English, Millersville University, and a member of the Demuth Foundation Board of Directors. He is the author or editor of 10 other books.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Painter Charles Demuth's cubist still lifes, clean cityscapes and symbolically charged canvases (like "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold") brought European modernist techniques to unfussy American sights and sounds. Though his work has ample rewards of its own, Demuth was part of a loose network of some of the most famous artists and writers of his time, among them Alfred Stieglitz (who received the most letters here), Georgia O'Keeffe, William Carlos Williams, John Reed and Gertrude Stein. As these letters demonstrate, Demuth, who succumbed to diabetes at age 51 (though he was one of the first to take insulin), possessed a lively intelligence and a charming wit, one equally suited to serious art criticism and lighthearted gossip. Though Demuth made his permanent residence with his mother in her Lancaster, Pa., townhouse, he also spent gobs of time in New York, Paris and Provincetown, Mass. (where he had a hand in creating the Provincetown Playhouse made famous by Eugene O'Neill), from where he dispatched terse impressions: "Again, New York. Again, this & that." Though he liked to play the dandy, Demuth as a correspondent was not open about his sexuality. Supplementing the 155 letters (many quite brief) are largely forgotten appraisals of Demuth's work by his contemporaries--among others, Marsden Hartley, Carl Van Vechten and A.E. Gallatin. Editor Bruce Kellner, an emeritus professor of English at Pennsylvania's Millersville University, provides a lucid introduction to Demuth's life and to his work: this "fashionably high-stepping strutter" may be in for a big, deserved revival. (July)

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"Editor Bruce Kellner, an emeritus professor of English at Pennsylvania's Millersville University, provides a lucid introduction to Demuth's life and to his work: this 'fashionably high-stepping strutter' may be in for a big, deserved revival." --Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (June 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566397804
• ISBN-13: 978-1566397803
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,520,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Resource, December 14, 2009

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TH "Tabs" (Alabama) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Letters of Charles Demuth, American Artist, 1883-1935: With Assessments of His Work by His Contemporaries (Paperback)

This book is full of letters to all of Demuth's family and friends. It is sometimes hard to understand what it is that he means in his letters, there are brief and funny, without the corresponding letters of his friends. However the criticisms that were published by his associates and friends, especially those of Henry McBride, are well worth the money this book cost

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A modest insight, February 5, 2007

By 

Jose Sotolongo (Kingston, NY United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Letters of Charles Demuth, American Artist, 1883-1935: With Assessments of His Work by His Contemporaries (Paperback)

This is a compilation of the letters of one of the most accomplished watercolorists of the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, very little context is given by the editors for the letters' contents. A bit of research into the circumstances described in the letters would have given us some much-needed insight into his life.

Part of the problem is the fact that Demuth wrote about trivial things in his letters, and kept fairly private about his poor health, artistic frustrations, and his gay identity. There is precious little to read about this man, and this book is essential for anyone interested in this artist.