The Société Anonyme’s First Exhibition of Modern Art
GUEST POST BY MARIANA AGUIRRE, Instituto De Investigaciones Estéticas (UNAM), Mexico City. (BIO BELOW.)
One hundred years ago today … The Société Anonyme was showcasing avant-garde movements in visual art for New York City audiences.
The Société inaugurated its first exhibition on April 30, 2020. Led by Katherine Dreier and Marcel Duchamp, the organization built upon Marius de Zayas’ and Alfred Stieglitz’ earlier efforts to introduce advanced art to New York. The First Exhibit of Modern Art, at 19 East 47th Street, featured works by Vincent Van Gogh, Jacques Villon (Duchamp’s brother), Joseph Stella, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, James Dougherty, Morton Schamberg, Constantin Brancusi, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Heinrich Vogler, Juan Gris, Marcel Duchamp, and Patrick-Henry Bruce. Most of the paintings or objects on view were either Cubist, Dadaist, or both, and unlike other initiatives to promote modern art, this project was led by artists rather than critics or commercial dealers, since Dreier was also a painter.
Flier for the First Exhibition of Modern Art, 1920. Yale University Library Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library .
The Société Anonyme allowed Duchamp and Dreier to shape and display her collection; they often referred to the exhibition as a museum. Although this project connected artists with potential buyers, its main impetus was to educate the public through exhibitions, talks, publications, and a small reference library. In order to support their endeavor, they charged an entrance fee, sold yearly admission cards, and accepted donations. This helped prepare the ground for later institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (1929).
Membership card for Marcel Duchamp’s father, 1920. Yale University Library Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The Société Anonyme avoided the post-war return to tradition and promoted modernism without relying on hierarchies or national schools. While Duchamp and Man Ray were close to Dada, Dreier adapted Herwarth Walden’s and Wassily Kandinsky’s approach to art. Kandinsky’s search for an abstract art that could resonate universally and his interest in music were influences, as were Walden’s gallery Der Sturm and its related publications and activities. During the Société Anonyme’s operation, Dreier often toured with portions of the collection and purchased works directly from artists, while Duchamp procured the works and maintained links with Europe. In 1924, he returned to Paris and continued to aid Dreier from abroad.
The Société Anonyme’s inaugural exhibition set the tone for its promotion of modernism at a time when important European artists turned towards tradition. Most of the works on view were paintings, but Duchamp exhibited one of his seminal pieces, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915-1923), which the critic Henry McBride describes as a return to narrative and workmanship that would nevertheless not please the academicians. Although its broken glass appears to have been the result of an accident, McBride claims that it was an intentional statement against labor.
Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915-1923). Philadelphia Museum of Art, gallery 282.
Duchamp’s large glass and his installation design take up most of McBride’s account, but the author also mentions several paintings by other artists, including an “admirable” work, likely Stella’s Brooklyn Bridge (1919-1920). He also refers to Man Ray’s Lamp Shade (1920) and Ribemont’s Silence (1915). The critic ties most of these works to Cubism, but Duchamp and Man Ray were closer to Dada at the time.
Joseph Stella, Brooklyn Bridge, 1919-1920. Yale University Art Gallery.
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Silence, 1915. Museum of Modern Art.
Jacques Villon, Still Life, 1912-1913. Yale University Art Gallery.
Although American audiences and critics often resisted modernism, Duchamp migrated to New York, whose cultural scene seemed fresher, during the war. He collaborated with other artists, with journalists such as McBride, and with collectors such as Dreier in order to form an informal, flexible, and nomadic institution. Although McBride’s review of the exhibition at times seems to question its pertinence, he mocks academic positions and was close to the Société Anonyme and its circle. His tongue-in-cheek article notes that the exhibit was a “shrine of Cubism” and that the cubists were in fact insulting the viewers, since their works were closer to vice than to virtue. This ambivalent tone is typical of New York Dada and was likely intended to provoke or amuse readers.
Excerpt of Henry McBride review. The Sun and New York Herald, 16 May, 1920, p. 40.
McBride’s review also described the exhibition, which was the first time Duchamp was involved with installation design. Unfortunately, there are no surviving photographs, but according to McBride, Duchamp covered the Société Anonyme’s walls with “pale bluish white oilcloth” and tinted the fireplace and moldings the same shade; he also covered the floors with grey ribbed plastic in order to trip academicians. The critic also praised the electroliers, or chandeliers, likely chosen or installed by Man Ray, who was in charge of the lighting. Duchamp’s alteration of the domestic interior and his contrast of masculine and feminine elements provoked what David Joselit has as referred to as an embodied defamilarization, since the ribbed floor likely forced visitors to walk differently. Additionally, Duchamp framed the paintings with lace, which contradicted his earlier decision to minimize the original decor’s domestic/feminine elements.
Jacques Villon, Figure, c. 1920, photographic postcard taken by Man Ray. Yale University Library Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library .
Katherine Dreier at the Société Anonyme, undated photograph. Yale University Library Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Subsequent to the inaugural exhibit, the Société Anonyme organized a major exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in 1926, which introduced the works of Piet Mondrian, El Lissitsky, and Joan Miró to local audiences. This was the largest modern art exhibit to be held in the United States since the 1913 Armory show, and it included 300 works by sixty artists from nineteen countries. Over 52,00 visitors saw it, and it traveled to three other cities. The Société Anonyme also organized important group and individual exhibits, as well as the aforementioned lecture tours; it also published books and exhibitions catalogs. This project continued to operate until 1950 or so, after which Dreier’s collection of modern works and related documents were donated to Yale University, since she and Duchamp felt that an educational institution would best continue their mission.
Despite Duchamp’s influence on modern and contemporary art, the Société Anonyme’s efforts to bring modernism to the United States have been overshadowed by the rise of Abstract Expressionism and the notion that modernism consolidated itself in this country after World War II. More importantly, Dreier’s collection and the Société Anonyme’s activities reveal that American modernism was largely fueled by foreigners and by children of recent immigrants, many of which pursued an internationalist agenda. Dreier came from a progressive family that supported women’s suffrage, for example, and she combined her cultural activities with political activism. Moreover, Duchamp’s ironic rejection of painting and the art world’s conventions helped the Société Anonyme avoid nationalist positions and set the basis for the canonization of New York Dada. In many ways, this project was a cross between an avant-garde group and a museum, and its flexible nature avoided the rigidity associated with large institutions.
Sources/Further reading:
Roni Feinstein. “‘The Societe Anonyme: Modernism for America’ at Hammer Museum,” Art In America, June 29, 2006.
Jennifer Gross. ”Curator Jennifer Gross on the Société Anonyme.” Yale Books Blog 28 February, 2013.
David Joseli. “The Artist Readymade: Marcel Duchamp and the Société Anonyme,” in Jennifer Gross, ed., The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.