Henry James and Friends at the Morgan Library

An Interior in Venice (The Curtis Family) by John Singer Sargent, 1898. 
The Morgan Library and Museum is one of my favorite places in New York, and the arts at the turn of the last century is an era I love so I has very happy to visit a new exhibit at the Morgan called Henry James and American Painting. The great American writer Henry James, who lived mostly in London and Venice, was fascinated by artists and sculptors; in fact earlier in his career he had dabbled in painting and went to law school before he became a writer.
While he worked as a writer, he remained influenced by artists, and painted his scenes with words instead of brushstrokes. The exhibition at the Morgan explores James' friendships with artists and how they affected him. The show is co-curated by Irish author Colm Toibin, who wrote one of my very favorite books, the novel The Master, which is based on Henry James. Displayed in one room at the Morgan, the exhibit includes approximately fifty objects including paintings, watercolors, photographs, sculptures and manuscripts by artists John La Farge, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and more.

Sargent painted this 1913 portrait of James upon the occasion of the writer's 70th birthday –

I also liked this portrait of James in a snappy polka dot bow tie by Ellen Gertrude Emmet Rand from 1900 –

Delightfully, James and Sargent were close friends. The writer and the artist shared much in common too; both were born in the United States and lived in Europe, captured the wealthy society of the day elegantly and deliciously in their respective media, and hid their homosexuality.

The connection between James and Sargent is evident in the gorgeous painting pictured at the top of this post. Sargent painted his cousin Daniel Sargent Curtis and his wife at home in Venice in the Palazzo Barbero where James was a guest. In fact, James wrote some of The Aspern Papers at a desk that is still housed in the palazzo today. James was a big fan of the palazzo's stunning Baroque interior and included a description of the salon in his novel The Wings of the Dove. The writer loved Sargent's romantic portrait of the Curtises, and wrote that he "absolutely and without reserve adored it." Alas, this gorgeous painting was not successful at the time. Mrs. Curtis felt it made her look too old and that her son was posed too casually so she did not accept the gift of the painting from the Sargent.
Can you imagine?
This and more stories abound in this entertaining exhibition. For a gentle trip back in time, visit the James exhibit at the Morgan Library, through September 10th.

John Singer Sargent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Self-Portrait of John Singer Sargent from 1886.
TD and I ventured up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art recently to see an exhibition of John Singer Sargent paintings called Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends. I am huge fan of Sargent's and try to take in his work whenever I can. A few years ago TD and I took a trip to Cooperstown where we saw an exhibition of his works at the Fenimore Art Museum on the banks of Otsega Lake, and we made a video about it. Sargent had such a great eye for personalities and clothes and interiors; he made everything look elegant. This show at the Met is a collection of portraits of the artist's friends so they are not as formal and studied as the famous portraits which Sargent did for paying clients. These paintings are more intimate, spontaneous and experimental. Sargent's work is always refined and sophisticated, but these paintings are also relaxed and easy-going, which is a combination that I love.
This famous photo shows Sargent working in his studio. The paintings below in the wonderful show at the Met took Sargent out of the studio, to be with his friends.

There are about 90 works in the Met exhibit. These are a few of my favorites -
This is Claude Monet. I always picture Monet with a big white beard at his home in Giverny. I didn't know he looked like this in his younger days - kind like a bearded Williamsburg hipster.

Below is a charcoal sketch of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Yeats, the greatest English-speaking poet of his generation, lived in County Sligo in Ireland, which is where my great grandfather Dan O'Donnell was from. Yeats wrote a beautiful poem about a lake near Sligo called The Lake Isle of Innisfree. I love this drawing - was there ever a more handsome poet? The description notes that "Yeats cultivated his appearance as a poet and an aesthete, wearing a velvet coat and bow tie as a reminder of his elevated status as an artist."

Here is Claude Monet again, this time painting by the edge of a wood. I like his blue coat and his light grey pants. 

Here is a similar subject matter - this time it is artist Paul Helleu sketching with his wife. The painter concentrates on his work as his wife gazes off. His mouse brown coat contrasts with his light grey pants.

Here is another artist named Ambrogio Raffele, who is pictured in his hotel room as he considers his landscape painting which straddles the washstand and the bed. A hat and bed clothes are strewn over the bed linens as the artist surveys his work. What a charming way to live. 

The painting below, called A Dinner Table at Night, pictures the dining room at the home of Edith Vickers who is shown drinking a glass of port at the end of a meal. The silky ruby red lampshades cast a romantic glow over the scene. 

Lastly is one of my very favorite Sargents called An Interior in Venice from 1898. It shows the grand salon of the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice where Daniel Sargent Curtis (right) and his wife Ariana (center) lived. Standing at the rear are their son and his wife, both elegantly rendered in long lines. All are dressed in black and grey and white, and the vast space of the salon recedes back into the shadows as golden chandeliers and gilt frames hang overhead. Sargent painted this as a gift but Ariana refused the gift, feeling she looked too old and that the lounging pose of her son was indecorous.

In the gift shop I bought a book of the paintings, here pictured at home with little Bell on top of a Double RL Ralph Lauren scarf.

I enjoy looking at the paintings at home now and learning more about them. A trip to a Sargent exhibition to me is a trip back in time to a more cultured and aesthetic era. It's always inspiring and I find it comforting and reassuring. This show is up at the Met until October 4 - go if you can.

Edith Wharton at the Library: A Writing Life

I recently had the chance to sit in on a lecture at the beautiful New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street about the great American writer Edith Wharton. I have read a lot about Edith Wharton in the past so I was interested to attend the lecture which was giving by Robert Armitage, of the library's research division, and lasted one hour and forty five minutes.

Edith Wharton's career is an iconic American story because she, as artists do, completely invented herself. Edith Jones was born into the rigid upper class of Edwardian New York when women were expected and allowed to do nothing beyond marry and raise a family. Edith grew up in a mansion at 14 West 23rd Street, which is about exactly where our friend La Peckham lives now in a loft in a building that Robert Mapplethorpe once lived in. Edith was determined to be a writer but society and her mother discouraged her. "Her literary ambitions were ignored and scorned," noted Armitage. He told a story about how in one of Edith's early stories, a character wanted to tidy up a drawing room for a guest. Her mother read this and icily noted, "Drawing rooms are always tidy."

But Edith was undeterred in her drive to capture in words the Edwardian world of manners and style.
Edith Wharton in furs -

She became friends with many of the artists and writers of the day. Here she is with her friend Henry James on the left at her house in Lenox, Massachusetts, called The Mount, which is now a destination for visitors.

Edith married Edward "Teddy" Wharton, but is was an unhappy match.

Later Henry James introduced her to journalist William Morton Fullerton, with whom she had an intense love affair. Handsome.

For me as a reader it's always a pleasure to return to the refined world of Edith Wharton's novels and the elegance of Edwardian New York. I like Henry James too, but Wharton's writing to me is less flowery, less complicated, simpler, clearer, more American. But under the gilded surfaces of her rarified world are some very harsh stories and characters.  I recently read The Custom of the Country and I could barely finish it because the central character Undine Spragg, though noted for her great physical beauty, is completely unlikable. At the lecture Armitage described Undine as "vain, vulgar, self-absorbed and heartless." Her well-meaning husband is destroyed by her ambition and she gets her way in the end. Beneath the beauty and glamour is a tale that is tough to digest.

Edith of course persevered with her work and became one of the most highly regarded authors in American literature. Her novel Ethan Frome is required reading in many schools (we read it in New Hartford in seventh grade) and she won the Pulitzer Prize, the first woman to do so, in 1921. Armitage noted that Edith Wharton published 48 volumes in her career, which he said was two books a year. That's a lot of writing. With talent and determination she overcame her obstacles and pursued her art which is an inspiration in any age.

Chanel Resort 2010

Style.com reports that the new Chanel Resort collection was shown last week in Venice. Three hundred guests sat in wooden deck chairs on the Lido as waves lapped the shore. Karl Lagerfeld's collection was inspired by Venice in the earlier part of the last century. Style.com says that beginning in 1919, Coco Chanel visited Venice for almost ten years and there met Diaghilev, the creator of the brilliant Ballet Russe dance company. The clothes in the collection are a poetic rendering of the period but are modern too. I love clothes that don't really have a specific era -- that go back in time and can be worn in any period, and that's what Lagerfeld accomplished beautifully here. Navy blue and white has always been a favorite; once I had a great navy blue striped long-sleeved French sailor's shirt with a boat neck that I bought on Nantucket. I don't see them any more; back in the day you could get them at L.L. Bean and Army/Navy stores.
The Chanel collection started with a group portraying the mother and children in Death in Venice by novelist Thomas Mann, and then went on to a procession of timeless outfits creating a romantic Venetian dream that evokes Henry James and John Singer Sargent.