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ADOLF DEHN Midcentury Manhattan

P H I LI P E LI A SOP H FOREWORD BY HENRY ADAMS

T H E A R T I S T B O O K F O U N D AT I O N NE W YOR K

NORTH ADAMS

LONDON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FORE WORD

Philip Eliasoph and Adolf Dehn xi A DOLF DE HN’ S MANHATTAN: R HAPS ODY IN B LUE CHA P TE R I

1941: The Axis Spins—A Life of Art 1 CHA P TE R I I

Waterville, Minneapolis, Guardhouse Prison: Career versus Conscience 17 CHA P TE R I I I

Dangerous Girls: Expatriate Pleasures—“Le Crazy Years” 29 CHA P TE R I V

From the Crash to the A-Bomb: Art & the Politics of Culture 37 CHA P TE R V

Life’s Rita Hayworth, Cover Girl, and Adolf Dehn Inside: An American Pictorial 51 CHA P TE R V I

Caricature & Satire: “Babes” of Burlesque, High-Society Babbitts, Jitterbugging in Harlem 61 CHA P TE R V I I

Central Park: Nature’s Urban Canvas 87 CHA P TE R V I I I

Rhapsody in Blue: Subway, Skyscraper, Skyline 105 CHA P TE R I X

“So We Beat On” 115 P LATE S

Paintings and Drawings 127 Prints 147 Acknowledgments 165 Chronology 169 Collections 170 Exhibitions, 1915–2017 172 Selected Bibliography 175 Photography Credits 177 Index 178

“Adolf Dehn,” photographed by Irving Penn, New York, 1947. © The Irving Penn Foundation, New York, NY.

FOREWORD

Philip Eliasoph and Adolf Dehn

Adolf Dehn is one of those curious artistic figures who is both

urbane observer of New York has many fascinating twists,

famous and unknown. Most visitors to The Metropolitan

endowing his art with an emotional depth that belies its

Museum of Art would probably not recognize his name,

glossy, shimmering surface.

but over the last few decades his 1941 watercolor, Spring in Central Park, has become one of the best loved and most widely reproduced works in the museum. Its popularity completely overwhelms and overshadows that of many paintings in The Met by artists who are much more celebrated, such as Rembrandt and Picasso.

It seems that his mother’s encouragement of his early drawings led Dehn to think of becoming an artist, a profession that had never been practiced by any of his relatives or anyone he had ever encountered. Against all logic, he turned down two college scholarships, instead enrolling without financial support in the Minneapolis School of Art, where

Perhaps part of the watercolor’s immense appeal is that it

he excelled as an illustrator and cartoonist for the student

doesn’t seem to demand that we set it on a pedestal and

humor magazine. When America entered World War I, Dehn

think of it as art. It quietly slips into our lives. We respond

refused to serve and applied for status as a conscientious

to it as directly and unselfconsciously as we respond to

objector, a new concept at the time. His reward for this act of

Manhattan itself. We’re less interested in knowing who

conscience was imprisonment in a military prison. After this

made it than we are in taking a little walk into the world

ordeal, he embarked for Europe, where he joined the group

portrayed in the painting, to observe and delight in the

of American ex-patriots celebrated in Malcolm Cowley’s

variety of people joining us for the stroll: the father and

insightful memoir, Exile’s Return. The first stop was Vienna,

son walking their dog, the man reading a newspaper, the

where he had the good luck to make the acquaintance of

strutting soldiers, the couple sitting on the grass. We’re

Scofield Thayer, a wealthy Harvard graduate and the owner

so engaged by people watching and by identifying the

and editor of the most avant-garde magazine of this period,

various buildings—the Empire State Building and the

The Dial. Dehn thus joined the social circle of Thayer’s

Hotel Pierre—that it doesn’t occur to us to ask who made

gifted Harvard classmates, such as the novelist John Dos

the painting. To look at it is like absentmindedly flipping

Passos and the poet and painter E. E. Cummings, who

through the pages of The New Yorker and entering a deli-

became a particularly close friend. And he was exposed to

cious dream state.

the most adventurous modern art being created in Europe

The book you are holding by Philip Eliasoph puts a face on the faceless figure who created this masterpiece, the painter and printmaker Adolf Dehn—little-known today,

at the time, including not only the work of Matisse and Picasso, but also that of German Expressionists such as Max Pechstein and George Grosz.

though celebrated in his lifetime. Dehn’s artistic pathway

When he returned from Europe in 1929, the year of the great

to creating this delightful watercolor was surprisingly

financial crash, Dehn had developed a distinctive style of

circuitous. The painting has a quality that’s light, whim-

witty illustration, influenced by the work of Europeans such

sical, and urbane—it exudes the good-natured gentility

as Grosz and Jules Pascin, but unlike anything practiced in

of a gentleman to the manner born. Yet the creator of this

the United States—and nothing like the simpering effects of

marvelous design was born in rural Minnesota, the scion

popular American commercial illustrators at the time, such

of German immigrants. His journey from farm boy to

as Howard Chandler Christie and James Montgomery Flag.

Adolf Dehn, c. 1922. Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

1941: The Axis Spins—A Life of Art

“As American as a silo.” —Coronet magazine, 1937 3 “The Friar out of Rabelais . . . the sharp sophisticate . . . the serious artist . . . .” —Current Biography, 19414 “Perhaps a thousand years of non-representational painting . . . .” —Adolph Gottlieb, 1957 5

Adolf Dehn’s invigorating life (1895–1968) was tilled out of

Dehn conducted a lifelong observation of the city he made

southern Minnesota’s sedimentary soil. Enriched with

his permanent home. Rambling through New York City’s

the outwash of the last glacier 20,000 years ago, his birth-

parks and walking beneath its architectural landmarks, he

right tied him to the wheat- and barley-producing, bread-

surveyed this oddly configured “island of many hills,” called

basket dirt, sui generis of the American scene. From rolling

Mannahatta by the indigenous Lenape people. In a satirical

Midwestern farmlands to the rising silhouetted skyline

vein, he modernized the conviviality of Washington Irving’s

of Manhattan, he fulfilled his destiny by “crossing” the

Knickerbocker tales of rambunctious settlers gathering at

symbolic chasm of Walt Whitman’s East River ferry ride.

the tavern to “smoke a silent pipe . . . invariably drink a mug

His artistic technique tickled, scraped, and rubbed into

of cider . . . ” and repeat the “primitive manners of our Dutch

a metaphorical, lithographic stone, indelibly reflecting

forefathers.” 6 Dehn would contribute to this long-standing

the American scene. Once he adapted the watercolor

tradition, adding to New York’s tolerance for high satire and

medium—late in his career—his deftly handled brush

low caricature.

indisputably ranked him among the leading observers of New York City in the twentieth century.

More significantly, depicting Manhattan’s compression of towering skyscrapers, public spaces, and parks would become

From agrarian germination to urban decadence, Dehn’s

the ultimate canvas for exposing the frailties and foibles of

exploratory passage represents an archetype of the artistic

America’s greatest metropolis. Closely allied in their shared

seeker. Embarking on tramp steamers for adventures on

expatriate experiences from the Lost Generation in Paris, his

four continents sketching in European art capitals as well

friend Malcolm Cowley expressed Dehn’s attitude:

as in Afghanistan and India, Dehn instinctively reverted to the open spaces of Minnesota’s lakes and woods. To capture human nature, he confronted artistic prey in the besotted brothels of Berlin’s Weimar Republic and the cafés of Jazz-Age Paris, and came to survey Manhattan’s parks and burlesque theatres during the New Deal. But throughout, the simple pleasures of fishing in Lake Tetonka remained his true navigational north star. His art explores nature: humanity versus the virginal bounty of America’s

New York, to one returning from Paris or London, seems the least human of all the babylons. Its life is expressed in terms of geometry and mechanics: the height and cubical content of its buildings, the pressure that squeezes them upward like clay squeezed out between the fingers, the suction that empties one district to overcrowd another, the lines of force radiating from subway stations . . . .7

natural paradise.

Adolf Dehn and Mura Ziperovitch at the opera in Vienna, 1923. Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

III

Dangerous Girls: Expatriate Pleasures—“Le Crazy Years”

“Life in Paris is simply glorious.” —Adolf Dehn, 1928 121 “Gertrude and I are not on speaking terms.” —Leo Stein speaking to Dehn 122 “You will do things in America which haven’t been done . . . .” —George Grosz, 1923 123

Dehn’s extended sojourns and residencies throughout Europe

Europe. Through the distorted lens of time, it reminds us

between 1921 and 1929 formed the proving ground of

of Federico Fellini’s tender autobiographical film, Amacord

his early career. With Vienna, Berlin, and Paris as primary

(I Remember). Admitting that some of his recollections

locales, his early career took shape and he gained notoriety

might be slightly embellished after 45 years, Dehn remains

as the up-and-coming American satirist and printmaker.

the best raconteur of those glory years. The following

Ready to taste more, to fulfill his Minnesota-bred sense of

excerpt has been arranged chronologically to better serve

wanderlust, and “to starve more elegantly,” he states: “I

the presentation of information.

went over [to Europe] . . . . There I learned about living. It was a time, of course, when living in Vienna was fabulously cheap. In the early twenties it was just very, very cheap. And I could live well.” 124

In the year of 1921, of course, everyone dreamed of going to Europe. That’s all it was, a dream. But here’s the way things happened. I had this good friend . . . from the army. He was in the guardhouse with me . . . .

Setting out for Europe in third-class steerage, he departed

And I learned from him that you could live in Vienna

on a tramp steamer, The Zaylant, from Manhattan on

because of the complete financial depression that

October 15, 1921 and landed in Cherbourg after a tem-

they had in central Europe. You could live there with

pestuous, sickening week down in his bunk in the filth

dollars, well, with a few dollars a month . . . . So I

below deck. Touring around Europe, he soon found a very

managed to scrape up $90 for third-class steerage on

different approach to life. Living was cheap—he enjoyed

the old Zaylant. A ship that was built in about 1870

a full meal with wine at the Grand Hotel in Nuremberg

and was so old, such a ratty ship . . . . I got $60 from

for 15 cents—and he enjoyed the relaxed social culture.

The Dial and then The Liberator suddenly decided it

Dehn “never lacked any women . . . and he believed that

had some money. They got money back from the

Europeans were less squeamish about erotic satire than

government for a fine; I think it was $11,000.

Americans, with their long puritan heritage, and the liberated art environment made his struggles worthwhile.” 125

So Max Eastman says, Adolf here’s some money. So he paid me $40 for a cover and $10 for a drawing, so I

Combining youthful innocence and artistic adventures as

had $110 and I’d saved a little extra. So I finally sailed

he tasted life’s pleasures and pains out there “on the edge,”

for Europe . . . . The second day out a sheet of paper

Dehn’s 1966 Archives of American Art interview provides

told about the passengers in first class and the big

the most reliable firsthand account of his transition to

name on the list was John Singer Sargent . . . . If I had

Adolf Dehn with model in a photo shoot at Dehn’s E. 15th Street studio, c. 1947. Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

Caricature and Satire: “Babes” of Burlesque, High-Society Babbitts, Jitterbugging in Harlem “A man to uphold the traditions that have made the social columns . . . .” —Sinclair Lewis247 “To alleviate . . . the guilt of desire . . . .” —Kathleen Spies, on burlesque248 “The experiences of black-white couples are a miner’s canary . . . .” —Cardell K. Jacobson249 “The wrong place for the Right people.” —Clare Boothe Luce, author and politician250

“This is a stor y about New York and café society where men

was the same path taken by Fitzgerald’s alter-ego character,

are clever and women wear their wit like sables,” begins a

Nick Carraway, who also leaves Minnesota. As Carraway

long-forgotten short story by Sinclair Lewis.

explains, “I graduated from New Haven in 1915.”254 Offering

251

Manhattan

Madness was published in September 1941 in The American

a critical assessment, John Updike suggests that Lewis’s

Magazine, which has now disappeared from newsstands.

“satire, as more politically committed critics pointed out,

Examining the “gracious living” of a snobbish couple who

ends up in a kind of hopeless surrender to the values

are never counted among the “Wrong People,” Lewis drills

satirized. No wonder he could never make headway on the

into the cushy world of Mr. and Mrs. Mort—Sapper and

big labor novel that he contemplated for decades.”255 And in

Zinnia Mort—who “have an address instead of a home.

step with Dehn’s own circularity from hell-bent young

They live on the Upper East Side of New York, and there is

Socialist to mellowed commercialist, Lewis’s “novels have

no more respectable address in the world.” 252 This moral-

happy endings.” 256

izing fable is introduced with an editorial header as Lewis’s “unforgettable glimpse of American life as he whips the lid off of humanity—this time not in small-town ‘Main Street’— but in the heart of a big city.” 253 From this point of view, Dehn picked up his ink drawing pen, graphite pencil, and most notably, his black lithographic crayon to wage a war of indignation against pretentiousness, hubris, and complacency of all those “Right People.” Lewis was born 10 years before Dehn in Minnesota’s heartland, but many fascinating parallels brought them together late in life. Lewis came from rural Sauk Center, the mythical Gopher Prairie of his 1920 classic, Main Street, the geographic center of Minnesota’s high plains. Escaping at 21 from the small-town provincialism and narrow mindset of his youth, Lewis did manual labor at a Socialist community in New Jersey founded by Upton Sinclair. Lewis graduated from Yale in 1908, which perhaps not accidently

In 1947, an unidentified person unexpectedly phoned Dehn’s apartment at 230 East 15th Street. Living right next door, at 240 East 15th Street, was Reginald Marsh, Dehn’s drinking buddy and chum for their gallivanting adventures uptown in Harlem. This quaint, old brownstone walkup faced north, across from the Friends Academy School and Stuyvesant Park. A bland postwar apartment now stands in its place. Virginia Dehn recalled in her memoir how she had only recently moved in with her future husband: One day the phone rang—the voice said—“is this Adolf Dehn? This is Sinclair Lewis.” Adolf said: “yes, and I am Franklin Roosevelt.” Finally, Adolf said “I know someone who said he introduced you to one of your wives.” Lewis said: “no it was really so and so.” Anyway, Lewis wanted to come down and see Adolf—they became friends . . . . Lewis wanted to buy a trailer and proposed that he and

pathetically natured, graying, aging, voyeuristic male audience requires a clinically caustic application of cultural anthropology. The artist plays off the impossibility of older (and increasingly self-defining) men seduced by almost untouchably nubile fruit. No humor hits home with more impact than this self-critiquing admission of male desire and late-in-life inadequacies. Dehn’s burlesque “babes of Broadway” incorporates the totality of spectators and performers for his unsparingly comic derision. Rather than making the male gawkers into isolated figures of virtuous dignity, he lampoons them equally with the working girls on stage. As he inflicts his satire with equanimity and reciprocity, inevitably we ask: Who is mimicking whom? One might even imagine how Dehn sat next to Marsh sketching shoulder to shoulder and sharing the same perspective as they

Burlesque dancers perform in Leon Claxton’s “Harlem in Havana,” the groundbreaking

caricatured male audience members with humor and empathy.

“brown-skinned” touring revue popular with white audiences in the mid-twentieth

Kathleen Spies notes:

century. Photograph courtesy of the Harlem in Havana Project/Royal American Shows.

That Marsh focused so much of his composition on the

gazing” were no more visible or offensive than the blatant, Jim

audience indicates the centrality of this complex reaction

Crow racist imagery of popular culture and Hollywood films.

in communicating the bawdy flavor he strove to convey. . . to designate the viewing of his art, like burlesque shows, as a method of escape and invigoration. It was a means of dealing with a subject matter and style that could just as easily be read as grotesque and threatening.

Facing his 40s, Dehn defaulted to his more youthful gallivanting through the pleasures of the flesh, taking unapologetic delight in these burlesque shows with fetchingly seductive nightclub performers. As Patrick O’Brian observes in Picasso: A Biography, perhaps the aging master had a similar view of himself by the

For some viewers, it heightened and marked the mar-

winter of 1953–1954 (he was then 72) when he created an

ginality of these women and their world, but it also made

evocative set of sexualized prints. The images depicted “an old,

this realm more accessible, alleviating the guilt associ-

ludicrous man or woman or even a baboon, and many of his

ated with desire . . . . Together, the iconography of sex

models are full of eager sexuality. They are young, for the most

and humor signified the essential brand of fun that park

part, with all the insolence of their age; and the [print suite] can be

goers . . . [anticipated] . . . on their trips to Coney Island,

seen as a hymn to youth and beauty, or, from another point of view,

or that the businessman hoped for on his way to the bur-

as an obsession with the female body . . . what it amounted to for

lesque house—a type of entertainment that came to dif-

those who could read Picasso’s private report about old age and its

ferentiate the hours of play from those of work.

power of making one ugly, even repulsive, often stupid . . . about

297

Dehn’s art is at least a full generation before the time when

the inevitable reduction and defeat, the horror of the last.” 298

the objectification of women’s bodies was a critically perceived

Crossing yet another fragile boundary, Dehn became one of

art-world issue, if it was even considered at all. Ingrained with

Manhattan’s most prolific documentarians of Harlem, especially its

his Old Master training, he functioned within the framework of

rollicking jazz joints and dance halls. As the Harlem Renaissance

artistic license. From the time of ancient Earth Mother deities to

was a phenomenon of the 1920s, he was a latecomer to the scene

Renaissance and Baroque courtesans, the sexual politics of “male

with his animated drawings of the 1930s. The artistic explosion

America’s unique layering of Mississippi Delta Blues, Negro spirituals, and New Orleans–style jazz became a magnet for uptown blacks, midtown highbrows, and downtown working-class laborers, as well as artistic intellectuals like Dehn. The colloquial term “jazz” had been used even before World War I, but by the 1920s it became America’s first authentically indigenous contribution to world musical history. Its driving, relentless rhythms and nearly hypnotic motion are epitomized in Harlem Night (plate 22). To heighten each dancer’s legs, arms, and twisting torso, Dehn used his lithographic crayon with a post-Cubist angularity. Sweeping ballroom glissades and staccato Lindy Hop steps were blended into sharply pointed forms, repeated to intensify the frenetic momentum. Here, we see some of Dehn’s earliest application of a synthetic Cubo-Futuristic stylization. In their natural gestures and rhythms, Dehn’s black dancers form a dynamic fusion of Picasso’s maidens with Boccioni’s forms in space. Fig. VI.12. Blackbirds, 1932. Lithograph, 9 7/8 x 147/8 in. (25.1 x 37.8 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

For the black artists, musicians, politicians and entrepreneurs who converged on Harlem in the

connected authors and activists—James Baldwin, W.E.B. Du Bois,

1920s and created what came to be known as the

James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer—

Harlem Renaissance, it was a time when every-

with visual artists such as Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, and

thing seemed possible—a time, as a former resi-

William H. Johnson, and brought Manhattan’s black experience to

dent recalled, when it was “truly bliss to be alive.”

a highly sophisticated plateau. In the cauldron of Jazz Age Harlem,

Not only did blacks take pride in their African

American musical history reached levels of frenzied marathons as

heritage, pride in black folklore, pride in just

documented in Horace McCoy’s Los Angeles-based, 1935 novel

being black, but it also seemed natural to believe

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

that art could bridge the formidable gap between

“In Black Manhattan (1930), James Weldon Johnson estimated the number of Negro migrants from South to North . . . at roughly

the black and white worlds, that excellence and merit could produce social change.302

1.5 million,” notes Ann Douglas in Terrible Honesty: Mongrel

For a nickel subway fare (in 1948 it was increased to a dime),

Manhattan in the 1920s.299 “Between 1900 and 1930; the total

taking the Lexington Avenue IRT line uptown to Harlem’s 135th

number of Negroes in the North increased by almost 300 percent;

Street station was a passage from affluence to the almost foreign,

the black population of all American cities went from 22 percent in

exotic land of Harlem. In 1923, up on 142nd Street, English-born,

1900 to 40 percent in the 1930s.” 300 Observing how black culture

Irish-Catholic bootlegger Owney Madden opened the Cotton Club.

took root on the northernmost tip of Manhattan, she writes, “By

Hawking his “#1 beer” to an exclusively white, upper-class

the mid-1920s, Harlem was being advertised as the ‘Nightclub

audience, Madden lured affluent patrons with Cab Calloway, Lena

Capital of the World.’ About 125 nightclubs, led by the Cotton Club

Horne, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. Cotton Club (1948),

and Connie’s Inn, served up African American music and dancing

a watercolor done in 1948, is based on a lithograph from 1932,

to white patrons eager to enjoy a little regression back to jungle life

Blackbirds (fig. VI.12), which is among Dehn’s early Harlem

and to participate, if only as voyeurs, in what was palpably the most

nightclub scenes. Five strutting, singing, female African American

exciting entertainment scene America ever boasted.” 301

dancers captivate the audience’s attention by thrusting into the

Fig. VI.13. E. Simms Campbell, A Night-Club Map of Harlem, 1932. Ink drawing mounted on board, 16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 61 cm). Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

footlights. Taking special notice of their matching costumes, Dehn

exclusionary policies helped perpetuate widely held stereotypes

accented the performers’ red shoes, tutus, large, circular pendant

about African Americans.” 303

earrings, and open, lipsticked mouths. Towering blonde wigs frame their faces, which also exaggerate their wide-open eyes. The twisting, rubbery, fully astride dance routine hurtles forward with many capriciously formed spaces that unexpectedly link the push/pull effect.

For a white, Minnesota-bred, Greenwich Village radical artist like Dehn, these excursions were a form of cultural tourism—nightly visits to investigate, enjoy, and sketch an authentically rich black culture on Manhattan’s northern tip. Relishing these adventures, Dehn filled sketchbooks with the sights and sounds of the Savoy

Decorated with antebellum murals that include weeping willows,

Ballroom and the segregated Cotton Club. As seen in E. Simms

Madden designed the Cotton Club’s interior to be a “stylish

Campbell’s imaginative guide, A Night-Club Map of Harlem (fig.

plantation environment” for its clientele. “Dancers . . . had to be at

VI.13), curiosity seekers were given graphic evidence of why the

least 5’ 6” tall, light skinned with only a slight tan, and under

“joint was jumpin,’” as Fats Waller sang in his 1937 recording.304

twenty-one years of age. The oppressive segregation of the Cotton

Harlem was known as an African American “heaven,” even while it

Club was reinforced by its depiction of the African American

endured endemic poverty and social injustice. Sparked by a petty

employees as exotic savages or plantation residents . . . . [Its]

shoplifting crime committed by a 16-year-old black teenager,

Fig. VI.14. Swinging at the Savoy, 1941. Lithograph, 12 7/16 x 1713/16 in. (31.6 x 45.2 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

America’s first full-fledged race riot broke out on 125th Street

current white couture by creating their own excessively outsized

during March 19–20, 1935. In its aftermath, many downtown

versions of wide-brim hats with plumes, dangling furs, velvet-collar

whites became fearful of traveling uptown. Sadly, this forced some

Chesterfield coats, and tightly flared silk dresses topped with

black establishments such as the Cotton Club to reopen in the

baubles and bangles. Swinging at the Savoy (fig. VI.14) perfectly

heart of white midtown at 48th Street and Broadway.

incorporates these elements into its zigzagging, swaying tangle of

Unquestionably, Dehn traveled among the most compassionate advocates challenging America’s Jim Crow segregationist policies. This must preface any attempt to interpret his Harlem-based works that caricature black musicians and performers on stage, as well as the way he depicted upscale Harlem residents with exaggerated, flashy fashions. The more conservative styles for midtown—men’s and women’s fashions purchased at Gimbels, Macy’s, or Saks— were wildly imitated in Harlem’s versions. Blacks exaggerated

black dancers swinging to the escalating musical cadence. Known as the “world’s most beautiful ballroom,” the Savoy’s swagged curtains can be seen above the bandstand where top performers like Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman performed. To give an idea of how grand the original ballroom was, on any given night there was a staff of 90 employees, with men dressed in tuxedoes and ladies in formal ball gowns. “Stompin’ at the Savoy” is the 1934 Chick Webb jazz standard subsequently recorded in countless spin-offs.

“Central Park Lake, c. 1940.” Gelatin silver print. Photograph courtesy of the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY.

probably relate to during his Manhattan years: “That’s my Middle West—not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow . . . . I see now that this

Fig. VII.9. Central Park Lake and Skyline (Lake in Central Park), 1947. Lithograph, 8 3/4 x 13 5/16 in. (22.2 x 33.8 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

backdrop, this location—approximately at the intersection of East Drive, The Mall, and Traverse Road No. 1—became Dehn’s perch, so to speak, and repeatedly offered him an optimally modulated, compositional compromise for viewing nature and the city.

has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy

An exception to works created from these favored locations

and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed

is Central Park Lake and Skyline (Lake in Central Park), 1947

some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to

(fig. VII.9), which surveys an area more to the west and thus

Eastern life.”

drops the Central Park ridge of buildings far off into the distant

353

The technical details provided by Dehn’s sketchpads disclose his approach to his greatly prized series of watercolors, gouaches, and casein paintings devoted to the park. In these revealing sketches— the soliloquy within the artist’s head—we have the most direct current to his artistic consciousness. While it is unclear what initially compelled Dehn to position himself at his favorite sketching spots in the park, we can locate them within a specific area comprising a few hundred yards. With considerable accuracy, it is

horizon. As an integral element of the Olmsted and Vaux’s original “Greensward Plan,” the lake is among Central Park’s most beloved elements. Generations of New Yorkers rowed their first boat, proposed marriage, and lazily drifted through summer days on this iconic body of water depicted in countless artworks. The “stunningly and picturesque 18-acre lake was once nothing more than a large, untamed swamp. After its excavation in 1857, the lake was opened for its first winter of ice-skating in 1858.” 354

evident that almost every graphic and painted image hovers in the

The pencil drawing Central Park, July 7, 1957 (fig. VII.10), with

area between East Drive and The Mall; this would be the region of

boaters floating along in the foreground, reveals important cues

the park between 60th and 72nd streets. Knowing his proclivities

for Dehn. The carefully drawn study reminds the artist: “warm,

for integrating the park’s green space with an architectonic

Chrysler” and, “sky, light pink to grey luminous”; he wants a giant

Fig. VII.11. Untitled, n.d. Pencil sketch, 13 x 16 in. (33 x 40.6 cm). Fig. VII.10. Central Park, July 7, 1957, 1957. Pencil sketch, 113/4 x 18 in. (29.8 x 45.7 cm).

Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

cloud in the center “bigger”; and the old Essex House is to have a “green roof.” A later, untitled and undated park drawing (fig. VII.11) includes notations for clouds to have “glare,” rocks to be “gray blue,” and the grass to be “purple-green.” From the number of new, steel-shafted, flat-top, Modernist buildings on the horizon, we can see Manhattan’s crowded midtown as the corporate world’s international capital by the early 1960s. When Dehn returned to his 21st Street studio downtown, he knew that these exact notations would serve as an essential aide-memoire. His sketchbooks, many of which can be found today at The Butler Institute of American Art, emphasize this working method. With the improved financial stability that resulted from his commercial illustration projects and healthy gallery sales, Adolf and Virginia purchased a four-story brick town house at 443 West 21st Street in 1953. The Journal of the Archives of American Art published a short article about their studio home in 1964, comparing it to the “grand ateliers of British Royal Academicians . . . with

Fig. VII.12. Adolf Dehn in his 21st Street studio, c. 1960. Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

classical statuary, medieval suits of armor, Persian rugs, marble fireplaces, and carved chests.” 355 While not so opulent, the Dehns’

sixty-six feet around three walls of a space otherwise informal,

well-furnished residence and studio (fig. VII.12) featured a “con-

workmanlike . . . . Enjoying for decades the affectionate esteem

tinuous cast of Phidias’s Athenian horsemen . . . . It stretches over

of New York art circles, Adolf Dehn is not the type to express his

Manhattan Harbor, 1956. Casein, 28 x 42 in. (71.1 x 106.7 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

VIII Rhapsody in Blue: Subway, Skyscraper, Skyline

“No city will ever again dominate Western art . . . .” —From New York Modern: The Arts and the City, by William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff 363

“I felt the rhythms of American life . . . .” —George Gershwin364 “Lower Manhattan’s tall dazzle and the ship-lane waters . . . seethe past posturing Miss Liberty.” —Truman Capote365

Dehn’s vision of Manhattan was shared with fellow Minnesotan

Marsh) saw every restaurant, street corner, or park as a

F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote, “The city seen from

simmering intersection of social and sexual tension. Dehn’s

the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first

perspectives of the city were more variegated and expansive,

time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the

making it difficult to attach a signature style to his work.

beauty in the world.”

366

Another Midwesterner, born in

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, expressed her sense of enchanted awe: “One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt,” Georgia O’Keeffe explained.367 The world’s capital city presents a hurdle for any artist attempting to express its transcendent power. Dehn, as he daringly embraced

Dehn’s art interpreted the “elusive complexity and variety of [urban life].” 369 An active participant in the consolidation of Modernism as it shifted from Paris to New York, Dehn’s prolific portfolio of New York images is among the most significant documentations of the twentieth century.

that challenge, was propelled forward into the world’s

New York artists reflected, analyzed, and helped

greatest canvas of all. The introduction to William B. Scott

to construct their city. The locales and details

and Peter M. Rutkoff’s New York Modern: The Arts and the

of New York, with its bustling economy, diverse

City confidently claims that “no city will ever again dom-

peoples, and incipient egalitarianism, offered a

inate Western art, certainly not world art, as New York

vast array of subjects, which its artists depicted

did after World War II.”

from a variety of perspectives—narrative and

368

While surely not the first artist

to delve into the Manhattan’s spaces, hard-edged planes,

expressionist, factual and mythical, rhythmical

Cubistic structures, intersecting shapes, and moody shifts

and dissonant, formal and improvisational. Across

in light and shadow, Dehn explored the city’s offerings with

styles and mediums, New York artists addressed

remarkable alacrity and artistic skill.

modern urban life. They listened and responded

The Ashcan artists (Henri, Sloan, Bellows) looked at immigrants on their tenement stoops and back alleyways; Precisionists (Stella, Demuth, Sheeler, Lozowick, Ferris, O’Keeffe) imagined futuristic columns of steel forming a Machine Age land of Oz; the Social Realists (Soyer brothers,

to the cacophony of voices that echoed through the city’s bars and cafés, tenements and town houses, and skyscrapers and docks. They deemed New York the quintessential modern city, a microcosm of the contemporary world.370

Bishop, Gropper) explored theaters, sweat shops, and union

In the casein panel Manhattan Harbor (p. 104), Dehn mightily

halls; and the urban Regionalists (Hopper, Cadmus, du Bois,

captured Fitzgerald’s vision of “all the mystery and the beauty

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Paintings and Drawings

127

Plate 7. Six Dancers, 1941. Watercolor and conté crayon, 20 x 28 in. (50.8 x 71.1 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

Plate 8. Spring in Central Park, 1941. Watercolor on paper, 17 7/8 x 27 1/4 in. (45.4 x 69.2 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Fletcher Fund, 1941, 41.113ab.

135

Plate 14. The United Nations Building, 1954. Watercolor, 18 x 23 3/4 in. (45.7 x 60.3 cm). Plattsburgh State Art Museum, State University of New York, Plattsburgh, NY. Gift of Virginia Dehn and Harmon-Meek Gallery. opposite top:

Plate 15. Lower Manhattan, 1956–1957. Casein on Masonite, 29 1/2 x 60 in. (74.9 x 152.4 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

opposite bottom:

140

Plate 16. Untitled (Brooklyn Docks), 1956. Watercolor, 20 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

Plate 17. Central Park Winter, 1957. Oil, 24 1/2 x 55 in. (62.2 x 139.7 cm). Collection of Sarah and Elie Hirschfeld, New York, NY.

142

Plate 18. Park Silhouette, 1956. Watercolor, 21 x 28 3/4 in. (53.3 x 73 cm). Private collection, Washington, DC.

143

146

Prints

147

Plate 30. Burlesque Number, 1946. Lithograph, 9 13/16 x 7 3/16 in. (24.9 x 18.3 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

Plate 31. Black and White Ballet, 1949. Lithograph, 12 3/4 x 17 1/8 in. (32.4 x 43.5 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

157

Plate 34. Central Park, 1955. Lithograph, 9 5/8 x 135/8 in. (24.4 x 34.6 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

Plate 35. Grey Day (in Central Park), 1963. Lithograph, 15 1/2 x 23 1/4 in. (39.4 x 59.1 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

161

opposite top:

Plate 36. Central Park Winter, 1965. Lithograph, 14 7/8 x 23 5/8 in. (37.8 x 60 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

opposite bottom:

Plate 37. Central Park Winter, 1965. Lithograph in three colors, 14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

Plate 38. Cold Winter, 1965. Lithograph, 14 3/16 x 19 1/2 in. (36 x 49.5 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn.

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First Edition © 2017 The Artist Book Foundation Adolf Dehn’s Manhattan: Rhapsody in Blue © 2017 by Philip Eliasoph All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Convention. Except for legitimate excerpts customary in review or scholarly publications, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published in the United States by The Artist Book Foundation 1327 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247 Distributed in the United States, its territories and possessions, and Canada by ACC Distribution www.accdistribution.com/us Distributed outside North America by ACC Distribution www.accdistribution.com/uk Publisher and Executive Director: L. Pell van Breen Art Director: David Skolkin Design: Irene Cole Editors: Marisa Crumb, Deborah Thompson Proofreader: Nicole Barone Indexer: Barbara Smith Manufactured in Canada ISBN 978-0-9962007-1-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Eliasoph, Philip, author. | Adams, Henry, 1949- writer of foreword. Title: Adolf Dehn : midcentury Manhattan / Philip Eliasoph ; foreword by Henry Adams. Description: New York : Artist Book Foundation, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017039242 | ISBN 9780996200714 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Dehn, Adolf, 1895-1968--Criticism and interpretation. | Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)--In art. | New York (N.Y.)--In art. Classification: LCC N6537.D4355 E45 2018 | DDC 769.92--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039242 Publisher’s Note This information published herein represents the best possible available data about the artworks, collections, and events related to the life of Adolf Dehn. Although this book contains information verified by the artist’s estate, the author, and published data in libraries, archives, and museums, any inaccuracies regarding the artwork such as title, size, date, medium, or current collection are the result of incomplete records or information never documented. Cover: Spring in Central Park, plate 8. Frontispiece: New York Harbor, 1945. Pastel, 271/2 x 40 3/4 in. (69.8 x 103.5 cm). Collection of Barbara and Steven Hertzberg, Great Neck, NY. Photograph courtesy of Swann Galleries, New York, NY. Page ii–iii: Detail of Central Park Winter, plate 17. Page iv: Swinging at the Savoy, 1942. Watercolor, gouache, and charcoal on paper, 20 x 281/2 in. (50.8 x 72.4 cm). Estate of Adolf and Virginia Dehn. Page vi: Central Park South at Night, 1937. Photograph: Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

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