Mabel Dodge Luhan

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Portrait of Mabel Dodge Luhan by Carl Van Vechten, 1934.

Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan (pronounced LOO-hahn), née Ganson (26 February 1879 – 13 August 1962) was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.

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[edit] Early life

Mabel Ganson was the heiress of a wealthy banker from Buffalo, New York. Her first marriage, at the age of 21, was to Karl Evans, the son of a steamship owner in 1900. They had one son, and Karl died in a hunting accident two-and-half years later leaving her a widow at the age of 23.[1] In the Spring of 1904, her portrait was painted by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury for her paternal grandmother Nancy Ganson of Delaware Avenue in Buffalo. Later that year she married Edwin Dodge, a wealthy architect.

She was actively bisexual during her early life and frankly details her passionate physical encounters with young women in her autobiography Intimate Memories (1933).[2][3]

[edit] Florence

Mabel and Edwin lived in Florence from 1905 to 1912. At her palatial Medici villa — the Villa Curonia — in Arcetri, not far from Florence she entertained local artists, as well as Gertrude Stein, her brother Leo, Alice B. Toklas, and other visitors from Paris, including André Gide. A troubled liaison with her chauffeur led to two suicide attempts: the first was by eating figs with shards of glass; the second with laudanum.[1]

[edit] New York and Provincetown

In mid 1912, Mabel and Edwin (who by this time were becoming estranged) returned to America, and she began to set herself up as a patron of the arts, holding a weekly 'salon' in her new apartment at 23 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Often in attendance were such luminaries as Carl Van Vechten, Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Charles Demuth, "Big Bill" Haywood, Lincoln Steffens, and John Reed. Van Vechten took Dodge as the model for the character "Edith Dale" in his novel Peter Whiffle.

She was involved in mounting the Armory Show of new European Modern Art in 1913, and she published in pamphlet form a piece by Gertrude Stein, "Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia", which Mabel distributed at the exhibition. This brought her to public attention.

She sailed to Europe at the end of June 1913. Her new acquaintance John Reed ('Jack') — worn out from having recently organized the Paterson Pageant — travelled with her. They became lovers after arriving in Paris, where they socialized with Stein and Pablo Picasso. They moved down to the Villa Curonia, where the guests this time included Artur Rubinstein. At first this was a very happy time for the couple, but then tension grew between the two as Jack grew uncomfortable with the affluent isolation and Mabel saw his interests in the world of people and achievements as a rejection of her.[4] They returned to New York in late September 1913 and Jack moved into 23 Fifth Avenue. In 1914, they camped together in the dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, but the tension only grew worse and in late November Jack left. Later Mabel followed Jack as far as El Paso when he went to report on the insurgency in Mexico.[5] In 1915, she returned to Provincetown with painter Maurice Sterne.

Over 1914-16 a deep and continuing relationship developed between the intelligentsia of Greenwich Village and Provincetown. Jack Reed contributed to the start of the Provincetown Players, and Mabel had a rivalry with Mary Heaton Vorse.[6]

Mabel became a nationally syndicated columnist for the Hearst organization.[1]

Jack proposed marriage in January 1916, but she rejected him, and[4] moved to Finney Farm, a large Croton estate. Sterne, who was to become Mabel's third husband, was staying in a cottage behind the main house. Mabel offered Jack the third floor of the house as a writing studio; he moved in for a short period but the situation was untenable. Later that year, 1916, Mabel married Maurice.

[edit] Taos

In 1919 Mabel Dodge Sterne, her husband Maurice, and Elsie Clews Parsons moved to Taos, New Mexico[5] and started a literary colony there. On the advice of Tony Luhan, a Native American whom she would marry in 1923, she bought a 12-acre (49,000 m2) property. Tony set up a teepee in front of the small house and drummed there each night until Mabel came to him. Maurice bought a shotgun with the intention of chasing Tony off the property, but he was unable to use it, and simply took to insulting Mabel. Mabel sent Maurice away, and supported him with monthly payments until their divorce four years later.[1]

D. H. Lawrence, the English author, accepted an invitation from her to stay in Taos and he arrived, with Frieda his wife, in early September 1922. He had a fraught relationship with his hostess and wrote about this in his fiction. Mabel later published a memoir about his visit entitled, Lorenzo in Taos (1932).

Mabel and Tony hosted a number of influential artists and poets including Marsden Hartley, Arnold Ronnebeck, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck, Willa Cather and others.[7]

Mabel Dodge Luhan died at her home in Taos in 1962 and was buried in Kit Carson Cemetery. The Mabel Dodge Luhan House has been designated a national historic landmark and is a historic inn and conference center. Natalie Goldberg frequently teaches at Mabel Dodge Luhan House, where Dennis Hopper wrote the script for Easy Rider.

[edit] Archives

The Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers Collection—a collection of letters, manuscripts, photographs and personal papers documenting the life and works of Mabel Dodge Luhan—is housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. A portion of these are available online.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Byrne, Janet (1995), A Genius for Living: A biography of Frieda Lawrence, Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-1284-1 
  2. ^ Imhof, Robin (2002), "Salons", glbtq.com, http://www.glbtq.com/arts/salons,2.html, retrieved 2008-01-17 
  3. ^ Faderman, Lillian, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, Penguin Books Ltd, 1991, page 83. ISBN 0231074883
  4. ^ a b Rosenstone, Robert A. (1990), Romantic Revolutionary: A biography of John Reed, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-77938-X 
  5. ^ a b Stansell, Christine (2000), American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 0-8050-4847-2 
  6. ^ Manso, Peter (2002), Ptown, Simon & Schuster 
  7. ^ Lois Palken Rudnick. Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
  8. ^ Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Retrieved on 2009-07-08

[edit] Further reading

  • Rudnick, Lois Palken (1987): Mabel Dodge Luhan: New Woman, New Worlds Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0826309952
  • Rudnick, Lois Palken (1996). Utopian vistas : the Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American counterculture Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Dodge_Luhan"
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