September Morn: Difference between revisions
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==History== |
==History== |
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Chabas first exhibited the painting in the [[Paris Salon]] of 1912, where it won a medal and was reasonably successful. There was no scandal in Paris, nor when a reproduction was published in ''[[Town & Country (magazine)|Town & Country]]'' afterwards.{{sfn|Green|Karolides|2009|p=506}} Sources are unclear as to the provenance of the painting after the Salon. The [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], current holder of the painting, writes that a New Yorker named Philip Ortiz had purchased the painting in late 1912; according to the museum, the painting was later acquired by Leon Mantacheff in 1913.{{sfn|MET, September Morn}} A 1935 article in the ''Montreal Gazette'', however, stated that the painting had yet to go to the United States, and that Chabas had sold ''September Morn'' directly to Mantacheff.{{sfn|The Montreal Gazette 1935}} |
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Chabas first exhibited the painting in the [[Paris Salon]] of 1912, where it won a medal and was reasonably successful. There was no scandal in Paris, nor when a reproduction was published in ''[[Town & Country (magazine)|Town & Country]]'' afterwards.{{sfn|Green|Karolides|2009|p=506}} <!--''September Morn'' was purchased by Philip Ortiz of New York later that year.{{sfn|MET, September Morn}}--> |
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==Controversy and popularity== |
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A full size reproduction of the painting was displayed in a window of Jackson and Stammelmeyer in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], in 1913.{{sfn|Green|Karolides|2009|p=506}} Then, it came to the attention of the mayor of the city, [[Carter Harrison, Jr.]], who charged Fred Jackson, the owner of the gallery, with indecency.{{sfn|Kendrick|1996|p=147}}{{sfn|The Milwaukee Journal 1913}} Throughout the city reproductions of the painting were banned This charge culminated in a court case to decide whether the painting was indecent. The Chicago Vice Committee argued that, as the woman was clearly committing the illegal act of bathing in public, ''September Morn'' had to be banned.{{sfn|Green|Karolides|2009|p=506}} |
A full size reproduction of the painting was displayed in a window of Jackson and Stammelmeyer in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], in 1913.{{sfn|Green|Karolides|2009|p=506}} Then, it came to the attention of the mayor of the city, [[Carter Harrison, Jr.]], who charged Fred Jackson, the owner of the gallery, with indecency.{{sfn|Kendrick|1996|p=147}}{{sfn|The Milwaukee Journal 1913}} Throughout the city reproductions of the painting were banned This charge culminated in a court case to decide whether the painting was indecent. The Chicago Vice Committee argued that, as the woman was clearly committing the illegal act of bathing in public, ''September Morn'' had to be banned.{{sfn|Green|Karolides|2009|p=506}} |
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Ultimately, Jackson won the case, and ''September Morn'' became famous. Reports of the case sometimes included the painting, though censored. Fred L. Boalt of ''[[The Seattle Star]]'', covering an exhibit of the painting, explained his newspaper's rationale thusly: "For humane as well as other reasons, [...] the ''Star'' artist has painted in a short petticoat. He didn't want to do it. He suffered. But we made him do it".{{sfn|Boalt|1913|p=1}} |
Ultimately, Jackson won the case, and ''September Morn'' became famous. Reports of the case sometimes included the painting, though censored. Fred L. Boalt of ''[[The Seattle Star]]'', covering an exhibit of the painting, explained his newspaper's rationale thusly: "For humane as well as other reasons, [...] the ''Star'' artist has painted in a short petticoat. He didn't want to do it. He suffered. But we made him do it".{{sfn|Boalt|1913|p=1}} |
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===New York |
===New York and fame=== |
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Further controversy arose, in New York, two months after the conclusion of the Chicago trial. [[Anthony Comstock]], head of the [[New York Society for the Suppression of Vice]] and nationally recognized for his campaigns against "smut", saw ''September Morn'' on display in the window of Braun & Company, a New York City art dealer on West 46th Street. Rushing inside, he raged "There's too little morn and too much maid! Take it out!".{{efn|Other versions are phrased "There's too little morning and too much maid!" {{harv|Monfried|1971|p=9}}, or include the further explanation "It ought to have been pitch dark for a girl to go wading like that" {{harv|The Tuscaloosa News 1937}}.}}{{Sfn|Shteir|2004|p=59}}{{sfn|Kendrick|1996|p=147}}{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} A clerk, James Kelly, removed the painting, but the gallery's owner reinstated it in the window upon his return.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} Ultimately, however, Comstock never pressed legal action.{{sfn|Kendrick|1996|p=147}} |
Further controversy arose, in New York, two months after the conclusion of the Chicago trial. [[Anthony Comstock]], head of the [[New York Society for the Suppression of Vice]] and nationally recognized for his campaigns against "smut", saw ''September Morn'' on display in the window of Braun & Company, a New York City art dealer on West 46th Street. Rushing inside, he raged "There's too little morn and too much maid! Take it out!".{{efn|Other versions are phrased "There's too little morning and too much maid!" {{harv|Monfried|1971|p=9}}, or include the further explanation "It ought to have been pitch dark for a girl to go wading like that" {{harv|The Tuscaloosa News 1937}}.}}{{Sfn|Shteir|2004|p=59}}{{sfn|Kendrick|1996|p=147}}{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} A clerk, James Kelly, removed the painting, but the gallery's owner reinstated it in the window upon his return.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} Ultimately, however, Comstock never pressed legal action.{{sfn|Kendrick|1996|p=147}} |
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===Subsequent history=== |
===Subsequent history=== |
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The oil baron Leon Mantacheff |
The oil baron Leon Mantacheff acquired ''September Morn'' in {{circa}} 1913, for a price of $10,000.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} He brought it with him to Russia, and after the outbreak of the [[October Revolution]] it was feared destroyed;{{sfn|Toledo Blade 1957}} after Mantacheff fled Russia, pieces of his sizeable collection considered to have artistic value were sent to museums, but there was no information regarding works such as ''September Morn''. By 1933 Chabas was seeking information regarding the painting's fate, which ''[[The Milwaukee Journal]]'' suggested to be "hanging in some crowded Russian room, its owner perhaps completely ignorant of its world fame".{{sfn|The Milwaukee Journal 1933}} |
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However, the painting was safe; Mantacheff had smuggled it out of the country |
However, the painting was safe; Mantacheff had smuggled it out of the country,{{Sfn|The Milwaukee Journal 1937}} reportedly "rip[ping] it out of it frame" when the revolution broke out.{{sfn|The Montreal Gazette 1935}} In the early 1930s, he sold ''September Morn'' to Armenian art collector and philanthropist [[Calouste Gulbenkian]] for $30,000;{{efn|The MET gives 1931 {{harv|MET, September Morn}} while a 1935 ''Montreal Gazette'' article states that the sale happened the preceding year {{harv|The Montreal Gazette 1935}}{{sfn|MET, September Morn}} it was discovered in his Paris home in 1935.{{sfn|The Montreal Gazette 1935}} By 1937 it was on display in the [[Musée du Luxembourg]], hung between a Raefelli and a Carriere.{{Sfn|The Milwaukee Journal 1937}} After Gulbenkian's death in 1955, the painting was acquired by Wildenstein & Company.{{sfn|MET, September Morn}} |
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''September Morn'' was purchased by the [[Philadelphia]] broker and sportsman William Coxe Wright for $22,000 in 1957.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}}{{sfn|MET, September Morn}} In April of that year he offered it to the [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]], but the painting was rejected for having "no relation to the stream of 20th century art".{{sfn|Beaver Valley Times 1957}} Eventually he anonymously donated the work – valued at an estimated $30,000 – to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York City.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} Speaking for the museum, Dudley T. Easby explained that, although the painting could not be classified as a masterpiece, it was nevertheless "a part of art history in view of the controversy that raged around the picture in earlier years".{{sfn|Toledo Blade 1957}} |
''September Morn'' was purchased by the [[Philadelphia]] broker and sportsman William Coxe Wright for $22,000 in 1957.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}}{{sfn|MET, September Morn}} In April of that year he offered it to the [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]], but the painting was rejected for having "no relation to the stream of 20th century art".{{sfn|Beaver Valley Times 1957}} Eventually he anonymously donated the work – valued at an estimated $30,000 – to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York City.{{sfn|Monfried|1971|p=9}} Speaking for the museum, Dudley T. Easby explained that, although the painting could not be classified as a masterpiece, it was nevertheless "a part of art history in view of the controversy that raged around the picture in earlier years".{{sfn|Toledo Blade 1957}} |
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|work=The Seattle Star |
|work=The Seattle Star |
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|accessdate=16 September 2014 |
|accessdate=16 September 2014 |
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*{{Cite news |
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|title=Chabas' Original Work Never in the US |
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|url=http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19350329&id=LpAuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QpkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2423,3894213 |
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|work=The Montreal Gazette |
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|date=29 March 1935 |
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|accessdate=17 September 2014 |
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|page=6 |
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|ref={{sfnRef|The Montreal Gazette 1935}} |
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*{{Cite news |
*{{Cite news |
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Revision as of 08:43, 18 September 2014
| September Morn | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Paul Émile Chabas |
| Year | 1912 |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 163.8 cm × 216.5 cm (64.5 in × 85.2 in) |
| Location | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
| Accession | 57.89 |
Matinée de Septembre (or September Morn) is a painting by the French artist Paul Émile Chabas (1869–1937). Painted over three summers ending in 1912, it became famous when it provoked a scandal in the USA.
Description and creation
September Morn depicts a young blond woman, standing at the edge of a lake.[1] She is sponge bathing.[2] The painting measures 163.8 by 216.5 centimetres (64.5 in × 85.2 in).[3]
This oil painting on canvas was completed by the French artist Paul Émile Chabas. He began work on September Morn in mid-1910, on the shores of Lake Annecy in Haute-Savoie.[4] On the first day of painting, the model entered the morning water and instinctively recoiled at its chilliness. Chabas approved of this pose, saying that it was "perfect". Over the next three summers he worked on the painting, half an hour a day. The work was ultimately completed on a September morning in 1912, giving the painting its name.[4]
Model
Chabas never identified his model.[1] Before his death in 1937, however, he did state that the model had since married a rich industrialist and had three children. This was in response to contemporary rumors that the model was living a life of poverty.[4]
Several women have claimed to be the model. In 1913, a Miss Louise Buckley, performing in Eugene, Oregon, claimed to have been the model, stating that she had been paid $1,000 and posed in the artist's studio.[5]
The age of the model has likewise been discussed. Chabas said that she was 16 when she posed for him.[4] Fae Brauer, discussing the painting within the context of indecent images of children, gives the subject's age at 11 to 13. She finds that Chabas deploys "specious body-concealing gestures" in the painting.[6][page needed]
History
Chabas first exhibited the painting in the Paris Salon of 1912, where it won a medal and was reasonably successful. There was no scandal in Paris, nor when a reproduction was published in Town & Country afterwards.[1] Sources are unclear as to the provenance of the painting after the Salon. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, current holder of the painting, writes that a New Yorker named Philip Ortiz had purchased the painting in late 1912; according to the museum, the painting was later acquired by Leon Mantacheff in 1913.[3] A 1935 article in the Montreal Gazette, however, stated that the painting had yet to go to the United States, and that Chabas had sold September Morn directly to Mantacheff.[7]
Controversy and popularity
Chicago
A full size reproduction of the painting was displayed in a window of Jackson and Stammelmeyer in Chicago, Illinois, in 1913.[1] Then, it came to the attention of the mayor of the city, Carter Harrison, Jr., who charged Fred Jackson, the owner of the gallery, with indecency.[8][9] Throughout the city reproductions of the painting were banned This charge culminated in a court case to decide whether the painting was indecent. The Chicago Vice Committee argued that, as the woman was clearly committing the illegal act of bathing in public, September Morn had to be banned.[1]
The case had come to trial by March 1913. In front of a jury, the city's art censor Jeremiah O'Connor argued that September Morn was lewd and thus should not be displayed in public, but rather only in a museum exhibition. Witnesses for the prosecution included censors, educators, and clergy, such as superintendent Ella Flagg Young. Jackson, acting as his own lawyer, highlighted the hypocrisy of censoring the painting while a nude statue of Diana could be found in front of the Montgomery Ward Building. He called upon painters, poets, and sculptors as his witnesses; The Milwaukee Journal reprinted one poem in defense of the painting.[a][9]
Ultimately, Jackson won the case, and September Morn became famous. Reports of the case sometimes included the painting, though censored. Fred L. Boalt of The Seattle Star, covering an exhibit of the painting, explained his newspaper's rationale thusly: "For humane as well as other reasons, [...] the Star artist has painted in a short petticoat. He didn't want to do it. He suffered. But we made him do it".[10]
New York and fame
Further controversy arose, in New York, two months after the conclusion of the Chicago trial. Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and nationally recognized for his campaigns against "smut", saw September Morn on display in the window of Braun & Company, a New York City art dealer on West 46th Street. Rushing inside, he raged "There's too little morn and too much maid! Take it out!".[b][2][8][4] A clerk, James Kelly, removed the painting, but the gallery's owner reinstated it in the window upon his return.[4] Ultimately, however, Comstock never pressed legal action.[8]
This controversy was highly covered in the press, and promoted polemics regarding the painting.[2] The interest in the work continued despite efforts of purity societies to ban reproductions, such as on postcards,[2] and the arrest of a New Orleans art dealer who displayed a reproduction.[1]
Lithograph copies of Summer Morn were popularly sold for over a decade, extending the success that followed the scandal. Reproductions were featured on a variety of products, including calenders, cigar bands, postcards, bottle openers, statuettes and candy boxes. A couplet referring to the painting, "Please don't think I'm bad or bold, but where its deep its awwful cold", was also widely circulated. Ultimately some 7 million reproductions were sold,[1] and the "steady stream" of reproductions continued into the late 1930s. Life deemed September Morn "one of the most familiar paintings in the world".[11]
Stage imitations of the painting were also created. In 1913, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. cast Ann Pennington as the model; in this version of September Morn, the subject bore a sheer cape, with leaves placed strategically over her body.[2] In Milwaukee, a man wearing "little or no clothing" passed himself off as "September Morn" in a 1915 state fair; he was brought to trial and fined $25.[12]
According to public relations pioneer Harry Reichenbach, he was responsible for the controversy – and resulting popularity – of September Morn. Having acquired the painting and brought it to New York, he hired "a small gallery of urchins" to lust over the painting, then called Comstock anonymously about it. He then worked towards maintaining interest in the work.[1] However, Reichenbach's claim has been questioned,[13] and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the current holder of the painting, does not include Reichenbach in its history of the painting's provenance.[3]
Subsequent history
The oil baron Leon Mantacheff acquired September Morn in c. 1913, for a price of $10,000.[4] He brought it with him to Russia, and after the outbreak of the October Revolution it was feared destroyed;[14] after Mantacheff fled Russia, pieces of his sizeable collection considered to have artistic value were sent to museums, but there was no information regarding works such as September Morn. By 1933 Chabas was seeking information regarding the painting's fate, which The Milwaukee Journal suggested to be "hanging in some crowded Russian room, its owner perhaps completely ignorant of its world fame".[15]
However, the painting was safe; Mantacheff had smuggled it out of the country,[16] reportedly "rip[ping] it out of it frame" when the revolution broke out.[7] In the early 1930s, he sold September Morn to Armenian art collector and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian for $30,000;{{efn|The MET gives 1931 (MET, September Morn) while a 1935 Montreal Gazette article states that the sale happened the preceding year (The Montreal Gazette 1935)[3] it was discovered in his Paris home in 1935.[7] By 1937 it was on display in the Musée du Luxembourg, hung between a Raefelli and a Carriere.[16] After Gulbenkian's death in 1955, the painting was acquired by Wildenstein & Company.[3]
September Morn was purchased by the Philadelphia broker and sportsman William Coxe Wright for $22,000 in 1957.[4][3] In April of that year he offered it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but the painting was rejected for having "no relation to the stream of 20th century art".[17] Eventually he anonymously donated the work – valued at an estimated $30,000 – to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York City.[4] Speaking for the museum, Dudley T. Easby explained that, although the painting could not be classified as a masterpiece, it was nevertheless "a part of art history in view of the controversy that raged around the picture in earlier years".[14]
After acquisition, the painting was displayed near the MET's front entrance, taking a place previously occupied by the Pérussis Altarpiece.[14]
After September Morn was acquired by the MET, it was displayed at several venues, including the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in 1958, the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio (also 1958), and by the Municipal Art Commission of Los Angeles in 1959.[3] In 1971, the MET took September Morn off display. Walter Monfried of The Milwaukee Journal wrote that the once-racy painting was now considered "too tame and banal" for display.[4] As of September 2014[update], it is not on display.[3]
Reception
Chabas described September Morn as "all I know of painting", and responded positively to statements that it was his masterpiece.[4] At the time of his death in 1937, when the original was still lost, Chabas had only a single picture in his room: a reproduction of the painting, completed from memory.[4] However, he did not receive any royalties from the marketing frenzy in the United States; he was later quoted as saying "Nobody was thoughtful enough even to send me a box of cigars".[4]
Explanatory notes
- ^ The poem quoted is as follows:
Sometime, glad time, in Arcady, I want
to live a day
With Joy's slim daughter of the dawn
to teach my love the way;
To live a day without the clothes, the
coin, the masquerade
That burden so the struggle here—of
hypocrites afraid.
Sometime, dear time, in Arcady, im-
mune from 'pure' police
I hope to find the picture true, that
caught its light from Greece;
To be as true to life, dear life, as is the
painter's dream
Within the dawning of the day where
new ideals gleam. - ^ Other versions are phrased "There's too little morning and too much maid!" (Monfried 1971, p. 9), or include the further explanation "It ought to have been pitch dark for a girl to go wading like that" (The Tuscaloosa News 1937).
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Green & Karolides 2009, p. 506.
- ^ a b c d e Shteir 2004, p. 59.
- ^ a b c d e f g h MET, September Morn.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Monfried 1971, p. 9.
- ^ Daily Guard 1913.
- ^ Brauer 2011.
- ^ a b c The Montreal Gazette 1935.
- ^ a b c Kendrick 1996, p. 147.
- ^ a b The Milwaukee Journal 1913.
- ^ Boalt 1913, p. 1.
- ^ Life 1937, Painter.
- ^ The Milwaukee Sentinal 1915.
- ^ Museum of Hoaxes: September Morn
- ^ a b c Toledo Blade 1957.
- ^ The Milwaukee Journal 1933.
- ^ a b The Milwaukee Journal 1937.
- ^ Beaver Valley Times 1957.
Works cited
- "A Male September Morn? No! Why, Yes!". The Milwaukee Sentinal. 18 September 1915. p. 3. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- "Beautiful Shivering Girl on Trial; Must September Morn Be Clothed?". The Milwaukee Journal. 21 March 1913. p. 6. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- Boalt, Fred L. (20 May 1913). "That Shameless Hussy Miss Morn Comes to Town; Poses in 2nd Ave. Window Where All May See". The Seattle Star. p. 1. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - "Chabas' Original Work Never in the US". The Montreal Gazette. 29 March 1935. p. 6. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- "Famed 'September Morn' Finds Niche". Toledo Blade. 28 August 1957. p. 9. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- Green, Jonathon; Karolides, Nicholas, eds. (2009). Encyclopedia of Censorship. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-1001-1.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Kendrick, Walter M. (1996). The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20729-5.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Monfried, Walter (1 December 1971). "'September Morn' Gets Cold Shoulder at Last". The Milwaukee Journal. p. 9. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - "Painter of 'September Morn' Dies at 68". Life. 2 (21): 53. 24 May 1937.
- "Quaker City Stubs 'September Morn'". Beaver Valley Times. 30 August 1957. p. 22. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- "September Morn". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 16 September 2014. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
- "'September Morn'". The Tuscaloosa News. 14 May 1937. p. 3. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- "'September Morn' Here". Eugene Daily Guard. 26 December 1913. p. 2. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- "'September Morn' Hides in Luxembourg Gallery". The Milwaukee Journal. 8 August 1937. p. 5. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- "'September Morn' Painting Missing". The Milwaukee Journal. 13 May 1933. p. 11. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
- Shteir, Rachel (2004). Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-802935-9.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Brauer, Fae (2011). "'Moral Girls' and 'Filles Fatales': The Fetishisation of Innocence". Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art. 10 (1): 122–143. ISSN 1443-4318.
{{cite journal}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help)