Archives of American Art Blog

Architecture, Interior Design, and “The Cubist Room” at the International Exhibition of Modern Art

FIGURE 1: Installation shot of the Cubist room, 1913 Armory Show, published in the New York Tribune, February 17, 1913 (p. 7) from the Walt Kuhn scrapbook documenting the Armory Show, 1913. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

The newly rediscovered Hagelstein Brothers photograph of “The Cubist Room” at the Armory Show (figure 1) provides clues as to what inspired the final floor plan of galleries at the 69^th Regiment Armory, as well as evidence of Walter Pach’s hand in designing the installation.

In the fall of 1912, Arthur B. Davies sent Walt Kuhn a letter that contained a drawing of a preliminary floor plan for the New York venue of the show (figure 2) that was composed of traditional rectangular or square rooms.

How then did the installation become the honeycomb–shaped design of polygonal galleries, shown in a blueprint (figure 3) and in the catalogue of the New York venue (figure 4)?

FIGURE 2: Armory Show floor plan, 1912 Oct. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

FIGURE 3: Blueprint of Armory Show floorplan, between 1912 and 1913. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

FIGURE 4: Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York, 1913. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

In the fall of 1912, the Cubist group of artists that included Raymond Duchamp–Villon, Jacques Villon, Marcel Duchamp, Albert Gleizes, Alexander Archipenko, and others held an exhibition called La Salon de “La Section d’Or” at the Galerie de la Boëtie in Paris (figure 5). Several works from this exhibition were chosen by Pach for the Armory Show including Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 (figure 1).

FIGURE 5: Exhibit catalog for Salon de "La Section d'Or", 1912. Walter Pach papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

FIGURE 6: Photo of Raymond Duchamp–Villon’s sculpture La Maison Cubiste, circa 1913 / unidentified photographer. Photographic print : 1 item ; 13 x 18 cm. Walter Pach papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Simultaneous to La Section d’Or was the 1912 Salon d’Automne in which La Maison Cubiste was displayed. The architectural façade was designed in a Cubist style by Duchamp–Villon. Visitors walked through the façade into rooms designed by André Mare. These rooms included Cubist paintings. Also Gleizes’s Man on a Balcony and Archipenko’s Family Life, which can be seen in “The Cubist Room” at the Armory Show (see figure 1).

Enter Walter Pach—he saw both Parisian exhibitions, knew all the artists involved, and selected all of the works seen in figure 1, including a plaster maquette of the façade of La Maison Cubiste by Duchamp–Villon (figure 6), as well as the paintings and sculptures that were shown at La Section d’Or and the 1912 Salon d’Automne. 

I believe that “The Cubist Room” at the Armory Show was a deliberate conflation of these Parisian exhibitions put together by Pach; no one else could have designed this installation.

Pach also wrote a pamphlet for the Armory Show, “A Sculptor’s Architecture” in which he discussed Raymond Duchamp–Villon’s La Maison Cubiste as exemplary of a new architectural style for the modern era.

I would suggest that change in the floor plan from traditional rectilinear rooms as proposed by Davies to the polygonal galleries was Pach’s idea and reflects his understanding of Duchamp–Villon’s vision of Cubist architecture.

Furthermore, I believe that the refracted shapes of the polygonal spaces could be read as a modernist floor plan and installation design that, together with the architectural façade, paintings, and sculptures in “The Cubist Room” in particular (figure 1), formed an ensemble showing how Cubist architecture, interior design, and art could be replicated in anyone’s home.

Guest blogger Laurette E. McCarthy is an independent scholar and curator. She is an authority on Walter Pach and a leading Armory Show scholar.

Explore more:

• 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, digital timeline
• The Story of the Armory Show, online exhibition on the Archives of American Art's website
• Walter Pach papers, 1957–1980
• Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, 1859-1978, bulk 1900-1949
• A Century After Their Initial Publication, Rediscovered Installation Shots of the 1913 Armory Show Come to Light by Laurette E. McCarthy
• The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913, February 17, 2013 – June 16, 2013 at the Montclair Art Museum
• The Armory Show at 100, October 11, 2013 – February 23, 2014 at the New York Historical Society

Timeline Reveals the Story of the 1913 Armory Show in Primary Sources

Did you ever draw a timeline? Perhaps as part of an elementary school social studies lesson? I have vivid childhood memories of using a ruler and pencil to craft my own perfectly straight line, punctuated by those all-important dates copied out of a textbook. The appealing simplicity of timelines–chronology made visual–endures in an online age; witness the way Facebook has co-opted the term and the concept. But a case in point dearer to my heart is the new digital exhibition that the Archives launched last week, 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources.

To learn more, visit 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources

Created in honor of the centennial of the International Exhibition of Modern Art, the first major exhibition of European modern art in the United States, the site uses an extensive timeline centered on the Armory Show as its principal entry point for understanding how the historic exhibition came to be. All manner of century-old digitized letters, postcards, photos, diaries, and documents slide past on a horizontal scroll that carries you from December 1911, the earliest meetings of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (the Armory Show’s organizing body) to the group’s dissolution in May 1914. The curated selection of documents from the show’s key organizers Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, and Walter Pach, among others, have been contextualized, categorized, and described with great dedication by the Archives of American Art’s staff.

We are delighted to share this new resource with you and hope you will let us know what you think on Twitter (#1913ArmoryShow), Facebook, Tumblr, or by posting a comment to the site.

Explore more:

• 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, digital timeline
• On the Anniversary of December 14th, by Kelly Quinn
• The Story of the Armory Show, online exhibition on the Archives of American Art's website
• A Century After Their Initial Publication, Rediscovered Installation Shots of the 1913 Armory Show Come to Light, by Laurette E. McCarthy

Sara Snyder is the Webmaster at the Archives of American Art.

On the Anniversary of December 14th

Association of American Painters and Sculptors meeting minutes, 1911 Dec. 19-1912 Jan. 2. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Association of American Painters and Sculptors meeting minutes, 1911 Dec. 19-1912 Jan. 2. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

One hundred and one years ago this week, a cadre of men convened in Manhattan. They wished to develop an exhibition of modern art to be presented in New York City. The meeting minutes, copied in a black and white marble covered composition book, summarized their aspirations succinctly:

On Dec. 14^th 1911, the following men: Messrs Henry Fitch Taylor, Jerome Myers, Elmer L. Mac Rae and Walt Kuhn met to discuss the possibilities of organizing a society for the purpose of exhibiting the works of progressive and live painters, both American and foreign; favoring such work usually neglected by current shows and especially interesting and instructive for the public.

One hundred years ago this week, also on December 14, Walt Kuhn wrote to Vera, his wife. His letter indicates how much their program had developed. He began by exclaiming, Every thing going gloriously! Kuhn continued, I’m simply in heaven with delight at the coming certain success.

Kuhn and others first discussed, then researched, prepared, and promoted the International Exhibition of Modern Art, more commonly known as the Armory Show. The show opened at the 69^th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue; it ran between February 17 and March 15. In the months following, the show traveled to Chicago then Boston. The Armory Show was one of the major events that marked the emergence of modernism in the United States. Kuhn himself predicted, This show, by will be the greatest modern show ever given any where on earth, as far as regards high standard of merit.

The Archives of American Art has been central to the historiography of this important development because of our extensive collections. Over the past six months, members of our staff have been working diligently on celebrating the upcoming centennial. Women and men in every department at both our Washington, DC and New York, NY offices have been pressed into service, tending to loans for exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum and New York Historical Society, developing our programs, which include a special edition of the Archives of American Art Journal, and a digital exhibition. In the mix, we often find ourselves working with a document that is precisely 100 years old to the day.

Armory show button, 1913. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Walt Kuhn, New York, N.Y. letter to Vera Kuhn, p. 3, 1912 Dec. 14. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Walt Kuhn’s letter to Vera is one such primary source. His letter brims with confidence and enthusiasm. I particularly like his three small sketches of the pine tree emblem for a banner and for buttons. He explained:

Taken from the old pine tree flag of the revolution. I got the idea one morning in bed. [Arthur B.] Davies made the drawing and we’ll have it on station[e]ry, catalogue, posters, and every where. We are going to have campaign button—here is the design—it will be about this size and very neat we are going to get them by the thousands give them to anybody from bums to bartenders—conductors etc. ought to make an immediate hit and get every body asking questions. This button business is a secret, and will have to be pulled off on the quiet, as some of the fellows might kick after they are out it’s no use to kick

Join us as we commemorate the centennial of this event, one that transformed the American art scene.

Explore more:

• 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, digital timeline
• The Story of the Armory Show, online exhibition on the Archives of American Art's website
• Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, 1859-1978, bulk 1900-1949
• A Century After Their Initial Publication, Rediscovered Installation Shots of the 1913 Armory Show Come to Light by Laurette E. McCarthy
• The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913, February 17, 2013 – June 16, 2013 at the Montclair Art Museum
• The Armory Show at 100, October 11, 2013 – February 23, 2014 at the New York Historical Society

Kelly Quinn is the Terra Foundation Project Manager for Online Scholarly and Educational Initiatives at the Archives of American Art.

A Century After Their Initial Publication, Rediscovered Installation Shots of the 1913 Armory Show Come to Light

Installation shot of the Cubist room, 1913 Armory Show, published in the New York Tribune, February 17, 1913 (p. 7)

Installation shot of the Matisse room, 1913 Armory Show, published in the New York Tribune, February 17, 1913 (p. 7)

Walt Kuhn scrapbook documenting the Armory Show, 1913. Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

I have been working on the life and work of Walter Pach–a painter and critic who was instrumental in the organization of the Foreign Section of the 1913 Armory Show–for nearly twenty years. My research began in graduate school with the encouragement and blessings of my dissertation advisers (the late Bill Homer and Bill Agee), and lately I have made especially important progress, starting with the biography of Pach I published in 2011. The coming centenary of the Armory Show, which opened on February 17, 1913, will, I am certain, bring him a lot of much-deserved attention from scholars and the public.

Three years ago, this outcome would have seemed unlikely to me. I began contacting museums in New York, Chicago, and Boston in summer 2009 to see if they had any plans for the centennial. Shockingly, not one museum had anything in the works. So I got in touch with Gail Stavitsky, with whom I had had the pleasure of working with on the Montclair Art Museum’s show Cézanne and American Modernism. She replied that the museum did not yet have any plans but probably should, and so we began work on what is culminating soon in “The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913” at the Montclair Art Museum, opening on February 17, 2013, exactly 100 years after the original exhibition.

Other projects got underway too. I contributed an essay to the forthcoming catalogue of the New-York Historical Society’s exhibition “The Armory Show at 100,” which opens in October 2013; and the Archives of American Art Journal commissioned me to write an essay reviewing new scholarship since the seventy-fifth anniversary in 1988.

I knew a lot about the Armory Show from Walter Pach’s perspective, but I still had a lot of research to do, and I began where I almost always start–the primary sources. Two lengthy research trips to Washington, D.C., resulted in many new “rediscoveries,” the most interesting of which was the identification and attribution of two installation photographs by Hagelstein Brothers, the official photographers for the Armory Show.

About a year ago, somewhere in my notes about some unmicrofilmed materials from the Archives of American Art's Research Center in Washington, D.C., I came across a reference: New-York Tribune, February 17, 1913, p. 7, 2 installation photographs.  Several months later, when I typed the title of the paper and the date into a search engine, much to my surprise, up popped the Library of Congress’s “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers” website with a hit for the February 17, 1913, edition of the New-York Tribune. Okay, I thought, it’s just going to be the same old images that have been reproduced ad infinitum, but they were not!

The photographs are actually pasted right into the first scrapbook of Armory Show press clippings that have been available at the Archives for decades, but because they are cut out and mounted sideways on the page—the compiler was obviously much more interested in the readability of the text—they are easy to miss. Newly digitized in their original layout, and expandable with a zoom function to a much larger size, the photographs are stunning; until now, they have been unrecognized for what they are: installation views of the Cubist room or “Chamber of Horrors,” as gallery “I” was called, and gallery “H,” or the Matisse room.

I knew immediately that these photographs, which a Duchamp scholar verified had not been reproduced since 1913, had to be included in my essay for the upcoming issue of the Archives of American Art Journal. And so, 100 years after they first appeared, these shots are being reproduced, again, for the first time since the opening day of the famed 1913 Armory Show.

Guest blogger Laurette E. McCarthy is an independent scholar and curator. She is an authority on Walter Pach and a leading Armory Show scholar.

Explore selected 1913 Armory Show-related resources at the Archives of American Art:

• 1913 Armory Show: the Story in Primary Sources, digital timeline
• On the Anniversary of December 14th, by Kelly Quinn
• The Story of the Armory Show, online exhibition on the Archives of American Art's website
• Walt Kuhn, Kuhn family papers, and Armory Show records, 1859-1978, bulk 1900-1949
• The story of the Armory Show / by Walt Kuhn, 1938
• 1913 Armory Show, 50th anniversary exhibition records, 1962-1963
• Armory Show (International Exhibition of Modern Art) memorabilia, 1913
• Walter Pach papers, 1857-1980
• Virginia Teague papers relating to the Armory Show, 1913-1952, bulk 1913-1917