The "Stetties" in NYC

You know that phenomenon when a word or person you’ve never heard of before suddenly comes up multiple times, in different circumstances? And despite the coincidence, you feel somehow drawn to pay attention? Well, that’s what happened to me with “the Stetties.” First, there was an article in the New Yorker that I skimmed but didn’t pay much attention to. Then a friend wrote a blog about seeing the same Florine Stettheimer exhibit at the Jewish Museum referenced in the article, and since I was going to be in the city right before the exhibit closed, my interest was piqued. The final straw which mean I had to go, plus revisit the Museum of the City of New York, was that Florine, and her sister Carrie, were born and raised in Rochester.

"Cathedrals" at the Metropolitan Museum 

Charlie and I had some time to kill on a rainy morning, so we popped into the Metropolitan Museum, and in true serendipitous fashion, cruised through the Modern and Contemporary Art Collection on our way to lunch. What filled a complete wall? Four enormous paintings by Florine! They were her “Cathedral” series – of Art, Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, and Broadway. She also designed the frames and depicted herself in the scenes (both of which she frequently did). In this gallery, it’s easy to overlook the Stettheimers (despite their size), as you focus on more recognizable names and images – Picasso, Klee, Brancusi, Hopper, O’Keeffe… 

the Chintz Bedroom

The next afternoon I hoofed it up to the Museum of the City of New York, which houses Carrie’s dollhouse on the second floor. (I also watched the powerful 28-minute video about the evolution of the city, narrated by Stanley Tucci, which begins with the "displacement" of the indigenous people...) The two-story mansion not only has a staircase, but an elevator! Each room’s detail is exquisite, but I particularly liked the Chintz Bedroom, with its pattern on pattern design (she was ahead of that real-life decorating fashion, apparently). 

And, of course, the miniature artwork, mostly tucked in the ballroom, including Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase and Marguerite Zorach’s Bather. There’s even a tiny alabaster Venus by Gaston Lachaise in the courtyard just outside the ballroom, and a miniature mah- jongg set, made by Carrie herself, in the library. The attention to detail is incredible – no wonder it took her almost two decades to construct, and even then it wasn’t complete!

Duchamp and Zorach far left

Spring Sale at Bendel's

The only exhibit open at the Jewish Museum was the works of Florine Stettheimer. But what an all-consuming collection it was – not just paintings, but some of her whimsical poems, drawings and little figurines for a ballet she envisioned (which never got produced), and little figurines for Virgil Thompson’s opera Four Saints in Three Acts. My favorite painting was Spring Sale at Bendel’s, with its riot of color reflecting the frenzy of shopping, and the clever blending of the curtain into a woman’s dress.

drawings for the never-produced ballet

portrait of her sister Carrie,
with her doll house

Many of the works were on loan from Columbia University (although there were tags from museums all over, and a couple from private collections). As Columbia’s website boasts, it “holds the largest collection of the artist’s works.” Unfortunately, they are not accessible to the public, so they’ll probably never be on exhibit again in my lifetime. I wonder if Florine’s sister Ettie, a Barnard grad who bequeathed the collection, knew that would be their fate. The exhibit closes September 24, but this link will give you an idea of the scope of her work if you can’t get there in person:

http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/florine-stettheimer-painting-poetry