DMA conservation project shines light on rare Steichen murals
Edward Steichen’s reputation as a pioneer of photography is an understatement at best, but his work as a painter is not as widely known. A rare exhibition and conservation project of his mural paintings, “In Exaltation of Flowers,” is on view at the Dallas Museum of Art through May 13.
The title of the murals might rather be called “In Exaltation of Friends,” as the subject matter of the project takes a biographical context, in that, the subjects come from Steichen’s circle of friends in a decidedly art deco presentation originally slated to be placed in the foyer of Eugene and Agnes Meyer’s New York townhouse.
The murals have only been shown in their entirety once in public at a 1915 exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York. The murals were never installed in the Meyers’ home. Financial difficulties forced the couple to sell the townhouse before the panels were installed.
Steichen, born in Luxembourg and later naturalized as a U.S. citizen, and his wife, Clara, neé Smith, frequently traveled to Europe, particularly Voulangis, France, to live and visit with a circle of friends that included photographer Alfred Stieglitz, Isadora Duncan, Arthur Carles, Katherine Rhodes and Steichen’s mistress, painter Marion H. Beckett.
The group often referred to itself as the “Magical Garden.”
Among those friends, financier Eugene Meyer and his wife, Agnes, often visited the home near Voulangis, which featured a beautiful garden where Steichen entertained guests. The Meyers were influential patrons and socialites within New York City’s avant-garde art and bohemian social scenes. Eugene would later serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, 1930-1933, and own The Washington Post from 1933 to 1950. Agnes formerly worked as a reporter for the New York Sun. It was likely during the couple’s honeymoon in Voulangis that the idea to commission a mural series for the Park Avenue townhouse was born.
The seven canvases are large, some 10 feet in height, and command a presence that makes you wonder about the size of the Meyers’ foyer. The styling and fashion of each has a futuristic, almost religious quality of Orthodox Christian iconography and the binding boundaries of a Gustav Klimt.
Yes — it’s that impressive.
The muted light in the Rachofsky Quadrant Gallery does justice to the panels with angled light that lets visitors see each piece tell a story while keeping the panels cohesively together like a giant storyboard of myth and beauty.
The canvases were created prior to World War I, between 1910-1911 (-ish. Two different DMA press releases have different start dates) and 1914, as a mural series to decorate the foyer of the Meyers’ townhouse on Park Avenue.
Edward Steichen’s “Rose” panel, part of “In Exaltation of Flowers” at the Dallas Museum of Art through May 13.
Steichen, at this point in his work, was still equally devoted to painting and photography. He had originally come to the United States for a lithography apprenticeship in Milwaukee at the age of 15.
In keeping with the aforementioned “Magical Garden,” Steichen’s friends often adopted flower counterparts. Beckett, for example, was “Petunia Beckett” and Rhodes and Carles were known as the “Geranium Club.”
Steichen immortalized his friends within the mural using a language of flowers. On each canvas, he placed the botanical specimens that aligned with his sitter’s dominant personality traits alongside their human counterpart. Steichen drew inspiration for these floral personifications from the book “The Intelligence of Flowers” (1907) by Symbolist poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. Steichen was also familiar with other standard Victorian publications devoted to the meanings of flowers, according to a DMA press release.
The group members used their floral nicknames in correspondence, and Steichen exploited this nomenclature in humorous and creative ways. Just like an inside joke, the meanings embedded in this decorative cycle were not readily apparent to those outside the Meyers’ social circle.
What is also impressive about the mural is the conservation effort that is a significant factor for the exhibition. The DMA began a two-stage treatment and a technical study of the canvases in the summer of 2017, with the first stage complete and the second stage continuing at the conclusion of the show in May.
All the panels except one had been stored rolled for many years. New stretchers and a lining to support the canvases were created, and they were each brushed, repaired, cleaned of grime and their paint stabilized.
Steichen’s playfulness within the murals show an insight to his painting that is later exemplified in his photography.
“Coleus — The Florence Meyer Poppy” was based from a sitting of the Meyers’ daughter Florence, and the poppy represents fruitfulness and wealth. Florence would follow her mother’ interest in art, becoming a protégé of Man Ray and an accomplished photographer of artists and celebrities of her time.
A particularly imposing panel is “Rose – Geranium,” featuring painter Katharine Rhoades. She was known to be boisterous, flamboyant and the one-time love interest of Alfred Stieglitz. She carries a piercing gaze that coalesces with Steichen’s characterization of a rose, signaling love and beauty, and the geranium for gentility and true friendship.
The panel shows Rhoades in repose bordered in areas with glinty-gold reminiscent of Klimt’s “Adele Bloch-Bauer” — while not as ornate or complicated as Klimt, the emerging patterns of light and dark within the gold show an artist creating movement in the piece.
Coincidently, Steichen’s career was just beginning as Klimt’s was coming to an unforeseen end in the 1918 worldwide Spanish Flu epidemic.
Another panel is cast with Steichen’s mistress, Marion Beckett. Shy by nature and quiet, the opposite of Rhoades, Beckett was considered a beauty of her day. Elusive, she avoided being photographed, even by her famous camera-wielding friends, Stieglitz and Steichen. Her retiring nature, however, did not prevent Steichen from featuring her front-and-center as the main figure in one of the two largest panels in the mural.
Although the exhibit is in one of the museum’s smaller galleries, it has much to digest — it is comfortable and one can easily spend an hour or more with the mural.
DMA is located the heart of downtown and offers free general admission.
The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., and until 9 p.m. on Thursdays.
For more information visit dma.org.
Stephan Malick, ISSUE staff writer