In November of 1912, Arthur B. Davies and Walt Kuhn, president and secretary of the
AAPS respectively, returned from their European acquisitions trip, with great
assistance from Walter Pach. Having scouted out the most avant-garde European
works they could find, they felt they had accomplished a major feat and were
returning with a “bombshell!” Securing works by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Rodin,
Gauguin, Kandinsky, Picabia, Munch and scores more, to be sent to New York for the
opening of the show in mere months, many for their first appearances in America,
they were returning home with boundless optimism, ideas and energy.
Later that month Davies reached out to artist Henry G. Keller (who included two
works), a worldly and well-connected painter and teacher based in Cleveland, and
the well-established artist Maurice Prendergast in New York (who included seven
works), asking them to spread the word and solicit American artists for the “most
serious and noncommercial” works. At the same time, there were articles and press
releases appearing in American papers about the AAPS’s forthcoming, bountiful
exhibition of the leading figures of the “new movement in art” abroad.
The 16 charter members of the AAPS would all be represented with works in the
Armory Show, with Davies submitting four oils and three pastels (lots 172-174) and
Kuhn two oils and three drawings (lots 168-170). Jerome Myers included three works
(lot 164) and his future wife, Ethel May Klinch Myers, with nine sculptures of local
New Yorkers (lot 224). From this core, they sought works by their best-known peers,
naturally reaching out to members of The Ten. These artists included Weir with 14
works, including etchings (lot 142); and Hassam with 12 works (lots 143-147); lending
credence, Davies felt, to the American selection.
From the Ashcan School, George Bellows (lots 149-156) and Edward Hopper (lot 211);
and all the members of The Eight (lots 148, 157-163, 166, 167) except Everett Shinn.
From the Stieglitz circle, John Marin included 10 works, including six recent
modernist watercolors of New York buildings, as well as his
Woolworth Building (the
Dance)
etching, 1913 (lots 208-210); Oscar Bluemner (lots 178-183); Marsden Hartley
(lot 213); Abraham Walkowitz (lots 184-188); and Elie Nadelman (lots 189-193) were
all included, and rightfully so as these artists were, up until this time, the only
Modernists who had previously exhibited in America. Notably, Max Weber was not
there (lots 194-196), as he withdrew his works shortly after their acceptance.
There were also younger artists, just beginning to make their mark; the Zorachs,
William and Marguerite, from the Provincetown Circle (lots 197-204); the Synchromist
Morgan Russell from California (lot 205); the Modernist Joseph Stella (lot 206); and
Bernard Karfoil (lots 221, 222). Stuart Davis was just 21-years-old and would soon
embark on a successful Cubistic career owing in great thanks to the Armory Show
(lot 212).
