Everybody Was So Young (60 page)

He was immediately enthralled . . . New York society:
GCM
to
SWM
, 9 Jun., 10 Jun., 15 Jun., and 18 Jun. 1919,
HMD
.

“one manor” . . . that very evening: Ibid., 9 Jul. 1919.

[>] in addition to her passion . . . coaching: Catalogue of the manuscript and rare book collections of Amy Lowell, Amy Lowell papers, HU.

[>] After dinner . . . “cordial and human”:
GCM
to
SWM
, 9 Jul. and 11 Jul. 1919,
HMD
.

[>] “to anticipate the need . . . evidence of it up here”: Ibid., 11 Jul. 1919.

“Who can we get . . . Columbia Trust Co.?”:
SWM
to
GCM
, 12 Jul. 1919,
HMD
.

“Nothing, I think”: Ibid., 15 Sept. 1919.

“exasperated . . . still in me”: Ibid.

“running the legs off his guests”: Ibid., 14 Jul. 1919.

Hoytie and Olga . . . “nothing but things”: Ibid., 16 Jul. 1919.

[>] “I believe in you . . . forbade you to?!”:
GCM
to
SWM
, 21 Jul. 1919,
HMD
.

And when her train . . . “glad that she wasn’t”:
SWM
to
GCM
, 24 Jul. 1919,
HMD
.

[>] “We need a new . . . outlook it gives one?”: Ibid., 15 Sept. 1919.

he had done unusually . . . courses in landscaping:
GCM
transcripts, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Her scrapbooks tell . . . properly:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

John Singer Sargent . . . Boston Museum of Fine Arts:
GCM
, Murphy/MacAgy papers, p.3.

[>] “He isn’t the real thing”: AMacL, Reflections, p. 42.

“I would like . . . well-laundered”: S&G, p. 9.

“the next-best Raphael I ever saw”: Crosby, Shadows of the Sun, 27 Jul. 1926. Gerald had been collecting . . . late nineteenth century: AMacL, Reflections, p. 93

Boston Public Library: In Living Well Is the Best Revenge, Calvin Tomkins reports that the source was old magazines; in a letter of May 29, 1964, to Douglas MacAgy,
GCM
insists he got the material from “original manuscripts” of “the drummer boy Higginson” in the Music Room of the Boston Public Library—an assertion also made by Honoria Donnelly in Sara & Gerald. There are, however, no such manuscripts in the Boston Public Library (and Higginson was no drummer boy, but the commander of a unit). Mrs. Gardner he mingled . . . “Motherless Child”:
HMD
interview; also S&G, p. 39.

The next day . . . bread-and-butter present: Isabella Stewart Gardner, guest book for May 12, 1921; copy of Afro-American Folk Songs: A Study, by Henry Edward Krehbiel, with card from Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Murphy, signed and inscribed by GCM; collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

[>] “Make a poet black”: Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel,” Color, p. 3.

Fats Waller:
FMB
interview.

“dissuaded by reactionaries”:
GCM
to
FMB
, 11 Nov. 1949.

“A little of Roerich’s virus”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

[>] In Connecticut . . . wisps in her scrapbook:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

“veering away from . . . Unsatisfactory”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

Gerald’s work . . . course assignments:
GCM
transcripts, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

“Cambridge in the early 1900s . . . ceased to be civilized”: Cowley, A Second Flowering, pp. 90–91.

essays by Harold Stearns: Harold Stearns, America and the Young Intellectual; discussed in Hoffman, The 20s, p. 27.

[>] Waldo Frank:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

“Whole departments”: Waldo Frank, Our America, quoted in Hoffman, The 20s, p. 31.

“a government that could pass”: LW, p. 21.

He and Sara . . . “old sandstone houses:
GCM
to Nancy Milford, quoted in Milford, Zelda, p. 105.

“feeling like aliens . . . steamer tickets”: Cowley, Exile’s Return, p. 6.

In Europe . . . $7, a year: LW, p. 21.

he hadn’t completed . . . his degree:
GCM
transcripts, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

[>] “Foreign Residents”: S&G, p. 8.

June 11, 1921 . . . SS Cedric:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

9. “An entirely new orbit”

[>] The summer of 1921 . . . parched and brown: Hester Pickman/
HMD
interview, Jul. 1981,
HMD
.

“didn’t seem to fill the bill”: SWM/CT interview,
HMD
.

September 3 . . . Étoile:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

But then they discovered . . . material for a book: Hester Pickman/
HMD
interview,
HMD
.

“overdressed”: Ibid.

So Gerald and Sara . . . rue Greuze:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

[>] “The thing I used . . . slaughtered”: AMacL, Reflections, p. 23.

[>] this first manifestation . . . delighted dadaists: Daix, Picasso, p. 172; and Wiser, The Crazy Years, pp. 40–41.

[>] walls were covered . . . wee hours: Wiser, The Crazy Years, p. 134.

program note . . . popular lexicon: Cronin, Paris, p. 63.

Now he celebrated . . . drop curtain by Picasso: The first two of these were revivals of productions that premiered at the Alhambra Theatre, London, in 1919; Le Chant du Rossignol had opened at the Opéra in February, so, strictly speaking, only Pulcinella was new.

[>] “The ground floor”: Hugo, Le Regard de la mémoire, p. 158 (my translation), conceived a hopeless crush . . . José Maria Sert: Gold and Fizdale, Misia, p. 233.

[>] l’emmerdeuse: Ibid.

“subjugation and domination”:
GCM
, quoted in S&G, p. 11.

“she knew everybody”: Noel Murphy/
HMD
interview,
HMD
.

A tall, long-faced . . . blue eyes: de Faucigny-Lucinge, Un gentilhomme cosmopolite, p. 105.

By the time . . . ill from anxiety: Ibid., p. 106.

“In India”: Gold and Fizdale, Misia, p. 239.

[>] “there was a stir”: Hugo, Le Regard de la mémoire, p. 206 (my translation).

“a world somewhere . . . men as women”: de Faucigny-Lucinge, Un gentilhomme cosmopolite, pp. 105 and 108 (my translation).

forthcoming sale . . . Picasso: Daix, Picasso, pp. 173, 176, and 178.

“There was . . . new orbit”:
GCM
, Murphy/MacAgy papers.

He couldn’t remember . . . that autumn day: Although Gerald told Calvin Tomkins that he saw all these artists in Paul Rosenberg’s gallery, that would have been impossible; Matisse was represented by Bernheim Jeune and Gris by Kahnweiler (as William Rubin points out in note 3, p. 44, The Paintings of Gerald Murphy), and their paintings would not have been hanging in Rosenberg’s window.

[>] “I was astounded . . . like to do”: GCM/CT interview,
HMD
. Quoted, with alterations, in LW, p. 25.

“a crazy Russian . . . and irresponsible childishness”:
SWM
to
GCM
, 16 Mar. 1918,
HMD
.

“charming, extraordinarily attractive”: Hester Pickman/
HMD
interview,
HMD
.

“She started us . . . non-representational”: GCM/CT interview,
HMD
.

They would subdivide . . . stronger ones less so: Rubin, The Paintings of Gerald Murphy, p. 9..

[>] “No apple on a dish”: SWM/CT interview,
HMD
.

The kind of art . . . simply pleased him: “Real objects which I admired had become for me abstractions, or objects in a world of abstractions,” wrote Gerald to Douglas MacAgy. “My hope was to somehow digest them along with purely abstract forms and re-present them.”

He and Sara and Hester . . . six months: MacAgy/Murphy papers.

“was still Mademoiselle”: Hester Pickman/
HMD
interview,
HMD
.

“a huge, blond” . . . all his work for him: Stravinsky and Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky, p. 111.

“how he rushed up”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

“a sad business”: Charnot, Gontcharova, p. 77 (my translation). Gerald and Sara couldn’t agree about why the scenery needed repainting: Gerald said later that a fire had destroyed all the company’s sets, but Sara maintained (SWM/CT interview) that “it was just used up, worn out.” The fire makes a better story, but there’s no record of this event; wear and tear makes more sense.

Would Mademoiselle . . . scenery shop?:
GCM
and SWM/CT interview,
HMD
.

“serious and trying work”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

Diaghilev’s atelier . . . proper perspective: GCM/CT interview, CT notes,
HMD
.

[>] “hovered,—but pleasantly”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

peering through . . . offer corrections:
GCM
and SWM/CT interview, HMD; also MacAgy/Murphy papers.

“A dark, powerful”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

“very attractive”: Hester Pickman/
HMD
interview,
HMD
.

“What are you all”: Ibid. S&G, p. 15, using the same source, says the location was the Opéra, but Pickman clearly places the conversation at the atelier.

“a sort of movement . . . discussed it with you”: GCM/CT interview,
HMD
. Sometimes the new recruits . . . fondly afterward: SWM/CT interview,
HMD
.

[>] Gerald’s quarters . . . other supplies: Description of the studio’s interior is from Ernest Hemingway, Item 648A, p. 14,
JFK
. The description of the exterior of the building, and the surrounding neighborhood, is based on personal observation.

[>] broad-brimmed black . . . Toulouse-Lautrec poster: Reminiscence of William Lord, Yale class of 1922, quoted in S&G, p. 10.

“I seemed to see . . . giant scale”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

[>] “iron, glass, concrete”: Louis Lozowick, “Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International,” Broom,
III
, Oct. 1922, pp. 232–34.

He called one of them . . . engine block: Although William Rubin’s catalogue for Murphy’s
MOMA
show in 1974 has become the accepted chronology of his works, I differ from it on a few significant points. One concerns the identification of Murphy’s first two paintings, listed in the catalogue of the Salon des Artistes Indépendents (34e Exposition) as Turbines and Pression. Without any visual record to guide him, Rubin posited, not illogically, that Turbines is the painting now known as Engine Room and that Pression (or Pressure) is lost. However, the arts journal Shadowland published an article on the 1922 Salon des Indépendents illustrated by a photograph of Turbines on which I have based my description; I therefore assume that the picture we know as Engine Room is the original Pression.

He worked on . . . oils on the canvas:
GCM
. MacAgy/Murphy papers.

[>] He had never . . . until that moment:
GCM
to Rudi Blesh, quoted in Blesh, Modern Art
USA
, p. 95.

They settled in . . . digging in the sand:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

“always had a great flair . . . crystalline water”: GCM/CT interview,
HMD
.

10. “A prince and a princess”

[>] “Think for a moment”: Allan Ross Macdougall, “Independence and Otherwise in Paris,” Shadowland, Jun. 1923.

[>] “cubistic studies of machinery”: Ibid.

“very personal . . . decorative effect”: “American Art in Salon,” New York Herald (Paris), 9 Feb 1923.

This four-day bazaar . . . American artist had arrived: “Foire de Nuit à Bullier,” Comoedia, 22 Feb. 1923, p. 2; and “Le Bal des Artistes Russes,” Comoedia, 25 Feb. 1923, p. 2.

[>] Seldes considered . . . sublime: Kammen, The Lively Arts, p. 96.

returned from the Cote d’Azur . . . Versailles:
SWM
scrapbooks,
HMD
.

Sara delighted in prowling . . . antiques shops:
SWM
to
FMB
, 15 Jan. 1952,
FMB
.

But it was small . . . rats on the stairs: GCM/CT interview;
HMD
. In addition,
GCM
mentions the remodeling in the MacAgy/Murphy papers.

It wouldn’t do . . . residence at Versailles: Although Honoria Donnelly maintains in her book that the family didn’t acquire the quai des Grands-Augustins apartment until the fall of 1925, other evidence contradicts this date. The catalogues for the Salon des Indépendents for 1923, 1924, and 1925 give Gerald Murphy’s address as 23 quai des Grands-Augustins; and
ESB
,
JDP
,
DOS
, and Gerald Murphy himself placed the Murphys on the quai in 1923.

And they could justify . . . in February:
SWM
tax return for 1923,
HMD
.

The Kamerny actors . . . set was wide: Hugo, Le Regard de la mémoire, p. 224.

[>] The Man Who Was Thursday . . . “out of the country”: This account of the Kamerny Theater, and of the Murphys’ dinner party, is drawn from
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

[>] “Once upon a time . . . be their friends”:
DOS
, By a Stroke of Luck! p. 117.

“Sara was obviously . . . brisk and preoccupied”:
JDP
, The Best Times, p. 145.

“an apostle”:
GCM
, MacAgy/Murphy papers.

[>] “tugs clustered”:
GCM
art notebook,
HMD
.

“The banks of the Seine”:
JDP
, The Best Times, p. 146.

“had never had . . . three little towheads”: Ibid., p. 147.

Donald Ogden Stewart . . . visitors mistook it for:
ESB
interview.

[>] Gerald said . . . pale green celery: Marcel Espiau, “Chez M. Gérard Murphy, peintre ‘bien américain,”’ L’Éclair, 18 Feb. 1924, p. 1.