The Circle

Dreier seems among those who initially opposed the inclusion of Fountain, but she later came to appreciate Duchamp's intentions. They struck up a friendship that lasted Dreier's lifetime, and he introduced her to the circle of progressive artists and poets which had formed around Walter Arensberg's house and given rise to the SIA.

The Arensberg's West 67th Street apartment contained works by Duchamp, Picasso, Braque, Gris, Miro and 19 Brancusi sculptures. Duchamp's 'Nude Descending a Staircase' (which the Arensbergs' bought from the Armory Show on the last day when they just happened by) was the centerpiece. Arensberg (a cryptology fanatic who shared mental and word games of all sorts with Duchamp) became a pivotal centre because of his extraordinary mind and instinctive comprehension of all that was stirring. The apartment contained the Avant-Garde in New York. Duchamp actually moved in to a small room and bath upstairs somewhere in the building, living in the Arensberg place most of the time.

Every night following the Armory Show there had been an influx of prominent French artists. Among the other members of the group were Man Ray, Picabia, William Carlos Williams, Mardsden Hartley, Mina Loy, Edgar Varase, Charles Demuth, Isadora Duncan and Charles Sheeler, who casts a more disparaging eye on the influx of draft-dodging Frenchmen on the make:

"CS: Yes. Well, they had a purpose in being there, I think, of course. Maybe that wouldn't include Duchamp but the majority of the others it was the hope of good picking, that is I mean to say pick up sponsors, you know....we would be in a gathering...and there was one fellow you'd see looking up and down if there were some people there that - women that represented means of some kind and so forth, looking up and down deciding whether the fur coat represented anything more substantial that might be picking, you know, sort of as taking inventory...A lot of that went on in those days. It made me sick.

MF: You're disillusioning me. That's good. What about Katherine Dreier? Didn't she get involved in this too?

CS: Well, she was madly in pursuit personally of...

MF: Duchamp?

CS: Marcel." ⁸

Sheeler also recounts one evening Isadora Duncan dropped by:

"...and, as she was leaving - Walter wasn't prepared for it - she threw her arms violently around his neck and her considerable avoirdupois and he wasn't prepared - she flattened him to the ground, they fell on the floor and when he got up two front teeth were missing. He was going around for several days this way with a handkerchief up to his face 'til he got repairs. But there were silly little things like that haven't anything to do with - of importance." ⁹

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 960