Has it been 100 years already? Why yes, yes it has. What was Arnold Rönnebeck creating 100 years ago? Where was he? What was he doing?
In this space over the next several years we will be celebrating what Arnold Rönnebeck was creating 100 years ago, beginning in 1921, found at the bottom of this page.
1925
1925 was a busy and monumental year for Arnold Rönnebeck as he continued to embrace American life and culture from the perspective of a relatively recent arrival. He created his first lithographs of his newly adopted hometown, New York City. He contributed an essay for an American themed exhibition at Stieglitz’s Anderson Galleries, wrote essays about Maillol and Bourdelle for The Arts magazine; had his first one-man exhibition at Weyhe Galleries in New York; traveled to Taos, New Mexico where he would meet his future wife; and closed out the year working on a large private memorial commission in Omaha, Nebraska.
Seven Americans Essay
In March 1925, Alfred Stieglitz presented an exhibition at the Anderson Galleries entitled, “Alfred Stieglitz Presents Seven Americans: 159 Paintings, Photographs & Things, Recent & Never Before Publicly Shown, by Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Paul Strand, Georgia O’Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz”. The goal was to show the creation of a new art that expressed modern American life. It was also a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Gallery 291. Stieglitz believed that these seven Americans were the future of American art and exhibiting them as a group would make more of an impact. The subject matter and mediums were varied, including landscapes, cityscapes, photographs, collages and abstract portraits. While in the past he promoted many European artists, at this point his focus changed, and he now believed that it was more important to promote art produced by Americans in America. Stieglitz asked Rönnebeck to write an essay for the catalog. It was entitled “Through the Eyes of a European Sculptor”. The catalog also included an essay by Sherwood Anderson and a poem by Arthur Dove. Rönnebeck’s essay asked, “What is essentially American?” He wrote what he believed the European conception of America was, in part, i.e., “skyscrapers, baseball, ingenuity and exploiting discovery”. He believed that America was uniquely positioned to become the international center for modern art. Almost by definition, everything that came out of America was new and modern.
“Must not America, the country without Roman ruins, the country of keenest progress in mechanical technic and invention, the continent where the spirits of all peoples meet freely, offer just the atmosphere essential for the creation of an art of to-day? . . . I believe their creative self-discovery means nothing less than the discovery of America’s independent role in the History of Art”
Because of Rönnebeck’s experience as an artist who was educated and worked in Europe, and a relatively new resident, he could articulate how and why this new American art was unique and worthy of attention. This is one instance where Rönnebeck’s outsider status worked to his advantage. He could see things with a fresh eye that maybe a native New Yorker might miss. He would continue to expound and promote his ideas about modern American art in lectures, newspaper articles and interviews for many years to come.
Weyhe Gallery Exhibition
For his relatively short time in New York, Rönnebeck achieved many encouraging successes. His first one-man show in the U.S. was April 27-May 16, 1925 at the Weyhe Gallery in New York City. Alfred Stieglitz introduced Rönnebeck to Erhard Weyhe (1882-1972). The director of the gallery was Carl Zigrosser (1891-1975). Rönnebeck’s relationship with the Weyhe Gallery and Zigrosser endured after Rönnebeck moved to Colorado and the gallery continued to sell Rönnebeck’s lithographs throughout the 1930s and early 1940s.
This exhibit included sixty pieces in a variety of mediums, representing his work over the last several years, including works that were created in Germany, as well as new works created in the U.S. There were ten lithographs of Italy (1920-1921), nine New York drawings (1923-1924), sculptures including the bronze bust of Georgia O’Keeffe (1924), London Wedding (1924) in terra cotta, three versions of The Dancer (1921) in brass, a terra cotta entitled The Hermaphrodite, plus many other sculptures, portraits, bas reliefs and even book-ends.
His early architectural training really comes through in his New York work. Brooklyn Bridge and Wall Street were voted two of the “50 Best Art Prints” by the New York Times in 1925. Of these prints, the Times wrote on May 3, 1925:
“… the crossing and recrossing of mathematical forms, rays from the sky that emphasize the dizziness of height. His work is in no way photographic, but depends on a certain literary realism and much poetic liberty …”
A review in the May 9, 1925 issue of New Yorker states:
“Others have drawn the New York thing so often the artist here works in a glutted field. Perhaps none of the others have been as meticulous in their compositions and so careful of their balances. Rönnebeck manages to be rather sensible as well as modern. His sculpture is a delight. Here is an artist who has made book-ends plausible. And in some of the other pieces he has caught his movement in beautiful rhythms.”
On the other hand, critic Virgil Barker wasn’t quite as enthralled and wrote in the June 1925 issue of The Arts Magazine about Rönnebeck’s Weyhe show, “The unnaturalistic precision of his rendering of New York architecture gave the city an unwanted spiritual remoteness, another worldly quality, which hardly fits the city we know.” In a June 18, 1925 letter to Stieglitz, Rönnebeck,said in response to this critique, “I am just trying to say something about what N.Y. makes me feel. [emphasis Rönnebeck]. And if there is really something spiritual in that – – all the better”.
This was an extremely successful exhibit for Rönnebeck and an encouraging introduction to the American art world. There were also reviews of the exhibition and photographs of his work in Vogue magazine (June 1925 and September 1925) and Vanity Fair (July 1925 and August 1925). The show (or selections from this show) toured the U.S. for the next 13 months and included stops at the Omaha Fine Arts Society, Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles Museum of Art and San Diego Museum of Art.
Taos, New Mexico
As much as Rönnebeck loved New York City and the east coast, he wanted to see and experience more of the country. In July 1925, he had the opportunity to go to Taos, New Mexico as the guest of Mabel Dodge Luhan (1879-1962) and stay at her Taos, New Mexico artists’ compound, officially known as “Los Gallos” and affectionately known as “Casa Luhan” or “Mabeltown”. She encouraged him to come but said in a May 1925 letter that he needed enough money to feed himself because their cook was “too tired and cross” to provide for all of the guests. He met Mabel in Paris at Gertrude Stein’s in July 1913. Mabel was in Paris briefly before heading to her Villa Curonia in Florence. According to Arnold’s journals at the Beinecke, written in a blend of French, German and illegible handwriting, on July 4, 1913, there was a dinner gathering at Gertrude’s that also included Bernard Berenson, Picasso, Mabel, and perhaps other guests, as well. Gertrude wrote about this same gathering in the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
The 1925 trip to Taos was possible because of the generosity of the German-American businessman, philanthropist, and art collector, Albert Rothbart, (later known as Albert Roothbert (1874-1965). In a May 5, 1925 letter, Mabel wrote to Rönnebeck, “I have an idea. Get to know Mr. Rothbart at 550 Park Avenue – – a nice man – – loves pictures, etc, as well.” Arnold must have listened to Mabel because in June 1925, Rothbart invited Arnold to lunch at the Bankers’ Club on the 40th floor in the Equitable Building. That summer Rothbart purchased for his Berlin office several of his New York lithographs and drawings, including a Brooklyn Bridge. He also requested that Arnold execute a “drawing of the city’s skyline as it appears from Brooklyn”, which may have been the inspiration for Arnold’s 1928 Manhattan Skyline.
On a visit to Mr. Rothbart’s Park Avenue apartment in June 1925, he gave Rönnebeck $300 and they agreed that upon Rönnebeck’s return from Taos, Rothbart would have his choice of several pieces of work produced while on the trip. Beginning July 1925, Rönnebeck would spend four months in Taos. This trip changed his life both personally and professionally. He had been exposed and attracted to native American art and culture as a student and artist in Europe and was now finally able to experience it for himself.
It was during this stay at Casa Luhan that Arnold Rönnebeck and Louise Harrington Emerson met and began their short courtship, some of it long distance. We assume Emerson was acquainted with Mabel in New York, or more likely, the stay was arranged by Louise’s father, Harrington Emerson (1853-1931), a noted efficiency engineer. She set off for Taos with her sister, Isabel. The purpose of their trip was so Emerson, then an art student, could experience the artistic climate that Mabel offered and to provide a change of scenery for Isabel. It is interesting that Arnold and Louise, two New York City dwellers, would travel 2000 miles to Taos, New Mexico to meet.
Arnold wrote to Stieglitz on October 9, 1925:
What a summer! …. The one other person who is doing something about this country is a young girl from New York, Louise Emerson, a pupil of Kenneth Hayes Miller at the League. Still under the influence of Derain, but strong and powerful and with a very personal vision. She lives in one of Mabel’s cottages and is doing very good watercolors and oil landscapes.
Arnold and Louise rode horses, photographed, sketched and painted the landscape and the people. Louise’s experience in Taos was just as significant for her as it was for Arnold. An important Taos experience for Louise was meeting the writer D.H. Lawrence, who, along with his wife, Frieda, was living on a ranch provided by Mabel located 20 miles outside of Taos. Emerson described it as being one of the most memorable days of her life. In a newspaper interview c1968, she said:
“I had read all of Lawrence’s books and adored him. My sister and I got into our broken-down old Buick and went to call on him. It was a little awkward calling as we didn’t know what reception we would get as we hadn’t been asked to call. But it was perfectly alright. He seemed only too happy to have someone who would listen to him. He baked bread for us in a little oven outside, and his wife Frieda made jam. He held forth on then popular writers of the day.”
In 1925 Rönnebeck executed many watercolors of the Taos landscape, a medium that up until then he had not utilized often (with the exception of his 1912 Isadora Duncan series). In comparison to his New York work, which stressed the verticality of the city, his New Mexican work reflected the expansive horizontal nature of the New Mexican landscape. Like many artists before and since, Rönnebeck was inspired by New Mexico. In an October 9, 1925 letter from Rönnebeck to Stieglitz, he wrote, “The landscape got me, … And the country as well as the human beings are so vigorous in form and line” [emphasis Rönnebeck].
When Arnold and Louise married in New York in March 1926, Mabel Dodge Luhan and Tony Luhan were in attendance. Arnold and Louise continued to spend time in Taos and Santa Fe throughout the late 1920s and in the 1930s, they returned and periodically brought their two children. In fact, during her 1925 stay in Taos, Louise executed an oil painting entitled Taos Indian Child. Later, in the 1930s, according to family lore, the same young girl would babysit Arnold and Louise’s children on visits.
Grief Monument, Omaha, Nebraska
During his Taos sojourn Arnold met Nebraskans Augusta Mengedoht Dunbier (1892-1977) and Augustus Dunbier (1888-1977), who had married in 1922. Augusta was a concert violinist and Augustus was a painter in the impressionist style. Augusta’s father, Friederich (“Fred”) Mengedoht, had died in 1924. Arnold was commissioned by Bertha Mengedoht, Friederich’s widow and stepmother to Augusta, to create a memorial to him to be placed at the Mengedoht family plot at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Omaha, Nebraska. Arnold arrived in Omaha in early October 1925 and would spend several cold wintry months in the city. He stayed at the Mengedoht’s home, and worked in Mr. Dunbier’s studio, located on the same property. When he wasn’t working on the memorial commission, he sculpted portraits of local residents, gave lectures on art, attended a multitude of Omaha social events, and maintained a robust correspondence with Louise, who was back in New York. Between October 5 and November 8, 1925, Arnold’s work was in the inaugural exhibition at the Omaha Society of Fine Arts new exhibition space, featuring many of the works that were included in the April 1925 Weyhe Gallery show.
This would usually be the part of the post where we would display a photograph of Arnold Rönnebeck’s Mengedoht Memorial in situ at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Omaha and we’d say, “hey, look at this, isn’t this lovely?” But we can’t do that because we don’t have a photograph of the completed monument. We can’t even confirm that the monument was ever executed. The photo above is Rönnebeck with his model of the work. The only photos we have found of the Mengedoht plot show a completely different monument that was not executed by Arnold. So what happened? The short answer is, we don’t know. Following is what we have been able to piece together through historic Omaha newspapers and correspondence Arnold wrote to Louise in the winter of 1925-1926.
Rönnebeck arrived in Omaha in October 1925 and stayed until mid-to-late February 1926. On the reverse of the 1925 photograph of Arnold with the model, he wrote “Model for memorial. Heroic size. Original to be executed in granite”. It seems from the start that there was controversy about what material he would use. The cemetery board limited monument materials to either granite or marble. Rönnebeck wanted to use Bedford limestone, the same material used to construct the Nebraska capitol building. Rönnebeck received a letter (unseen by us) from the cemetery which seems to reinforce that he should utilize granite or marble only. He stated in the November 8, 1925 issue of Omaha World Herald:
“I had already made my plans to use limestone before I received the letter, and I do not intend to change them. Limestone is the logical, the native medium for this section of the country. Marble belongs in Greece, Italy and Spain. No other stone is so suited to the idea I wish to carry out as limestone. It has a warm color. It exists in the right degree of hardness. The rule against limestone is ridiculous. It is time the world learned to make materials fit meanings.”
In a January 27, 1926 letter written from Arnold in Omaha to Louise in New York, he wrote about two new portrait commissions:
“I had to accept these because of another turn which the monument question has taken: As this d-d bunch of undertakers (as I like to call that board of directors of the cemetery) continues to lay stress and difficulties when it comes to the limestone question. Mrs. Mengedoht wants to postpone the erection of the memorial indefinitely – – hoping to thus force them, to give in finally.”
On February 24,1926 the Omaha World Herald reported that Arnold would be leaving to go back to New York and he would return to Omaha in May to complete the monument. On May 25, 1926, the Omaha Daily News published an article about the contentious and drama filled divorce of Augusta and Augustus Dunbier and the monument issue was raised with Mrs. Mengedoht.
“I myself ordered the memorial”, said Mrs. Mengedoht. “It is delayed through a difference with the cemetery board on type of material to be used, not because Mrs. Dunbier objects to it. The model is now at the Sesquicentennial Exposition at Philadelphia by request, and will not be returned to Omaha until December. The monument will be unveiled next May” [1927].
We found a copy of the catalog from the Sesquicentennial Exposition and there are no references to any work by Rönnebeck included in the exposition. On November 24, 1926 the Omaha Daily Bee states that work on the monument “will begin next week”, “will be completed before next Memorial Day”, “boulfer pink granite was decided upon” and “Rönnebeck will come from Denver for that purpose”. And that is the last mention in Omaha newspapers of Rönnebeck’s Mengedoht memorial. Most subsequent mentions of the Mengedoht and Dunbier families were stories about the Dunbier’s combative divorce. A May 2, 1926 article in the San Diego Union about his show at the San Diego Museum of Art showed a photo of Rönnebeck with the Grief model and said it was “recently unveiled in Omaha”. Again, we haven’t been able to find any evidence of this. There is a maquette of Grief that is currently in a private collection. We would love to find out if the monument was ever created. And if so, where is it? We would also love to know what happened to the model. We do know that it existed at one time. And if so, where is it? It is quite large so we can’t imagine it has moved around much. Did it really go to Philadelphia for the Sesquicentennial? And if yes, is it still in that area? Is it still in Omaha? So many unanswered questions. If anyone knows where it may be, or has any information, please let us know.
Rönnebeck concluded 1925 having fulfilled his goal of seeing and experiencing more of the U.S, geographically, culturally and creatively. He was continually stimulated artistically by his environment, whether the imposing concrete canyons of Manhattan or the wide-open desert mountains of New Mexico This would certainly hold true for his next adventure. His quest for spiritual, personal and artistic renewal would be unending. We are not sure if he had any idea what 1926 would bring, but in a letter from Arnold to Louise on December 28, 1925, he wrote, “ . . . I shall be free to do what I want to do next summer. That is the happy outlook for 1926”.
1924
“Why not modern art? Ask a lady, Why a modern hat? Why bobbed hair? Why the boyish tailormade? Why drive your car instead of walking? The lady might answer, ‘Because I live in 1924!’ And so I think that is the reason why we have modern art. We live in 1924, not in 1800, and the art of today must reflect the period.”
Arnold Rönnebeck in the Washington Herald June 1, 1924
The art of 1924. That is what Arnold was after during his first full year living in the United States. “The Sioux, Skyscrapers, Jazz and Other Possibilities” was the title of a lecture Arnold gave at the Art Center in Washington, DC in Spring 1924. It could also be the theme of this active and pivotal year for him. He immersed himself in American culture but interpreted and expressed it through the lens of his European sensibilities.
Arnold began the year still living in Glendale, Maryland with the Pinch family, as well as working, exhibiting and lecturing in Washington DC. The February 2, 1924 issue of Art News wrote that “he has taken a studio at The Art Center, where he is exhibiting”. That is logical since Glendale was some distance from Washington DC. Between February 3-March 2, 1924, Arnold exhibited in the Corcoran Gallery’s exhibition of the Society of Washington Artists, Washington, DC. Included in this show were his Dancing Youths aka Arcadia plaster relief panels, one of his portrait heads of Marsden Hartley (most likely the 1912 bronze) and one of his 1920-21 Positano lithographs. During these early months of Arnold’s life in the U.S., he was exhibiting existing works that he had brought with him from Germany.
In April he gave a weekly series of lectures on modern art in Europe and America at the Art Center in Washington, DC. Titles of the lectures were “Oil Scandals in Paris”, “The Sioux, the Skyscrapers, Jazz and Other Possibilities” and “The Secret of Pygmalion”. In the June interview he gave to the Washington Herald he discussed what he said was his personal “secret of Pygmalion”:
“I noticed that nature was grand and powerful and the effect of my work was small. What was the reason for this strange difference? In my studio I had a few plaster casts from antique busts. I put my model between my work and one of these casts. And what did I see? The antique work was simplified, quasi-enlarged, it had big, simple planes, which my work lacked. There lay the secret and I had made a great discovery. The important thing was to find the essential and significant planes”.
We would see the expression of this approach in several of Arnold’s works such as his brass Dancer (1921), brass Mask (1923) Mirror Lake pencil drawing (1924), and London Wedding bronze (1924).
In August and September Arnold ventured out of the city to Lake Placid, New York, specifically Mirror Lake. He told Stieglitz in an August 7th letter that it was because of the “Most charming people, and quite some of the 291 spirit. They asked me to come here – – out of mere belief in me”. We wish we knew who these charming people were, how and where he met them. He added that he was “giving lessons in French, German and Italian conversation” to pay for his accommodation at the Lantern Book Shop. He wrote that he has “a lovely room overlooking Mirror Lake, which in the evening reflects the Club all lined with electric bulbs, in order to not let you forget Broadway in the midst of the old Iroquois hunting grounds.” Arnold’s 1924 pencil drawing, Mirror Lake, displays this vitality.
One known portrait sculpture executed during his time in Lake Placid was a portrait head/mask of a young man named Everett Marcy. His name and the photographs of him shown here (and the others in Arnold’s archives at AAA) is the totality of the information we have at present. While unconfirmed, it is possible that Mr. Marcy may have been the grandnephew of the former governor of New York, William Learned Marcy, after whom the nearby Mount Marcy was named. He would have been about 20 years old in 1924. There was also an Everett Marcy who had a relationship with Mabel Dodge Luhan between 1925-1928 and who was a Broadway writer in the 1930s and 40s. Not sure if they are one and the same. From the Mirror Lake photos in Arnold’s material at the Archives of American Art, when he wasn’t working, Arnold was socializing with his new friends, exploring the hiking trails in the Adirondacks and learning about his newly adopted country, which included attending the Iroquois Fire Council ceremony at the Lake Placid Club.
Following his Lake Placid stay, Arnold spent the second week of October in Lake George with Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe at Stieglitz’s summer residence, The Hill. Amidst the congenial meals on the porch there was a hive of artistic and social activity during that week. Notably, Arnold took some snapshots of Stieglitz photographing O’Keeffe. These photos uniquely document Stieglitz’s and O’Keeffe’s working process in the creation of their ongoing portrait series. The original snapshots are in the Rönnebeck papers at the Archives of American Art. For detailed information about Arnold’s October 1924 photographs of Stieglitz and O’Keeffe, please see the article by Dr. Betsy Fahlman entitled Arnold Rönnebeck and Alfred Stieglitz Remembering the Hill in History of Photography, Alfred Stieglitz 1864-1946, Winter 1996.
Georgia’s sister, Ida Ten Eyck O’Keeffe (1889-1961), a nurse by profession, but also a talented artist, was at the Hill during Arnold’s stay. There may have been a brief romance between Arnold and Ida, but it did not end well. In a letter dated November 22, 1924 at the Beinecke from Ida to Stieglitz, she wrote, in part:
“Arnold Rönnebeck is DEAD! My great big, wonderful man who told me about the stars, the northern lights, the American Indians, war – – he knows about everything that has interested me from my earliest recollections. There will never be another Rönnebeck for me. . . . Mr. Rönnebeck is focused. All set and focused on the dollar. I have no dollars! You say all is for the best and I hope it is.”
Included in Arnold’s snapshots of his stay at Lake George is a photo of Ida, Georgia, Stieglitz sitting around a table on the porch in midday. The Beinecke has a photo taken by Stieglitz that shows Arnold at the table, but it is too badly deteriorated to display.
Arnold and Alfred Stieglitz corresponded frequently between 1919 and 1945. Stieglitz was an immense help to Arnold particularly at the beginning of his career in the United States. Stieglitz introduced Arnold to Erhard Weyhe and Carl Zigrosser of the Weyhe Gallery, with whom Arnold would continue to work well into the 1940s. In 1925, Arnold contributed an essay for Stieglitz’s Seven Americans show at the Anderson Gallery.
Arnold executed the terra cotta portrait head of Georgia O’Keeffe in 1924. It is difficult, okay, impossible, to imagine that she sat for it. No portrait photographs of O’Keeffe have been found in Arnold’s archives. He could have worked from his snapshots he took at the Hill or perhaps he executed the piece from memory. However he did it, it is a lovely and strong likeness of Georgia. Shortly after its creation, the O’Keeffe portrait was cast in bronze. It was exhibited in Arnold’s 1925 Weyhe Gallery show and traveled to San Diego and Los Angeles for exhibitions. It was also exhibited at the Whitney Studio Club in 1928. On May 13, 1930, Arnold wrote to Stieglitz that he had just sold the O’Keeffe portrait for $1,000 to Delos Chappell, a Denver area businessman. Arnold offered to reimburse Stieglitz for the casting. This was Stieglitz’s May 15, 1930 response:
“when you write about my having paid for the casting of the head and that I had bought a Hartley from you – – I must smile – – for really I had forgotten completely about those “transactions”. Now please forget all about that damned cash. You owe me nothing. You keep the Hartley. It is yours. I never intended it to be anything but yours. And as for the casting of the head I have no idea what was the outlay. So please, consider all of the thousand yours. I’m glad it has worked out as it has. I am poorer by much than a year ago – – and so is O’Keeffe – – but we are better off in a way than when these few dollars were given you to help you on your feet, so the money is really not needed by us – – And you can use it.”
The O’Keeffe portrait bronze is currently owned by Denver University.
In an October 15, 1924 letter to Stieglitz, written while staying at the Hotel Brevoort in Greenwich Village, he described the arrival of the Zeppelin Airship USS Los Angeles ZR3 over New York City. It left Germany on October 12, and in the early morning on October 15, passed over Manhattan, and landed shortly thereafter in New Jersey.
“The enormous silverfish this morning was a most wonderful sight. Shortly after 8 I heard the well-remembered humming of its engines and one side shaved, the other white with lather, I stood on the roof of the above-mentioned hotel and watched the air-leviathan circle the city. There were the French pastry chef and the garcons with me. One had been in London when for the first he heard the same noise . . . It was really very thrilling. Hope it does Germany good. At noon the picture was in the papers: ZR3 above the foreshadowed point of the 10-cent-tower.”
Arnold had wanted to live in New York City since his 1923 U.S. arrival. By mid-October, he moved to a rooming house at 61 Washington Square also in Greenwich Village. His room, for which he paid $10 per week, overlooked the square, had big window with north light, which he wrote was “just splendid for working”. Perhaps he completed the head of O’Keeffe here since he had the space and light. The rooming house was managed by Madame Catherine Branchard, a Swiss woman, who ran it from 1886 until her death in 1937. Throughout her tenure, she let rooms only to artists and writers, usually before they were well-known (Willa Cather, John Dos Passos, John Sloan to name a few), thus earning the nickname, “House of Genius”. Arnold enjoyed the atmosphere. He remained at this address until at least late summer or early fall 1925. The building was torn down in 1948 following a preservation battle.
In the Washington Herald interview Arnold said, “Jazz is rhythmic chaos, but it expresses more than anything else the immense vitality, the movement, the ‘go’ of the life of today”. Arnold’s works I’m a Little Blackbird and Blackbird #3 created in November 1924 depict this vitality. These works portray Harlem Renaissance and Broadway performer, Florence Mills (1896-1927). Amongst many other productions, she appeared in the show “From Dixie to Broadway”, which opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on October 29, 1924. This was the first all-black musical to play on Broadway and the first performance of the song, “I’m a Little Blackbird, Looking for a Blue Bird”. This song inspired her next show, “Lew Leslie’s Black Birds”, which opened at the Alhambra Theatre in Harlem in 1925. The show subsequently traveled to Paris and London. Mills died of complications from an appendectomy in New York in November 1927.
This photo shown here of Arnold with London Wedding was taken in 1924 at Weyhe’s gallery by a photographer from the Therese Bonney Service. London Wedding was executed in terra cotta in 1923 or early 1924. This piece illustrates the “essential and significant planes” approach that he was seeking and discussed in his Secrets of Pygmalion lecture.
In a November 18, 1924 letter To Stieglitz, he wrote that he had “some nice successes” to relay to him. “Yesterday Mrs. Payne Whitney [likely Helen Hay Whitney] walked in at Weyhe and bought two of my things: The London Wedding she ordered in bronze and the Hermaphrodite [1921] she took in plaster. Weyhe is going to have The Wedding cast four times at his own expense, as he thinks we can be sure to sell it at least that often”. We do not know if four were cast in bronze. It is possible only three were cast. We know the location of two London Wedding bronzes. One is in the Art Institute of Chicago and we have confirmed the second one is in a private collection. They were cast at Kunst-Foundry New York, now called Bedi-Makky Art Foundry.
The publication American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, (Yale University Press, 2009) notes that there was also an “American Wedding”, which was exhibited in 1926 at the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery in Memphis Tennessee, but we have not seen photos or other references to this work, so if anyone out there has any information, or even better, some photos, we’d love to hear from you.
Arnold’s first full year in the U.S. was certainly eventful and productive. American culture shifted his perspective and approach to his work. The difference between the economically depressed and war battered Germany that he left behind and the optimism and prosperity he found in his newly adopted home couldn’t be more dramatic.
“My artistic emotion at the ‘phantastic reality of America was beyond all expectation. New York is living cubism. The skyscraper is the symbol of the states, personifying the monumentality of this country, while the express, the locomotive, and the Ford typify the huge distances”.
“Why do American artists seek to paint or sculpt in the traditions of Europe? Impressionism belongs to France. Why should Europeans go back to Egypt or India. America ought to be the country for the creation of art of our time, because here today is already tomorrow”.
Arnold Rönnebeck in the Washington Herald June 1, 1924
Arnold’s tomorrow would be brimming with even more possibilities. In 1925 he would show us his vision of New York as well as other impressions of America, so check back with us sometime in 2025 to learn what 1925 had in store for the artist.
1923
It is an understatement to say that post-war Germany was an extremely difficult place to live. The country was suffering from the consequences of losing the war, and particularly challenging was their obligation to pay war reparations. The economy was absolutely devastated. There were food and fuel shortages. In January 1923 one dollar cost 17,000 marks. By November 1923, one dollar cost 2.2 trillion marks. Not the most conducive atmosphere to pursue the arts. For a sculptor this meant materials were unaffordable.
Economic and post-war emotional challenges aside, Arnold continued to work. We’ve mostly been able to find traditional and modern portraiture, but we presume there was other work as well, we just haven’t discovered it yet. In 1923 he produced three sculpted portraits of Hartley, one of composer George Antheil and a minimalist modern mask/portrait of an “unknown American woman”.
Hartley was still in Berlin and besides sitting for portraits for Arnold, continued to work. He was working in his Kantstrasse apartment and studio on his series of “New Mexico Recollections”, male and female nudes in pastel, and about sixty still lifes. Arnold sculpted three portraits of Hartley in 1923. This is in addition to the bronze portrait of Hartley he executed in 1912 in Paris. Rönnebeck’s 1923 works included two busts in terra cotta and one mask in bronze.
In an undated and unknown newspaper clipping, Arnold discusses the portrait head and mask.
In the Man, Rönnebeck said, “I attempted to portray the natural man, neither hardened nor softened by the soul’s suffering. Each natural tendency in the head and face runs its course, while in the Soul is shown the spiritual man, his fears and sufferings his hopes and aspirations together with that side which defies explanation, and which men identify with the Infinite”.
Remarkably, Soul foretold quite accurately what Hartley would look like as he aged. We are not aware of a foundry marking, but it was likely cast in Germany. Soul and the terra cotta portrait in which Hartley is wearing a scarf are at the Beinecke and were donated by Arnold’s widow, Louise Ronnebeck, in 1952. The terra cotta portrait with the bow tie is in the Hudson Walker Collection at the Frederick Weisman Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This portrait toured with the Hartley show, American Modern, in 1997-2000 and again in 2005-2008.
Arnold’s brass mask is quite different from his other more traditional portrait sculptures. We are not sure exactly who this piece depicts. Possibly a woman named “Harriett Marsland”, or “Harriett Morsland” or, the safer bet, “unknown American woman”.
In June 1924 the portrait’s sitter is listed as unknown American woman, but by 1925 the work is given a name. There was a Mask of Miss Harriett Marsland listed in the April-May 1925 Weyhe Gallery exhibition catalog and a Mask of Harriet Morsland in the Los Angeles Museum of Art’s June 1926 catalog. A June 1, 1924, Washington Herald review of Arnold’s Art Center Gallery show, states:
“More of an enigma is Rönnebeck’s so-called ‘Portrait Mask’ in polished brass of an unknown American woman, with Sphinx-like face, a strange interpretation, but again the subconscious analyzed as only the true sculptor can do it”.
In an April 1926 review in the San Diego Sun of the Fine Arts Gallery San Diego show, the critic wrote:
“In the life-size bronze, ‘Head of Miss O’Keeffe’ he gives us the literal realistic portrait of his subject, while in the ‘Mask of Harriet Morsland’, done in brass, he shows an abstract rendering of his model with only the absolutely essential and significant forms expressed”.
There was a New York-born Harriett Marsland who arrived in Berlin as a 28-year-old student in 1921, who, judging by her passport photo from the period, looks remarkably similar to the woman depicted in the brass mask. It was likely cast in Germany but given the economic situation we are unsure how the casting was funded. Arnold’s 1921 Dancer was also brass and was cast at H. Noack in Friedenau neighborhood in Berlin so it is possible this would have been cast at the same foundry, though without a mark, we just don’t know. This piece is currently in a private collection.
A more traditional portrait executed by Arnold in Berlin during this period was one of avant-garde American composer, George Antheil (1900-1959). Antheil arrived in Berlin in 1922, remaining there until moving to Paris in June 1923. We haven’t been able to find out much or really anything about their meeting or any sittings. Our assumption is that the creative world in Berlin was a small community and that they likely ran in the same circles. Arnold had a life-long love of music, so he would have been intrigued by the young composer. The portrait displays a stylized depiction of Antheil’s then characteristic bangs. After Antheil’s Berlin period, Antheil composed his most well-known work, Ballet Mécanique, in 1924.
Years later, in 1954, Arnold’s portrait of Antheil was on display at the University of Denver theatre when George Antheil’s opera “The Brothers” was performed. Antheil and his wife, Boski, attended the performance. This work was also included in Arnold’s 1925 Weyhe Gallery show in New York. It is currently in a private collection.
Arnold’s travel to the U.S. was originally scheduled for some time in 1922, but the voyage was cancelled due to the death of his fiancée, Alice Miriam. He finally set sail on November 10, 1923 on the S.S. Mongolia from Hamburg, Germany arriving in New York on November 23, 1923. According to the arrival records of the Port of New York, Arnold was in possession of $280, and was neither a polygamist nor anarchist. Good to know. Upon arrival in the US, he stayed with Alice Miriam’s parents, Reverend Pearse Pinch and Mary Pinch in Glendale, Maryland, about 15 miles from Washington, DC. He remained in Maryland and DC area until he moved to Greenwich Village, New York, around October 1924.
In some ways he was similar to other immigrants, departing a place of economic, social, professional and personal challenges and arriving in the U.S. seeking a new life. However, Arnold had many advantages the others did not. He spoke English fluently. Upon his arrival he had a friendly and inexpensive, perhaps even free, place to stay with the Pinch family. He had an established relationship with Alfred Stieglitz which had begun in 1912, which would prove to be an important entry into the New York art world. He had friendships with many Americans he had met in Europe, such as Hartley, Charles Demuth, and Mabel Dodge.
He brought a small amount of his work with him on this new adventure in the U.S. He was not sure if his stay would be permanent, so he left much of his work and his possessions in his Berlin studio. By 1929 he was well established in Denver, held the position of Art Director of the Denver Art Museum, was married and the father of two children, so it was clear that he was going to stay in the U.S permanently. In the summer of 1929 he and Louise visited his family in Berlin, and upon their return brought his possessions to the U.S.
With his move to New York, 1924 would be an exciting and busy year for Arnold. Everything was new and his enthusiasm for his adopted country would come through in his first work inspired by his American experience.
1922
Arnold was extremely productive artistically in 1921 and in 1923, so we are assuming 1922 was no different. We say assuming because the truth is we don’t currently have much information, photos, or records of work produced in 1922. Perhaps it was a period of transition. We think he was supporting himself executing portrait sculptures of German nobility and society people.
Both he and Germany were still recovering from the effects of the war. The mark was devalued, and the dollar was doing well. Consequently, Berlin was full of Americans. Arnold maintained friendships with many Americans that he had met in Paris prior to the war, some of which were currently in Berlin. According to Robert McAlmon in his 1934 memoir of the period, Being Geniuses Together, in 1922 artists and writers such as Hartley, Thelma Wood, Djuna Barnes, Berenice Abbott, dancers Harriet Marsden and Isadora Duncan were all in Berlin. He added, “Rönnebeck, a sculptor, was about”. He wrote of the atmosphere, ”There was an occasional exhibit at the art galleries, but there could hardly have been much incentive to work then, because nobody had money with which to buy, and ‘Auslanders’ passing through were not looking for art”.
Hartley lived in Berlin from November 1921 until October 1923. Another recent arrival was Canadian poet, novelist, translator, Frank Cyril Shaw Davison (1893-1960), whose nom de plume was Pierre Coalfleet. Davison had a letter of introduction to Hartley. Davison stayed in Berlin from Fall of 1922, returning to London February or March 1923. Davison and Ronnebeck met during this time. Arnold would later execute a bronze portrait head of Davison in 1925. They remained close as Davison would serve as the best man/witness at Arnold’s later marriage to Louise Emerson in New York in 1926, but their friendship began in 1922.
One work we are aware of from 1922 is a Portrait Head of Hans Sidow, dated September 1922. Hans Sidow was the father of German poet, writer, Max Sidow (1897-1965), with whom Arnold was friends, as noted in the 1921 post. Arnold and Max began corresponding in 1919 while they both were living in Germany, continuing until at least 1929. The originals of Arnold’s letters to Max and accompanying photographs were graciously given to the estate several years ago. Unfortunately, their contents are currently unknown to at least this Ronnebeck family member, because they are in German and the Sütterlin script, neither of which I can read. Between 1919 and 1922 Max Sidow was studying for a doctorate in art history, producing a thesis on the work of Piero della Francesca. This may explain Sidow’s traveling with Arnold and Theodor Daubler in Italy in 1921. Hans Sidow died in 1923.
While this piece is no longer owned by the Sidow family, it remains in Germany in the possession of a Sidow family friend.
In 1922, Arnold was engaged to American opera singer Alice Miriam (full name Alice Miriam Pinch). They met in Paris around 1910 or 1911, while he was studying sculpture at Académie de la Grande Chaumière with Bourdelle, and she was studying opera privately with Polish tenor Jean de Reszke. They each lived in Montparnasse. In 1914, with the onset of the war, Arnold returned to Germany for military service and Alice relocated to Milan to continue her voice studies. She returned to the U.S. in 1919. In 1920, she toured the U.S. with Enrico Caruso, and living with her sisters in New York City. On July 22, 1922, Alice died of complications of an appendicitis at Flower Hospital in New York. Hartley dedicated his book of poetry entitled Twenty-Five Poems “To Alice Miriam Pinch”, published on January 1, 1923, six months after her death.
Most of the information we have about Arnold and Alice’s relationship is through Hartley’s writings. Hartley wrote about Alice after her death in his autobiography, Somehow a Past, written sporadically in the 1930s and 1940s, but was not published until after his death.
“We were extremely congenial. Alice and Arnold and I – – and it was all set by Alice that when they married, and that too was set – – whoever was successful first – – they would marry. Alice said, “We will take an apartment and you will come to live with us – – and it so seemed it could be that – – for we all loved each other – – we all had work to do and we all were interested in each other’s progress. It was not to be.”
In 1922, Alice was working steadily, including at the Met in the New York, while Arnold was still in Berlin. In May of that year, Hartley wrote to Stieglitz that Arnold has “possibilities in America in six months”. True, there were artistic possibilities, but also personal possibilities – – marriage to Alice. In a January 1943 letter to Hartley’s publisher, Leon Tebbetts (original at the Beinecke), Arnold explained Hartley’s dedication to Alice in Hartley’s 1923 book, and Arnold and Alice’s situation:
“. . . we had decided to get married. Either in our old hunting grounds of superior happiness in Paris or in N.Y. – – the inflation in Germany made any trip to this country impossible, but some American friends of mine bought some of my bronzes, I borrowed some more greenbacks from other war-profiteering friends and bought my passage”.
And then Alice died. Arnold’s move to the U.S. would be delayed by almost a year. When he did finally arrive in November 1923 he lived with Alice’s parents, Reverend Pearse Pinch and Mary Pinch in Glendale, Maryland, until August 1924.
We hope to discover more of Arnold’s work from 1922. Prior to Arnold’s move to the U.S., he was extremely productive in Germany, and we will add that information to this site in 2023.
1921
While Rönnebeck had been studying, working and creating art since childhood and during his art school years (1906-1913), it wasn’t until 1921 that we have examples of a more consistent output. We are aware of a handful of pieces executed prior to World War 1. His Isadora Duncan drawings of 1912, bronze head of Hartley from 1913 and pear wood Crucifixion from 1914 come to mind. There are likely earlier pieces are out there, but they are somewhere in Europe. If anyone has any early Rönnebeck works, please share your photos with us. We would love to see them!
After serving in the German military during World War I, Rönnebeck returned to Berlin and established himself as a portrait sculptor. He had a studio in the Friedenau area at Offenbacher Strasse 3 (building now demolished). His parents lived across town in the Halensee area at Johann-Georg Strasse 20. Beginning in 1913, Hartley was a frequent guest at the Johann-Georg Strasse home, and In November of 1921, he stayed with them for a month. In an undated (possibly 1943) letter to Leon Tebbetts, Rönnebeck wrote, of Hartley and this period:
“ . . . He adored my mother and loved to light her cigarette for her. He had his ‘cozy corner’ on the sofa and he would snuggle into it like a question mark, all curled up with a long cigarett (sic) holder and father would ring for the maid and simply say: ‘that Bordeaux 1920’ and Marsden would curl around the other way and simply exclaim: ‘Wunderbar wunderbar!”.
Hartley moved to his own apartment at 150 Kantstrasse, Berlin, in December of 1921.
His wartime experience caused him to suffer deeply. He was wounded in October of 1914. His cousin, Carl von Freyburg, was killed the same month. He had seen and experienced some horrific things. To help him recover from the emotional effects of the war, he took an extended trip to Italy. He spent some time at the monastery in Fiesole overlooking Florence, finding it emotionally and spiritually healing, and he briefly contemplated becoming a monk. He affected the wearing of a monk’s robe at two points in his life. First in 1921-1922 (shown left) inspired by his experience at Fiesole. The second, near the end of his life in response to the Second World War. He enjoyed Rome and Florence for its art and history, but did not find it as inspiring as the south. While in southern Italy he executed many pencil drawings of Positano and the Amalfi Coast. He described his experience in a June 1, 1924 interview by Viktor Flambeau at the Washington Herald, entitled Rönnebeck, Expressionist Sculptor, Makes Home in Washington:
“The scenery was like one enormous work of sculpture, houses and rocks seemingly as one. … Nevertheless the lithographs are portraits of the actual landscape, not inventions of the imagination. Here it was. Where Empedocles was born, that I made my first landscape drawings, after which followed a cycle of lithographs”.
This was Rönnebeck’s first foray into lithography, a medium in which he would continue to work and for which he would win awards throughout his career. He created a series of ten lithographs depicting Positano and southern Italy between 1921 and 1922.
While he was newly inspired with printmaking, his preferred medium remained sculpture. Following is a small selection of his sculptural work from 1921:
The Dancer, sometimes known as The Harlequin, was executed in 1921 and cast in brass at the H. Noack Foundry in the Friedenau district in Berlin. This piece and others of a similar style had pared down forms with cubist influences. This piece was sometimes described as an “expressionist Pierrot”. We don’t know that much about its creation, but Rönnebeck seemed to be inspired by dance and dancers quite frequently. He executed many drawings and watercolors of Isadora Duncan in 1912, a set of relief panels of nude dancers in 1919, as well as this brass Dancer and several other Dancers in plaster likely in 1921, as well. This brass Dancer must have meant something to him because he brought it with him when he left Germany for the US in November of 1923.
Following are a few notable stops on The Dancer‘s exhibition history:
1925: Weyhe Gallery, New York. In April Rönnebeck had a one-man with show at Weyhe Gallery featuring sixty (60) works. There were 27 sculptures in the show, including three Dancers. In 1926 this exhibition traveled to the Los Angeles, San Diego and Omaha. The brass Dancer was one and we aren’t sure exactly which ones the other two are, but they may be the plaster pieces shown center and right in this undated photo.
1929: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Dancer was shown in the Met’s exhibition “The Architect and Industrial Arts Exhibition of Contemporary American Design” from February 12 to March 24 and continued to September 2, 1929. It was prominently displayed on the mantle in architect Ralph T. Walker’s exhibit, “Man’s Study for a Country House”. In the accompanying exhibition catalog, Walker wrote of the purpose of a room, “In it space elements should be so designed as to engender time elements, through which appreciation can be led from one thought to another, forming a stimulus toward, and an opportunity for, fresh viewpoints, and so encouraging a more continuous period of appreciation”.
Photo at right is by Sigurd Fischer and is in the Library of Congress, item LC-FS13- 308-N4 [P&P].
1934: Century of Progress – Chicago World’s Fair. Rönnebeck was a little frustrated with its inclusion in the fair, as he would have preferred to exhibit something more contemporary. In an April 10, 1934 letter to Robert D. Harshe, Director of the Art Institute of Chicago and curator of the Century of Progress art exhibition, he wrote: “Personally, I regret that a piece of mine of such old vintage has been chosen, a piece which has been exhibited many times before . . . “. In The Dancer’s stead, Rönnebeck proposed his 1932 work Waste, which was a “protest against war”. In his April 13, 1934 response, Harshe gave no reason for the preference of The Dancer over Waste, only saying it “it will not be possible to exchange the group for it”. Perhaps Waste was considered too political. This work is in a private collection.
Other sculptures from 1921:
Portrait of Stefan Anton George, plaster. George was a German symbolist poet (1868-1933). Underneath the dramatic profile of George are the words “Ich bin ein Funke nur, vom heiligen-Feuer, Ich bin ein Drohnen nur der heiligen Stimme”. These are the last two lines of from George’s 1908 poem, Entruckung. It roughly translates to: “I am only a spark of the holy fire. I am only a whisper of the holy voice.” In 1909, Arnold Schoenberg was inspired by the poem and used it in the third and fourth movements of his 1909 String Quartet No. 2.
The circumstances of how Rönnebeck received this commission are unknown, but Rönnebeck was acquainted with several other German poets during this period, including Max Sidow (1897-1965) and Theodor Daubler (1876-1934). The location of this work is unknown.
The Combatants is also known as Composition of Rhythmically Arranged Volumes. Shown here in plaster, c1921, it was later cast in bronze at Kunst Foundry in New York, probably 1924 or 1925. Like the Dancer, he brought the plaster version with him from Germany to the US in 1923. It was exhibited in his 1925 Weyhe Gallery show and was part of the selected works that traveled to exhibitions in San Diego, Los Angeles and Omaha in 1926. The bronze is in a private collection.
Poet Theodor Daubler wrote an article about Rönnebeck’s work in the April/May 1921 edition of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, see below. The article featured reproductions of Rönnebeck’s Head of Max Sidow (date unknown, possibly 1919), Combatants, Hermaphrodite (1919, based on Max Sidow’s poem of the same name), and three plasters of what were sometimes called his “Dancing Grotesques”.
This is a brief overview of just some of the work Arnold Rönnebeck created in 1921. Check back with us in 2022 to find out what was happening in 1922.