THE WHIMSICALITY OF FLORINE STETTHEIMER

Painter Extraordinaire, Chronicler of New York Society (c)
By Polly Guerin
Dear Florine: I was originally introduced to your whimsicality when I visited the Museum of the City of New York where your sister Carrie's "Stettheimer Dollhouse" is ensconced and to which you had contributed your unique creative inspiration. The dollhouse, a depiction of an upper-class residence of the 1930s, is truly an Art Deco treasure wherein reside the Lilliputian works by your artist friends, including Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending A Staircase,” and sculptures by William Zorach and Gaston Lachaise to name a few. I was so inspired by this dollhouse that I wrote a time-travel murder mystery novel called, “The Dollhouse Murder,” a story that dwells in the fantasy of Miss Carrie’s dollhouse with you and Duchamp as central characters, as well as the Baron and Baroness de Meyer and Alexander Archipenko.
FLORINE’S BRILLIANT CAREER
However, Florine, this is about your brilliant career as painter, poet, designer and social hostess extraordinaire, yet even at your death in 1944 you were somehow unrecognized for your brilliant repartee on the social life of the upper-class in New York between WWI and WWII. This may partially be due to the fact that Florine decided not to show her work in a came to the studio she maintained in the Beaux Arts Building at 80 West 40th Street, on Bryant Park. With its gilded furniture and cellophane drapes Florine’s studio was the background for the fashionistas and artists of the era to convene and socialize.
A FOLKLORIC DECORATIVE STYLE
Florine’s whimsicality in a modernist style, all of her own invention, portrays decorative detail and joyful brilliant colors that gives us pause to admire her as an amazing Art Deco diva. Her paintings reveal a naïve modernism of simple forms and vivid colors depicting friends and family with a wry intimacy and warmth, like Sunday Afternoon in the Country (1917). This fantasy portrayal of the cognoscenti leisurely passing the time include friends from Florine’s circle, The Baron and Baroness de Meyer, the Marquis de Buenavista, and Edward Steichen photographing Marcel Duchamp and Florine at her easel.
A DECORATIVE STYLE
Florine’s paintings were never literal but rather the viewer entered a magical world conceived with a bit of frivolity. In Picnic at Bedford Hills (1918), another example of the artist’s oeuvre, Florine sits alone holding a parasol; her sister Ettie is recumbent on a carpet in conversation with Elie Nadelman and her sister Carrie with Marcel Duchamp are setting out the picnic repast. It recalls a languid summer’s day executed in vivid colors and painted on a field of bright yellow. Florine’s Cathedrals series: The Cathedrals of Broadway (1929) and the Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue (1931) and the Cathedrals of Wall Street (1932) are each crammed with identifiable public figures and places in caricatured allegories. These three paintings reside in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
HOSTESS OF AN AMERICAN SALON
Florine and her two sisters Miss Carrie and Miss Ettie, and their mother Rosetta presided over a New York salon that had considerable to do with shaping the intellectual and cultural pulse of the city. The artistic cognoscenti of the era were frequent visitors to teas, lunches or dinners, while others in the art circle coveted an invitation. An important addition to Florine’s circle was Marcel Duchamp, an avant-garde artist, a suavely handsome and cultivated personality who felt quite at home in the genteel intellectual circles of the female ménage. Duchamp figures importantly in privileged position in life pervades her work chronicling boating parties, picnics, summertime escapades, parades and society.
BORN TO PRIVILEGE
Florine was born in Rochester, New York (August 29, 187l-May 11, 1944) the fourth of five children to Rosetta Walter and Joseph Stettheimer. The members of her family were wealthy and influential assimilated Jews. Although the father abandoned the family for reasons that are unclear Rosetta never remarried and her three youngest daughters, Carrie, Florine and Ettie remained single and lived with their mother until her death in 1935. The family spent much of Florine’s early life with extensive travels throughout Europe where she began to study art. In the mid-1890s she studied at the Art Students League of New York, but realized her full potential upon her permanent return to New York which was precipitated by the start of World War I.
FLAUNTING PAGEANTRY With MIRTH
Upon assessing Florine’s oeuvre it is clear that her privileged position invades her work with lively, colorful accounts not only of her daily life but in whimsical paintings that chronicle of the upper-class ways of New Yorkers. Look deeper into Florine’s paintings and you will see that this amazing Art Deco diva freely depicted a magical world that remains as enchanting today and evocative of admiration.

EDITH WHARTON AND THE MOUNT (c) By Polly Guerin

www.womendeterminedtosucceed.blogspot.

Friday, February 26, 2010

EDITH WHARTON AND THE MOUNT (C)

By Polly Guerin

It was many years ago when I first visited Edith Wharton's former Berkshire estate, “The Mount” in Lenox, Massachusetts---a pilgrimage of sorts to pay homage to Wharton's amazing oeuvre producing over forty books during her lifetime. 

    The library at that time (2010) was rather barren of books save for a few first editions, less than I expected. However, I had my picture taken there by her desk and commanded this moment to memory and asked Wharton to be my muse. Her characters, such as Ellen Olenska in the Age of Innocence and the charming but ill-fated Lily Bart in The House of Mirth, are the most memorable among her books that I have read. These personalities still resonate with readers, even today.

    Wharton's life and the society that she wrote about stand as a testament to the obstacles that she encountered to find happiness and self fulfillment.  She broke through polite society's restrictions to become a Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist, short story writer and interior designer.

LOOKING BACK ON THE GILDED AGE

Wharton’s life spanning the years (1862-1937) was truly amazing era which put her in an ideal position to chronicle the lifestyles and the social ambitions of the newly rich of the Gilded Age. As a participant in fashionable society and a keen observer of the regime set by the old money set, she was in an enviable position to combine an insider’s view of America’s privileged classes.

     With a brilliant, natural wit Wharton also wrote humorous incisive novels and short stories. In this privileged position Wharton witnessed the variegated changes in Old New York and in Newport, Rhode Island where she summered and observed the cognoscenti of the era.

     Eventually, seeking a different venue, she built her own house, The Mount, in Lenox in 1902.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS

Literary legal eagle, Louis Auchincloss in a talk in 2002 at the New York School of Interior Design had quite a bit to say about Edith Wharton. “Shy, yes,” he said, but she had a definite aggressiveness, too. In Newport circles, she was considered a little fast---I know my grandmother thought that!” Although Edith Wharton had a rather strained relationship with her mother she was not without early support. Her mother had her poems privately printed when she was sixteen and the copy that Auchincloss gave to the Morgan Museum had Wharton’s own pen corrections in it. 

      In 1885, at 23 year of age, Edith Newbold Jones married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, from a well-established Boston family who was 12 years her senior and a gentleman of her social class. Wharton at that time had very little knowledge of what to expect in marriage and she bitterly remembered that her mother refused to answer any questions that she may have posed. This fact wasn’t the only reason why it wasn’t a happy union, and aside from travel the couple had a lackluster relationship and more importantly, little in common intellectually. She divorced Teddy Wharton in 1913.

THE DECORATION OF HOUSES

Edith Wharton’s writing career as an interior decorator may have been launched with the publication of her first book, The decoration of Houses, (1897) written with her architect friend, Ogden Codman, but it was just the forerunner of this born storyteller’s oeuvre. The two taste masters denounced Victorian decorating practices and advocated the elimination of overstuffed furniture, artificial plants, festoons of lace on mantelpieces and dressing tables, heavily curtained windows. They endorsed a style of minimalism, bringing a breath of fresh air into interiors by stressing rooms based on simple, design principles, stressing symmetry and balance in architecture and thereby launched the careers of professional decorators to interpret the new style.

LONDON AND PARIS BECKON

Heading frequently to London and Paris she forged friendships with Bernard Berenson, the painter John Singer Sergeant and scores of French writers and artists including Jacques-Emile Blanche, Andre Gide and Jean Cocteau, always writing and managing to produce a volume a year. 

     In Paris, one of the most romantic cities in the world she began an affair in 1908 with Morton Fullerton, a journalist on the London Times, and all that she painfully missed in her marriage, love and intellectual communion, was fulfilled. However, Auchincloss described Wharton’s lover, Morton Fullerton as follows: “It is always sad to see a first-rate human being temporarily in the grips of a fourth-rater.” Wharton herself finally wrote that she would have been better off had she never met him. 

AN EX PATRIOT AMERICAN

In Paris, Wharton on her own terms and newly divorced became part of the intellectual circles where the artists mingled with the rich and high-born interlopers. She settled in Paris, in the historic Faubourg Saint-Germain arrondissement on the Left Bank. Life was a whirlwind of visiting Americans as well, including Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams. 

     But World War I was looming and Wharton became fiercely dedicated to the Allied cause. Traveling to the front lines, unusual as it was for the time, she often in the company of Walter Berry and her chauffeur, made excursions in her automobile into the front lines to observe the fighting. 

     An early war journalist she wrote reports for American publications in which she urged the United States to join the war effort. In addition, Wharton helped establish workrooms to employ women who had no means of support and tirelessly led the committee to aid refugees. 

     During the war years she also collaborated on war charities with ElisinaTyler (Countess Elisina de Castelvecchio), for which the French Academy in 1920 awarded them jointly a gold medal inscribed with both their names.

FRANCE AND GREAT REWARDS

The final stage of Wharton’s life was spent in two beautiful houses in France---the summers at Pavillion Colombe, in a small village just north of Paris, and the winters at Chateau Saint-Claire at Hyeres---where she continued to write and enjoy the company of her beloved miniature dogs that were always a key element of Edith’s intimate household. 

     In recognition of her accomplishments the grand dame of American letters was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for The Age of Innocence, and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Yale University in 1923. The lifestyle of the social and moneyed world in which she lived and depicted in her fiction may have vanished, but her books and authoritative works on architecture, gardens, interior design and travel have survived the test of time. Her achievements continue to leave a lasting impression of a remarkable woman who gave us a peak into the Gilded Age and other venues of witty storytelling.

RESTORING THE MOUNTAfter further touring The Mount several years ago, I was disappointed at the time that Edith Wharton’s boudoir and bedroom were empty, the furnishings long gone, but somehow her spirit lingered on. I was happy to learn recently that the NYC based designer, Michael Simon will soon be restoring these areas so that it reflects the time period in which she lived. The Mount is in every aspect of the estate, including its gardens, architecture and interior design, evokes the spirit of Edith Wharton who created an environment that would meet her needs as a designer, gardener, hostess, and, above all, as a writer. Within a year Wharton wrote: "Lenox has had its usual tonic effect on me, and I feel like a new edition, revised and corrected...in the very best type.” In a letter to her lover Morton Fullerton, she revealed how much of herself she put into The Mount. “I am amazed by the success of my efforts. Decidedly, I’m a better landscape gardener than a novelist, and this place, every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth.” The Mount, located on a hillside in the Berkshires overlooking Laurel Lake was designed according to the principles stated in Wharton's 1897 book, The Decoration of Houses. The house and the restored Italianate gardens can be visited from May through October. Ticket Office: 413.551.5107. www.edit

MARYLOU WHITNEY SARATOGA'S GRAND DAME (c)

MARYLOU WHITNEY SARATOGA’S GRAND DAME ©

By Polly Guerin

My dear Marylou: I remember it well. It was a pristine summer day in June and I was looking forward to interviewing you at Caty Hill your 135 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York and there you were in an elegant creamy beige pant suit with a marvelous gold broach perched on the shoulder of your jacket that quite nicely accented your glossy blonde hair. You were a vision of chic yet when children came in from the pool, draped with damp towels; you let them climb on your lap. Your nonchalance was impressive, yet I knew that you were the grand dame of Saratoga Springs. What’s more your charity and benevolence in the cultural and sport areas was legendary. And so the interview took place and I took copious notes of a woman who is truly an amazing diva par excellence, Alaska frontierswoman, Adirondack environmentalist and patron of the arts, horse breeder and racing enthusiast. Let’s raise our champagne glasses as we salute your life and its finest achievements.

A VISIT AT CATY HILL

You sat behind the great Whitney desk and with your friendly and open manner you gave a most interesting discourse on your current life and activities. Have you been to the races?” you asked me. “I’ve been attending a writer’s conference here in Saratoga I replied, but I haven’t been to the races.” With that Ms. Whitney whipped out a pink booklet and I wondered if I was getting a pink slip dismissal, but no instead, she gave me two complimentary tickets to sit in her royal box at the Saratoga racetrack so that I could view the races first hand like a society lady. Thank goodness I wore a picture hat that day, because fashionable millinery is de rigueur at the race track.

THE QUEEN OF SARATOGA

On the eve of the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga Race Course, droves of onlookers would turnout to watch who’s who of the horse and society worlds walk the red carpet at Canfield Casino. Everyone, however, awaited the arrival of crucial social figure Marylou Whitney, the philanthropist and grand dame who annually made a spectacular entrance in a themed event that announced the festivities each season. A gala it was in every description, showmanship par excellence, which she put on since 1978 with her late husband Cornelius “Sonny” Vanderbilt Whitney, who died in 1991. They had been the king and queen of the horsey set and later Marylou continued producing the gala with her current husband John Hendrickson. As the Queen of Saratoga, Marylou bestowed a magical influence on Saratoga Springs not only through philanthropy but through a huge impact casting the social spotlight on Saratoga’s summer horse village. “Marylou saved this town,” at least that is what people say.

THE ANNUAL GALA

Every year, on the eve of the Whitney race, Marylou costumed herself in keeping with a fantasy theme, such as Snow White or Little Bo Peep or the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. Whether she appeared as a fairytale princess, a flapper era debutante or an Alaskan heroine her entrance was a crowd pleaser for Marylou was much loved by the town as their patron and savior. Although these events had carnival aspects, they were not stuffy affairs, and catered to the local crowd as well with dog and clown acts, fortune tellers and booths set up where people could eat burgers and indulge in make-your-own-sundae tastings. The social elite paid stiff sums for the fundraiser benefits, which included the National Museum of Dance, and for the privilege to attend a private party inside the casino with Marylou and her entourage of celebrity friends.

SARATOGA SPRINGS BACK

Nary a lightweight when it came to philanthropy Marylou’s was instrumental in reversing the tide of decline of a seemingly sleepy Saratoga in the 1950s by putting the Saratoga Springs, 150 miles north of New York City, high on the social scene by throwing those high-profile parties that brought celebrities, media, and much-need dollars to the racetrack. Her late husband’s family was a major force in thoroughbred horse racing and in 2003; she made a $100,000 donation to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. The “Marylou Whitney Stables owns Bridstone, the 2004 Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes winners.

MARRIAGE AND A NEW LIFE

In October 1997, when she was 72 years old Marylou (b. Marie Louise Schroeder 1925) married John Hendrickson, a (then) 32-year-old tennis champ and former aide to Governor Walter Joseph Hickel of Alaska. She met the very-junior John Hendrickson when she was in Alaska helping to ready her dog team for the Iditarod at a dinner party held by Governor Hickel. According to accounts there was an immediate attraction and she began spending a lot more time in Alaska. Hendrickson is no lightweight and had been managing land holdings in Alaska, so it is not surprising that later, as a vice president, he joined Whitney Industries, a lumber and logging business with 51,000 acres of critical Adirondack real estate. As for the glaring age difference between her and Hendrickson, Whitney once said, “He’s basically 31 going on 60. He’s older than me because I newer grew up. Perhaps it is because my father called me ‘Baby.” Hendrickson seems to be assuming a bit of the protector role that her late husband Sonny also played in her life.

ADIRONDACKS AND PHILANTHROPY

Hendrickson’s deft sale of 15,000 acres of Mrs. Whitney’s land in the Adirondacks proved he was more than just a semi-pretty face With John taking the lead some acres were sold to New York State and the acquired lands are called the Willam C. Whitney Wilderness Area. In 2007 Marylou and her husband John Hendrickson donated 250,000 to the Long Lake Library. In celebration of the gift, the library will be renamed The Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Long Lake Library. Together they have followed in the Whitney family’s legendary philanthropy and gave generous donations to the Long Lake Medical Center and the Long Lake United Methodist Church. And as breast cancer activists Marylou and Hendrickson donated $2.5 million for the Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson Center Facility for Women at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center.

HAIL TO THE QUEEN OF SARATOGA

Sadly Marylou suffered a stroke in early 2006, which seriously curtailed her celebrated activities in Saratoga. The planned summer gala that traditionally opened the racing season was to be “A Night in Alaska” by dog sled, and for the only woman who’s ever been to the South Pole and the North Pole within a period of four months, ‘A Night in Alaska’ would have been the quintessential event of all times. However, since having a stroke, Marylou has forsaken champagne nights, but the horse town has not forsaken the stalwart Queen of Saratoga and neither has anyone who has any horse sense. We salute her amazing ‘joie de vivre,’ her generous sense of philanthropy, a champion race horse owner and breeder and last but not least for putting Saratoga Springs on the map for future generations.

ESTHER HOWLAND FIRST LADY OF AMERICAN VALENTINES (c) By Polly Guerin

LOVE TOKENS FROM THE HEART, THE GOLDEN AGE OF VALENTINES ©By Polly Guerin

Lacy and be-ribboned, gilded with hearts, intertwined and pierced by Cupid’s dart, “Love Tokens From the Heart” were the fru-frou confections of lavish sentimentality, which identify with the Golden Age of Valentines, the years 1830 to 1860. These lavish confections, spilling forth with fancy paper work and sentimental verse, expressed an era and a time when the delicate art of romance was heightened by sending of charming valentine cards and greetings. So engaging is the custom that modern sentimentalists will be sending over a billion Valentine greetings, February 14th, making Valentine’s the second largest card-sending holiday.
THE POSTMAN COMETH
A popular magazine in 1850 explained the significance of the expected Valentine: “But of all the clamorous visitations in expectation is the sound that ushered in…a Valentine. The knock of the postman on the door this day is light, airy, confident and befitting of one that bringeth good tidings. A blessing on St. Valentine, the patron saint of the day, fraught with so many heart flutterings and heart enjoyments!”
   As the postman’s footsteps were heard along the street on Valentine’s Day ladies awaited the tell-tale knock at their door, which signaled the momentous arrival of a sweetheart’s sentiments. To be passed by was a devastating personal experience as it was observed by one’s next door neighbor who was peeking out of the window and awaiting the post as well. So much for Victorian fables!
   The custom of sending valentines to loved ones was so well established that there was practical help for swains whose feeling went deeper than words. If the muse did not inspire there were little books of love poems, called “valentine writers”, which were available for copying by lovers who could not conjure up an original rhyme. Commercial valentines were soon to lead the way to a prolific business that spread from England to America.
TWO HEARTS ENTWINED
The first valentines were imported from England, where new graphic art techniques enabled publishers to produce valentines of extraordinary beauty, intricacy and delicacy. Of all the well-known makers in England and America two stand out above all others, Jonathan King of London and Ester Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, the first lady of the American Valentines.
   The real inspiration behind Jonathan King’s business was his wife Clarissa who added glitter to cards simply by decorating them with powdered colored glass. King’s valentines were highly ornamented to catch the eye and prettily enhanced with fine net, lacy paper, silver and gold glitter, cupids, flowers and love birds.
   Valentine “bank notes” issued by the Bank of True Love were also in vogue at the time. Typically the sender promised to pay the sincere homage and never-failing devotion of an affectionate heart. The idea was pure fantasy and wit, but the notes were printed on actual bank note paper that looked so real that they very soon outlawed.
AMERICA'S SWEETHEART
The history of valentine greetings in America has one special heroine—Esther Howland. Esther was the daughter of Southworth A. Howland who ran the largest bookstore and stationery shop in Worcester, Massachusetts. The well-educated young woman, a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary was preparing to go into teaching, but when she saw a British valentine that her father had imported to introduce in his emporium, it sparked her artistic talent. Quite enchanted with the cards, Esther hit on the idea that she could make Valentine cards as pretty as the European kind, if not nicer, and set about doing so.
   When her brother, Allen, was scheduled to go on a horse-and-buggy sales trip for their father's business, to get orders for the next season, Esther convinced him to take along a few samples of her cards. The handmade cards cost from $5 to $l0, a price that only the wealthy could afford, and the response was overwhelming. Esther expected her brother to sell $100 to $200 worth of the expensive cards. Instead he returned with orders for $5,000 worth.
A BUSINESS WOMAN
   In 1847, with such good sales results, Esther was able to convince her family to let he go into business.She persuaded her father to import embossed lacy paper and materials from England, and color pictures from a lithographer in New York. With all the material assembled, as well as artificial flowers, feathers, glitter, silk and lace, spun glass, colored papers, portraits and romantic scenes, Esther rounded up her "staff," selecting young women eager for a trade, friends and family and set up her enterprise.
   She took over a bedroom in the family home as her workshop and created prototype designs for her helpers to copy. Then they worked in an assembly-line fashion. One person cut out pictures; another made backgrounds, and so on around the table the valentine confections were assembled as each girl added further embellishment. As time went on, Esther Howland's, assembly-line production of her trademark Valentines did exceedingly well and the business expanded to a $100,000 a year enterprise. It was an astonishing accomplishment and huge sum for 1848.
IMITATORS EMERGE
It was not long before other entrepreneurial individuals recognized a good thing and established similar businesses with valentine cards that bore a striking resemblance to Esther Howland’s. Legend has it that among one of her employees was George Whitney, who later established his own business. The striking resemblance of the Whitney valentines in decorative art collections today prove out the fact that Whitney’s valentines closely resemble those of Esther Howland, even to the small red “W” stamp at the back of each card, similar to the “H” used by Miss Howland. When her widowed father became deathly ill in 1880, his dutiful daughter gave up her business to be at her father’s side.
SHE BROUGHT ROMANCE TO MILLIONS
By all accounts Esther Howland by Victorian standards was an attractive young woman and wore the fashionable attire, perhaps having her gowns made by a seamstress who copied styles form Godey’s Lady’s Book, at that time, the quintessential arbiter of style. It featured colored fashion plates from England, selected by the venerable editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, whose opinions on domesticity and fashion ruled the lives of Victorian readers.
.  Esther came from  an excellent entrepreneurial family, she had  a good education and a fine bearing and with such business success one might have thought that many a beaux would have courted the First Lady of Valentines.. However, the opposite was her misfortune. She never had a sweetheart of her own and died a spinster in 1904.
   Let's toast the First lady of Valentines whose greetings lavished with lace; love and sentimentality were the epitome of a romantic bygone era. Let's raise a glass of champagne to her memory and her charming valentine's that brought such happy sentiments to so many people.♥
FYI: For individuals interested in the decorative arts, Howland's Valentines are considered valuable collectibles today.
Visit Polly at www.pollytalk.com.

DORIS DUKE A UNIQUE BENEVOLENT HEIRESS

DORIS DUKE A UNIQUE BENEVOLENT HEIRESS

A PHILANTHROPIST, PATRON OF PRESERVATION AND CHAMPION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION ©

Dear Doris: When I visited Rough Point, your mansion in Newport, Rhode Island a few years ago, I was struck by the massive life-depicting painting that hangs in a stairwell, where a beautiful, blonde young girl stares out of the picture with a poignant gaze into the unknown future. Commissioned by your father James Buchanan Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Company and endowed Duke University, this is a portrait of You, Doris Duke, that young girl who would become an heiress, a philanthropist and benefactor of artists, medical research, and charities that support the environment and work to prevent child abuse. As founder of the Newport Restoration Foundation (1968) you may not have wielded the hammer and nails yourself but much of your fortune and time was spent on restoring over 80 Colonial buildings in Newport, Rhode Island, where you spent your summers at your mansion home, Rough Point. THE GOLDEN SWAN

Over the years you became a golden swan with a generous spirit and during your lifetime you gave away more than $400 million to various causes. You are an amazing art deco diva, brainy, athletic, cultured, a world traveler, but most of all you were not frivolous but had strong convictions about your humanitarian concern for giving back to society and by turning your wealth toward historical preservation and bettering the world through generous endowments to support numerous institutions. A lover of animals, particularly your dogs, and pet camels, in later years you became a wildlife refuge supporter. With amazing foresight when you were just 21 years old you established a foundation called “Independent Aid,” an organization which eventually became The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation,” an organization that still operates today. For all this we salute your integrity and prolific philanthropy, and honor your memory.

A MEDIA FRENZIE

A great deal has been written about how you inherited an immense fortune, an estate estimated at $80 million, at your father’s death in 1925. You were a mere twelve years old and the media was quick to dub you the “Million Dollar Baby” and later “The Richest Woman in the World. On his deathbed, her father wisely cautioned his young daughter to “trust no one,” a piece of fatherly advice that would forever resonate in your impressionable mind. Doris’ mother on the other hand was only left a modest trust fund and inevitably it strained their already tenable relationship. Showing her mettle, when Duke was only 14 years old, she was forced to sue her mother, Nanaline Duke, in order to stop her from selling family assets. However, Mrs. Duke had considerable say in the matter of her daughter’s upbringing and when Doris wanted to attend college, her mother forbade it. Instead she took Doris on a grand tour of Europe, where she was presented as a debutante in London. Such travels may have forged Doris’ pleasure as a globetrotting enthusiast throughout her life. One thing was quite clear about Doris’ character. While other heiresses sought press coverage, Doris shunned it and was a reluctant celebrity avoiding the glare of publicity and refusing interviews. She had a private persona that forged an aura of mystery and speculation. ROMANCE AND THE HEIRESS

It is not surprising that upon entering the social world of continental society that the lovely, statuesque Miss Duke with her golden tresses and athletic good looks would attract suitors. In 1935 at the age of 22, she stunned everyone when she hastily married aspiring politician and semi-millionaire, James H.R. Cromwell (Jimmy), who was sixteen years her senior, the son of Palm Beach, Florida doyenne Eve Stotesbury. After a two-year around the world honeymoon, Doris and her husband arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, where they built a house named Shangri-La (after the mythical land where no one grows old), in which she created her own decorating style filling it with Islamic art which she began collecting in the 1930s and a notable collection of Southeast Asian Art. A non-conformist, Doris was not bound by the usual rules of decorum and developed a rather magical oasis in Shangri-La, where she dressed in her version of Oriental splendor surrounded by world-class treasures. Cromwell meanwhile, a New Deal advocate, had ambition and used his wife’s fortune to enter the political arena, becoming U.S. Ambassador to Canada in 1940. The couple had a daughter, Arden, who lived only for one day. They divorced in 1943. While living in Hawaii, it is not surprising that Duke became the first woman to take up competition surfing. After all, she had been swimming in the ocean right off the coast of her Newport mansion, Rough Point, for quite some time and had developed the strength and stamina to withstand its rugged waters. Hawaii would be a similar challenge. Under the tutelage of surfing champion and Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku and his brothers she tackled the sport like a true champion.

A NOTORIOUS PLAYBOY

It seems to me that women of great wealth often become easy targets of marriages that make the headlines. According to reports Miss Duke was pretty happy most of the time, traveling, obtaining treasures from around the world and whatever delights she could not easily obtain, she bought. Over the course of her long life, she also acquired an impressive roster of lovers and a second husband, who cost her a fortune. While in Paris in 1947, Doris became the third wife of Porfirio Rubirosa, a diplomat from the Dominican Republic and a notorious playboy. Because of her great wealth, Duke’s marriage to Rubirosa attracted the attention of the U.S. State Department, which cautioned her against using her money to promote political agendas in this alliance. Although a pre-nuptial agreement protected her financial interest, she still gave Rubirosa several million dollars in gifts, including a stable of polo ponies, sports cars, a convert B-25 bomber, and, a 17th-century house in Paris in the divorce settlement. After this debacle Duke never remarried.
DORIS’ ROUGH POINT

Inside the sprawling Rough Point mansion, which was originally built by Frederick W. Vanderbilt in 1887, one can see the lifestyle of an heiress with a passion for collecting. Twenty years after Shangri La, Duke turned her attention to Rough Point, where she had grown up. Completely emptied several years before, after her mother stopped coming to Newport each summer, the house was a blank canvas for Doris to decorate with art and furnishings from Duke Farms, the family’s New York house, as well as the great art dealers and auction houses. Duke was ahead of her time in her taste for exotic décor, the floors were covered in Persian and Indian carpets and the house had object d’art throughout. Her art treasures include antique furniture, and everywhere hang paintings by masters like Gainsborough, Van Dyck and Renoir. When it came to creating a glamorous and luxurious bedroom Duke chose an entire bedroom set and accessories in glowing mother-of-pearl, which was made in Vienna around 1820, with the exception of the impressive secretary desk, which was made in Goa, a Portuguese colony in western India, circa 1800. Duke bought the mother-of-pearl furniture suite at Parke-Benet Galleries in New York in April 1966 for $18,500. The music room was the site of numerous musicales and a caretaker at Rough Point told me that Doris loved jazz music so much that she became an amateur jazz pianist and often performed with a jazz group. With such a passion for jazz, it is quite understandable why she frequently made anonymous gifts to starving musicians. In 1993 Rough Point was willed to the Newport Restoration Foundation, complete with all of its contents. It was her wish that it be opened to the public as a house museum. http://www.newportrestoration.org.

SANDCASTLES AND GOODBYE

Among the great treasures in Rough Point is the reminder of a child’s Newport summer, which may surprise the visitor. One of the most charming items on display in the home of this heiress sits little trophies Doris won while making sandcastles on Newport Beach. Those are the halcyon days of her childhood but now the treasures from this house belong to the public, as he continuing gift of giving to a world made better by her philanthropy. She was a woman of considerable chic and was considered one of the best dressed in society. On any day, one might also get to see some of the custom-made couture fashions that she wore throughout her life, by designers such as Dior, Givenchy, Halston and Pucci, to name a few. We sadly say adieu to a woman whose life mantra, above all else, was philanthropy. We shall also remember her as a stalwart patron of historic preservation and environmental conservation.

MILLICENT ROGERS, HEIRESS, CHAMPION OF AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

MILLICENT ROGERS GLAMOROUS ICON AND TAOS FLOWER ©

By Polly Guerin

Millicent Rogers Glamorous icon and Taos Flower
Dear Millicent: It was only when I visited Santa Fe, New Mexico and made an excursion to Taos that I discovered the Millicent Rogers Museum, housed in an imposing historic and expanded Taos dwelling with its remarkable collection of Southwest art. I was particularly impressed with the contemporary pieces of Native American jewelry as well as the stunning pieces you created from your love of this desert oasis. My curiosity was peaked. Who was Millicent Rogers? Your life’s story is remarkable in itself as it was short lived but impacted with adventure, affairs, family and your great love for the Southwest.

A LIFE SPARED and JOIE DE VIVRE

The magnificent, multi-dimensional woman who was Mary Millicent Abigail Rogers (1902-1953), the granddaughter of the Standard Oil tycoon Henry Huddleston Rogers, became a mother, a socialite, a philanthropist, a designer and a champion of the arts and crafts of the Southwest. She was brought up in lavish Jazz Age South Fork, Southampton, Long Island, but she was’t supposed survive to witness the glittering Art Deco era of the 1930s. So fragile was her health because of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever she was expected to die before the age of 10 or so the doctors had predicted. Not this stalwart young woman. Despite the illness’ life-threatening effect, she had a remarkable but short life. She plunged into every aspect of her existence like a bold eagle and swooped into the headlines when she married three times. She was told to never give birth she had three sons. She not only illustrated dinosaur stories for her boys but when one of her son’s broke his leg as a child, she decorated his cast with a comical tale of a Koala bear. Other illness followed, but that did not stop her stampede through life. She had several debilitating heart attacks and a battle with double pneumonia but soldiered on with the zeal of conqueror and her considerable intellect forged her passion for living life to its fullest.

AN ARTISTIC VISION

Instead of hitting the headlines like other heiress’ of the Jazz Age era, Millicent’s view on life was that of an innovator, a creator and a champion of the Southwest. Despite her ‘gaunt’ visage, she was an acclaimed beauty with a sylphlike shape and had a unique creative vision and intellect. Although bedridden for long periods of time, Millicent read voluminously and became a classical scholar teaching herself to read Latin and ancient Greek. In this way and through her fashion style she reinvented herself and her lifestyle throughout her short life. A friend Charles James, designer of the extravagant couture concoctions, his fashions were well suited to adorn her statuesque figure. Inspired she even sketched costumes for her multicultural wardrobe. Most significantly she ornamented her 5-foot-9 frame with many of her own Southwest-inspired jewelry designs. A prolific collector she acquired antiques and furniture from Beidermeier to the Ashcan School of art that filled her homes in Austria, New York, Jamaica, New Mexico, California and Virginia. DISCOVERING TAOS

Although Millicent lived in many places after she discovered, Taos, New Mexico and moved there in 1947, where she ensconced herself in an old adobe hacienda. During this time of prolific creation, discovery and collecting she amassed an astounding collection of some six thousand pieces of jewelry, which include some prehistoric Southwest works. With her considerable intellect and appreciation for Native American Culture she had traveled and collected artifacts by attending numerous fairs and pueblos in the Southwest. As she became increasing incapacitated due to her illnesses when her Taos house was renovated, a workshop with facilities for casting was placed off her bedroom. Influenced and inspired by Navajo and Pueblo jewelry, Millicent who had trained herself to be productive though bedridden, learned their metalworking techniques. As her health failed, she spent more time in this bedroom designing and creating her personal style of Southwest jewelry, which is displayed today in the eponymous Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico.
LOVE & ADVENTURE

Despite the fact that her father was afraid of fortune hunters, Millicent was kept on a fairly tight leash, but she managed at the same to have her way. The drama of her fashion penchant was apparent early on when she made her debut in a Mandarin robe and a head dress from Chinatown. At 20, she married Count Ludwig von Salm- Hoogtraten, moved to Austria, where she took up skiing and dirndls. After divorcing the Count she moved back to the United States and after two more husbands, divorced and gave it all up and settled down for the simple life in Taos. It’s amazing to note that despite a lifetime plagued by illness, many celebrated men were attracted to Millicent not only for her intellect but bounders captured her heart and her cash. A flirtation with the future Duke of Windsor, Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond were among her diversions as well as an early adventure with an heir to the Italian throne, who reportedly wanted to marry her. Evfer the amoureuse, of all her lovers Millicent seems to have had a poignant memory of a romance with Clark Gable and wrote letters to the movie star attesting to her lost love.

A SAD FAREWELL

Millicent Rogers died quite young, a mere 51 years old, but the life of this society swan and her upbringing at Black Point, Southampton, where she learned to shoot with her father Harry Rogers II, brought out an independent streak that served her well during her life so short but vibrantly enacted. She crammed her days with learning, creating, collecting and championing the arts and crafts of the American Southwest and creating and producing her own brand of Southwest-inspired jewelry. Despite her many illnesses Millicent’s remarkable spirit, determination, creativity and her unwavering hold on taking life to its fullest capacity is an inspiration.

EUNICE W. JOHNSON MAVERICK FASHION ICON

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

EUNICE W. JOHNSON MAVERICK FASHION ICON © By Polly Guerin

KUDOS TO YOU EBONY FASHION FAIR LADY
Dear Ms. Johnson: I applaud your life of amazing achievement. As wife of the late John H. Johnson, publisher and chairman of Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. you partnered in 1945 by naming the company’s flagship magazine geared to black readers, by calling it "Ebony,"after the fine-grain dark wood. It remains the world’s most popular Black-oriented magazine in which you also wrote a special fashion feature. However, imprinted in my memory is the fact that you produced and directed the iconic Ebony Fashion Fair, a traveling fashion show that set the pace for black fashion for half a century. I bow with admiration to your powerful persona and also to you as a leading lady, as a businesswoman and as a philanthropist, and a visionary who also created the Fashion Fair cosmetics a leading product line for women of color.

THE FASHION FAIR

As a member of the fashion press I had the opportunity to observe firsthand the Ebony Fashion Fair, which was usually held on Sunday afternoons, and how lovely a scene did the audience portray. Dressed in their Sunday best, hats and gloves the ladies arrived fully expecting to view an extravaganza the likes of which had never been presented to the black community before. The exciting fashion show made over 175 cities during its annual tour of the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. From the start the tours aim was to bring attention to aspiring young black designers, including Leonora Levon, Quinton de’ Alexander and L’Amour, and to present the best of the haute couture to the black community. Over the years the fair focused on charity and raised more than $55 million for both local and national charitable organizations, civil rights groups, hospitals, community centers and scholarships. Your vision and your largesse make you Royal Celebrity in the annals of fashion history.

LAUNCHING MODELS’ CAREERS

It is a known fact that the Ebony Fashion Fair traveling runway shows are credited with launching the careers of many African-American models and most importantly, changing perceptions of minorities in fashion. Statuesque African-American models like Pat Cleveland, Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell, Iman and Beverly Johnson have graced those runways. When Mrs. Johnson was in Paris attending the couture shows to purchase fashions for the Fashion Fair shows, she even convinced Valentino to use black models in his shows in the 60s. Using the power of her prestige and deep pockets she threatened that if he could not find black models, she’d get some for him. Then she added, “And if you can’t use them we’re not going to buy from you anymore.” Obviously that was before he was famous. According to Johnson Publishing Co., the Ebony Fashion Fair has produced more than 4,000 shows and continues today to fulfill its role model for black women worldwide.

ATTENDING THE COUTURE

One day when I was covering the couture fashion shows in Paris as a journalist for WWD, I was on my way to the Yves St. Laurent show and bumped into Audrey Smaltz, who was working on the shows and assisting Mrs. Johnson. Audrey recalled how Mrs. Johnson traveled to the fashion capitals of the world including Paris, Milan, Rome, London, New York and Los Angeles to personally select and purchase more than 200 garments by internationally acclaimed designers and couture houses to be featured in the shows and for which she spent over $1 million annually. Resistance by the couture to sell to Mrs. Johnson soon vanished when they realized her considerable influence and buying power. Mrs. Johnson began producing the shows in 1963 and it rapidly become the most talked-about fashion event across the United States.
FASHION FAIR COSMETICS

Something else seriously concerned Mrs. Johnson. She noticed that the Ebony Fashion Fair models were struggling unsuccessfully to find cosmetics in shades that matched their deeper skin tones. It gave her the idea of starting, in 1973, Fashion Fair Cosmetics, a prestige line that African-American women could buy, for the first time, in major retail department stores. The first lady of cosmetics for black women revolutionized the cosmetic industry and due to the growing popularity of Fashion Fair Cosmetics influenced firms like Revlon to produce a line called Polished Ambers for black skins, Avon followed and so did Max Factor. Fashion Fair cosmetics for women of color is sold in nearly 1,000 stores across the United States, Africa, the Caribbean, France, England, Canada, Switzerland and other foreign countries.

GROWING UP IN SELMA, ALABAMA

Eunice Walker was born in Salem, Alabama on April 4, 1916. As a youngster growing up in Selma Eunice was always fascinated by style and clothing. Not only did she make clothing for her dolls but it was her physician father, Dr. Nathaniel D. Walker who took the greatest pride in the shirts that she made even working the button holes by hand. It’s no wonder therefore that Eunice earned her high school degree in sewing and tailoring at the high school at Selma University. She graduated from Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama in 1938 with a degree in sociology and earned a master’s degree in social work from Loyola University in Chicago in 1941. She met John H. Johnson at a dance in Chicago in 1940, and they married after she graduated from Loyola. Throughout her lifetime Eunice Johnson has received numerous awards and among the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters conferred on her by institutions of higher learning Talladega College is prominent among them, renaming its Division of Social Services and Education in her name and inducting Johnson into the university’s prestigious hall of fame.

FAIR THEE WELL

It is no surprise that a planned event was scheduled to honor Eunice Johnson. As reported in Women’s Wear Daily, the trade fashion bible of the industry, the “FAIR WELL” event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur was a luncheon planned for months in advance to honor Eunice W. Johnson. The event, however, took on an added poignancy when the famed philanthropist, co-founder of Ebony magazine and the Ebony Fashion Fair passed away on Jan 3, 2010 at the age of 93. The event became a celebration of a life’s achievement and a tribute to the Mrs. Johnson. Pat Cleveland recalled, “I met Mrs. Johnson when I was 14. She put me in her fashion fair.” Accolades poured in and most notably was a letter from President Obama, in which he paid tribute to Johnson’s legacy. “As a philanthropist and entrepreneur, Eunice wrote a chapter in history.” And so we must say goodbye and Fair Thee Well for you deserve the praise of the angels and paid homage by the world that has lost one of its most amazing women.