THE MULTICULTURAL MODERNISM OF
WINOLD REISS 1886 –1953
F R A N K M E H R I N G ( E D .)
THE MULTICULTURAL MODERNISM OF
WINOLD REISS 1886 –1953
( T R A N S ) N AT I O N A L A P P R O A C H E S TO HIS WORK
CONTENTS
6 FRANK MEHRING
Introduction: W inold Reiss as a P aradigm of Transnational Moder nism 16 C . F O R D P E AT R O S S W I T H R E N AT E R E I S S
W inold Reiss (1886–1953): A Selective Chronology of his Lif e and Wor k
II. GERMAN IMAGINATIONS OF NATIVE AMERIC ANS 70 KARL MARKUS KREIS
From Fant asy t o Show : Changing Imag es of “t he Indian” in Ger man-Speaking Europe at t he Beginning of t he 20t h Centur y 78
I. TRANSNATIONAL ASPIRATIONS B E T W E E N P A S T A N D F U T U R E 20 J E F F R E Y C . S T E WA R T
The Subjectivizing Transnationalism of W inold Reiss 42 JULIE KENNEDY
From t he Blac k Fores t t o N ew Yor k City : W inold Reiss’ Ar tis tic Bac kg round in Ger many and his For mative Year s in Munic h
WINFRIED FLUCK
The V isual Cons tr uction of “Indianness” 94 JOCHEN WIERICH
Painting t he Old Wes t N ew : W inold Reiss’ Blac kf ee t Por traits
III. TRANSCULTURAL CONFRONTATIONS IN THE VISUAL HARLEM RENAISSANCE 106 SYDELLE RUBIN-DIENSTFREY
Transcultural Readings of W inold Reiss, Franz Boas, and Miguel Covar r ubias: Ar t and Et hnog raphy of t he Har lem Renaissance
4
120 PAT R I C I A H I L L S
Paul Kellogg, Alain Loc ke, W inold Reiss, and t he Sur vey Graphic Marc h 1925 issue Har lem:Mecca of t he New Neg ro 140
V. E U RO P E A N - A M E R I C A N N E T WO R KS OF MODERNISM 190 JULIE LEVIN CARO
The W inold Reiss S tudio and Ar t Sc hool as a Hub of Transcultural Moder nism
FRANK MEHRING
How Silhoue tt es Became “Blac k”: W inold Reiss and t he V isual Rhe t or ic of t he H ar lem Renaissance
206
I V. G E R M A N - A M E R I C A N P R I N T C U L T U R E S A N D M U R A L I S M
VI. PIONEER OF MODERN DESIGN
JENS BARNIECK
Sonat a f or W inold Reiss
218 158
C . F O R D P E AT R O S S
CAROLINE GOESER
Multicultural and Moder n Design: The Singular V ision of W inold Reiss, 1906 t o 1952
Transcultural Moder nism: W inold Reiss’ C ontr ibutions t o Amer ican Pr int Culture
270 170
Contr ibut or s
DOUGLAS SMITH
W inold Reiss: A Closer Look at Me t hods and Mediums
275
182
278
K AT H E R I N E M A N T H O R N E
Ac know ledgments
Thinking Big: W inold Reiss and Muralism in Amer ica
280
Index
Publishing De t ails
5
FRANK MEHRING
INTRODUCTION: WINOLD REISS AS A PARADIGM OF TRANSNATIONAL MODERNISM
The American public … wants color and demands it. Youth needs color. We are a young nation and should not be embarrassed when bright colors surround us. True enough, it was once considered vulgar and even sinful to use too bright a red or blue,
T
his bold statement by the German immigrant artist Winold Reiss (1886–1953) is significant in more ways than one. The call to fellow artists to embrace bold colors as an expression of a promising young American public might stem from his experience in German poster art and portraiture. However, his dedication to ethnic minorities showed that the “plea for color” transcended the use on canvas. Reiss worked together with Alain Locke on a special edition of the Survey Graphic in which “color” became intrinsically linked with the future of the American nation. The title: Color: Unfinished Business of Democracy (1942). With his remarkable use of silhouettes and color codes, Reiss offers a visual narrative of racial equality from a transcultural perspective (see ill. 2 on page 13). In addition to the five interconnected outlines of ethnic groups, he introduces an alternative framing device: he connects a sixth outline of the human face to all the continents of the earth via red lines. With its global perspective, the new cosmopolitan profile is not only a transatlantic contact zone but also a hemispheric one of interconnecting lines. Reiss successfully appropriated Locke’s provocative title about the unfinished business of democracy for his own vision that in a democratic world traditional notions of color need to be overcome in favor of a cosmopolitan humanism.1 As a German immigrant who collaborated wth many intellectuals and artists—African Americans among them—before and 6
or unbroken colors. Gray, brown and olive green were the colors of that Puritan age. Thank heaven those times are over and we are allowed to express our feelings without restraint. Winold Reiss, “A Plea for Color.” (1934).
during World War II, Reiss was very much aware that the right to “express our feelings without restraint” represented an American ideal that did not translate well into American practices. This anthology considers the role of intercultural tensions and confrontations in its attempt to map, analyze and re-evaluate the multicultural modernism of Winold Reiss. When Reiss arrived in New York and co-founded the Crafts and Art Studio at 307 Fifth Avenue, I argue that he fashioned himself into a transcultural mediator. With his dual background in fine arts and applied arts, he sensed that he could bridge the gulf between “high” and “low” art and provide an appealing answer to the aesthetic longing he perceived in the American people. He considered himself riding on top of the “tidal wave of modernism” which swept across the Atlantic. In a handwritten letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and dated January 28, 1915, Reiss explained that he had “come from one of the principal modern artistic centers in Europe, the city of Munich, to try and develop the European conception of modernism in this country.”2 Among other things, this meant introducing a courageous use of color to the American consumer market and to interior design. However, as he would soon find out, his specific blend of cultural otherness, primitivism, and depiction of ethnicity caused friction in the process of transatlantic and intercultural translations. F rank M ehring
Ill. 1: Winold Reiss, Self-Portrait, 1914. Pastel on paper, 15 × 11 in. (38.1 × 27.9 cm). Image Courtesy Reiss Archives.
A remarkably versatile painter, designer and teacher, Winold Reiss has been described by P.W. Sampson in Du Pont Magazine as a “modern Cellini” who defies instant categorization and labels.3 Reiss remains a mystery to many art critics, and though Sampson might not have been aware of the prophetic quality of his characterization of a key feature of Reiss’ creative output—what was true in 1931 is just as astute in the new millennium: “Winold Reiss will not be classified.”4 What options do we have then to approach his work? Sampson was at a loss. I ntroduction
“Name him one of the foremost interior decorators and you discover that he has gone to the Southwest to paint American Indians. Name him painter, and you’ll find him designing a piece of furniture that you will live with later. Call him designer, and you find him busily illustrating a story for one of the quality magazines. If you look for him at his easel, you’ll probably find him with his pupils.”5
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Perhaps it is this elusiveness of being a step ahead and at the avant-garde of cross-fertilizing developments in different media that is both an asset of Reiss’ mind on fire and a disadvantage in a world of art that often prefers clear categorizations and classifications. Jeffrey Stewart makes a strong point by describing Reiss as “a cipher of a subjectivizing transnationalism” in his opening contribution to this anthology, pointing not so much to revolutionary artistic techniques but to a particularly audacious approach to confronting the United States promise of equality from an insider/outsider perspective—what I have described in a different context as the “democratic gap”, the discrepancy between American ideals and practices.6 Who was this “modern Cellini” who seems to have fallen through the cracks of the art world’s tightly woven net? Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, Winold Reiss studied in Munich with the renowned artists and teachers Julius Diez and Franz von Stuck. Reiss arrived in the US in 1913, not long before the outbreak of WWI, and emerged as an influential figure in modernist aesthetics and transatlantic encounters in the 1920s and ‘30s. He established his own art school and design studio in New York City’s Greenwich Village, co-founded the art magazine Modern Art Collector and became known for his cutting-edge graphic design as well as for his full color pastel portraits of influential artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance such as the socialist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, the first internationally celebrated African American male concert artist Roland Hayes, or the anthropologist and author Zora Neale Hurston. His work was widely exhibited, and appeared in publications such as Scribner’s Magazine, Century Magazine, The Forum and Survey Graphic. He collaborated with leading artists and intellectuals including Katherine Anne Porter, Paul Kellogg, Miguel Covarrubias, Alain Locke, and Langston Hughes. Among his students were Ruth Light Braun, known for her complex portraits of Jewish life in New York and Palestine, the mural artist Marion Greenwood and the African American key figure of the visual Harlem Renaissance, Aaron Douglas. In addition to teaching in his own art school in New York City and conducting summer schools in Woodstock, New York and later in Glacier Park, Montana, he also taught at the New York School of Applied Design for Women, at the Keramic Society and Design Guild of New York, and at New York University’s School of Architecture. His work in commercial architecture and interior design include the New York City restaurant interiors for Crillon and Long 8
champs and the impressive mosaic murals in the Cincinnati Union Terminal. Yet, despite Reiss’ wide range of creativity, his rich oeuvre of ethnic portraits, distinctive interior modernist design and ground-breaking graphic design has been relegated to the fringes of American art history. In Germany, Winold Reiss is hardly known at all. This anthology seeks to present a unique visual archive of transatlantic modernism by bringing together artists, international experts in American art history, visual studies, media studies, and transnational American studies. For the first time, the complex life and artwork of this pioneer of modernism, Winold Reiss, will be explored in comprehensive, scholarly fashion. While the work of Reiss’ student Aaron Douglas continues to dominate the discussion of portrait art in the Harlem Renaissance, Winold Reiss’ efforts to promote the recognition of African American culture have received comparatively little attention. Richard Powell, however, asserts that Reiss provided the “classic images of the period” and “perfectly captured the common ground from which these newest structures and racial pre-occupations sprang.”7 Reiss’ transatlantic artistic networks, contributions, and democratic vistas are far less visible today than 75 years ago. For example, only the 1925 and 1927 editions of Locke’s manifesto of the Harlem Renaissance feature Reiss’ 14 color illustrations of leading members of the “New Negro” movement. Later editions only reprinted his black and white decorations, losing much of his innovate foray into a bold use of color which he had brought from his training at the Royal Academy of Arts in Munich. The re-edition of The New Negro in 1992 eliminates elements of Reiss’ graphic design as well as all of the color portraits. Amy Helene Kirschke’s impressive analysis of Aaron Douglas’s mural artwork in “The Fisk Murals Revealed” emphasizes the “flat style of synthetic Cubism and Matisse” and especially “the work of the European painters Robert Delaunay and Frantisek Kupka and the American Stanton MacDonald Wright.”8 However, it does not address the obvious significance of the role that Douglas’s mentor, Winold Reiss, played in shaping the nature of African American art in the 1920s. In her seminal publication The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915–1935, Wanda Corn has speculated that Reiss’ work may indeed embarrass scholars.9 The scant recognition of Reiss’ innovative approaches to poster art, lettering, and interior design stems to a certain degree from the continuing stigma of commercial art among art historians. Jeffrey C. F rank M ehring
Stewart was among the first to describe Winold Reiss’ life and his dedication to drawing ethnic minorities in North America in the catalogue To Color America: Portraits by Winold Reiss, which accompanied a major exhibition curated by him at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in 1989.10 In his award winning monumental biography of Alain Locke published in 2018, Stewart pays special attention to what at first looks like a strange contradiction: to have Reiss, a German artist, “illustrate a declaration of Black cultural awakening” which “would result in the boldest cover of an American magazine to date”, the March 1925 Survey Graphic issue “Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro.”11 C. Ford Peatross has offered an important introduction and overview of Reiss’ translation of German concepts of decorative arts into the American context.12 More recent scholarship on the Harlem Renaissance (e.g. publications by George Hutchinson,13 Sieglinde Lemke14 and Frank Mehring)15 has shifted focus from individual figures to racial interactions, crossovers, and transatlantic interchanges.16 Caroline Goeser has brought attention to Reiss’ ground-breaking graphic design in her comprehensive comparative analysis in Picturing the New Negro: Harlem Renaissance Print Culture and Modern Black Identity.17 Since 1986, the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress has acquired over 465 drawings and prints by Winold Reiss that are now included in its “Winold Reiss Design Collection.”18 After the first international conference on Winold Reiss at the Free University Berlin in 2011 a number of essays, articles, translations and books have helped to slowly but surely bring the work of Winold Reiss to the attention of art historians on both sides of the Atlantic.19 In addition to recent writings on Reiss that emphasize transcultural confrontations, the visual rhetoric of the Harlem Renaissance and Reiss as a mediator of modernism between Germany, Mexico and the United States, Gretchen Garner has offered an extensive description of Reiss’ involvement in the aesthetic design and mural artwork of what at the time was the largest half-dome in the world—The Cincinnati Union Terminal.20 The Multicultural Modernism of Winold Reiss (1886– 1953): (Trans)National Approaches to his Work will rethink Reiss’ role in the visual representation of ethnic American identities during the first half of the 20th century. The contributors to the anthology intentionally transgress established art history discipline in order to shed light on contact zones and cultural flows resulting from intercultural migration and the exchange of culI ntroduction
tural as well as artistic ideas. From this perspective Reiss emerges as a cultural “mobilizer,” who in the sense of Greenblatt can be understood as agent, go-between, translator, and intermediator.21 I argue that a German element is woven into the fabric of Reiss’ complex engagement with American ethnicity and racial conflicts. Thus, the European artistic background he brought to the American scene demands a specifically interdisciplinary and international perspective. In a first, this anthology brings together artists, curators, and leading scholars from both sides of the Atlantic in the fields of African American studies, native American art and literature, music history as well as art and design history in order to explore aspects and processes of international exchange, intercultural translation, and transcultural confrontations. The anthology follows three trajectories. The first one is dedicated to re-discovering the life and work of Winold Reiss from a Euro-American perspective. This establishes him as a central figure working in the interwoven tensions of ethnicity, modernity, and transnational modernism. The second examines questions of cultural mobility and transcultural confrontations as a key to understanding, decoding, and re-evaluating his complex oeuvre. The third explores the institutional powers and aesthetic premises at work in the reception process of his oeuvre. The book features a chronology and five sections that address Winold Reiss’ life and work on both sides of the Atlantic. In the chronology, C. Ford Peatross and Renate Reiss trace the major phases of his life and list Reiss’ most important artistic output in the various fields he contributed to. Section I opens with Jeffrey Stewart’s article “The Subjectivizing Transnationalism of Winold Reiss” in which he describes the German-American artist as a cipher of a subjectivizing transnationalism. As an émigré from early twentieth century Germany, he made the representation of marginalized “nations within a nation” of America the focal point of his art practice. In doing so, he ignored what James Baldwin might have called the “price of the ticket” of European transnationalism—that one needed to ignore the racial tragedy of American life if one wanted to enter the canon of American or transnational art history. Reiss was a dialogic transnational who represented the subjectivity of people of color, infused his portraits with their criticality towards America, and fostered modernist counter-statements to typical folk representations of native and Black peoples as frozen 9
in time. Through a synthesis of German modernist aesthetic principles and African-American and Native American critical substance, Reiss created powerful icons of cultural awakening. As a result, Reiss’ art has been undervalued (if not forgotten) because it attended to the subjectivity of its objects instead of merely raiding their cultures for technical innovations, a la Pablo Picasso. Reiss may have shared one aspect of Picasso’s engagement with the African heritage—the notion that people of color had retained a connection with the spiritual nature of reality, and thus offered a way out of the materialist trap of capitalism. Saddled with the irony of being a White artist whose most powerful subject matter was Black and Brown portraiture, Reiss ended up being as much an expatriate in America as an expatriate of Europe. As a pendant to Stewart’s overview, Julie Kennedy takes us to the German beginnings of Reiss’ career. In her article “From the Black Forest to New York City: Winold Reiss’ Artistic Background in Germany and his Formative Years in Munich,” Kennedy addresses the transcultural aspect of his oeuvre by examining his early biography as well as the cultural context in Germany in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, thus contributing to a new analysis of his style and depiction of American ethnic minorities. A crucial, but up to now mostly neglected part of Winold Reiss’ background took place in Munich, the Bavarian capital celebrated as Kunststadt or “City of Arts” at the turn of the century. In addition to autodidactic work in the field of interior design, the two-year training he received while studying at the Royal School of Applied Arts with the well-known Art Nouveau graphic designer and painter Julius Diez (1870– 1957) and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts with the famous Munich Secession Gesamtkünstler and highly respected art teacher Franz von Stuck (1863–1928) undoubtedly contributed to shaping his artistic individuality and forming the set of cultural and stylistic references he took along with him when he emigrated to the United States in 1913. The essay outlines the course of Reiss’ education at both institutions and addresses the question of artistic filiation, thereby focusing on Diez’ and Stuck’s teaching methods and art production and on their influence on Reiss in the fields of graphic design and portraiture; it also offers an explanation for Reiss’ decision to leave Germany for America. Section II investigates the German imaginary of Native Americans in the oeuvre of Winold Reiss. The opening article by Karl Markus Kreis traces changing images 10
of “the Indian” in German-speaking Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Kreis explains that about a hundred years ago, American “Indians” had become a regular and prominent feature of popular exotic shows with people from overseas in German-speaking Europe. The tours of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West had shaped their image but also the way this image was perceived: at public events where one could see and enjoy Native Americans “playing Indian.” How did this American-made import relate to the German-made image of the Red Gentleman Winnetou created by novelist Karl May and consumed avidly by thousands of young readers? It seems that the two sources of imagination—individual fantasy when reading alone, having fun together with family and friends when attending a show—created “the Wild West” as a colorful and playful imaginary space, with a specific setting of places, roles, and patterns of interaction. It inspired, for instance, children to play what they had seen or read, adults to found the first Wild West Clubs, and artists and writers to use it as a repertory for metaphors in their art—or to become curious for the “real” American West and its people like Winold Reiss. In the next essay on “The Visual Construction of ‘Indianness,’” Winfried Fluck argues that the use of “Indian” art as an aesthetic model carries implications that go beyond the realm of the aesthetic and remind us that art can function as an important source of cultural resignification. The “Indian” Art-narrative effectively undermines the hold of the Vanishing Indian-narrative. For Reiss, “Indians” are not disappearing, rather—like peasants in the Black Forest and other groups that are not yet completely swallowed up by modern civilization—they are exemplary survivors. Their marginality is also their strength, and in this sense, they are very much part of modernity, in effect, almost indispensible for the project of cultural regeneration. Ironically, then, of all the painters of American “Indians” discussed in this essay, the apparently least documentary and most openly aestheticizing is also the politically most advanced. “When critics who discuss portraits of ‘Indians’ will finally give up their search for an accuracy or authenticity that must remain elusive, because visual representations are always constructions in the service of certain narratives, they may finally be in a position to acknowledge the special achievement of Winold Reiss.” The section concludes with Jochen Wierich’s critical look at how the “Old West” is reframed in modernist art by turning to Reiss’ Blackfeet portraits. In 1920, the year he first visited the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana F rank M ehring
seeking to meet his “Indian brothers,” the artist was a much belated arrival. The region had already been artistically colonized by American artists such as George Catlin, Frederic Remington, Charlie Russell, George de Forest Brush, and Joseph Henry Sharp. In addition, photographers, writers, and ethnographers had interacted with the Blackfeet for decades. Like others before him, Reiss was in search of an authentic West embodied by Native Americans and their traditions. He also was an anomaly, a modernist who approached his portraiture with an objectivity that brings to mind the art of the German “Neue Sachlichkeit” or of the American Precisionist movement. If new objectivity is Reiss’ modernist strategy in representing Native Americans, this raises larger questions regarding his role as a transmitter of cultural information. How, in other words, did he view his own role as an intermediary between the tribe and the outside world? Wierich argues that Reiss was invested in a pre-modernist project of preserving and authenticating a vanishing tribe. How did Reiss bridge the ostensible divide between a pre-modern and a modern West that was central to the definition of Western Art? Wierich explores these questions by taking a closer look at Reiss’ relations with the Great Northern Railway which sponsored his many trips out West. SECTION III engages with transcultural confrontations in the visual Harlem Renaissance. The opening essay by Sydelle Rubin-Dienstfrey explores connections between Reiss’ groundbreaking ethnographic contributions to the visual culture of the Harlem Renaissance, the pioneering anthropological theories of Franz Boas, and Mexican émigré artist Miguel Covarrubias’ ethnographic intentions in Harlem. A consideration of contemporary developments in the field of cultural anthropology will demonstrate an as yet unexplored confluence between Reiss’ ethnographic methods and Boasian anthropology in the early modern 20th century. Furthermore, an investigation of the parallels between Boas’ and his students’ use of anthropometry and Reiss’ veristic style of New Negro portraiture will reveal a shared quest to debunk scientific racism prevalent at the time. An understanding of Reiss as both artist and ethnographer is further substantiated through an exploration of his relationship with Covarrubias, who also embraced the Harlem Renaissance and demonstrated ethnographic proclivities. Rubin-Dienstfrey concludes by examining the putative title of “folk-lorist of brush and palette” bestowed upon Reiss by Alain Locke in light of Reiss’ ethnographic work in Harlem. I ntroduction
In the next essay Patricia Hills points out that Paul Underwood Kellogg, the editor of Survey Graphic, a journal read by professionals in the field of social reform, Alain Locke, the African American philosopher and cultural activist, and Winold Reiss, the German American modernist painter, came together in 1924 and 1925 to lay out the 100-page Survey Graphic issue focused on Harlem, the African American community in Manhattan. Kellogg suggested the project and provided the venue and resources to publish the March 1925 issue, “Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro.” Locke, as the issue’s editor, conceived the vision of “a New Negro,” wrote three essays, and selected a range of other essays by civic leaders, sociologists, and fiction writers, as well as poetry. Reiss provided thirteen portraits and five “fantasy” drawings to illustrate the issue. Hills recognizes a number of important similarities in their thinking: all three embraced the spirit of progressivism, they valued the cultural work of portraits disseminated through mass media reproduction, and they would have endorsed “transcultural modernity.” She turns to the concept of the “transcultural,” because the three men valued the ability to look with empathy for “the people” (“the folk” and the cultural “other”)—without patronizing, sentimentalizing, or nostalgia. “Modernity,” because both the issues involved in assessments of Harlem life and the literary arts marshaled to represent such issues might generate a new consciousness, necessary for future solutions; also “modernity,” because the portraits selected as illustrations represented people striving toward what was progressive, efficient, and humanistic. Based on these assumptions, Hills examines the backgrounds of all three men—Kellogg, Locke, and Reiss—and the context in which all three operated to create “Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro” and its subsequent, revised anthology, The New Negro: An Interpretation, also published in 1925. Next, Frank Mehring takes a critical look at the importance of Reiss’ use of silhouette aesthetics to contribute to the innovative visual rhetoric of the Harlem Renaissance. Mehring argues that during the Harlem Renaissance the allegedly obsolete art of silhouettes underwent a significant change. Artists and publishers turned to the European art of cutouts to create a remarkable bridge between aspiring African American artists in the field of literature and White audiences. The quest for a modernist visual code that was appealing, instantly recognizable, and easily reproduced in print media, and could cross ethnic and racial boundaries, produced a striking visual rhetoric. Mehring shows that 1920s silhou11
ettes function as a paradigmatic case for analyzing the complex process of Americanization and cultural reappropriation by way of intermedial circulation and remediation. Reiss functions as a transcultural mediator to convert the silhouette from a visual trope of racial typology into an emblematic image of Blackness that has become closely associated with the project of the Harlem Renaissance, the New Negro and with the process of cultural self-recognition. SECTION IV is dedicated to reevaluating Reiss’ influence on American print cultures and muralism. Caroline Goeser investigates Reiss’ contributions to print publications in the U.S. from the 1910s and interwar years. Particular focus is given to the diversity of his modernist representations, which decorated commercial brochures, journals devoted to social work and reform, and literary publications. How can Reiss’ creative dissonance in American print culture be read as an emblem of transcultural modernism? The essay uses as a touch point a comparison between two bodies of illustrative work by Reiss: 1) his cover design and illustrations for a commercial brochure, “The Making of a Steinway,” first published in 1916, and 2) his drawing accompanying Forum magazine’s 1925 publication of Langston Hughes’s poem, “The Weary Blues.” These images allow interpretations of Reiss’ modernist intervention into the medium of illustration in American print culture. They also allow comparison with the illustrative work of other European immigrant artists. The illustrations have additional capacity to speak of migrations and cultural moments through depictions of the piano, which figure prominently in each image. Reiss’ brilliant images of the Steinway grand piano and its manufacture are precociously early renderings of a modern instrument in transition, from Europe to America and from the Victorian parlor to the concert stage. In his wonderfully cacophonous drawing for Langston Hughes’s “The Weary Blues,” Reiss forcefully, yet elegantly portrayed the blues singer’s “ebony hands on each ivory key” of an upright piano. In setting the scene in a space reminiscent of his own interior designs, full of patterned and decorated surfaces, Reiss created a confluence of immigrant and black American cultures—a transcultural modernism attentive to the creative dissonance that animated American cultural production. Douglas Smith examines Reiss’ working methods, materials, and media from the perspective of an artist and art preparator who has worked directly with numerous Reiss artworks over the past eighteen years. Smith 12
explains the processes that defined Reiss’ work in different drawing and painting mediums, particularly with regards to works on paper which constitute a large part of Reiss’ prolific oeuvre. Katherine Manthorne’s article seeks to situate Winold Reiss’ long-standing commitment to mural art within the context of the rise of muralism in America and especially New York City during the interwar years. It addresses the dichotomy within Reiss’ wall painting: the decorative panels in hotels and restaurants—what we might call middlebrow—and the historic panoramas that conform to the standards of depression-era production in the United States. These two bodies of imagery are analyzed against the work of contemporaries from Maxfield Parrish to Diego Rivera and Thomas Hart Benton. Manthorne argues that the New York setting was seminal to this dimension of Reiss’ work in two regards: first, that people in this densely-packed urban environment thought differently about walls and their potential as surfaces for art; and second, that the on-going debates about muralism in these years and the sheer number of available examples informed and stimulated Reiss, both in his teaching and in the creation of his own painted walls. In SECTION V, the European-American networks that shaped Winold Reiss’ approach to American modernism are the center of two articles that approach Reiss as an art teacher at his New York studio and as an artist who shared a particular dedication to music and musicians. Julie Levin Caro examines the unique character and influence of the Winold Reiss Studio as art studio, graphic and interior design workshop, art school, and crucible of transnational cultural exchange. Caro argues that Reiss’ studio located in New York City’s Greenwich Village was a stage on which he performed the roles of multinational portraitist, European modern designer, art teacher, and catalyst of cultural exchange. Because of his range of artistic talents and the number of his European, African American, Mexican, and Asian American artistic friends, Reiss’ studio became a crossroads where artists, writers, musicians, and intellectuals from many different countries and walks of life met, partied, and transformed their art practices. Drawing from historic photographs of the Reiss Studio, first-hand accounts from his students, and new material uncovered in the Reiss archives, Caro describes the content and style of Reiss’ pedagogy and the opportunities he provided for individual expression and artistic collaboration. Jens Barnieck points out that a good number of Reiss’ early portraits are of musicians he knew. Turning F rank M ehring
to the musical form of a sonata, Barnieck chooses a more open form of approaching Reiss’ rather obscure but all the more striking enthusiasm for music. At the center of his “Sonata for Winold Reiss” is the recent discovery of Winold Reiss’ portrait of the composer Dane Rudyar which inspired Barnieck to explore the complex European-American networks of musicians and dancers which brought a synaesthetic dimension to Winold Reiss’ approach to art, including Cyril Scott, Daniel Chennevière, Leopold Godowski, and Isadora Duncan. Recognizing processes of intermediary cross-fertilizations, Barnieck explores the sights and sounds that left a strong impression on Reiss’ artistic vision. The final SECTION VI concludes with an extensive re-evaluation of Reiss as a pioneer of modern design by showing the character, extent and diversity of his career. In his article “Multicultural and Modern Design: The Singular Vision of Winold Reiss, 1906 to 1952,” C. Ford Peatross proposes that “Reiss may have been a sort of proto-Warhol in that he made the popular heroic, and ennobled the ordinary in a way that few before Andy Warhol had.” A review of Reiss’s oeuvre prompts a reconsideration of preconceptions and definitions concerning the understanding of “folk” and “High” and “Low” art,” of “artistic practice, artistic identity, the roles of artists and how they interact or collaborate with one another and with the world of commerce,” and of “how one should define both fine and commercial artistic production and success.” In many ways every time one looks at Reiss’ work, common threads emerge, and one observes the use of certain subject themes and artistic conventions, some of which were almost “tics” that he loved, and that were also a part of what makes his work both rich and intriguing. Peatross asks and attempts to illustrate what distinguished Reiss’ concept of “modern” from everyone else’s modern. In attempting to do this, he divides Reiss’ work into two phases, European modernism and American modernism. At a point around 1917–19, Peatross argues, an observable shift happened from the former to the latter. It was not a “falling off a cliff” shift, but a point at which Reiss’ work began to look less European and more American. This article explores the reasons for the author’s conclusion by looking at a large number of graphic works in the Reiss Archives and others acquired by the Library of Congress during the last four decades, many hitherto unpublished. It has been a long time coming since those grey December days in Berlin in 2011 when the audacious project of a I ntroduction
Ill. 2: The Unfinished Business of Democracy, Cover of Survey Graphic (Nov. 1942). Print on paper, 11 3/4 × 8 3/4 in. (29.8 × 22.2 cm). Image Courtesy Reiss Archives.
comprehensive anthology was first suggested; and while we were riding on a wave of enthusiasm at the time, the challenges of the everyday work routine and of turning ideas into print-worthy formats were bound to slow down our efforts. The final parts of the book came together during the Corona outbreak in the first half of 2020. Despite the many challenges of limited interaction, closed archives, and new teaching challenges in virtual classrooms, the enthusiasm and dedication of all involved in this project pulled us through. I would like to thank all of the authors who remained committed over the years beyond the call of duty. Finally, the book is here to stay. As Emerson once said, “nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” This project over the last decade has been a labor of love, enthusiasm and joy: of bringing to light wonderful pieces of art that speak of Winold Reiss’ plea for color, both on a literal level—on paper and canvas, in mosaics and interior design—and on a cultural level. I believe that art holds a unique power to critically and creatively engage—every new day—with “the unfinished business of democracy.” 13
Notes 1
For a comprehensive discussion of the various sketches that ultimately culminated in the final version of the cover, see my chapter on Winold Reiss in The Democratic Gap: Transcultural Confrontations of German Immigrants and the Promise of American Democracy (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014). See also the reference to my article on The Unfinished Business of Democracy in footnote 19. 2 Curiously, this letter was never sent. It was found in a sealed envelope among his personal belongings. 3 P.W. Sampson, “A Modern Cellini—Winold Reiss,” Du Pont Magazine. Vol. XXV, No. 3 (March 1931), 4 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 See Mehring, Democratic Gap, 2. 7 Richard Powell, Black Art: A Cultural History (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 42. Also Susan Earle, curator of European and American Art at the Spencer Museum of Art, explains in the exhibition catalogue: “Douglas provided illustrations for the burgeoning magazines The Crisis, Opportunity, and FIRE!! He also served as the only African American illustrator of the defining book of the time, The New Negro (1925), contributing distinctive images that captured the era’s new spirit and supplemented an impressive array of cultural and social texts by major talents of the day, including Jean Toomer, [Langston] Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Jessie Fauset, Arthur A. Schomburg, Walter White, and [W.E.B.] Du Bois. This anthology helped laying the groundwork for the development of the liberationist path that the New Negro signified.” Susan Earle, “Harlem, Modernism, and Beyond: Aaron Douglas and His Role in Art/History,” Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist (New Haven, CT: Yale UP; Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 2007), 5–52, 12. What is important here is what is not being said: that most of the visual artwork of The New Negro was created by the German immigrant painter who studied in Munich at the Royal Academy of Arts and at the School of Applied Arts and whose name is featured so prominently on the cover page of the first edition. 8 Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 116 9 See Corn, The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915–1935 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 36 ff. Richard Powell reminds scholars of Reiss’ presence in the visual Harlem Renaissance in his overview Black Art: A Cultural History. His essay in Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist assures that Reiss is recognized within discussions of aesthetic developments. The 1987 traveling exhibition “Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America” also furthered the intrinsic connection between Harlem and African American history of ideas and art. While the term is indeed an “accurate yet elastic description of the levels and range of black creativity in the 1920s” (41) as Powell argues, it nevertheless hardly allows for the recognition of influential artists beyond the agency of African American productions. Thus, in the visual narratives of the Harlem Renaissance we usually find references to the photographer James Van Der Zee or to Douglas who holds a special place as quintessential “African American Modernist.” 10 See Jeffrey Stewart (ed.). To Color America: Portraits by 14
Winold Reiss (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press; National Portrait Gallery, 1989) with companion volume Winold Reiss: An Illustrated Checklist of his Portraits (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press; National Portrait Gallery, 1990). Among the comparatively small exhibitions of Reiss’ artwork are Winold Reiss, Native American Portraits, exhibition catalogue with an essay by Scott J. Tanner and introduction by Richard V. West (Seattle: Frye Art Museum, 2000); Marion Grant, Diverse Reflections: Portraits by Winold Reiss, exhibition catalogue (Pittsfield, MA: Berkshire Museum, 1997); Native Faces: Winold Reiss, exhibition catalogue with an essay by John Heminway (Bozeman, MT: Thomas Nygard Gallery, 1997); and Ray W. Steele, ed., Winold Reiss, Portraits of the Races, exhibition catalogue with text by Paul Raczka and introduction by Ned Jacob (Great Falls, MT: C.M. Russell Museum, 1986). 11 Jeffrey C. Stewart, The New Negro. The Life of Alain Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 460, 472. 12 See C. Ford Peatross “Winold Reiss: A Pioneer of Modern American Design,” Queen City Heritage (Summer-Fall 1993), 38–57. 13 See e. g. George Hutchinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2007). 14 See e. g. Sieglinde Lemke, Primitivist Modernism: Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 15 See Mehring, Democratic Gap, 149–196. 16 See also Frank Mehring, “The New Negro—A German Promise from Mexico? Transcultural Perspectives on the Harlem Renaissance” in Transatlantic Intellectual Networks, 1914–1964, eds. Hans Bak and Celine Mansanti (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2019), 52–79. 17 Picturing the New Negro: Harlem Renaissance Print Culture and Modern Black Identity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007). 18 See the collection at the Library of Congress, https://www. loc.gov/search/?in=&q=winold+reiss+collection&new=true&st= 19 Articles I published on Winold Reiss include “Remediating Silhouettes: What We Can Learn from Advertising the Harlem Renaissance in the Digital Age,” in Transnational Mediations: Negotiating Popular Culture between Europe and the United States, eds. Christof Decker and Astrid Böger (Heidelberg: Winter, 2015), 33–56; “Mediating Mexico: Winold Reiss and the Transcultural Dimension of ‘Harlem’ in the 1920s,” fiar. Journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies, 7.2 (July 2014), 10–35. Available at: http://www.interamerica.de; “Portraying Transnational America: Aesthetic and Political Dimensions in Winold Reiss’ ‘Plea for Color,’” in Reframing the Transnational Turn in American Studies, eds. Winfried Fluck, Donald E. Pease, and John Carlos Rowe (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2011), 164–192; “The New Negro—A German Promise from Mexico? Transcultural Perspectives on the Harlem Renaissance,” in Transatlantic Intellectual Networks, 1914–1964, eds. Hans Bak and Celine Mansanti (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2019), 52–79; “The Visual Harlem Renaissance; or, Winold Reiss in Mexico,” Amerikastudien /American Studies, eds. Werner Sollors and Glenda Carpio, 55.4. (2010), 629–640; “’The Unfinished Business of Democracy’: Transcultural FRANK MEHRING
Confrontations in the Portraits of the German-American Artist Winold Reiss,” in American Artists in Munich. Artistic Migration and Cultural Exchange Processes, eds. Christian Fuhrmeister, Hubertus Kohle, and Veerle Thielemans (Deutscher Kunstverlag: München, 2009), 193–210. A book chapter in my monograph Democratic Gap: Transcultural Confrontations of German Immigrants and the Promise of American Democracy (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014) was dedicated to “Transcultural Pluralism: Winold Reiss.” Finally, the illustrated trilingual edition with commentary and musical interpretations The Mexico Diary: Winold Reiss between Vogue Mexico and Harlem Renaissance (Trier: WTV, 2016).
INTRODUCTION
See Gretchen Garner, Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal. Fanfare to the Common Man (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2016). In 2012, Asta Freifrau von Schroeder submitted a dissertation on “Images and Messages in the Embellishment of Metropolitan Railway Stations (1850–1950)” in Berlin. In her two-volume work, she traces, among other things, Winold Reiss’ artistic contributions to the Cincinnati Union Terminal in a comparative transatlantic context. 21 See Stephen Greenblatt, Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 2010). 20
15
C . F O R D P E AT R O S S W I T H R E N AT E R E I S S
W I N O L D R E I S S ( 18 8 6 –19 5 3 ) : A SELECTIVE CHRONOLOGY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK*
18 8 6 – 1913 : B E G I N N I N G S Fritz Wilhelm Winold Reiss (hereafter “WR”), born September 16, 1886, Karlsruhe, Germany; son of the artist Fritz Reiss (1857–1915). Primary and secondary education in Stuttgart and Freiburg, with early artistic education from his father. Travels in Germany and Italy (1906–09); military service (1909/10); artistic studies in Munich (1910–13): Schule für graphische Künste, Städt. Gewerbeschule, Königl. Kunstgewerbeschule, Königl. Akademie der Bildenden Künste (with Franz von Stuck). Freelance work in poster and graphic design; interior and furniture design, including Marc P. and Katherine Peixotto residences, Lilianhof (near Freiburg i. Br.) and in Schluchsee/Schw. Marries Henriette Anna Lüthy in 1912 in Munich. Emigrates to the United States and arrives in New York City on Oct. 29, 1913; introduced into New York art circles by Ernest C. Peixotto. Son, Winold Tjark Reiss, born in Munich on Dec. 27, 1913. Wife and son join WR in New York in April, 1914. 1914 – 19 : E A R LY C A R E E R I N N E W YO R K Works briefly for International Art Service (1913/14). Establishes the Crafts and Art Studio (CAS, 307 5th Ave.) with partners Alfred Besel and Jacob Asanger (1914). Ilonka Karasz soon joins CAS. WR co-founds the Society of Modern Art (1915) which publishes the magazine Modern Art Collector (M.A.C., 1915–1917). Fine arts: Portraits; landscapes; woodcuts and batiks; “Imaginatives”. Graphic designs: Book, magazine and brochure, sheet music designs, covers, illustrations and jackets: Scribner’s Magazine, Shallow Soil, The Last Shot (1913–16); Puck (1915); M.A.C. (1915–17); Steinway and Publishers Printing Co. booklets (1916); Sans Toi, Jerome H. Remick & Co., and Starland, F. B. Haviland Pub. Co. sheet music covers (1916); The Touchstone (1919); Pagan (1919); Playboy: A Portfolio of Art and Satire (1919). Advertising, menus and packaging: Mallinson Pussy Willow Poster Prints (1915); Busy Lady Baking Co. (1915); Hahne & Co., Newark, NJ (1916); Restaurant Crillon and “The Inner Three” (1919). Posters, poster stamps and albums: United 16
Art Publishers, Stampkraft Mother Goose and Peter Rabbit/Three Bears (1915); Wentz & Co., motion picture series (1915–?); Photo Engravers’ Convention (1915); Charity Bazar (1916). Architectural, interior and mural designs: Busy Lady Baking Co. shops, 3620 & 4230 Broadway at 149th & 180th Sts. (1915), Herts Restaurant, 24 W. 57th St. (1915-16); Yorkville German Theatre, 157 E. 86th St. (1916), Charity Bazar, Madison Square Garden, 51 Madison Ave. btw. 26th & 27th Sts.; Restaurants Crillon, 15 E. 48th St., and Elysée, 1 E. 56th St. (1919); proposed Café Gallant in Greenwich Village (1919), and unidentified, undated fabric shop (1915–19). Furniture, textile and product designs: Furniture for his own apartment (1914) and published in The Craftsman (1915); textile designs for Mallinson, Central Textile Co., Cheney Bros. Teaching: Establishes Winold Reiss School at 96 5th Ave. (1915); moves Winold Reiss Art School (“Batiks, Textiles, Posters, Interior and Stage Decoration, Life Drawing and Portrait Painting”) and Winold Reiss Studio to 4 Christopher St. (1917–27); summer sessions in Woodstock, NY (1916–19); New York School of Applied Design for Women (1916–19). 19 2 0 – 2 2 : T R AV E L . A M E R I C A N W E S T , MEXICO, EUROPE Travels to Browning, MT; San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA; Santa Fe and Taos, NM (Jan.-Feb., 1920). Twomonth trip through Mexico (Oct.-Dec., 1920) recorded in diary. Travels extensively in Europe (Sep., 1921–May, 1922). Fine arts: Portraits: 36 of Blackfeet in Browning, MT; 45 in Mexico; 19 Oberammergau Passion Players, 38 Southern German, and 17 Swedish subjects while in Europe; Mexican landscapes and “Imaginatives”; woodcuts; batiks. Graphic designs: Book, magazine and brochure designs, covers, illustrations and jackets: Keramic Studio (1920); Arts & Decoration (1921); brochure cover, Apollo Theatre, Chicago; Century Magazine (1922); Advertising, menus, C . F ord P eatross with R enate R eiss
and packaging: Baumgarten/Haering’s “The Inner Three” restaurants (Crillon, Voisin, Elysée); Restaurant Esplanade (1920); Restaurant Elysée in Cleveland, OH; Baumgarten Viennese Bonbonnière (1922); costume designs, Prismatic Ball, Society of Independent Artists, Waldorf-Astoria (1921). Architectural, interior and mural designs: Esplanade, 305 West End Ave.; Voisin, 375 Park Ave. (both 1920); Rivoli & Rialto Theatres stage designs (1920); auditorium and lobby murals, Apollo Theatre, Chicago; South Sea Ballroom murals, Hotel Sherman, Chicago; Winifred MacDonald Tea-Room and Restaurant, 15 Continental Ave., nr. Queens Blvd., Forest Hills, L.I., N. Y.; Hungarian peasant style settlement house dining room, nr. 5th Ave. (all 1921); Baumgarten Viennese Bonbonnière, 15 E. 48th St. (1922). Teaching: Winold Reiss Art School. 19 2 3 – 3 0 : R OA R I N G T H R O U G H T H E ‘ 2 0 S Sculptor Hans Reiss joins the Reiss school and studio (1923). Winold and Henriette Reiss divorce (1923) but continue their professional cooperation. Establishes Winold Reiss Decorating Co. (Winold Reiss, President; O.J. Baumgarten, Treasurer; A.L. Baumgarten, Secretary; ca. 1923–1927) and Winold Reiss Studios (Winold Reiss and O.J. Baumgarten, partners; 1928). Studio moves from 4 Christopher St. to 108 W. 16th St. (1927); Erika Lohmann begins to contribute to the Studio’s work. WR founding member, American Designers Gallery (1928–29), AUDAC (American Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen). Fine arts: Portrait series: Harlem (1925); Japanese and Chinese (1926); St. Helena Island, GA (1927); Blackfeet and Blood Indians, Glacier Park, MT (1927, 1928); American Beauties (1930). Woodblock print portfolio The Months, Albert & Charles Boni (1923). “Imaginatives”. Graphic designs: Book, magazine and brochure designs, covers, illustrations, jackets, etc.: Winold Reiss exhibition brochure, Anderson Galleries (1922); American Mercedes sales catalog (1923); Llewellyn Powys, Ebony and Ivory, Harcourt, Brace & Co. (1923); T.S. Stribling, Red Sand, Harcourt Brace & Co. (1924); Opportunity (1924–27); Survey Graphic (1924–29); The New Negro: An Interpretation, Alain Locke, ed., Albert & Charles Boni (1925); Scenic Artists Ball (1925); Leonard Woolf, The Village in the Jungle, Harcourt, Brace & Co. (1926); William Plomer, Turbott Wolfe, Harcourt Brace & Co. (1926); The Forum (1925, 1927, 1928); American Indian Portraits by Winold Reiss, exhibition brochure, John Wanamaker Belmaison Galleries (1928); Town & Country (1928); Hotel Management (1929); Travel (1929); Detective Magazine (1930). Posters, adver-
tising, menus, packaging, delivery trucks: Restaurant Crillon, Baumgarten Viennese Bonbonnière (1922-); Hotel Alamac, Hotel St. George, Rumpelmayer, Hotel St. Moritz; Café Bonaparte; Great Northern Railway Co. Architectural, interior and mural designs: Hotel Alamac, Broadway at 71st St., including Congo Roof and Mediæval Grille (1923); Restaurant Crillon, 15 E. 48th St. additions/alterations (1923–25); interiors, murals, American Mercedes Motors Showroom, Harriss-Colonnade Building, 1781 Broadway at W. 57th St. (1923); Cowboy Café, formerly Frau Greta’s, 5 Christopher St. (1925); Adolf Büchler tea-room, 814 Lexington Ave. (1925); Restaurant Robert, 33 W. 55th St. (1925); Theodore Weicker apartment, 1115 5th Ave. (1926); new Restaurant Crillon, 277 Park Ave. (1926); Robert Fish apartment, W. 77th St. (1927); modern apartments, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Boston (1927); Crystal Room, Ritz-Carlton New York (1927); at least one of the Restaurants Longchamps: 1015–17 Madison Ave. (1927 and earlier); 423 Madison Ave. & 40 E. 49th St. (1927), 55 5th Ave. (1927); 19–21 W. 57th St. & 28 W. 58th St. (1927, 1928); Büchler/Woelfel restaurant, 1001-3 Madison Ave., btw. 77th & 78th Sts. (1928); Shellball Apartments, Kew Gardens, Queens (1928); the Tavern Club, 333 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago (1928); Lenthéric, Savoy-Plaza Hotel, 389 5th Ave. at 59th St. (1928); modern suite, Hotel Du Pont-Biltmore, Wilmington, DE (1928); lobby murals, Fisher Building, 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit, MI (1928– 30); Daughter’s Room, American Designers’ Gallery (1928); Living Room, American Designers’ Gallery (1929); Woman’s Bedroom, “The Architect and Industrial Arts” exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art (with John Root, 1929); living room, Loeser’s department store, Fulton at Bond St., Brooklyn (1929); living room, Charles Merrill House, Southampton, L.I., NY (with Frances T. Miller, 1929); Mosse Linens store, 750 5th Ave. (1929); Art Directors Room, Lennen & Mitchell Advertising Co., 17 E. 45th St., (1929); Paul J. Fassnacht apartment, 277 Park Ave. (1929); Rudolf Mosse offices, Graybar Building (1929); Hotel Berkley (1929); murals, Chrysler Building, 42nd St. & Lexington Ave. (1929); living room, Orinoka Modern Interiors, Hope Harvey, Draperies and Color Harmony, Orinoka Mills (n.d.); Steuben (later Doctors) Club, 133 E. 58th St. & Lexington Ave., & rental offices, 312 E. 44th St. (1929– 30); Walden-Dudensing Galleries & Bookshop, Michigan Square Bldg., Chicago (1930); Café Bonaparte, BeauxArts Apartments, E. 44th St. (1930); Rumpelmayer’s and Hotel St. Moritz (1930); Hotel St. George, 100 Henry St., Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn (1930); Cafe Caprice, 1 University Pl. (1930); metal gate and fireplace screens, Third
W inold R eiss ( 1 8 8 6 – 1 9 5 3 ) : A S elective C hronology of his L ife and W ork
17
International Exhibition of Contemporary Industrial Art: the American Federation of Arts (1930–31). Furniture, textile and product designs: Furniture designs for Mallin and Singer Furniture Co. (1928–1930); aluminum chairs for U.S. Aluminum Co. and General Fireproofing Co. (1928-30). Lamp designs for Egli (1928). Textile design for Martex, “Old Mexico” (1927); Mosse Linens (1928); Sidney Blumenthal/Shelton Looms (1929); Schumacher (1929). Nemoursa textile colors and brochure (1928), Viscoloid mirrors & vanity sets (1928-29), Tontine window shades (1929), and Rayon textiles, all for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.; Squibb shaving cream tubes. Teaching: Winold Reiss Art School; Winold Reiss Summer School in Woodstock, NY (1924); New York School of Applied Design for Women (1924–29). 19 31 – 4 0 : A F T E R T H E C R A S H Becomes a U.S. Citizen in 1932. Appointed Assistant Professor of Mural Painting and to the Fine Arts Committee, New York University School of Architecture, in 1933. Son Tjark Reiss joins the Winold Reiss Studio between architectural studies (MIT, 1934) and graduate studies (1935– 37 with Peter Behrens at Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna); re-joins in 1938. Architects Albert Chas. Schweizer and Simon B. Zelnik become associated with the Studio. Fine arts: Portraits of Blackfeet and Blood Indians (1931, 1934–37) and other ethnic types.; “Imaginatives”; landscapes. Graphic designs: Book, magazine and brochure designs, covers, illustrations and jackets: James Willard Schultz and Jessie Louise Donaldson, The Sun God’s Children, Houghton Mifflin Co. (1930); Frank B. Linderman, Blackfeet Indians, ill. by Winold Reiss, St. Paul: Brown & Bigelow (1935); Kenneth Roberts, Northwest Passage, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1936. Winold Reiss and Albert Schweizer, You Can Design, McGraw-Hill (1939); Fortune, Scribner’s, Pictorial Review, American Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Home Companion, Survey Graphic, Hotel Management, often in multiple issues and different years. Advertising, menus, calendars and packaging, delivery trucks: Rumpelmayer’s, Henry Lustig Produce Co., Restaurants Voisin and Crillon, Restaurants Longchamps, Maillard’s, Great Northern Railway Co.; Hess Bros. Department Store, Allentown, PA; Indian Federation of America Annual Ball (1938), Heller Candy Co. (1939); Ruppert Beer/Brewing Co. Architectural, interior and mural designs: Ice Club, 50th St. & 8th Ave., New York, 1932; Cincinnati Union Terminal 18
(1933); murals, café/bar, new Palmer House, Chicago (1933); Steuben Taverns, Fordham Rd., Grand Concourse, Creston Ave. (1933) & 42nd St. & Broadway (1934); Hotel Gotham, 5th Ave. & 55th St. (1934); Colony Theatre, 37–27 86th St., Jackson Heights, Queens, (1935); Restaurants Longchamps: addition of 1019 Madison Ave.; redecoration & sidewalk addition, 55 5th Ave. at 12th St. (1935–36); new restaurants & additions at Madison Ave. and 59th St. (Indian theme, 1935, 1936, 1938); Lexington Ave. & 42nd St. (Chanin Bldg., Louis XIV Garden Theme, 1935, 1936); Broadway & 41st St. (Continental Bldg., New York City theme, 1936); W. 57th/58th Sts. (disappearing window, Mexican theme, 1936); 5th Ave. at 34th St. (Empire State Bldg., Swiss and abstract modern themes, 1938); 253 Broadway (at City Hall, Tour of the World theme, 1938); Restaurant Crillon (cocktail lounge, Viennese dining room, Tyrolean room: 1935, 1936, 1938); Concord Bar (1935–40); Essex House Terrace (1936); Waldorf Cafeteria, 6th Ave. and W. 50th St. (1937); Barricini Candy Shop, 501 5th Ave. (1938); Winter Garden Theatre, 1634 Broadway btw. 50th & 51st Sts (1938); Cotton Shop, 543 Madison Ave. (1938); Hess Bros. Patio Restaurant, Allentown, PA (Mexican theme, 1938); World’s Fair Music Hall (1938–39), Mayflower Doughnut & Maxwell House murals (1939), New York World’s Fair; showroom for National Cash Register Co., Rockefeller Center (1938); Fairview Yacht Club (1939); Hotel Belvedere, 314 W. 49th St. (1939); Lindy’s Restaurant, 1655 Broadway & 51st St. (1939); S.S. America murals (1939); Schrafft’s bar and restaurant murals (1939, 1940); Bryant Theatre (former Cameo Theatre), 138 W. 42nd St. (1939–40); Jonas Shop, 3103 Washington Ave., Richmond, VA (1940) & Norfolk, VA. Furniture, textile and product designs: Furniture designs for Thonet & Mallin; aluminum chairs for U.S. Aluminum Co. and General Fireproofing Co.; lighting designs for Egli; General Fireproofing Co. aluminum chairs and tables for Longchamps (1936–38). Teaching: Winold Reiss Art School, with summer sessions at Glacier Park, MT (1931, 1934–37); NYU School of Architecture; Lectures at Keramic Society and Design Guild. 1941 – 4 5 : WA R Y E A R S Winold Reiss Studio moves to smaller quarters, 266 W. 12th St. (late 1940) and 230 W. 13th St. (1942). Art School enrollment dwindles. NYU closes School of Architecture (1941). Hans Reiss moves to Lake Tahoe, NV (1941). Tjark Reiss enters military service (1941); re-joins the studio after his military discharge (1945). A.C. Schweizer enters C . F ord P eatross with R enate R eiss
military service (1943). Travel to Glacier Park, MT (1943), and Rocky Boy Agency, MT (1944). Fine arts: Portraits of Blackfeet and Blood Indians (1943, 1944); landscapes; “Imaginatives”. Graphic design: Book, magazine and brochure designs, covers, illustrations and jackets: Survey Graphic (1941, 1942, 1945) and others. Advertising, menus, calendars: Roger Smith Hotels, Great Northern Railway Co., Restaurants Longchamps. Architectural, interior and mural designs: Roller rink, Elizabeth, N.J. (1941); Elgin (Puck) movie theater, 171–175 8th Ave. at 19th St. (1941); “South Sea Island” murals, Hotel President, Kansas City, MO (1941); Coffee shop, Yorktowne Hotel, York, PA (1941); small Restaurant Long champs, no location, & new bar & roof garden, 49th St. & Madison Ave. (1941); Restaurant Longchamps, 253 Broadway (at City Hall), new front (1942); Restaurant Long champs, W. 57th/58th Sts. (1943); Ye Eat Shoppe, 724 8th Ave. at 46th St. (1943-44); Tropical Gardens restaurant, 4020 Broadway & W. 169th St. (1944); Dunhall’s Restaurant, 1440 Broadway, s. of 41st St. (1945); St. James Restaurant, 618 W. 181st St. (1945); The Avenue/St. James restaurant, 509 5th Ave. (1945); Remodeling, Browning King Stores: 551 5th Ave., 241 Broadway, 547 Fulton St., Brooklyn; Broad St., Newark NJ (all 1945); Mike Lyman’s Restaurant, 424 W. 6th St. at Olive, nr. Pershing Square, Los Angeles, CA (1945); Adelphi Theater lobbies, 152 W. 54th St. (1945); Browning-King men’s store, 551 5th Ave. (before 1946). Teaching: Private students. 194 6 – 5 3 : T H E L A T E Y E A R S Travel to California, Nevada, Oklahoma, Montana. Purchases a building in Carson City, NV, in 1946 with intention to retire there. Suffers a stroke in NYC in 1951. Recovers but suffers a second stroke in 1952 which leaves him paralyzed on one side. Dies on August 29, 1953 in his studio apartment. Fine arts: Portraits; landscapes; “Imaginatives”. Graphic design: Book, magazine and brochure designs, covers, illustrations and jackets: Warpath and Council Fire, 1851–1891, Random House (1948); The Lewis and Clark Expedition, Random House (1951). Packaging for Barricini Candy; menus for Hotel President, Kansas City, MO, (1948); Chic-n-Coop Indian Room (1949). Architectural, interior and mural designs: Café Wienecke, 207 E. 86th St. nr. 3rd Ave. (1944); Big Bromley Ski Resort, Manchester, VT (1943–46); mosaic entrance, Woolaroc, Bartlesville, OK (1946); Tropical Gardens Bar,
1455 St. Nicholas Ave. & W. 183rd St. (1945-46); Roger Smith Hotels: Holyoke, MA; White Plains, NY; Washington, DC (all 1946); Park Crescent Hotel, 351 W. 87th St. and Riverside Dr. (1946); Cello-Nu Showroom, Plastics Center, 875, 6th Ave. (1946); Tony Pastor’s, 1678 Broadway, btw. W. 52nd & 53rd Sts. (1946); Penthouse Club, (1946); Weber’s Restaurant, 361 St. Nicholas St., Ridgewood, Queens (1946); Essex House, Newark, NJ (1947); Barricini Candy Shops: Penn Station (Long Island Level), W. 34th St., nr. 7th Ave. (1947), 590 5th Ave. (1948), Commodore Hotel at Grand Central Station, 109 E. 42nd St., and 1322 Broadway nr. 35th St. (Macy’s, Herald Sq.); Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th St. & 8th Ave. (1946-47); Savarin restaurant, Pennsylvania Station (1948); Indian Room, Chic-n-Coop Restaurant & Bar, Rue St. Catherine W., btw. Drummond & Stanley Sts., Montréal (1949); Irilite, 421 E. 62nd St. (1949); Russian Tea Room, 150 W. 57th St. (1949); Mona Manet Salon, 49 E. 52nd St., nr. Park Ave. (1948-); Fields department stores, 82nd St. & 37th Ave., Jackson Heights (1950), & Steinway Ave., Queens; Capri [Atlantic ?] Beach Club Restaurant, 1300 Beach Street west of Clayton Ave., Atlantic Beach (1950); Geiger Vienna Pastry Shop & Restaurant, Inc., 206 E. 86th St.; mosaic mural designs for Henry Hohauser building, Miami, FL (1950); Santa Fe Railway Ticket Office, 11th & Wyandotte, Kansas City, MO (1951); May Company, 6th & Grace Sts., Richmond, VA (1951); Restaurants Longchamps, 57th/58th Sts. (1946, 1950-52), 3rd Ave. & 63rd St. (Manhattan House, South Sea Island theme, 1951); York Inn restaurant and cocktail lounge, York Ave. & E. 62nd St. (1951); Restaurant Longchamps, W. 57th/58th Sts. (1950), 14th St. & New York Ave., N.W., Washington, DC (Wyatt Building, Indian theme, 1952), Walnut & 18th Sts. at Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA (1952); Dorsay Famous Fashion Shops, 37-14 Main St., Flushing, L.I. (1953), 95-62 63rd Drive, Rego Park, Queens; 72-17 Austin St., Forest Hills; Whelan Drug Store, 37-66 82nd St.; F. W. Woolworth, 37-15 82nd St.; The Boys Shop, 82nd St., all Jackson Heights, Queens; Ship Building Div., Bethlehem Steel Co., 3075 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island. Teaching: Private students.
* This chronology includes executed as well as proposed works and projects and reflects research as of October 2021. As Winold Reiss is credited with more than 1,000 portraits, listing them would far exceed the scope of this timeline, and only selected categories are mentioned. During Reiss’ lifetime over fifty exhibitions featured his work and almost forty more included individual examples, but only four that featured a room of his design are listed here. Unless otherwise noted, all sites are in New York City.
W inold R eiss ( 1 8 8 6 – 1 9 5 3 ) : A S elective C hronology of his L ife and W ork
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PUBLISHING DETAILS
Layout and typesetting: Edgar Endl, bookwise GmbH, Munich Printed in the European Union All rights and copyrights in the creative works depicted herein are reserved and retained by their respective owners. Publishing: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Berlin München Lützowstraße 33 10785 Berlin www.deutscherkunstverlag.de Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH Berlin Boston www.degruyter.com The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Berlin München ISBN 978-3-422-98052-5
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Front cover: Winold Reiss, Isamu Noguchi, ca. 1929. Pastel on paper, 29 × 21 1/2 in. (73.7 × 54.6 cm). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Joseph and Rosalyn Newman Conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee (Detail). Back cover: Winold Reiss, Self-Portrait, 1914. Pastel on paper. 15 × 11 in. (38.1 × 27.9 cm). Image Courtesy Reiss Archives.