|
| For
a larger view of works of art click on images. |
|
Newsletter
- Fall 1998
Interview
A
Conversation with Norma Marin
 In
the following interview, Marianne Doezema talks with Norma Marin, daughter-in-law
of the distinguished American artist John Marin. Ms. Marin has promised a major
bequest of more than 170 important modern American works of art to the Mount Holyoke
College Art Museum, the Smith College Museum of Art,and the Davis Museum and Cultural
Center, Wellesley College. For further information about the bequest and the Norma
Marin Foundation, see page "From the Director."
MD: First, I want to reiterate, on behalf of all three art museum
directors, how gratified we are by this gift. It has been a pleasure
working with you over the past three years, and I'm delighted that
our conversations have culminated in the bequest and the establishment
of the Norma Marin Foundation. It seems to me, though, that the
story really began some decades earlier—as early as April
1955 when you went to the Downtown Gallery in New York City for
the first time. It was on that occasion that you first saw a painting
by Georgia O'Keeffe, and you met the man you would soon marry, John
Marin, Jr.
NM: Yes, I remember that I walked into the Downtown Gallery and
was very impressed by what it looked like, having come into an old
brownstone on 51st Street and then entering the very modern interior.
Visually it was quite wonderful. And at the desk I saw a very well-dressed
black gentleman. It was extremely unusual at that time to see any
persons of color in an art gallery, and so I thought this is all
very good ­ whoever owns this gallery [Edith Halpert] must have
an open mind.
Over the desk was a painting that really bowled me over. It was the beginning
of the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition that was installed in the galleries. It was
the first one-person show of an American artist I had seen in my life.
I asked the man at the desk if Mr. Marin was here. I was invited to walk up the
stairs, and a handsome man got up from his desk. We introduced ourselves and laughed
because my cousin had gone to prep school with John [Marin, Jr.] and John had
heard about me from my cousin and had suggested that I stop by the gallery. So,
I was looking at John and also at the O'Keeffes on the wall, and I didn't know
exactly where to put my interest. That's typical O'Keeffe. She always wanted people
to notice her. . . . I thought, a woman, and this is powerful. I hadn't seen anything
like O'Keeffe in my life. I didn't know anything about abstract art; but I was
ready; it grabbed me.
MD: Can you tell me a little about the owner of the Downtown Gallery,
Edith Halpert, and her relationship with John Marin, Sr.
NM: Edith was determined that American art was going to shine. She
discovered the work of Jacob Lawrence and, as far as I know, Ben
Shahn. She always admired Marin's work, from the time she first
saw it in Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, An American Place. After Stieglitz
died in 1946, An American Place was kept going until 1950. By this
time, several people wanted to handle Marin's work, but Marin wanted
to be with a gallery of American art and a pioneer gallery such
as Edith Halpert's was, as Steiglitz's had been. So, in 1950 Marin
went to the Downtown Gallery, and Edith set aside one small room
for showing Marin's work exclusively. Also at that time, John Marin,
Jr., who had been taking care of his elderly father, was hired to
work at the gallery.
Edith Halpert did a lot for Marin [Sr.]. She really believed in him, as well as
liking him as a person.
MD: Your collection includes a number of works by artists in the
Marin circle who were shown at An American Place and then at the
Downtown Gallery. I would be interested to know something about
how you acquired them—the works by Georgia O'Keeffe, for example.
NM: John and I purchased an O'Keeffe, but Mountain Forms,
which Mount Holyoke is borrowing for an exhibition this fall, was
a gift from Georgia O'Keeffe to John Marin, Sr. It always hung in
the Marin house in Cliffside [New Jersey]. O'Keeffe was aware of
the fact that Marin had that painting and it was clear that it meant
a great deal to her.
MD: Mountain Forms is a very strong painting, and as you
know, it makes a superb contribution to the section of our landscape
exhibition we're calling, "Isolation and Inspiration."
Another highlight of your collection is Arthur Dove's East from
Holbrook's Bridge.
NM: John Jr. bought that work when he was working at the Downtown
Gallery. Of course, he used to sell work by Dove and the other artists
associated with the Marin circle. He had a personal involvement
with some of them.
MD: What about photography? I know you've taken a particular interest
in developing that part of the collection.
NM: When I was first married, I was cleaning up in a back room of
our apartment, and I saw some books, with paper covers on them,
that were falling apart. I started looking at them and reading.
I was transfixed. It was Camera Work. So, I read all the
copies and I looked at the photogravures. I remember looking at
one particular photograph, and I don't know, . . . it was just the
impact of the image that didn't transform itself into an object
in my mind. Thinking back on it now, it may have been among the
first completely abstract images I had seen. It was a photograph
by Paul Strand. Several years later, I went to the Museum of Modern
Art to study the photographs there. . . . So, I would go the MOMA
to sharpen up my eyes, then go over to Lee Witkin's gallery and
spend the rest of the day there, talking with Lee, looking at photographs.
That's what started it.
MD: Started your active collecting of photographs?
NM: Yes, and I also got to know the people at the old Light Gallery
that opened in the early 1970s. It was there that by chance I saw
work by a photographer that really gripped me, of New York in the
1930s. I was bold enough to buy about twenty of these photographs.
They asked me if I wanted to know who the photographer was. I said
"yes," and they told me the photographs were taken by
Berenice Abbott. I had never heard of her. It was just the shapes,
and the memories of my father taking me to New York when I was a
young girl, and the wonderful, wonderful work.
MD: Our conversation has focused on Berenice Abbott and Georgia
O'Keeffe, and that reminds me of a question I've been asked several
times since the announcement last June of your promised bequest
to the art museums of three American women's colleges. Are you particularly
interested in supporting the work of women?
NM: I think the first criterion to being drawn to any work of art
is the work itself. I saw O'Keeffe's work and recognized it for
what it is and I saw Berenice Abbott's work and recognized it for
what it is, and that made it very easy for me. I didn't know they
were women. I just knew it was great art.
I think labels should not be put on works of art other than those that indicate
loose associations with schools of painting. Talking about gender, I think art
should not be labeled according to whether it's masculine or feminine. We've been
through all that. I'm not concerned about whether the artist is a man or a woman
but about what the artist has to say and to offer.
Top
of page
|
