For those of you who may have missed my interview with Gay and Lesbian Review World Wide.
https://glreview.org/article/id-always-felt-romaine-had-a-secret/
Am looking for a French publisher who wants translation rights for my biography.
Romaine and the Duchess
After having a wonderful interactive Q and A following my talk which I will blog about next time, I came home to a talk at the Proust Society.
It was upsetting because I was trying to discern truth from fiction by asking a simple question concerning my research and the research conducted by Caroline Weber that centered on the models for Proust’s Duchess which I mentioned in my last blog. Unfortunately, I hit an exposed nerve because Weber opined that my citation of Italian/French author Francesco Rapazzini was “wrong, wrong, wrong”. She was put out because of his critique of her which appeared in the New York Times (August 17, 2018) and my own suggestion that her research wasn’t the definitive word on Proust’s models for his fictional duchess.
To my mind it is imperative that we appreciate different points of view. Rapazzini, Bruce Kellner (formerly of the Van Vechten Trust) and Edward Burns, Director of the Van Vechten trust and expert on Alice B. Toklas, myself and Alice B. Herself (1948 letter) opine that Natalie Barney’s lover, Lily de Gramont, Duchess Claremont-Tonnerre, was a primary model. Weber seemed exasperated by my daring to suggest Lily as a model and dismissed me like an untutored school girl. But the fact is that Lily is the lost Duchess because to Weber’s mind because she is a lesbian (by default unfashionable) therefore she could not possibly be among the models–this despite Weber using all four of Lily’s books for knowledge of the la noblesse of Faubourg.
Lily as a young child was moved from chateau to chateau and put in the care of her father, Agenor, 11th duc de Gramont and his wife, nee Princesee Isabelle de Beauvau-Craon. Her mother died giving birth to her. Her father then married the wealthy Marguerite de Rothchild who Lilly adored and the feelings were mutual. She escaped an abusive marriage which Proust refers to in a letter where he said her husband made her life hell. After two miscarriages caused by his brutality they separated. She met Natalie six years later and they became lifelong lovers and wrote one of the first lesbian marriage contracts ever constructed. In 1916 Natalie met and fell in love with Romaine Brooks and they became an eternal trio.
Lily immortalized her cousin, Robert de Montesquiou who Proust loved in her amusing book of memoirs. But according to Rapazzini little Marcel gleaned a major portion of his inspiration for the young Oriane de Guermantes from Lily and her family. Proust was introduced to Montesquiou by the painter, Madeleine Lemaire at a fancy ball 1893. Through both Lily and Robert, Proust became privy to the scandalous details , and secrets of high society. Proust thirsted for and thrived on gossip which he integrated into his fictional creation of a decadent upper classes.
Lily, after the first flush of her youth was never a fashion plate although she could be stylish as required of her as a princess of the blood. She left that to others like Countess de Greffuhle. Even so, Lily was, like her cousin Robert, an arbiter of taste and a wit whose pen could be dipped in acid when necessary to put some inferior in his or her place. She authored the page six of society of her time. Her warmth, sense of humor, knowledge of food, wine, pears and all the pleasures of life was renown. And, Marcel took full advantage of their friendship when he created the young Oriane.
Weber appears to have focused her attention on the older construction of Oriane who Proust may have created first rather than the younger version which probably was fully fleshed out after his having discerned the true nature of his aristocratic acquaintances and gotten them down on paper.
To be clear, Both Rapazzini and Weber seem to be running parallel but different tracks where Lily is concerned. This question came up as an inquiry concerning Romaine’s intimate relationships and her supposedly being a loner without family and close friends. A point I took pains to research and refute in my Romaine Brooks: A Life.
So tune in for more on Romaine and her fascinating circle of modern women and men.
Romaine and Her Circle
Two new books; Joan Howard’s, We Met in Paris and Caroline Weber’s, Proust’s Duchess reference individuals who were part of Romaine Brooks, Natalie Barney, and Lily de Gramont’s circle.
The first is a biography of the entwined lives of Grace Frick and Marguerite Yourcenar. Yourcenar, was the first modern women elected to the L’Academe francaise, an institution created in 1635. It is the pre-eminent council for matters pertaining to the French language. It is limited to forty seats and each member is assigned a number. Its members are known as the “l’immortaliete. They serve for life. This honor was granted to Marguerite Yourcenar despite having lived in America and becoming an American citizen since the 1940’s. She was the first woman, elected in 1980 largely due to the advocacy of her friend and mentor, Natalie Barney.
Yourcenar’s highly complex historical novel, Memoirs of Hadrian, lovingly translated by her partner, Grace Frick won her the recognition she needed to be elected. Yourcenar’s number was 3.
Natalie had been aware of Marguerite’s talents and encouraged her early on. It was through Natalie’s friendship with both Grace and Maguerite, (known as Madame to her American friends and acquaintances) that Romaine Brooks became friendly with the couple. In fact, as Howard explained to me, Marguerite, in 1954 specifically requested to have a meeting with only Natalie and Romaine excluding Lily. Natalie had asked to bring the duchess along as she was part of the three-way marriage that Natalie had with these women. But Yourcenar and Grace scotched that plan much to Natalie’s chagrin.
I speculated with Howard that one of the reasons may have been Marguerite’s intense interest in art. She wanted to have a serious conversation with Romaine about her portraits. The writer and painter would have had much to discuss since Yourcenar visualized her plots and characters before writing them down. She was interested in how Romaine, who was known as the thief of souls in the popular press created her portrayals.
She might have said, Romaine tell me how you see your models? And, Romaine would have been reluctant to reveal her secrets. But my book, Romaine Brooks: A Life attempts to reveal some of them. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall to listen in on what these four modernist women had to say. it must have been a fascinating conversation.
Lamentably, Caroline Weber’s, Proust’s Duchess, configures Lily as the invisible woman. 
In the publicity referencing Marcel Proust’s models for his Duchess of Guermantes in Remembrance of Things past, Lily is barely mentioned. This is perhaps because the biography by Francesco Rapazzini’s has yet to be translated into English. Yet, Weber who is fluent in French seems to overlook it despite her extensive bibliography. Why?
- Here is the book you must read
Rapazzini, Elisabeth de Gramont: Avante-gardiste (Fayard in 2004 unfortunately not translated into English) proves over and over again that Elisabeth de Gramont, Duchess de Clermont-Tonnerre who was a close friend of the famous author, a star in her own right, and marvelously portrayed by Romaine Brooks was the source of Proust’s intimate knowledge of the French aristocracy and their carrying-ons.
At the very least, one has to question is Lily left because of her lesbianism. Once she left her husband (and eventually divorced him) she made no bones about the joys of her new life and moved in with Natalie Barney who supported her and her daughters. Leaving out Lily’s central role in forming Proust’s impressions only creates a host of future problems for Proust scholars. It is my sincere hope that Rapazzini’s book will soon be translated into English thus giving English speaking readers an opportunity to enjoy the life and adventures of one the most fascinating woman of this era.
Please check out my events page for future speaking engagements.
In Search of the Elusive
The quest that never ends. flying to London to meet up with art historian colleagues and documentary film producers in search of more clues regarding the elusive Mrs. Brooks. The hope is to produce a documentary that may peak interest and lead to the missing paintings of Romaine Brooks.
What we have discovered so far is a story oft repeated in the annals of the history of art. In Romaine’s case a shame-based family history that led to many of her letters, books, drawings and paintings ending up at a flea market where they disappeared into the chaos that often follows a once renown artist’s possessions after long neglect. Such is the case with Brooks.
Thus far I have restored two paintings and a couple of drawings to her legacy and I am on the trail of others. Among the ones I seek are the other half of the famous Couteau portrait. Romaine took a dislike to Couteau and cut this painting in half. The missing half featured two young women on the balcony. One was thought to be Natalie Barney’s sister, Laura. In the course of my research, I located a letter referring to this painting being involved in a lawsuit of some sort wherein the plaintive contacted Romaine in hopes of winning his claim to the missing picture.
So where does this leave the earnest researcher/historian? Up in the air more or less unless they have the funds to travel and put in the required time to track down the missing clues and contact the surviving members of an individual’s family to see if a trail exists. It is a “cold-case” situation. So for those of you who follow the adventures, I lead stay tuned for future updates relating to Romaine and her circle.
17-plus books for 2017
Romaine Brooks was a cosmopolitan whose circle in Paris and elsewhere included several of the personalities and topics covered in the books that James has listed in his bog. Anyone interested in Romaine and her circle will find much for thought in these selections.
In keeping with a theme, this – a look ahead at books of a Strange Flowers flavour coming out this year – was going to be “17 books for 2017”. But so many interesting titles have gathered on the horizon that I had to abandon the conceit altogether. Here, then, is a metric shitload of books for 2017.
It is a year in which the news already resembles dystopian fiction, so might books like Giorgio De Maria’s The Twenty Days of Turin tell us how it all ends? Originally published in Italian in 1977, this grim parallel parable draws on the occult allure of Turin, and features mysterious outbreaks of savagery and intimate thoughts being communicated “across the ether” (cf. right now). Thanks to translator Ramon Glazov it is now finally available in English. Joining it in a violent speculative realm is China Miéville’s The Last Days of New…
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Rediscovering Romaine
An art historian’s work it seems is never done. One of the great joys of spending more than half your life in the dust bins of history is discovering something new and then being able to bring that find before the public. Few art historians much less one who is also a painter, poet and arts critic such as myself can hope to achieve in a lifetime.
Being able to add lost work to an artist career is rare but Romaine herself led me to the discovery of an early work by her hidden in plain sight in the music room of the Vittoriale Foundation in Gardone Riviera, Italy. The backstory is fascinating.
Did she stop painting?
According to Romaine Brooks she never laid aside her brushes. In her audio interview from 1968 she was dismayed that McAvoy had painted her in a background that show her with dried up brushes and a pallet. She said emphatically that he had not shown her glass table that she used as a pallet which implied that she was not painting any more. By implication this suggest that she was still actively making act at the time he painted her.
So for those of you reading Wiki I am in the process of updating the errors in it. It is a work in progress. It was her intention to paint him but he never was available long enough to sit for her. So she painted Duke Umberto Strozzi at the age of 87 in 1961.
An Aristocracy of Taste
The performance artist Claude Cahun contended that lesbianism “occurs with special frequency in women of high intelligence.” Absolutely, when it came to what she called an “aristocracy of taste, few could equal Romaine Brooks. This contention is amply borne out by the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s current retrospective of Romaine Brooks’s paintings and drawings on view until October 2, 2016.
Behind the Scenes Of An Exhibition
The first Romaine Brooks solo exhibition in over 16 years opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. on the 17th of June. Most viewers remain unaware of what goes into researching, organizing, and putting on an exhibition. So somewhat like Dorothy’s dog Toto in the film the Wizard of Oz let me pull the curtain back to reveal one aspect of what goes into making it all happen: art conservation.
As a graduate student at the Institute of Fine Arts in NYC in 1968 I first became acquainted with this subtle art through the pioneering pair of art restorers, Sheldon and Caroline Keck. At the time, like many young art historians today, I had no idea what went into restoring a painting. Sheldon Keck died in 1993 but not before he and Caroline set up the first conservation school in the country. They taught students how to remove accumulated grime, discolored varnish and other signs of wear and tear from paintings, restoring them to their original beauty.
The art of a sensitive conservator is a miraculous thing. At the Smithsonian Tiarna Doherty’s sensitive insights into the art of Romaine Brooks have contributed immeasurably to this exhibition and our knowledge of Romaine Brooks as a skilled painter.
Tiarna will give two gallery talks this summer: the first on Tuesday June 21st at 4 p.m. and the second on Monday August 15 at noon. She will highlight the paintings of Romaine Brooks with an in-depth look at how conservators work to preserve an artist’s intended effects. This is a must see for artists and lovers of art worldwide who want to really appreciate this great painter.
My book devotes a considerable number of words regarding how to look at, see and experience a Brooks painting to get the fullest possible pleasure from it. Happy viewing. The show will run through the end of September.
Speaking engagements can be arranged by request. At events, signed copies of the book will be available for purchase, please contact U of Wisconsin Press or myself.
Cover Girl
Romaine Brooks made the cover of the museum magazine!
Peter, a young English girl in actuality is the Jewish English lesbian painter known as Gluck. They were rivals and although Romaine completed the stunning portrait of Gluck as per their arrangement for an exchange Gluck never completed hers. We only know of the unfinished painting through photographs.
The exhibition opens in Washington, DC on June 17th where Romaine will finally be returned to the pantheon of American painting where she belongs.
I shall be kicking off the panel from 4-7pm covering Romaine’s art and life along with my sister panelists. Please come, it is free and open to the public. My book serves as the catalogue and more for this exhibition.
My book serves as the catalogue and more for this exhibition.
