Charles Demuth At Home

During his last years, when he was confined to his mother’s house, Demuth still spent much of his time in his studio - the small back bedroom - where its white-washed walls were hung with a Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph he’d purchased in Paris, a John Marin watercolor, a small oil by Georgia O’Keeffe, an early drawing by Louis Bouch, and Man Ray’s photograph of his best friend Robert Locher. Demuth’s easel, work table and stool, and a day bed accounted for its furnishings. There were usually flowers there from his mother’s garden, and for a time her sewing machine was stored there as well. When the Demuth Foundation took its initial shape, in 1981, Dorothea Demuth - always called “Dot,” the widow of Christopher Demuth - was interviewed about her celebrated cousin-in-law and his art. With her daughter Nancy, she recalled several incidents to reconstruct the artist’s life in Lancaster, especially during his last years when he was confined to the family home next door to her: “We don’t know too much about him because we didn’t see too much of him. . . . Nancy was telling me today one thing that I know wouldn’t have been in the record before. She remembers going over when they used to have an Easter egg hunt for my children. And Charlie would color the eggs and decorate some of them, and they’d put them out in the yard and then the children would hunt for them.” About Demuth’s china painting, Dot said he decorated “cups and saucers and powder boxes and things like that.” Generally, it has been assumed that he engaged in this hobby only during his early years, but at least one piece in Dot’s collection was dated 1914, when Demuth would have been 31 years old. Demuth was a meticulous painter; he used to say he didn’t lose a drop of water or paint. Dot’s memory of his “tidy”studio at least bolstered that claim. Nor was there much furniture in it, just a kind of slanted drawing table made by a local carpenter, and a stool. But she remembered that he was always standing when she saw him in the studio, and that sometimes he painted or sketched out in the garden. He arranged the subjects for his still lifes himself, collecting bouquets from his mother’s “old-fashioned garden” abundant with peonies, daisies, gladioli, daffodils, or using produce from the nearby farmers’ market. His mother “didn’t have anything to do with the arrangements,” although she-or even Dorothea herself-went to market to buy the fruit and vegetables he wanted. Ordinarily but not always his mother carried out this chore, “Augusta, the Iron-Clad,” as Charles affectionately referred to his mother behind her back, sailing along in her black hat and veils and many-carat diamond rings. “I know that one time I was supposed to bring back eggplant,” Dot recalled, “and he said that the color had to be just right, you know, purple color. And I had a piece of paper with some paint on it that had to match, . . . and I was to stick to that color, if I could. . . . And, you know? I was curious after having seen that painting, [for] every time I went to market I had to look at eggplants and I had to see what that color was.” Dot did not remember seeing Demuth paint in his studio, but her daughter had permission to visit once or twice and thought him gentle though quiet: “I mean he’d say hello and he didn’t offer much more than that. He always seemed to me like he was staring off, . . . thinking of something else.” Dot did remember, however, something about the rest of the house; the kitchen immediately below Demuth’s studio; the combination family and dining room, with its brick fireplace, its Dutch cupboard, and Augusta’s old-fashioned rocking chair; upstairs, Demuth’s sitting room with its Victorian parlor furniture and drawings of Jules Pascin, Henri Matisse, and Aubrey Beardsley, where he entertained his friends in front of the fireplace. His mother’s front bedroom with another fireplace, and Demuth’s own tiny bedroom with its balcony opening out on the garden, and its single bed, made of iron, occupied the second floor of the front of the house. About Demuth’s clothing, Dot recalled that they came from Brooks Brothers and “other exclusive tailors in New York and places where he got his clothing. And he always dressed right up to fashion, you know.” He wore spats over his shoes and a homburg on his head. As for his cane, customarily thought to have been necessary for his navigation, Dot said he didn’t always need it, “but it fitted the outfit that he wore. He would have morning clothes on, afternoon clothes, or evening clothes, a great dresser. . . .” Her daughter spoke of his unique fashion statement: he used to wear a necktie for a belt. “I never saw that before, and that really impressed me.” “And scarves,” Dot added. “Maybe it was a fancy sash, . . . very gay color, very bright, big patterns.” She was certain that his reputation for being witty was highly over-rated: “If he was, he didn’t show any signs of it around me.” Toward the end of Demuth’s life, Dot and Nancy concluded, “he used to come and stand at the front door, oh, for a long time, . . . with his hand on his hip, as I recall, and he’d just look out. And I guess he liked to see the people passing by. Sunday morning he’d put his morning clothes on, take a walk. I don’t know whether he went to church or not. I doubt it. But he would take a long walk. He used to take walks frequently, including strolls into the Eighth Ward, “up to the hill,” but nobody ever asked why. The Eighth Ward was well known at the time as the area where many of Lancaster’s saloons and pubs were located, “one on every corner,” a former resident later reflected. They may well have drawn the artist there as a respite from the social restrictions elsewhere in his “province,” as he always referred to Lancaster. “A lot of people thought he was queer,” Dot confided in conclusion. Her interviewers did not pursue this issue. At one point in her interview, Dorothea Demuth said, “I buried all the Demuths,” but she was speaking only figuratively. Charles died in 1935, his mother in 1943, Dorothea’s husband Christopher died in 1978. Dorothea herself died in 1992, but Christopher’s brother Henry died in 1998 at the age of one hundred. Dorothea’s son Christopher and daughter Nancy and their children carry on the family line. - BK