|
Stretching The Truth — Dispelling the Myth (cont) according to his friend Susan Watts Street, he spoke with a “very heavy Lancaster accent.” He seems always to have dressed with formality and elegance, even during summer holidays on Cape Cod, knotting a colorful tie around his waist in place of a belt (but so did many men at that time, heterosexual as well as homosexual, following a current fad), immaculately white trousers, crisp black shirts, and highly polished shoes. His photographs indicate that he wore a fedora and well-cut suits, Donegal tweeds for instance, which are hardly limited to those of one sexual preference or the other. William Carlos Williams, who had known Demuth intimately since 1905 when they were students together, observed that “he was a dandy who liked to appear in full dress, . . . tight-lipped and well groomed.” Demuth loved Lancaster unreservedly and felt at home in its environs, in part because of his intense relationship with his mother. False. It was at least a love-hate relationship. His diabetes, undiagnosed until 1921, demanded that he spend periods of time at home in convalescence. Lancaster was his “Province,” and 118 East King Street was the address of his “chateau,” as he referred to them in letters to friends, but his “Province” ignored his art, and his “chateau” confined him to his studio above the kitchen and his little bedroom was off his mother’s larger one. He moved in a small circle in Lancaster of other homosexuals and a few socially prominent citizens, but he seems to have escaped to New York whenever he was able. My Egypt, his monumental painting of grain silos, suggests in its title that he was in bondage in Lancaster, as the Jews had been enslaved in Egypt. Susan Watts Street, a close friend since 1915, claimed that Demuth “would go home to Lancaster to protect himself from the outside world, not to return to his mother.” Demuth was bilked by Dr, Albert C. Barnes who talked him into selling cheaply. False. Dr Barnes was a good friend. Demuth’s letters make clear that Barnes paid the prices which the artist himself set and bought regularly. Further, he persuaded Demuth to enter the Morristown, New Jersey, Physiatric Clinic for diabetes, giving him an unrestricted loan of $500 — at today’s rate of exchange well over $5000.00 — to contribute to his care there. Demuth was musically trained and played the piano. Maybe. But there was no piano at 118 East King Street, nor any other musical instrument, according to the inventory in Augusta Demuth’s will. It is well documented that she kept the house after her son’s death exactly as it had been during his life. Demuth was one of Alfred Stieglitz’s protégés. False. They had corresponded since April 1916, but Stieglitz did not exhibit Demuth’s work until March 1925, when he hung four of the poster portraits in his “Seven Americans” exhibition. By that time, Demuth had been selling his work successfully for several years through his first dealer, Charles Daniels. Demuth pronounced his name De-MOOTH or Duh-MEWTH Take your pick. Georgia O’Keeffe and Carl Van Vechten, both of whom knew Demuth well, pronounced his name DE-muth, as the former’s published reminiscence with Yale librarian Donald Gallup indicate, and as the latter’s audio-taped memoirs attest. Also, a long-time Lancaster resident remembers that her father, an acquaintance of the artist early in the twentieth century, always referred to him as DE-muth. Demuth’s cousin’s wife, Dorothea Demuth, pronounced the name De-MEWTH or Duh-MOOTH. -BK
|
||||||||||||||||
|
 |
||||||||||||||||
