Gertrude Ederle

            This topic came to me in a weird way.  About a year and a half ago I was out buying yarn with my friend.  I found one I really liked, this gorgeous deep green, deep purple, and maroon variegated one.  It was being discontinued so I snapped it up.  The tag on it about the yarn and the company and everything, had the name of the colorway: Gertrude Ederle.  The tag also gave a brief bio of the person.  (Turns out the yarn line did all their colorways based on famous, important women.  I wish they hadn’t gone out of business, it’s so cool!)  So Gertrude Ederle has been in my head for about that long.  Well, last week I saw a list of famous women you should know, or some such thing, and she was on there too, so I decided she was going to be my next topic.

            Gertrude Ederle was born October 23, 1905 in New York City.  Her parents were Henry and Anna Ederle, “German immigrants who owned a butcher shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side” (1).  Ederle was the third of Henry and Anna’s six children (four girls, two boys).  Ederle worked in her parent’s butcher shop after school and during the summertime.

Her parents also had a small summer cottage in New Jersey, where her father taught Ederle to swim.  Ederle had had measles when she was young, and her hearing had been damaged.  “The doctors told me my hearing would get worse if I continued swimming, but I loved the water so much, I just couldn’t stop,” she recalled (2).  Ederle said she was a water baby and was “happiest in the waves” (3).  She spent most of her time in the ocean, even though her doctors had given her that warning.  While she didn’t care, her father did, disapproving of Ederle’s swimming. 

Back in New York, Ederle would swim in the “10^th Avenue horse troughs, earning punishment from her father” (4).  When she was twelve, Ederle joined the Women’s Swimming Association (WSA).  For $3 a year, Ederle had access to the WSA’s facilities and trainers.  At this time, swimming was really taking off as a sport, and the WSA was the center of competitive swimming, training others such as Esther Williams. The new bathing suits that had been developed since the turn of the century really helped increase a swimmer’s speed through the water.

Additionally, the WSA’s director, Charlotte “Eppy” Epstein, was able to convince the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) “to endorse women’s swimming as a sport in 1917 and in 1919 pressured the AAU to ‘allow swimmers to remove their stockings for competition as long as they quickly put on a robe once they got out of the water’” (5).  Also, former Olympian Louis Handley worked at the WSA, developing new swimming styles.  Handley developed the American crawl, based on the Australian crawl, at the WSA; Ederle would later adapt Handley’s American crawl further.  These factors made the WSA the place to be for up and coming swimmers in the early 1900s, and turned swimming into an acceptable sport for women to practice and even compete in.

            The year Ederle joined the WSA, at age twelve, she set her first world record in the 880 yard freestyle.  This made Ederle the youngest world record holder in swimming.  She would set eight more world records, setting seven alone in one afternoon at Brighton Beach in 1922; she would also hold 29 combined US national and world records between 1921 and 1925.  At age sixteen (1921/22), Ederle won her first championship as the Metropolitan New York junior 100-meter freestyle champion (6).

            On August 1, 1922, Ederle won the Joseph P. Day Cup.  This was a three and a half mile race across New York Bay.  Before this Ederle had only ever done short races, but she beat 51 other competitors “including Helen Wainwright and British Champion Hilda James” (Wainwright will come up again later) (7).  Over the next few years Ederle broke nine world records in races from one- to five-hundred meters, and “won six national outdoor swimming titles, and earned more than two dozen trophies” (8).  Ederle always said she enjoyed “beating men’s records, proving that women could succeed in reaching sports goals that most people thought were impossible” (9).

            In 1924, Ederle was part of the United States Olympic team for swimming, for that year’s Paris Olympics.  During the Olympics Ederle had an injured knee.  Additionally, the US did not want its athletes corrupted by Paris’s low morals, so just to get to the venues to practice and compete, the swimmers had to travel five to six hours.  Despite all this, the US won 99 medals in Paris.  Ederle won three: gold as a member of the 4x100m freestyle (setting a new world record of 4:58.8 for the event), and bronze in the individual 100m and 400m freestyles.  Ederle had been favored for golds in all her events and “would later say her failure to win three golds was the biggest disappointment of her career’” (10).

            In 1925, Ederle swam from Battery Park, NY, to Sandy Hook, NJ.  The twenty-two mile trip took her only seven hours and eleven minutes.  This record stood for eighty-one years.  Ederle’s nephew believed this was her warm up for what she would do next.

            In 1925, the WSA sponsored Helen Wainwright (who Ederle had beat in that 1922 race), one of the other members of the gold-medal winning 4x100 team, and Ederle to swim across the English Channel.  Only five men had ever swum the Channel (two Americans, two English, and one Argentinian), the first, Englishman Matthew Webb, having done so in 1875, and the best being done in sixteen hours, thirty-three minutes by Enrique Tiraboschi.  Wainwright and Ederle would be the first women if they were successful.

            Unfortunately, Wainwright had to drop out pretty quickly due to an injury.  Ederle decided she would still do it though.  Ederle trained with Jabez Wolffe, who had tried to swim the Channel twenty-two times.  Pretty much from the beginning things seemed strained between them.  Wolffe almost immediately tried to get Ederle to slow down, believing she wouldn’t be able to keep it up at the speed she was going.

            Despite this, Ederle made her attempt on August 18, 1925.  This attempt was not successful though.  Ederle was disqualified when Wolffe thought she was drowning and had someone attempt to rescue her.  As soon as the other person touched Ederle, she was disqualified.  Ederle said she was not drowning, but was just resting, floating face-down in the water.  Other stories have it that Wolffe thought she had swallowed too much ocean water, or that he thought the current was too rough, or that he thought she was seasick.  Whatever exactly happened, this first time Ederle was disqualified, and Wolffe was fired as her trainer.

            Ederle was not going to quit though, and hired a new trainer, Thomas William Burgess.  Burgess had swum the Channel in 1911, one of those five successful men, after having tried thirty-two previous times; less than seven percent of attempts to swim the Channel are successful.

            I’m going to stop there for now.  Ederle’s had her first attempt at swimming the Channel and was not successful.  She’s going to try again.  Will she do it?  Next time, we’ll find out (though I’m sure you can guess the answer).

1 - "Gertrude Ederle," Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015.

2, 3 - Richard Severo, "Gertrude Ederle, the First Woman to Swim Across the English Channel, Dies at 98," The New York Times, December 1, 2003.

4, 7, 8, 9 - Gertrude Ederle Facts, YourDictionary.

5, 10 - Gertrude Ederle.

6 - Ann T. Keene, "Gertrude Ederle," American National Biography Online.

Alphonse Mucha and Slav Epic

            Lastweek I discussed Alphonse Mucha’s rise to popularity.  This week we’ll look at what he considered his most important works, as well as the rest of his life and, briefly, his legacy after his death.

            Last week I briefly mentioned Mucha’s 1894 meeting of August Strindberg, and his introduction to occultism and mysticism, which he became increasingly interested in.  On December 20, 1899 he printed Le Pater, which he considered to be his printed masterpiece.  Le Pater examined occult themes in the Lord’s Prayer.  Only 510 copies were printed.  Le Pater was one of two pieces Mucha considered his masterpieces.  The other would start taking shape in in 1900.

            In 1900 the Exposition Universell took place in Paris (the 1900 World’s Fair).  This fair would celebrate the past century and its accomplishments, as well as the developments for the next century.  In 1899 Mucha was approached by the Austro-Hungarian government to create their decorations for the 1900 Exposition.  In preparation for creating these decorations, Mucha travelled to the Balkans and had the idea for what would become Slav Epic, what he considered his fine art masterpiece (more on it shortly).  Mucha ultimately decorated the Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion, and gave input on the Austrian Pavilion as well.

            For the Exposition, Mucha was also approached by Georges Fouquet, a jeweler, the son of the jeweler Alphonse Fouquet.  Fouquet wanted “to create a truly innovative collection” for the fair (1).  Fouquet loved the jewelry Mucha put in his artwork, and wanted to create the pieces.  The jewelry that Mucha and Fouquet created redefined jewelry at the time by choosing materials for “their aesthetic, rather than monetary, value” (2).  Mucha and Fouquet worked together for three years.

            Mucha’s work for the Exposition was award winning.  His decorations for the Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion won the silver prize at the Exposition, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire “made [Mucha] a Knight of the Order of Franz Josef I for his contributions to the empire” (3).  Mucha was also elected as a member to the Czech Academy of Sciences and Art.

            After the Exposition, Fouquet moved his shop.  He decided to have Mucha design everything for his new shop, inside and out, as well as all of the contents of the shop (“furniture, light fittings and showcases” (4)).  Mucha conceived of the shop as a “complete work of art” that was inspired by nature, with peacocks throughout.  In 1902, Mucha had work exhibited at the first International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin.  One of his pieces that was included was a snake bracelet that he had created with Fouquet, and owned by Sarah Bernhardt.

            In 1903, Mucha met his future wife Marie (Maruška) Chytilová.  Maruška was 22 years younger than Mucha, and had come to Paris with her relatives.  She was a student at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, and while in Paris wanted lessons with Mucha.  Luckily, her uncle was Dr. Karel Chytil, a Czech art historian; he approached Mucha, and Mucha agreed to teach Maruška, but also suggested she take classes at Académie Colarossi.  Mucha and Maruška would marry in 1906.

            In 1904 Mucha took his first trip to the United States with the help of Baroness Rothschild.  His arrival was front page news.  In attempts to raise money to create Slav Epic, Mucha tried to become a society portrait painter.  His first commission was Mrs. Wismann, a friend of Rothschild’s.  In 1905, Mucha returned to the U.S. and taught classes at the New York School of Applied Design for Women.  His classes were available to women and men and were incredibly popular.

            In 1906, after Mucha and Maruška married on June 10 in Prague, the couple travelled to Chicago where Mucha taught at the Art Institute of Chicago.  From 1906 to 1910, the Muchas visited to and travelled throughout the United States.  While Mucha was in the U.S., he was, again, trying to earn money for Slav Epic.  He began taking commissions, again, as a sort of society painter.  One of the people who hired him was Charles Richard Crane, the heir to R.T. Crane Brass and Bell Foundry.  In 1908, Crane hired Mucha to paint his two daughters.  The painting of Crane’s daughter, Josephine, depicted her as Slavia, a Slav goddess (the second painting was never finished).  Crane became very interested in Mucha’s Slav Epic idea.

            In 1908, Mucha was commissioned to decorate the interior of the newly renovated German Theater in New York.  This project consisted of five large decorative panels, the stage curtain, the foyer, the corridors, the staircase, and the auditorium.  The decorative panels included The Quest for Beauty, flanked by Comedy and Tragedy.  The theater was torn down in 1929, and only the preliminary sketches exist today.

            While the Mucha’s were in New York, their daughter, Jaroslava, was born on March 15, 1909.  Their son Jiří was born in Prague on March 12, 1915 (Jiří would become a future novelist, as well as his father’s biographer.)  That same year, Mucha worked with the actress Maude Adams.  Adams was playing Joan of Arc in Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans in a one night gala event at Harvard.  Mucha did the poster for the event, featuring Adams, and also designed the costumes and the set.  In 1909, the Muchas also vacationed in Rosice, South Moravia.  Mucha began sketching for Slav Epic while on this vacation.  Crane had decided to fund Mucha’s work for Slav Epic because he was so interested in the project.

            In late 1909, Mucha was asked by the city of Prague to do the decorations for their new municipal building.  So in 1910, Mucha returned to Prague.  The work he did at the municipal building included small panels, murals, and even the ceilings.  While in Prague, Mucha also worked on the decorations at the Theater of Fine Arts and the murals in the Mayor’s office, as well as other landmarks in the city.  The work at the Mayor’s Hall “celebrate[d] the heroic past of the Czech people and the unity of the Slav nations” (5).

            While in Prague, Mucha started working on Slav Epic.  He was meeting with specialists, and reading everything he could about Slavic history and people.  By 1912, the first three panels - The Slavs in Their Original Homeland, The Celebration of Svantovít Festival, The Introduction of the Slavonic Liturgy - were completed and presented to the city of Prague at the end of the year.  The first panel, The Slavs in Their Original Homeland, shows the persecution of the Slavic tribes by the Germanic peoples, and a promise of peace and freedom (6).

            (Mucha was immensely patriotic.  He wanted to help preserve the Czech language and culture against Germanic influences from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in any way he could.  He even helped design posters for a lottery that would raise money for Czech schools.  In 1922, Mucha would also do a poster asking “Western countries to send shipments of food and grain” to Russia after its collapse after the Revolution (7).)

            Slav Epic is a huge piece, and each panel itself is enormous.  In 1913, Mucha travelled to Paris to learn how to properly hang and light such large paintings.  In 1913 he also travelled to Russia to do research for the fourth panel, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia.  In 1914, he presented this panel, as well as The Defence of Sziget, and The Printing of the Bible of Kralice, to Prague.  In 1916, three more canvases were presented to Prague: Milič of Kroměříž, Master Jan Hus Preaching at the Bethlehem Chapel, and The Meeting at Křížky which created the triptych, Magic of the Word.

            At the end of World War One, Czechoslovakia was founded as an independent nation, and was officially recognized in 1919.  Mucha was such a big part of Czechoslovakia and such an advocate for the Czech peoples, he was commissioned to design the new stamps, money, and other governmental documents.  In 1919, he designed the 100 crown note, followed by the 1,000, 500, 50, 20, 10, and 5, all between 1919 and 1931.

Mucha continued working on Slav Epic, and two more panels were completed in 1918 and presented to the city: Petr Chelčický at Vodńany and Jan Amos Komenský.  In 1919, the first exhibition of Slav Epic took place in the Klementinum in Prague.  Five of the completed canvases were shown: the Magic of the Word triptych, Celebration of Svantovít Festival, and The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia.  These five went on tour to the United States.  In one week in 1920 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 53,000 visitors went to see the paintings.  In 1921, the Brooklyn Museum exhibited the five canvases, as well as fifteen oil paintings, one hundred-thirty drawings, and some of Mucha’s best known posters; 600,000 visitors came to see this exhibit.

In 1923, Mucha gave three more canvases to Prague: Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, After the Battle of Vítkor, and The Hussite King Jiří of Poděbrady.  The following year Mucha took trips to the Balkans and to Greece to do research for the remaining pieces for Slav Epic.  Three more canvases were completed that year: The Bohemian King Přemysl Otakar II, The Coronation of the Serbian Tsar Štěpán Dušan as East Roman Emperor, and After the Battle of Grünwald.  The last three pieces of Slav Epic were painted in a school auditorium in Prague: The Holy Mount, The Oath of Omladina under the Slavonic Linden Tree, and The Apotheosis of the Slavs.  The Apotheosis of the Slavs combines the themes of the other nineteen canvases; it has four sections, each a different color, each showing a different period in Slav history.

In 1928, Mucha and Crane officially give Slav Epic to Prague in celebration of Czechoslovakia’s tenth anniversary.  The completed pieces were shown during Prague’s tenth anniversary celebrations (Omladina was not yet complete).

After the completion of Slav Epic, Mucha continued taking commissions for work.  He did a stained glass in the newly restored north nave in St. Vitus’s Cathedral in Prague, and a mural for the Nymburk City Savings Bank.  In 1932, Mucha and his family moved to Nice for two years.  In 1934, France made Mucha an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur on the recommendation of President Poincaré.  In 1936, back in Czechoslovakia, Mucha began a new triptych - The Age of Love, The Age of Wisdom, The Age of Reason - which was to be for all mankind, not just Slavs.  Mucha’s health was beginning to fail and he was worried about the possibility of war, and the piece was never finished.

With the rise of fascism in the 1930s, some began to view Mucha’s works and his nationalism as “reactionary”.  Mucha was one of the first people arrested by the Gestapo when they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939.  Mucha caught pneumonia during his interrogation and, while he was released, he was weakened.  His health continued to deteriorate and on July 14, 1939, Mucha died, just shy of his 79^th birthday.  He was buried in Slavín Cemetery in Vyšehrad, Prague.  The Germans had banned gatherings and speeches, but the Czech art scholar Max Svabinský “deliver[ed] a funeral speech to a large crowd of mourners” (8).

            This is already longer than I’d intended so I’m going to go through his legacy pretty quickly.

            When Mucha died, his style was beginning to be seen as outdated.  Because of this and the war, Slav Epic was put into storage for twenty-five years, becoming water damaged as a result.  In 1961, Jiří Mucha’s biography of his father was published and interest in Mucha began anew.  In 1962, Prague commissioned the first nine panels of Slav Epic to be restored at their new location in Moravský Krumlov’s castle (where they were stored during the war), and by 1963 those panels were displayed.  Moravský Krumlov funded the restoration of the remaining canvases.

            In the twenty-one years from 1963 to 1984, worldwide exhibitions of Mucha’s art took place, starting in London and continuing in Paris, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New York, Brussels, Tokyo, and Uppsala.  These exhibits include illustrations, posters, and photography.  In 1968, Moravský Krumlov exhibited all twenty pieces of the Slav Epic at the castle, where they would be on continuous display until 2011.

            In 1991, Jiří Mucha died, and the following year, his wife Geraldine and their son John set up the Mucha Trust and the Mucha Foundation.  The Trust and Foundation help to control copyright issues, as well as setting up exhibits and tours.  Beginning in 1993, the Foundation worked on exhibits in London, Prague, Tokyo, Lisbon, Hamburg, and Brussels.  In 1998 the Foundation opened the Mucha Museum in Prague.  Exhibitions and retrospectives continued.  There were exhibits in London and Washington, D.C., Edinburgh, China, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Austria.

            In 2010, Prague requested the return of Slav Epic from Moravský Krumlov.  When the move was proposed, there was a protest in Moravský Krumlov against it with more than one thousand people showing up.  In 2011, the City of Prague Gallery forcefully removed Slav Epic for return to Prague.

            So that’s Mucha.  There was a lot more to talk about than I would have guessed.  I never knew he was so politically involved or that he had created something like Slav Epic.  I only knew of Mucha from his Art Nouveau works, all pastels, pretty women, and swirling designs; that’s not bad, but there’s so much more!  I wasn’t sure where to put it in above, but Mucha was also responsible for the bringing freemasonry back to Czechoslovakia.  Mucha’s artistic influence is still seen today.  In the 1980s he influenced artists and musicians, the band Soilent Green even using one of his pieces as an album cover.  One of my favorite internet-y, pop culture-y artists, Megan Lara, does gorgeous Art Nouveau works in the style of Mucha (the tall, narrow forms).  He’s so influential and so much more interesting than I ever knew.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – Mucha Foundation Timeline

Art Nouveau

            I was helping my sister try to find a particular painting late last night (still haven’t found it; I told her to let me know if she does), and I was looking at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website on Art Nouveau (this was for me, what she was looking for doesn’t sound like it is Art Nouveau).  In reading through their page quick, I had a moment of “Oh crap, did I give bad information on Monday?”  The Met’s page discusses how Art Nouveau was first discussed in the 1880s, and I said that it really grew up around Mucha.  Was I wrong?  So, I decided to look a bit better this morning, when I’m not so tired, and so here’s a brief little article before we get to part two of Mucha next Monday.

            Like I mentioned, Art Nouveau just means “new art”.  I think this is where a little bit of the confusion comes in, at least for me.  The Met’s page on Art Nouveau says that the term first appeared in the 1880s in the “Belgian journal L’Art Moderne to describe the work of Les Vingt, twenty painters and sculptors seeking reform through art” (1).  At this time a lot of the European art community was coming together under the idea that all art should be unified; there shouldn’t be a division between fine arts and decorative arts anymore.  A lot of the artists were influenced by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

            In the late 19^th century, in Germany the magazine, Jugend, was being published; this gave name to the Jugendstil movement.  In December 1895, Siegfried Bing opened his gallery, Maison de l’Art Nouveau, in Paris, increasing the use of the name Art Nouveau.  Bing only showed modern art at his gallery.  In 1900 Paris hosted the Exposition Universell (this will be discussed in next Monday’s Mucha article).  Bing exhibited at the show, presenting “coordinated – in design and color – installations of modern furniture, tapestries and objets d’art” (2).  The popularity of the Exposition and Bing’s display were so popular, that it further tied Bing’s gallery name to the art he was showing.

            The Paris Exposition was the second where the new art style was being seen.  In 1888 at the Barcelona Universal Exposition, Modernisme grew in popularity.  These were mainly just in buildings though.  The Paris Exposition, as mentioned, brought the new style in to every facet of art and décor.  Then, in 1902 in Turin, all the countries that now had an Art Nouveau-type movement were showing their pieces.  These countries all had their own names for it too.  In Germany it was Jugendstil; Russia was Modern; Catalonia (Spain) was Modernisme; Austria-Hungary was Secession; Italy was Stile Liberty; and France, of course, was Art Nouveau.  The new art form was most popular in Europe, but had worldwide influence.

            All of these names for the new type of art showed just that; the names mostly either meant “new art”, “modern”, “contemporary”.  Some of the names were taken from artists in the style, like The Mucha Style; others were from where the art was done, “Metro Style”; others were from the company, “Stile Liberty” from the company Liberty & Co., and in the U.S. Tiffany Style; others still were location based, “Glasgow Style”.

            What all these styles had in common was the tying together fine arts and decorative arts.  Posters were being taken seriously as art; there was glass work, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics.  All this was being considered art now.  The other thing that the art had in common was the natural style of the art.  The architectural works looked like they were literally growing from their base.  A lot of artists took their cues from botanical and sea-life.  Some of the styles even became known this way, meaning “floral style”, “lily style”, or “wave style”.  The art was all about “freedom and release … from the weight of artistic tradition and critical expectations” (3). 

            In addition to William Morris’s influence, “Arthur Mackmurdo’s book-cover for Wren’s City Churches (1883), with its rhythmic floral patterns” (4) influenced the early proponents of Art Nouveau.  There was also a new popularity of Japanese works (Japan had recently opened to the West).  The Japanese wood block prints were popular at the time, and had the natural rhythms to them that Art Nouveau too would have.  Bing was one of the early proponents of Japanese style art, along with Arthur Lasenby Liberty.

            After World War I, people didn’t want Art Nouveau anymore, and it was also just too expensive to make.  The more streamlined Art Deco took over.  Art Nouveau didn’t go away though.  Artists in Denmark and Poland modified Art Nouveau and used it to create their own, new styles.  And down the line, in the 1960s Art Nouveau had a resurgence in popularity, which really hasn’t stopped (which I’ll talk about next week).

            So, back to Mucha and where he fits in with all of this.  As seen above Mucha didn’t really create Art Nouveau.  There were artists, magazines, and galleries in this style before he really hit it big.  But.  Mucha’s Gismonda poster, the one created for the Sarah Bernhardt show, really popularized Art Nouveau for everyone.  It wasn’t just an artist’s movement anymore, it was something that was everywhere.  Art Nouveau’s popularity grew throughout Paris and France directly because of the Gismonda poster.  Again though, Mucha didn’t like being associated with the term.  He believed “art was eternal and therefore could never be merely ‘nouveau’” (5).  He followed what he wanted to do, his own sense of the purpose of art, not any school of art.

1, 3 – Art Nouveau (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

2, 4 – Art Nouveau

5 – Alfons Mucha and Art Nouveau

Happy birthday, Orville Wright!

Alphonse Mucha

         This week, someone I’ve been interested in for a long time.  And someone so much more interesting than I ever knew.  Alphonse (originally Alfons, but I’m going with the westernized spelling) Mucha was the creator of Art Nouveau, but was also extremely interested in restoring the history of the Czech/Slovakian peoples.  His biggest, and what he considered his most important, piece is something I’d never heard of before.  But, to start at the beginning.

            Alphonse Maria Mucha was born July 24, 1860 in Ivančice, Moravia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now the Czech Republic.  Mucha’s father was a court usher and his mother had been a governess in Vienna.  Mucha had two older half-sisters from his father’s previous marriage, and would have two younger sisters as well.

            From an early age, art was Mucha’s main hobby.  In 1868 he produced one of his first pieces, a Crucifixion, showing the heavy influence of the Catholic Church on him.  Art wasn’t going to allow him to do much though, and at age twelve he received a “choral scholarship from the Petrov Church to board at the Gymnázium Slovanské secondary school in Brno” (1).  However, just five years later, Mucha was “expelled from school due to poor academic performance” (2).  His father found him a job back in Ivančice after his expulsion, and on his way there Mucha visited a friend in Ústí nad Orlicí.  At a local church he saw a fresco by the current, local artist Jan Umlauf.  Once he saw that artists currently working in the area could earn a living, Mucha “resolve[d] to become a professional artist” (3).

            So the next year Mucha applied to the Prague Academy of Art, but didn’t get in.  Instead, he worked at administrative jobs while pursuing “decorative design work for local magazines and theatres” (4).  Two years later, Mucha applied and was accepted to “become an apprentice scenery painter at Vienna’s Kautsky-Brioschi-Burghardt theatre design company” (5).  Mucha began taking evening classes as well, and visiting galleries and art exhibits as well, taking an interest in Hans Makart.  Makart was a current Austrian painter, designer, and decorator; he was a celebrity in Vienna at the time and influenced other artists as well, such as Gustav Klimt.

            Mucha’s success with Kautsky-Brioschi-Burghardt was short-lived though, due to the Ring Theatre burning down.  The Ring Theatre was one of Kautsky-Brioschi-Burghardt’s biggest and most important clients at the time.  A lot of Kautsky-Brioschi-Burghardt’s staff was laid off due to the decrease in the amount of work needed; Mucha was one of those laid off.  He didn’t let this get him down; he moved back to Moravia and tried his hand at freelance work, focusing on portraiture and decorative painting.

            In 1882 Mucha received his first real commission.  He had travelled to Mikulov in southern Moravia where he was “painting portraits of local society figures” (6), when he was noticed by Count Karl Khuen-Belasi.  The Count commissioned Mucha to paint a scene in Emmahof Castle, his main home.  The Count’s brother, Egon, also commissioned Mucha to paint a scene in his castle, Gandegg.  These early, large scale projects would lay the groundwork for much of Mucha’s work in the future.  The Count also gave Mucha continued financial support, allowing him to “receive formal art training in Munich and Paris” (7).

            From 1885 to 1887, Mucha studied at the Munich Academy of Arts.  While there he became active with the Škréta group, “a community of Central and Eastern European art students living in Munich” (8).  This is a theme that would continue to pop up in Mucha’s life: the importance of the Central and Eastern European countries own history and mythologies.

            While at the Munich Academy of Arts, Mucha continued to do work for publications back in Ivančice, creating illustrations for the magazines Fantaz and Krokodil, run by his brother-in-law and friend.  This is when Mucha’s approach to lettering and calligraphy really begins.  (If you’ve ever seen anything written in an Art Nouveau style, it’s probably going to look like Mucha’s lettering style.)

            Also while still at the Munich Academy of Arts, Mucha’s family contacts secured him a commission in the United States, to create an alterpiece for the Church of St. John of Nepomuk in the Czech community, Pisek, in North Dakota (9).  Mucha decided to portray two of the Czech’s best loved Saints, Saints Cyril and Methodius.

            After completing his two years in Munich, Mucha moved to Paris in the fall of 1887.  Mucha entered the Académie Julian, where he studied under Lefèbvre, Boulanger, and Laurens.  While at the Académie Julian, Mucha was introduced to the Nabis.  The Nabis were a group that “believe[d] that art [stood] on an equal footing with design” and worked “with designers and publishers to produce set designs, wallpaper, textiles, ceramics and stained glass” (10).  This would influence a lot of Mucha’s design sensibilities.

            In 1888, Mucha moved on from the Académie Julian to the Académie Colarossi, but his education there was cut short.  In 1889, the Count decided to stop funding Mucha’s education and so Mucha had to leave the Académie Colarossi.  He stayed in Paris though, getting commissions for illustrations from French and Czech publishers (11).  In 1890, Mucha became a contributor to Le Costume au théâtre et a la Ville, a magazine of theatre costumes.  For this magazine, Mucha created his first drawing of Sarah Bernhardt, showing her as Cleopatra.

            Mucha worked steadily at this point.  In 1891 he worked for Armand Colin, illustrating high quality school books in Paris.  In 1892 he began teaching drawing, eventually being asked to teach at Académie Colarossi, and at Whistler’s Académie Carmen.

            Also in 1892, Mucha exhibited his work for the first time at the Paris Salon at Palais des Champs Elysées.  He won an honorable mention for his piece which was a “selection of works illustrating Xavier Marmier’s Les Contes des Grand-Mères” (12).  In 1893 Mucha purchased his first camera; this allowed him to better compose his works, but also allowed him to explore photography as an art in itself.

            In 1894 Mucha met August Strindberg, who introduced him to occultism and mysticism, themes which would influence both his life and his work.  Also in 1894 Mucha was commissioned by the publisher Lemercier to do a special edition of a supplement to their magazine Le Gaulois.  This commission was to be a feature on Sarah Bernhardt’s Gismonda at the Théâtre de la Renaissance.  At Christmas that year, Gismonda needed a new poster at the last minute.  Mucha volunteered to do the poster within two weeks.  This poster was long and narrow, with “subtle pastel colors and the ‘halo’ effect around the subject’s head” (13).  Mucha’s poster was completely different from all other posters at the time, and it was hugely popular.  Collectors would bribe poster hangers for a copy, or would quickly cut down the newly hung posters.  Sarah Bernhardt was “so satisfied with the success of this first poster that she began a six-year contract with Mucha”, having him design posters, sets, and costumes for her (14).

            In 1896 Mucha began contributing to La Plume, a monthly publication of poems, stories, art reviews, and avant-garde illustrations.  La Plume put on exhibitions of its artists work called Salon des Cents.  Mucha was asked to create the poster for the 20^th Salon.  The exhibitions and the magazine were interested in posters as art, so they took their posters seriously.  At this same time Mucha entered into a contract with Champenois, “one of the most important printers of the period” (15).  Champenois’s posters ranged from affordable ones on cardstock, to expensive ones on satin and vellum.

            In 1896, Mucha moved to a new studio that had large, open windows and a glass ceiling.  His interest in photography grew at this point due to the improved lighting; he also began experimenting with sculpture due to the influence of August Seysses, who worked in the same building as Mucha.

            Mucha continued to work with Champenois, and in 1896 Champenois commission him to do a series of panels based around the four seasons.  Decorative panels were increasingly popular at the time, and Mucha’s art on a decorative panel would be a sure success.  The four season panels were so popular, that Champenois commissioned two more sets based on the seasons in 1897 and 1900.  In 1897, in addition to the decorative panels, Champenois was putting Mucha’s work on whatever it could: “calendars, postcards, theatre programs and menus” (16).  Champenois also licensed Mucha’s work throughout Europe and North America.

            In 1896, Job cigarette papers commissioned Mucha to create a poster for them.  At this time smoking was a male activity and so putting a “sensual woman” on the poster gave “the product a sense of illicit glamour” (17).  The following year Mucha had his first solo exhibition; he showed 107 works at the Galerie de la Bodinière, and the introduction in the exhibition’s program was by Sarah Bernhardt.  Mucha had his second solo exhibition that year at one of the Salon des Cents that was held at the offices of La Plume; this exhibition had 448 pieces.  Over the next two years he had exhibits in Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Munich, Brussels, London, New York, and more.

            Mucha was increasingly popular and was making pretty much everything at this time (in addition to Champenois putting his work on even more).  He was painting, creating posters, advertisements, illustrations for books.  He was beginning to design jewelry (which we will touch on next week), carpets, wallpaper, and theater sets.  He also had a completely new style, “frequently featur[ing] beautiful young women in flowing, vaguely Neoclassical-looking robes, often surrounded by flowers which sometimes formed halos behind their heads” (18).  He also used pastels when most people did not.  This new style was called, simply, The Mucha Style, but became known as Art Nouveau, “new art”.

            Mucha, however, didn’t really want to be associated with Art Nouveau.  The style he’d created was so often copied and was so far from what he was trying to do.  Mucha said that his paintings were “entirely a product of himself and Czech art” and that “art existed only to communicate a spiritual message, and nothing more” (19).  The art he became so known for was his commercial work; he wanted to concentrate on artistic, important works.

            And that’s where we’ll leave it for today.  We’re at roughly the halfway point of Mucha’s life.  He’s become world-known for the new style he created.  His popularity is only growing.  Next week will be the rest of Mucha’s life, the big projects he did and, really, his life’s work, that artistic, important work.  I’ll also talk about what happened to Mucha’s work and popularity after his death.  So.  Till next time.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 – Mucha Foundation Timeline

18, 19 - Alphonse Mucha

John Haviland and Radial Prisons

Last week, I discussed the history of Eastern State Penitentiary.  I find the Quaker ideas for punishment and penitence really interesting.  These ideas had to be executed properly in order to create the isolation and self-reflection that was so important to the early prison reformers and the Quaker roots of prisons in Pennsylvania.  The man whose design encapsulated everything they wanted was John Haviland, “the most famous and internationally influential prison architect of all time” (1).

Haviland was born in December 1792 in Somerset, England.  We don’t know much about his early life, but he was good at math and art and so was sent to London in 1811 as an apprentice to the architect James Elmes.  By 1815, Haviland left London for St. Petersburg.  He wanted to be an Imperial Engineer.  This did not work out and he left Russia, but not before meeting Sir George von Sonntag.  Von Sonntag had lived in Philadelphia and probably suggested that Haviland head to Pennsylvania.

Haviland arrived in Philadelphia in 1816 “armed with letters of introduction to President Monroe and others, written by von Sonntag and John Quincy Adams, then United States Minister to Russia” (2).  Once in Philadelphia, Haviland opened an architectural drawing school.  He also began to get commissions for churches, public buildings, and homes.  When, in 1821, Philadelphia was looking to build a prison, Haviland submitted a design and won.  This would be Eastern State Penitentiary.  Haviland supervised the construction of Eastern State until it was finished in 1836.

Being the architect of Eastern State Penitentiary made Haviland almost a household name.  He was commissioned to build private and public buildings throughout Philadelphia.  He was also commissioned for the asylum in current-day Portsmouth, Virginia.  Haviland was also working on buildings in Pittsburgh, Trenton (New Jersey), and New York City.  He even had the opportunity to redesign the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh that had been started by rival architect, William Strickland.

Haviland supervised the construction of the court and detention center in New York City “which later became known as the ‘Tombs’ because of its heavy Egyptian style – the name persisting even in subsequent structures” (3).  Prisons became Haviland’s specialty.  He designed the state prisons in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Missouri, and the county jail in Trenton, New Jersey.  He also submitted plans for prisons in Washington, DC, Arkansas and Louisiana, but none of these were built.

In 1839, Haviland was a little disillusioned with the United States and offered his services to build prisons in England, France, and Mexico.  But in 1840, when Pennsylvania allowed individual counties to build their own prisons, Haviland was right back at it.  He built the prison in Harrisburg in 1840, Reading in 1846, and Lancaster in 1849.

Haviland died in March 1852 of apoplexy.  In addition to not knowing much about his early life and family, we don’t know much about his later personal life.  We know Haviland married von Sonntag’s sister and that they had one daughter and two sons, but that’s about it.

So that’s Haviland.  Not a whole lot is known about his outside of his building designs.  He was extremely influential though, even if it’s in sort of a roundabout way…

Haviland’s key piece of prison design was in the radial prison layout.  He didn’t come up with this design though.  England’s Suffolk County Jail in Ipswich, designed by William Blackburn, another prison designer, was probably the first radial jail with a central surveillance point.  Also, mental hospitals at this time had radial plans.  In 1814, while Haviland was in London studying architecture, a plan for a radial mental hospital was published.  It’s possible that Haviland saw or heard of both of these radial plans.

At any rate, Haviland took the radial design and brought it to America where it really caught on.  Three of the prisons Haviland worked on influenced other prisons at the time and for years afterwards: the prison at Pittsburgh, which was V shaped; the prison at Trenton, which was a half-radiating plan, with five wings; and Eastern State.  Trenton’s plan included improvements on the Eastern State plan, including “detached exercise yards, cell doors into the corridors and two-storey wings” (4).  This was the most imitated prison design of Haviland’s.

As mentioned in the previous post about Eastern State, the solitary confinement that it had was controversial.  It was really only ever used in Pennsylvania.  The rival system from New York (solitary confinement at night; communal, but silent work during the day) was adopted pretty much everywhere else in the United States.  The New York system also had rectangular cell blocks, rather than the radial plan.  The radial prisons were used in a few places in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and New Jersey, as well as the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas built in the 1930s (5).  So, while Haviland’s plan wasn’t really used throughout the United States, it was in bringing the idea to the U.S. that made it popular throughout the rest of the world. 

As was mentioned in the previous post, a lot of countries (including Great Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, and Belgium) sent delegations to the United States to take a look at Eastern State and other prisons.  Alexis de Tocqueville and Charles Dickens both visited Eastern State; de Tocqueville liked what he saw, Dickens did not.  Most of the delegations agreed with de Tocqueville, preferring the Eastern State type prison to the other prisons they saw in the United States.

When Britain began building these type of prisons (while they’d had them before, they hadn’t really caught on nationwide), Haviland submitted designs.  The Model Prison, called Pentonville, was this design.  Pentonville had similar modifications to those of the Trenton prison.  Pentonville was completed in 1842; it became the most copied prison in the world.  Britain built similar prisons throughout its empire, in Egypt, Australia, Malta, Burma, and Canada (6).

Other countries also copied the Pentonville design.  Berlin built theirs in 1844, and by 1910 Germany had over 40 of this design.  Belgium had over 20 modelled on Pentonville, some opting for V or X shapes rather than the multiwinged radial plan.  Spain built over 40 prisons based on Pentonville, beginning in 1859, including the prisons in Madrid and Valencia.  Holland, Switzerland, much of Scandinavia, Finland, Portugal, Austria, and Hungary all built large prisons based on Pentonville (7).

The only large countries that did not build large prisons based on Pentonville were France, Russia, and Italy.  At this time all three countries were in the midst of political unrest and so their governments were not stable enough for large scale construction projects.  All three countries did built small detention centers on the radial plan though.

These Pentonville copies extended all the way to China and Japan.  The first westernizing influences in Japan were through prison reform.  Japan built over thirty-three radial prisons modelled on Pentonville, including full circle radial designs.

Prison reform was a huge topic in much of the world in the late 18^th c. and early 19^th c. and these new prison ideas spread rapidly worldwide.  By the end of the 19^th c. though, there were new prison designs being developed, and few radial prisons were built except for a few in the United States.

So, as I mentioned Haviland was influential, even if he didn’t develop the ideas he’s known for.  He brought radial designs from England to the United States.  The rest of the world was looking to the young United States in all sorts of matters, including prison design.  Haviland’s American prison designs were then copied and brought back to England, where they created the Pentonville system.  Pentonville was then copied throughout Europe and the rest of the world. 

I find this so fascinating.  There’s really nothing new under the sun and Haviland’s path shows us that.  Haviland didn’t invent the radial plan, and it wasn’t truly his American prisons that were copied, but rather, it was all of his ideas together and modified that became the famous prisons worldwide.  So, even if you don’t have a new idea, you might bring it to a new audience or have a new way of implementing it.  That’s really cool to think about.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - Eastern State Penitentiary-John Haviland

Happy birthday, Inez Milholland!

Happy birthday, Neil Armstrong!

Also, the first electric traffic light was installed today in 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Eastern State Penitentiary

This blog post came from my mom.  We were discussing topics I’d been thinking of writing about and my mom suggested Eastern State Penitentiary; I’d been a bit paralyzed by choice for what to do next and Eastern State seemed perfect.  Our family visited Eastern State in 2010 on our trip to Philadelphia.  I’d never heard of it before.  It’s… such a weird place.  When you are walking up to this huge, imposing building, you definitely get the idea of what the original planners and the architect were trying to do. 

In the late 18^th c. in the United States, most prisons were just large holding pens.  All types of criminals were thrown together: men, women, violent, nonviolent, all together.  If you were put in prison it was also expected that guards would abuse you in some way or another.

In 1787, a group of powerful Philadelphian’s met at Benjamin Franklin’s house.  They were concerned about the conditions of prisons in the U.S. and in Europe.  These men formed the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (this still exists as the Pennsylvania Prison Society).  This was the first prison reform group in the world.  The penal code in Pennsylvania, Quaker and Enlightenment thought all made Philadelphia into the center of prison reform at this time.  The society’s goal was “to see the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania set the international standard in prison design” and proposed “a radical idea to build a true penitentiary, a prison designed to create genuine regret and penitence in the criminal’s heart” (1).

At this time the main prison in Pennsylvania was the Walnut Street Jail.  It was overcrowded and it cost a lot to transport prisoners in from elsewhere in the state.  The new prison design would abandon corporal punishment and would “move the criminal toward spiritual reflection and change” using Quaker inspired methods of isolation and labor (2).  It took over thirty years for the Society to convince the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania of their idea.  Because of the cost of transporting prisoners, two prisons were planned, Western Penitentiary near Pittsburgh, and Eastern State Penitentiary at Philadelphia.  The designer of Eastern State was British-born John Haviland; he was paid $100 for his design.  Eastern State would cost $780,000 to build and took 11 acres of land.

Haviland’s idea had a central surveillance area with seven cellblocks radiating out from there, so guards could see the entire prison from the middle.  Each prisoner would be in their own cell which was heated, had running water, a flushing toilet and a skylight (at this time the White House didn’t even have running water).  Each cell also had its own individual exercise area outside, surrounded by a ten-foot high wall.  The idea was for the prisoner to have everything they needed right in their cell, “the light from heaven [the skylight], the word of God (the Bible) and honest work … to lead to penitence” (3).

Prisoners wore hoods whenever they were out of their cells so they would be penitent (hence penitentiary).  The new prison reformers believed that silence would allow the prisoners to concentrate on their behavior and the horror of their crimes.  Guards even wore felt coverings on their shoes to reduce noise.  Reformation of criminals was the key in the new prisons and isolation was to “give him ample opportunity to ponder his mistakes and make his peace with God.  If this were not effective, once the man was released the memory of this complete and awful isolation would be sufficiently terrifying to deter further crime” (4).

Outsiders knew the prison kept criminals in isolation; this was supposed to be a deterrent for criminals.  If that was not enough, the building itself was hopefully imposing enough to deter them.  While the interior was churchlike with “30-foot, barrel vaulted hallways, tall arched windows,” a “forced monastery, a machine for reform” (5), the exterior of the prison was Gothic: strong, punishing, and intimidating.

The Eastern Penitentiary Act of 1821 allowed for the prison to be built, initially to house 250 prisoners, but additions were almost immediately added to double capacity.  The first prisoner was admitted on October 25, 1829.  The first female prisoners were admitted in 1831.

Throughout the 1830s and 1840s tourists would visit the prison.  By 1858, over 10,000 tourists visited in a year (the most until the prison opened for tours in 1994).  European countries sent delegations to visit the prison and report back.  The “distinctive geometric form and … regimen of isolation became a symbol of progressive, modern principles” (6).  Over the rest of the 19^th c. over 300 prisons across the world were based on the radial plan.  Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont reported back to the French government in 1831, praising Eastern State.  Charles Dickens, however, in an 1842 visit did not like the system of isolation in the prison; he wrote a chapter in his travel journal “American Notes for General Circulation” just on his thoughts about Eastern State.

Dickens was not the only detractor.  A debate grew over whether or not the isolation and penitence was effective.  A rival prison system grew out of this debate.  New York State’s Auburn System consisted of isolation only at night, communal work taking place during the day.  Eventually these criticisms won out and the Eastern State system was abandoned by 1913 (though some prisons based on it were still built until just after World War II).

Because of the criticisms, new additions and policies at Eastern State were a compromise.  New additions that were built in the 1870s and 1890s looked similar but had communal exercise yards, though silence was still mandatory.  The hoods the inmates had to wear when out of their cells now had eyeholes.  Solitary cells slowly went away.  Other new additions still had halls that looked like the original ones, with catwalks and skylights, but the cells were different.  These had smaller cells (since the prisoners weren’t spending all their time in them) and had normal windows instead of skylights.  Underground, windowless cells were built, but this solitary confinement was a punishment instead of the norm.

By 1905, the prisoners were doing their work communally, and by 1909 the inmates were publishing their own newspaper.  In 1924 the prison had its first group dining halls.  In August 1924, newspapers reported that the governor donated his own dog as a morale booster, though another story says Pep “The Cat-Murdering Dog” had murdered the governor’s wife’s cat.

For the prison’s centennial in 1929, the administration created a movie focusing on the prisons modernizations rather than the history of the facility.  The movie showed the “new factory-style weaving shops; the commercial-grade bakery and kitchens, staffed by dozens of inmates twenty-four hours a day; and the new guard towers with searchlights and sirens”; cells housed two or three men, and “former exercise yards, roofed over, their party walls removed” became workshops and dining halls (7).

Also in 1929, the prison’s most famous resident moved in.  Al Capone served his first sentence at Eastern State, eight months for carrying a concealed weapon.  His cell was stocked with a rug, oil paintings, and other antiques.  You can still see his cell on display.

In 1956 the last large addition was made to Eastern State: death row, cellblock fifteen.  This was completely different from the rest of the facility.  Everything in cellblock fifteen was electronic, and guards and inmates were almost never in contact.

Over the years there had been occasional riots at Eastern State.  The prison’s largest riot took place in 1961.  Discussions began about closing Eastern State.  Eastern State Penitentiary closed in 1971 after 142 years in use.  Any prisoners that were still at the facility were moved elsewhere in the state.

So, what to do with this property?  Philadelphia had certified the prison as a history property in 1958, and the federal government made it a National Historic Landmark in 1965, but that didn’t really mean much once it was empty.  In 1974 the mayor of Philadelphia suggested demolishing the prison and building a criminal justice center.  In 1980, Philadelphia paid Pennsylvania about $400,000 for the property, with hopes of developing it.  By 1988 though, nothing had been done and the mayor wanted to develop the area.  The Eastern State Penitentiary Task Force stopped this plan though.

In 1991 funding helped to preserve and stabilize the building, and that year the first Halloween fundraiser was held.  The Halloween fundraiser continues to this day, “generat[ing] most of the money used to maintain the … prison and operate day and nighttime tours throughout the years” (8).  In 2012 the Halloween event raised money for “63 percent of … operating costs for the entire year” (9).

The Pennsylvania Prison Society finally was able to open the building for guided tours in 1994, with over 10,000 guests that first year, and in 1998 the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Inc. was formed to run tours and continue preservation.  In 1996 the World Monument Fund named Eastern State Penitentiary on its list of 100 “most important endangered landmarks in the world” (10).  By 2003 the prison had audio tours available and the building had been stabilized enough that guests no longer had to wear hardhats.  By 2007 the prison was operating seven days a week, twelve months a year.  In 2010 new tours and art installations were added to the facility (when we were there the art installation was a bunch of cats, based on the stray cats that used to live on the property), and restoration on the cellblocks continues.

So that’s the history of Eastern State Penitentiary.  I mentioned at the beginning that I visited in 2010.  I really recommend going.  Like I said it’s a bit weird feeling being there, and the building is so imposing, but it’s just so cool at the same time.  It’s also just such an important building.  I touched briefly on the impact of Eastern State on prisons worldwide.  Next time I’m going to talk about that more, and why that’s maybe not entirely true, as well as talking about the architect, John Haviland.  Till next time.

1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 - Eastern State Penitentiary-General Overview
4 - Eastern State Penitentiary-John Haviland
8, 9 - Laurel Dalrymple, "At An Abandoned Philadelphia Prison, All Hell Breaks Loose," NPR, October 24, 2013.
10 - Eastern State Penitentiary-Timeline

Happy birthday, Myrna Loy!