R. M. and Pauline Gibling Schindler, Sophie and Edmund Gibling, Dorothy Gibling and Mark Schindler at Kings Road, summer 1923. (Sweeney, p. 93). Schindler Family Collection, Courtesy Friends of the Schindler House.
organized by Elizabeth A. T. Smith and Michael Darling from which much of the material in this post is gleaned. All references will be denoted by (Sweeney). Sweeney recreated a fascinating story from the lively and voluminous correspondence preserved by Pauline Gibling Schindler (PGS). I hope to build upon Sweeney's findings by concentrating more deeply upon PGS's considerable efforts to promote and market the brand of modernism produced by her notable circle of avant-garde architects, composers, musicians, designers, dancers, artists, writers, gurus and bohemian and radical friends and acquaintances. Her importance to a wider acceptance and appreciation of modern architecture and the arts in Southern California is much under-appreciated. Her Kings Road, Carmel and Ojai salons, editorials, articles, exhibitions and lecture bookings generated numerous contacts which resulted in important clients for both her husband and his erstwhile partner and tenant Richard Neutra and others fortunate enough to have been in her circle.
Other useful sources for this essay were: R. M. Schindler
by Judith Sheine, Phaidon, 2001. (Sheine), The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Volume II: California
, edited by Nancy Newhall, Aperture, 1961, (Weston), Dione Neutra's Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, (P&F), Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970
, by Thomas S. Hines, (Sun-Hines), Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture
, Oxford University Press, 1982, (RN-Hines), and Esther McCoy's Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys
: Letters Between R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra, Arts + Architecture Press, 1979, (McCoy).
Pauline Gibling Schindler, from a prominent east coast family, studied music for four years at Smith College (see below). Upon graduating she moved to Chicago and lived and taught music at Jane Addams
' Hull House from 1915 to 1916. Hull-House was a settlement house for the poor and center for social reformers and intelligentsia founded by Addams in 1889.
During Pauline's time at Smith, Addams and Emily Green Balch founded the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom for which both, on separate occasions, were to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Pauline's mother Sophie became the Treasurer of the League. In 1919, Pauline met and married architect Rudolph Schindler, and moved with him to Taliesin, his employer Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio. Ironically, Richard Neutra would also briefly stay at Hull House upon his arrival in Chicago from New York in March 1924 where he taught children's drawing classes to earn his keep. (RN-Hines, p. 48-9, P&F, p. 116).
' Hull House from 1915 to 1916. Hull-House was a settlement house for the poor and center for social reformers and intelligentsia founded by Addams in 1889. During Pauline's time at Smith, Addams and Emily Green Balch founded the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom for which both, on separate occasions, were to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Pauline's mother Sophie became the Treasurer of the League. In 1919, Pauline met and married architect Rudolph Schindler, and moved with him to Taliesin, his employer Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio. Ironically, Richard Neutra would also briefly stay at Hull House upon his arrival in Chicago from New York in March 1924 where he taught children's drawing classes to earn his keep. (RN-Hines, p. 48-9, P&F, p. 116).
Top center, Pauline Gibling, and below center with cat, Dorothy Gibling at a costume party, Smith College, 1915. Archives of American Art, Esther McCoy Papers.
Frank Lloyd Wright appointed Schindler superintendent of his office for the duration of his two year period in Japan supervising the construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. At the same time, with a large commission for the oil heiress, Aline Barnsdall, Wright set up office in Los Angeles, which is where the Schindler's moved in late 1920. The following year Schindler set up his own, independent practice and, in collaboration with Pauline's college friend Marian Da Camara Chace and her contractor husband Clyde, designed and built the Kings Road House with financial support from Pauline's parents. The Kings Road House, wrote the architectural historian Rayner Banham, "is perhaps the most unobtrusively enjoyable domestic habitat ever created in Los Angeles." (Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Harper & Row, 1971, p. 182).
The house reflected Pauline's social philosophy, a place of simplicity where people from all walks of life could meet together. Pauline had expressed this kind of open meeting house in a letter to her mother well before she had met Schindler. She presciently wrote from Hull House in 1916,
"One of my dreams, Mother, is to have, some day, a little joy of a bungalow, on the edge of the woods and mountains near a crowded city, which shall be open just as some people's hearts are open, to friends of all classes and types. I should like it to be as democratic a meeting-place as Hull House where millionaires and laborers, professors and illiterates, the splendid and the ignoble, meet constantly together." (Sweeney, p. 87).During this period, the lifestyle embodied in the design for their house was observed by the Schindlers (and the Neutras after they moved in in March 1925) through diet and exercise, psychoanalysis, education, and the arts of music, dance, painting and photography. The outdoor courts were dining rooms and playrooms for their toddlers, who ran free under the sun year round. They slept in the open air, ate simple meals of fruits and vegetables by the fireplaces, and wore loose-fitting garments of natural fibers closed with ties rather than buttons. At their parties, the terraces served as stages for musical and dance performances; in the audiences were many aspiring California artists, actors and writers.
Edward Weston was one of the earliest visitors to the completed house. Weston likely met the Schindlers at the Walt Whitman School around 1921 where Pauline taught and Weston's sons Chandler and Brett were enrolled. (For much more on this see my "The Schindlers and the Westons and the Walt Whitman School"). The Schindlers visited Weston's studio in the summer of 1922 and later "when the evening was ripe" the group moved over to Kings Road. Weston "[was] of course very much excited about the house, and wanting to see it by daylight. All of it a fearfully stimulating evening...RMS and I couldn't sleep, with the stimulus of the music, and Mr. Weston's pictures." (Artful Lives: Margrethe Mather, Edward Weston, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles by Beth Gates Warren, p. 253 and letter from SPG to family, July 1922). The Schindlers, and later the Neutras, would become lifelong friends and collaborators with Weston and his sons.
Richard, Dione and Frank Neutra and RMS at Kings Road, 1928. Photographer unknown. (McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art)
Former Neutra employee Harwell Hamilton Harris's very insightful introduction to Esther McCoy's Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys: Letters Between R. M. Schindler
sheds much light on the Sunday evening open houses Pauline organized at Kings Road and the people who attended them, including himself after his first visit in 1928. His introductory comments were filtered through the lens of his wife, Jean Murray Bangs, who was a close friend of Pauline's since her return to Los Angeles in 1921 from a radical foray in New York where she married Garment Workers Union organizer Abe Plotkin and befriended idols of Pauline's, Emma Goldman, Max Eastman and John Reed. (Harwell Hamilton Harris by Lisa Germany, University of Texas Press, 1991, p. 52). Author's note: Pauline had been arrested while participating in the 1915 Garment Workers Strike shortly after her arrival in Chicago and her move into Hull-House. See my "The Schindlers and the Westons and the Walt Whitman School").Harris described Pauline and Kings Road,
"Pauline - eager, ardent, ready for any new idea in any field - made an experience of everything and savored it to the full. ... People who didn't like her called her a poseur, which was unjust. She worked hard and did without almost all the things women commonly want, and did it with a grace few women in her position have achieved.. ... The Schindler's open house on Sunday evenings attracted the "arty" intellectuals of post-World-War I. ... Hollywood drew them like a magnet. ... Poets, playwrights, dancers, photographers and musicians were not the only visitors on these occasions. Socialists, reformers and intellectuals of all varieties were there. The talk was not chit-chat but about revolutionary ideas in all fields. The New, the Advanced. There were no fights because the participants, too, were advanced and so in fundamental agreement with one another. Most were locals; some were habitues; others were ones who came and went. Everyone felt free to bring a friend if he were interesting; it was a way to entertain." (Two Journeys, pp. 13-14).
John Bovingdon, circa 1928, Imogen Cunningham photo.
Harris then specifically recalled attendees Edward Weston, playwright and actor Maurice Browne, poet Robert Nichols, dancer John Bovingdon (see above), pianists Doris Levings and Max Pons, among others and finished with,
"Whether the group was large, filling both studios and the garden, or small and restricted to one room or the patio, the place alone raised the common above the commonplace. It freed everyone's expression. It was a tool Pauline and RMS used with imagination and skill and it deserves to be remembered."
Thanksgiving at Kings Road, 1923. Clockwise from left, Herman Sachs, Karl Howenstein, Edith Gutterson, Anton Martin Feller, E. Clare Schooler, unidentified, Betty Katz, Alexander R. Brandner, and obscured, Max Pons, to the right of Sachs. Not shown, the Schindlers and Dorothy Gibling. Photo by R. M. Schindler. From "Life at Kings Road: As It Was 1920-1940" by Robert Sweeney in The Architecture of R. M. Schindler, p. 97.
Despite the radical slant of most of the visitors to Kings Road, traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations were observed. The 1923 Thanksgiving feast seen above was attended by Herman Sachs, Karl and Edith Howenstein, Anton Maritin Fuller (then working for Frank Lloyd Wright), Alexander R. Brandner, Betty Katz, Max Pons, E. Clare Schooler, Dorothy Gibling and others. Sachs, soon-to-be Schindler client and collaborator seen above left, established the short-lived Chicago Industrial Arts School at Jane Addam's Hull House in 1920 and directed the Dayton Institute of Art in 1921-22 before moving to Los Angeles in 1923. Karl and Edith Howenstein (above back center) were also friends of the Schindlers in Chicago where Karl had also worked at the Art Institute before moving to Los Angeles to become Director of the Otis Art Institute. The Howensteins first lived in the Kings Road guest wing for two years between 1922-4.
Edward Weston, "Betty in Her Attic," 1920. Betty Katz. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Former Kings Road tenant Viennese architect A. R. Brandner, who would later marry Katz in 1943, recalled, "Pauline made the gatherings but it was Schindler who enjoyed them." The parties were, "...happy times, unique gatherings - the intelligentsia and desperate characters. Pauline preferred a serious party, but when Schindler and Sadakichi Hartmann got together it was glorious fun." (McCoy, p. 14, 41). A multi-talented artist, writer, critic and actor, Hartmann played the role of the Chinese prince in Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad
in 1923 (see below). He was favorably reviewed in a July 5, 1923 L.A. Times article "New Faces and New Angles on Favorites" by Edwin Schallert. (For an interesting sidebar on the discontent caused by the film caused in China see "The Thief of Bagdad Uproar" and my "Krisel and Alexander in Hollywood").
in 1923 (see below). He was favorably reviewed in a July 5, 1923 L.A. Times article "New Faces and New Angles on Favorites" by Edwin Schallert. (For an interesting sidebar on the discontent caused by the film caused in China see "The Thief of Bagdad Uproar" and my "Krisel and Alexander in Hollywood").
, UC-Riverside, 1970.
Krasnow, Peter, Hartmann Reading Poe at Kings Road, 1928. Schindler on the right.
Noted English playwright and theater troupe organizer Maurice Browne, in his autobiography Too Late to Lament
wrote, "And Pauline Schindler, brilliant, warm-hearted, bitter-tongued, who was trying to create a salon amid Hollywood's cultural slagheap, invited me to her home to lecture on Keyserling." Sweeney writes, Pauline was effusive in anticipation: "[the party]...is going to be huge. We have never had more than a hundred guests before ... But this will be overflowing." (Sweeney, p. 96 & PGS letter to her mother, [n.d.] circa October, 1925).
Announcement for performances of two of Browne's plays. L.A. Times, December 14, 1924.
Pauline's mother Sophie, a frequent guest at Kings Road wrote in a December 16, 1926 letter to her husband,"...when company drops in [Pauline] is a most fascinating hostess. Sunday evening it struck me again how much atmosphere, uniqueness and charm there is about her parties, and what interesting people she collects." (Sweeney, p. 104).
The marriage was not a peaceful one. Schindler was truly a Bohemian and did not respect the institution of marriage, and behaved accordingly. Pauline had wanted to consider the marriage a legal formality to satisfy her family, but was much more conventional in her response to it than she imagined she would be. (From http://www.ex-tempore.org/ExTempore96/cage96.htm). The painter Conrad Buff, who gravitated in both the Kings Road and Jake Zeitlin social orbits and commissioned Neutra in 1927 to design the garage and entryway for his Eagle Rock house and studio, said of Schindler in his UCLA Oral History,
"Schindler, besides being a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, was a very handsome fellow. He was quite a ladies' man, and part of his business was to make love to all the ladles he could. He had a very interesting wife, but that didn't bother him. There was quite a group of people that used to meet down at Schindler's house." (Buff Oral History).PGS and RMS's relationship finally reached the breaking point in late August 1927. Pauline packed up and left with son Mark in secrecy to avoid a confrontation. (Sweeney, P&F, p. 167). She had just weeks earlier written a highly favorable two-part review of tenant Richard Neutra's Wie Baut Amerika?
which was published in the July 30 and August 6 issues of the Los Angeles City Club Bulletin. (Hines, p. 65). This was about the time that Philip and Leah Lovell, RMS clients and Kings Road salon habitues, commissioned Neutra to design alterations for Lovell's Physical Culture Center in downtown Los Angeles and what would become his tour de force Lovell Health House which launched his distinguished career.The Neutra's had previously moved into the Kings Road guest-studio in March 1925 and the Chace wing about a year later. Galka Scheyer, Kings Road guest-studio tenant while studying modern architecture with Schindler for three months over the summer of 1927, was not only witness to Pauline's departure but apparently facilitated the Lovell Health House commission by talking to Lovell, Schindler and Neutra about their mutual concerns of who would (or wouldn't) be working on the Health House design. (Sweeney, P&F, p. 171 and "Braxton Gallery, 1928-1929, Hollywood" by Naomi Sawelson-Gorse in The Furniture of R. M. Schindler, UCSB, p. 87).
"Recalling Happy Memories", Peter Krasnow, summer 1927. Galka Scheyer lecturing on The Blue Four at Kings Road. From Galka E. Scheyer and The Blue Four: Correspondence, 1924-1945
edited by Isabel Wunsche, Benteli, 2006.
edited by Isabel Wunsche, Benteli, 2006. 
Galka Scheyer at Kings Road, circa 1931. (Sweeney, p. 108).
From Carmel Pauline wrote to close friend Betty Katz Kopelanoff, former lover of mutual friend Edward Weston, of her recuperative stay in Halcyon.
Browne and Van Volkenberg were, however, soon back working together on projects such as an April, 1925 performance at the Wilshire Ebell Theater by the Maurice Browne Players of Browne's "Mother of Gregory" (first performed in Carmel in 1924). ("Ebell Program for Month Out", L.A. Times, April 23, 1925, p. I-7.) Browne also announced in February, 1926 that Los Angeles would be the production headquarters for his Maurice Browne Theater Association with offices to be located in the Transportation Building and that he would be joined by Van Volkenberg. ("Nationally Known Producer Chooses City as Production Headquarters for Little Plays", L.A. Times, February 28, 1927, p. 23).
Ironically, Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg (seen above just before Browne left her to have a child with Ellen Janson) spent time in Carmel as directors of Edward Kuster's Theatre of the Golden Bough in 1924. In his autobiography Browne recalled his former San Francisco student,
Sometime around 1921 Pauline met RMS’s most important client through the Barnsdall connection as she, Leah Press Lovell and sister Harriet Press Freeman, radical friends of Aline. Leah and Pauline were involved with Barnsdall’s progressive kindergarten she commissioned for her daughter and other selected children at Hollyhock House (see above). (Sun-Hines, p. 156). Through Pauline’s connection with Leah and Harriet, Schindler became architect to the both the Lovells and Freemans. Beginning in 1922 RMS designed three projects for the Lovells, a mountain cabin in Wrightwood, a farmhouse in Fallbrook and the iconic Beach House in Newport Beach which was completed in 1926.
By 1924, RMS had also essentially replaced Wright as Aline Barnsdall’s personal architect and by 1928 replaced Wright as Sam and Harriet Freeman's architect. Beginning in 1928 Schindler was also hired to design furniture for Wright’s Freeman House where, over the next 25 years, he designed two guest apartments and other alterations and over 35 pieces of furniture. (See “Freeman House, 1928-1933, Hollywood Hills” by Jeffrey M. Chusid in The Furniture of R. M. Schindler
, UCSB, p. 100).
It has been speculated by some that Schindler was having an affair with Leah and/or Harriet which could have contributed to Pauline’s 1927 departure from Kings Road and might have come into play in Philip Lovell’s decision to award Neutra the Health House commission. See both Hines books for the most complete analysis of how this commission came about. (See also my Selected Publications of Esther McCoy for much more discourse on the Lovell Health House Commission).
As she had done at Kings Road, Pauline rapidly assimilated into the Carmel arts community. She soon began contributing an unsigned column, "The Black Sheep," to the Carmel Pine Cone (see photo above). Appearing 11 times between November 1927 and March 1928, she described it as a "new critical department which does not promise to behave itself too well," but that it would be, "young, fearless, honest, and vital." She focused mainly on music, local issues and events. Pauline was also named drama critic for Carmel for the Christian Science Monitor. (Sweeney, p. 104). Thus, she may likely be responsible for the four late 1920s and early 1930s Monitor articles on Neutra projects listed in my Neutra bibliography. During her tenure at the Carmel Pine Cone, the Harrison Memorial Library designed by Bay Area architect Bernard Maybeck was opening on Ocean Avenue (see below).
Interior court of the Seven Arts Building, Home of The Carmelite, and Edward Weston's studio up stairway to the right. George A. Robinson photo.
Left, The Carmelite masthead for May 23, 1928, the last issue before Pauline's editorship began. Right, Masthead after Pauline's redesign. The Carmelite, July 4, 1928, front cover. (from Sweeney, p. 105).
+-+Copy.jpg)
Announcement for a series of 1930 Bovingdon performances at Kings Road. From Sweeney, p. 107.
The Carmelite, March 20, 1929. (From my collection).
Richard Buhlig, 1922. Margrethe Mather portrait. From Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2001, p. 97.
The Carmelite, July 3, 1929, pp. 7 -8. (From my collection).
Henry Cowell, 1923. Margrethe Mather portrait. From Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2001, p. 111.
In the November 28, 1928 issue, Pauline announced a Richard Neutra lecture (see two above images) on modern architecture she arranged at the Denny-Watrous Gallery "and a Dione Neutra concert in Dene Denny and Hazel Watrous's "Harmony House." (See below) (The Arts: Dione Neutra Will Sing in Carmel," The Carmelite, November 28, 1928, p. 5). In a lengthy companion piece in the same issue she wrote,
With Richard just wrapping up the design for the Lovell Health House, the Neutra's took a much-needed week's vacation for the lecture and concert. They stopped on the way to Carmel after a delightful drive along the coast to observe "the strange inhabitants of Oceano." (P&F, p. 206). The Neutra's son Raymond recalls his mother Dione "talking about walking in the Oceano Dunes and coming across a naked hermit friend in his hut." (July 15, 2010 e-mail message from Raymond Neutra to the author). Dione's description of the two stormy night events in Carmel are recorded in a December 1928 letter to her parents. (P&F, p. 173).
Pianist Dene Denny and Hazel Watrous in their home "Harmony House."
In 1926 Denny and Watrous founded the Carmel Music Society. In November of the same year (see above) Dene appeared in Los Angeles with avant-garde composers Henry Cowell (featured in the July 3, 1929 issue of The Carmelite) and Dane Rudhyar (one of Pauline's contributing editors) at the New Music Society with Pauline undoubtedly in attendance. She made other Los Angeles appearances over the next few years. In 1928 the official partnership, Denny-Watrous Management, was launched. In the same year they leased the Theatre of the Golden Bough from Edward Kuster and in twelve months produced a dozen concerts and eighteen plays routinely reviewed by Pauline in The Carmelite , including Ferenc Molnar's "Liliom," Eugene O'Neill's "Emperor Jones" and Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts", all recently presented for the first time in English in New York. They then opened the Denny-Watrous Gallery, Carmel's first art gallery, using the space to present plays and concerts, as well as art. Here was the first known American performance of Bach's "Art of the Fugue." http://www.carmelresidents.org/News0303.html
The Carmelite, March 20, 1929, p. 3. (From my collection).
Pauline and Mark's first stop on what would become an nine-year sojourn away from Kings Road was at Ellen Janson's house in Halcyon, a small bohemian community of artists, poets, intellectuals and religious mystics founded by Theosophists in 1903 to which she later frequently returned. She probably learned of Halcyon from Maurice Browne (Sweeney, p. 96) and his lover of five years, actress and poet Ellen Janson, who possibly attended Browne's Keyserling lecture at Kings Road the previous year. Janson, and Browne had spent much of 1924 in Halcyon conceiving and giving birth to their son "Praxy." (Sweeney, p. 104 and Too Late to Lament, p. 279). Browne had also been promoting Janson's career as a poet in such publications as Contemporary Verse. (See below).
Excerpt from "Contributors," Contemporary Verse claiming the discovery of contributor Ellen Janson, Vol. XII, No. 5, November, 1921, p. 2.
Janson had an aunt living in Halcyon who found them a house through Theosophist John Varian who becomes important later in this article. Browne, in his autobiography, writes about himself and Janson using their love-nest in Halcyon as a base, traveling up and down the California coast camping under the stars. (Too Late to Lament, pp. 278-9). Browne wrote of the conception,
, pp. 278-9). Browne wrote of the conception, "He was gotten, willfully, at noon of a still burning August day on one of those beaches; we both knew that he would be a male. His mother and I, living in a dream world, believed that once he was surely conceived she could go happily forth into the world alone, carrying him, and I return to my work with Nellie Van." Browne soon divorced Van Volkenberg, married Janson and moved into a new "redwood shack" built for Ellen by her parents in Halcyon. (Too Late to Lament
Ellen Janson Browne and son Praxy ca. 1926. Photographer unknown. (Tingley, Donald F., "Ellen Van Volkenburg, Maurice Browne and the Chicago Little Theatre," Illinois State Historical Society Journal, Autumn, 1987, p. 144.
From Carmel Pauline wrote to close friend Betty Katz Kopelanoff, former lover of mutual friend Edward Weston, of her recuperative stay in Halcyon.
"In Halcyon I became immediately, very very ill. I was in Ellen's [Janson] house. My mother, father, and Mark, had to leave it and live in another cottage, because it was not endurable to me to hear a voice or a footstep, or to feel a presence. So I lay for many weeks. I became well again because of a remarkable nurse; the great peace of the landscape; and the felt powerful near spirits of Borghild [Janson, Ellen's aunt] and of Hugo [Seelig, Dunite poet discussed later herein]. As I owe my life to you and to Galka Scheyer, - so I owe the sense of peace and immeasurable richness of the universe, to these separate two, each in a superlative solitude." (PGS to Betty Katz Kopelanoff, December 22, 1927. Letter in possession of Betty's great niece Dottie Ickovitz.)A year and a half later Pauline wrote of Halcyon in The Carmelite as,
"...a strange little settlement with an astounding quality...if you were impervious to a thing called "spirit" which so palpably, almost visible, governs here, you would say that the houses were drab little shacks. And yet again and again...down to Halcyon...will flee from the civilization of cities, people of cultivated minds and tastes, - for a day or a week in Halcyon. There are Theosophists here, and a temple, - but it is not that which causes it all. It is a quality of universal as light. Can it be a climatic thing, - the radiation at Halcyon of forces from the earth which produce a human type of unusual harmoniousness and serenity, - as the climate of Carmel by contrast produces its inhabitants over-stimulation and cerebral scintillation." (The Carmelite, March 6, 1929).
From Carmel-By-The-Sea by Monica Hudson, Arcadia, 2006, p. 85. Note the multi-talented Kings Road salon attendee, actor and noted city planner Carol Aronovici on the left who, while wearing his City Planner hat, collaborated with RMS and Neutra on the 1928 Richmond, California Civic Center project and other projects under their Architectural Group for Commerce and Industry (AGIC) partnership.
Ironically, Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg (seen above just before Browne left her to have a child with Ellen Janson) spent time in Carmel as directors of Edward Kuster's Theatre of the Golden Bough in 1924. In his autobiography Browne recalled his former San Francisco student,
"[Kuster] proposed to build a playhouse in Carmel; it would have a full sky-dome, the first in the country. The three of us spent months pulling his plans to pieces; the Theatre of the Golden Bough was to be the best equipped and most beautiful in America. It was. Kuster invited us to open it with a play written by me, to run a summer-school there, and to direct it afterwards as an art-theatre." (Too Soon to Lament, p. 271. Author's note: For much more on Browne, Van Volkenburg and the Theatre of the Golden Bough see my "The Schindlers in Carmel, 1924").
Coincidentally, Browne and Van Volkenberg were originally involved with Aline Barnsdall as early as 1915 in Chicago where, in 1912, they had established the Chicago Little Theatre, a critically acclaimed experimental troupe inspired by the Irish Players at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. Pauline's knowledge of Browne and Van Volkenberg dated all the way back to their Chicago Little Theatre days as the pair had collaborated with her mentor, Hull House and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom founder Jane Addams, to produce a national tour of Euripides' "peace play" The Trojan Women during her employment there.
Eager to start her own theater company in Chicago and produce her own plays, Barnsdall offered to build Browne and Van Volkenburg a larger, more modern theater and commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design preliminary plans for in 1915. Aline put the plans on hold as she moved to California in 1916 and opened a theater in rented space in Los Angeles. She then commissioned Wright to begin Hollyhock House on Olive Hill, the Schindler's raison d'etre for moving to Los Angeles in 1920, originally planning to add a theater later which never came to pass. (From Frank Lloyd Wright: Hollyhock House and Olive Hill
by Kathryn Smith, Rizzoli, 1992, pp. 21-23). When the Chicago Little Theatre failed in 1917, Van Volkenberg and Browne headed up theater troupes in both Seattle, where he met Janson, and on Broadway in New York to much critical acclaim. (NY Times Archives. See my "Schindlers-Westons-Kashevaroff-Cage" for much more on the Browne-Schindler-Janson relationships. Author's note: Coincidentally, RMS (and Pauline?) also knew Ellen Janson from her early 1920s involvement with one of the members of Aline Barnsdall's experimental theater group. (Sheine, note 27, p. 283).
by Kathryn Smith, Rizzoli, 1992, pp. 21-23). When the Chicago Little Theatre failed in 1917, Van Volkenberg and Browne headed up theater troupes in both Seattle, where he met Janson, and on Broadway in New York to much critical acclaim. (NY Times Archives. See my "Schindlers-Westons-Kashevaroff-Cage" for much more on the Browne-Schindler-Janson relationships. Author's note: Coincidentally, RMS (and Pauline?) also knew Ellen Janson from her early 1920s involvement with one of the members of Aline Barnsdall's experimental theater group. (Sheine, note 27, p. 283).
Aline Barnsdall and daughter Betty, ca. 1920. From L.A. Public Library Photo Collection.
Mark and Pauline Schindler and Leah Lovell and children in Leah's "School in the Garden," Argyle Avenue, Hollywood, ca. 1925.
Sometime around 1921 Pauline met RMS’s most important client through the Barnsdall connection as she, Leah Press Lovell and sister Harriet Press Freeman, radical friends of Aline. Leah and Pauline were involved with Barnsdall’s progressive kindergarten she commissioned for her daughter and other selected children at Hollyhock House (see above). (Sun-Hines, p. 156). Through Pauline’s connection with Leah and Harriet, Schindler became architect to the both the Lovells and Freemans. Beginning in 1922 RMS designed three projects for the Lovells, a mountain cabin in Wrightwood, a farmhouse in Fallbrook and the iconic Beach House in Newport Beach which was completed in 1926.
Freeman House living room with Schindler-designed furniture. Photo by Julius Shulman, 1953. From “Freeman House, 1928-1933, Hollywood Hills” by Jeffrey M. Chusid in The Furniture of R. M. Schindler, UCSB, p. 100. See also Getty Research Institute.
, UCSB, p. 100. See also Getty Research Institute.By 1924, RMS had also essentially replaced Wright as Aline Barnsdall’s personal architect and by 1928 replaced Wright as Sam and Harriet Freeman's architect. Beginning in 1928 Schindler was also hired to design furniture for Wright’s Freeman House where, over the next 25 years, he designed two guest apartments and other alterations and over 35 pieces of furniture. (See “Freeman House, 1928-1933, Hollywood Hills” by Jeffrey M. Chusid in The Furniture of R. M. Schindler
, UCSB, p. 100). It has been speculated by some that Schindler was having an affair with Leah and/or Harriet which could have contributed to Pauline’s 1927 departure from Kings Road and might have come into play in Philip Lovell’s decision to award Neutra the Health House commission. See both Hines books for the most complete analysis of how this commission came about. (See also my Selected Publications of Esther McCoy for much more discourse on the Lovell Health House Commission).
Despite an offer to stay at Ellen Janson's house in Halcyon over the winter of 1927, Pauline left for Carmel on October 19 where she would remain for the next two years. (Sweeney, p. 103). She likely heard great things about the artist's colony and bohemian lifestyle of Carmel from Galka Scheyer who had arranged a Blue Four exhibition there in 1926. She wrote to later Schindler client, Kings Road tenant and lifelong friend Betty Katz Kopelanoff of her exciting beginnings in Carmel.
"...In Carmel I have begun to write. Like you, I make an irrelevant journalistic beginning. I write a page a week for the Carmel Pine Cone. Musical criticism, life, the arts, etc., in a serious-sophisticated style. I have carte blanche, - and am a tremendously privileged freelance. Carmel is so small a community that my page, "The Black Sheep," immediately gives me an active relation to everything in it. This provides stimulating encouragement as well as discipline. I have already been asked to start a Nursery School course for mothers; direct some children's glee clubs; start a school; share in the publication of a new sophisticated periodical. And have met, in this short time, more people to enjoy with completely sympathetic exchange than in all my years in Los Angeles. There are a few startlingly dynamic people, like Mr. Lincoln Steffens; but the rarer treasures, and the richest, are some five or six who live lives of superlative interior richness and beauty." (PGS to Betty Katz Kopelanoff, December 22, 1927. Letter in possession of Betty's great niece Dottie Ickovitz.)
Carmel Pine Cone Office and later the Denny-Watrous Gallery, Dolores Ave., M. J. Murphy Builder, Lewis Josselyn photo. From Carmel-By-The-Sea by Monica Hudson, Arcadia
, 2006.
, 2006.As she had done at Kings Road, Pauline rapidly assimilated into the Carmel arts community. She soon began contributing an unsigned column, "The Black Sheep," to the Carmel Pine Cone (see photo above). Appearing 11 times between November 1927 and March 1928, she described it as a "new critical department which does not promise to behave itself too well," but that it would be, "young, fearless, honest, and vital." She focused mainly on music, local issues and events. Pauline was also named drama critic for Carmel for the Christian Science Monitor. (Sweeney, p. 104). Thus, she may likely be responsible for the four late 1920s and early 1930s Monitor articles on Neutra projects listed in my Neutra bibliography. During her tenure at the Carmel Pine Cone, the Harrison Memorial Library designed by Bay Area architect Bernard Maybeck was opening on Ocean Avenue (see below).
Harrison Memorial Library, Ocean Avenue, Bernard Maybeck. Postcard from the internet.
Through her association with the Pine Cone Pauline became involved with Carmel's new progressive weekly The Carmelite edited by Stephen A. Reynolds, for whom she penned the columns "Stage and Screen" and "With the Women" and other articles under her byline in early 1928. Pauline's April 25th "With the Women" column for example, reported on the annual P.T.A. conference in Salinas, the recent activities of Anne Martin, regional director of the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom founded by her Hull House employer and mentor Jane Addams, and a meeting of 35 alumnae of her alma mater, Smith College, at Point Lobos.
Reynolds initially announced the weekly as, "a periodical which will without fear or favor give voice and light on both sides of a mooted question affecting the artistic or practical in village life." Reynolds, at odds with the entrenched positions of the Carmel Pine Cone, used his new vehicle as a way to publish politically-charged editorial jibes beginning in February 1928. Pauline quickly advanced to editorial assistant and and was anticipating becoming managing editor by mid-April. (Sweeney, p. 105). In a May 7, 1928 letter to her father she wrote of The Carmelite as being, "a liberal-radical weekly, in whose pages the visiting or resident intelligentsia, from Lincoln Steffens to Robinson Jeffers, all had a word." After only 16 weeks at the helm, Reynold's turned over The Carmelite to Pauline after the May 30 issue.
Reynolds initially announced the weekly as, "a periodical which will without fear or favor give voice and light on both sides of a mooted question affecting the artistic or practical in village life." Reynolds, at odds with the entrenched positions of the Carmel Pine Cone, used his new vehicle as a way to publish politically-charged editorial jibes beginning in February 1928. Pauline quickly advanced to editorial assistant and and was anticipating becoming managing editor by mid-April. (Sweeney, p. 105). In a May 7, 1928 letter to her father she wrote of The Carmelite as being, "a liberal-radical weekly, in whose pages the visiting or resident intelligentsia, from Lincoln Steffens to Robinson Jeffers, all had a word." After only 16 weeks at the helm, Reynold's turned over The Carmelite to Pauline after the May 30 issue.
Under Pauline's leadership The Carmelite became much more than a local newspaper. It was a leading-edge progressive publication reporting on many of the left-leaning issues of the day, the local arts and literary scene and reviews of cultural events in San Francisco and even far away Los Angeles. She used the paper to express her own artistic and political opinions and promote her personal interests and the work of her friends. She was truly in her element during this period of her life. In a May 7, 1928 letter to her father she stated that she wrote about half the paper which is probably an understatement based on the issues in my collection. (Sweeney, p. 105). She also featured many of the people from her Los Angeles circle of friends, Kings Road salon participants and former tenants such as Edward Weston, Henrietta Shore, John Bovingdon, Carol Aranovici, Ellen Janson, Galka Scheyer and many others. The paper was headquartered in the new Seven Arts Building on Ocean Avenue in the heart of Carmel (see photo above).
Left, The Carmelite masthead for May 23, 1928, the last issue before Pauline's editorship began. Right, Masthead after Pauline's redesign. The Carmelite, July 4, 1928, front cover. (from Sweeney, p. 105).
One of the earlier issues under Schindler's editorship, July 4, 1928, featured on the front page a photo of and a poem by occasional tenant and regular performer at Kings Road, John Bovingdon and announced his upcoming performance at the Theatre of the Golden Bough and a party in his honor at the Steffens' house. (see above right). The issue also included an article by Pauline on the upcoming visit by former Hull-House employer, mentor, and major influence on her leftist political beliefs, Jane Addams and an article on noted city planner and actor Carol Aronovici's talk "Planning the Seaside Town."
The July 11th cover featured a photo of Point Lobos by Johan Hagemeyer and a feature story "The Good Neighbor" under Pauline's byline on her erstwhile mentor Jane Addams and her Hull-House. Pauline also included a brief article "Maurice Browne in a Second Edition" reporting on Ellen Janson Browne and four-year old Maurice, Jr. passing through town and the whereabouts of Maurice Sr. currently producing a play of George Bernard Shaw's in London. Pauline wrote of Browne,
The July 11th cover featured a photo of Point Lobos by Johan Hagemeyer and a feature story "The Good Neighbor" under Pauline's byline on her erstwhile mentor Jane Addams and her Hull-House. Pauline also included a brief article "Maurice Browne in a Second Edition" reporting on Ellen Janson Browne and four-year old Maurice, Jr. passing through town and the whereabouts of Maurice Sr. currently producing a play of George Bernard Shaw's in London. Pauline wrote of Browne,
"In Carmel he remains a memory and an influence, for Morris Ankrum, George Ball, and many others here busy with the stage have had their first dramatic training under the direction of this intense and passionate artist."The July 18th issue featured a cover photo of Jane Addams and a headline announcement of her upcoming speaking engagement at the Golden Bough. It also included a letter "To Carmel With Love From Halcyon" from editorial board member Dora Hagemeyer who was spending the summer in the home of Ellen Janson and Maurice Browne and an announcement for the upcoming opening of an exhibition of the paintings of Henrietta Shore in the Hagemeyer Studio on Ocean Avenue. In her lengthy and insightful review of avant-garde pianist Henry Cowell's performance at the Golden Bough which was illustrated with a Virginia Tooker woodcut, Pauline wrote,
"The program was a study of the development of the tone cluster principle which used as a method by a versatile artist of unusually free imagination. Of these, some are small in range, and contribute a scintillating brilliance to simple diatonic material. It is as though the tones had passed through a sound prism, and been broken up into their parts and overtones."Shore's "The Bull Fight" then appeared on the cover of the July 25th issue along with a poem by Dora Hagemeyer and an article discussing the financial crisis Edward Kuster was facing in his attempt to keep the Theatre of the Golden Bough open. Also in that issue, Pauline reported at length on the activities surrounding Jane Addams visit to Carmel. After a Wednesday luncheon in her honor at the Mission Tea House, Addams lectured on Sunday evening on "Governmental Steps Toward World Peace" to an overflow crowd at the Golden Bough Theatre which was followed by a reception at the home of Lincoln Steffens and Ella Winter. Addams (see below) was on her way to Los Angeles for four days of speaking engagements and a banquet in her honor at the Biltmore Hotel and then to Hawaii for the Pan-Pacific Women's Congress and Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. ("Los Angeles Will Honor Sociologist", L.A. Times, July 26, 1928, p. I-11). It is likely Addams and Neutra's paths also crossed during her Los Angeles visit.
Jane Addams, Los Angeles, July 1928. George W. Haley photo for the L.A. Herald-Examiner. Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.
The August 1st issue featured Edward Weston's "Shell" on the front cover, a review of Robinson Jeffers' new book of poems Cawdor, and the marriage of Neutra and Schindler AGIC partner and Carmelite contributing editor Carol Aronovici. The August 15th number had Ellen Janson's poem "Sirius" on the front page. The following week's edition profiled San Francisco arts patron Albert M. Bender and reported on his visit to the Jeffers, Stanley Wood and the Steffens and his accompaniment by Mr. and Mrs. Ansel Adams.
The Carmelite, March 20, 1929. (From my collection).
PGS reviewed concerts and plays at the Theater of the Golden Bough, the Carmel Playhouse, the Carmel Theater Guild, and Forest Theater, exhibitions at the Denny-Watrous Gallery, published wood block and linoleum cut prints by artists such as early Kings Road visitor and now Carmelite staff artist Virginia Tooker (see above), Esther Bruton, Stanley Wood, Ray Boynton and others. Music was obviously one of her major focuses as she routinely reported on concerts, many of which she arranged, by major, avant-garde pianists passing through Carmel on there way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. She covered performances by dancers John Bovingdon, Ruth Austin and Grace Burroughs, pianists Imre Weisshaus, Dene Denny, future lover John Cage mentors Henry Cowell (see below left and center) and Richard Buhlig (see above right and center), violinist Albert Spalding, guru Jiddu Krishnamurti and numerous others. She reported on important events, exhibitions and concerts she attended in San Francisco such as her December 26, 1928 review of "The Blue Four" exhibition at the Berkeley Museum organized by Galka Scheyer.
The Carmelite, July 3, 1929, pp. 7 -8. (From my collection).
Schindler published reviews on such events as the the Progressive Education Conference at St. Louis, the sixth convention of the Workers (Communist) Party in New York, a "hunger march" of the National Unemployed workers Committee Movement in London, the World Youth Peace Conference in Vienna, and editorials on subjects like "The Anachronism of Cities" attended by Carol Aronovici, former R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra AGIC partner on the 1928 Richmond, California Civic Center Plan. (see above right). She also published poetry by Robinson Jeffers, Galka Scheyer, Dora Hagemeyer, and others and regularly wrote insightful reviews of books that struck her fancy.
Schindler, Pauline, "Richard Neutra, Modern Architect to Speak Here," The Carmelite, November 28, 1928, p. 1. Courtesy Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA.
Neutra Lecture announcement, The Carmelite, November 28, 1928, p. 7. Courtesy Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA.
In the November 28, 1928 issue, Pauline announced a Richard Neutra lecture (see two above images) on modern architecture she arranged at the Denny-Watrous Gallery "and a Dione Neutra concert in Dene Denny and Hazel Watrous's "Harmony House." (See below) (The Arts: Dione Neutra Will Sing in Carmel," The Carmelite, November 28, 1928, p. 5). In a lengthy companion piece in the same issue she wrote,
"Richard Neutra, who lectures in Carmel at the studio of Denny and Watrous next Sunday evening, is what we might call a direct architectural descendant of Louis Sullivan. Every profession and every art which has great teachers has its lineages. The greatest of those who called Sullivan "Master" was Frank Lloyd Wright. ... Louis Sullivan became a great influence upon American architecture because he could not only understand consciously what he was driving at; he could not only build buildings which illustrated the principle that form follows function; but he could make his meaning clear to the rest of the world. Richard Neutra is one of the two or three true descendants of the lineage of Sullivan and Wright, to whom architecture is not merely an expression of a civilization but a conditioning agent of future cultures." (Schindler, Pauline, "The Architecture of the Future," The Carmelite, November 28, 1928, p. 11)Below is a photo of how Dione may have dressed for the Denny-Watrous-sponsored event in Carmel.
Dione Neutra in performance at Kings Road, 1928. From Nature Near: Late Essays of Richard Neutra
, edited by William Marlin, Capra Press, 1989, p. 47.
, edited by William Marlin, Capra Press, 1989, p. 47.With Richard just wrapping up the design for the Lovell Health House, the Neutra's took a much-needed week's vacation for the lecture and concert. They stopped on the way to Carmel after a delightful drive along the coast to observe "the strange inhabitants of Oceano." (P&F, p. 206). The Neutra's son Raymond recalls his mother Dione "talking about walking in the Oceano Dunes and coming across a naked hermit friend in his hut." (July 15, 2010 e-mail message from Raymond Neutra to the author). Dione's description of the two stormy night events in Carmel are recorded in a December 1928 letter to her parents. (P&F, p. 173).
Excerpts from Pauline's review in the next issue read,
"He cited the principle which is the alpha and the omega of modern architecture, "Form Follows Function," and distinguished between the functional architecture of the true modern, as compared with the formalist architecture of the earlier pseudo-classicists in the United States who took the Greek Doric column (italics mine) and thought they could make an American architecture with it. It is not the architect who now makes architecture said Mr. Neutra, but the situation out of which it arises. He clarified this by criticizing adversely several typically false buildings including the Chicago Tribune Building...
Mr. Neutra's lecture so well achieved his purpose that his audience not only listened without resistance to his startling statement of modernistic principles, but were afterwards to respond with sympathy and understanding to photographs of advanced architecture, much of it his own, which were hung on the walls." (Schindler, Pauline, "Neutra Renders Modern Architecture Intelligible," The Carmelite, December 5, 1928, p. 4).Denny and Watrous met at a party in the studio of a mutual friend in 1922. To further their education, they decided to go to New York by way of Carmel. Here they found a city almost entirely dedicated to the arts. They returned in 1925 and lived over a garage while Hazel designed their "Harmony House," on East Dolores, 4 N. of 2nd. One of the problems that faced people moving to Carmel was finding a way of making money. Hazel solved this by designing houses, some 36 of them. They were innovative in design -- she drew on the Arts and Crafts movement with exposed beams and redwood on the interior and board and batten exteriors. Large picture windows, painted shingles and pastel colors for the exterior walls were also featured.
The houses were extremely popular, and introduced a new style for Carmel architecture. "Harmony House" with its two-story picture window, flanked by two grand pianos (see above) and warmed by a fireplace, became the gathering place for informal recitals, lectures and other gatherings. Here pianist Henry Cowell, future mentor to John Cage and frequent denizen of the aforementioned Halcyon, demonstrated his entirely radical tone clusters and Richard Neutra lectured on modern building design. Pauline Schindler, by then a friend of the duo, regularly attended and reported on these events in The Carmelite, some of which, such as the Neutra lecture, she helped organize.
November 20, 1926 Los Angeles Times announcement from ProQuest.
In 1926 Denny and Watrous founded the Carmel Music Society. In November of the same year (see above) Dene appeared in Los Angeles with avant-garde composers Henry Cowell (featured in the July 3, 1929 issue of The Carmelite) and Dane Rudhyar (one of Pauline's contributing editors) at the New Music Society with Pauline undoubtedly in attendance. She made other Los Angeles appearances over the next few years. In 1928 the official partnership, Denny-Watrous Management, was launched. In the same year they leased the Theatre of the Golden Bough from Edward Kuster and in twelve months produced a dozen concerts and eighteen plays routinely reviewed by Pauline in The Carmelite , including Ferenc Molnar's "Liliom," Eugene O'Neill's "Emperor Jones" and Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts", all recently presented for the first time in English in New York. They then opened the Denny-Watrous Gallery, Carmel's first art gallery, using the space to present plays and concerts, as well as art. Here was the first known American performance of Bach's "Art of the Fugue." http://www.carmelresidents.org/News0303.html
In 1929 Hazel Watrous became associated the Seven Arts Press which printed The Carmelite. (See above). In 1935 Denny and Watrous established Carmel's now-famed annual Bach Festival, a continuing highlight of the town's social season.
The Carmelite, March 20, 1929, front page. (From my collection).
Left, poems by Galka E. Scheyer. Right, an example of Pauline's crisp ad and page layout. The Carmelite, July 3, 1929, pp. 5 & 9. (From my collection).
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Robinson Jeffers, Carmel, May 1929. Edward Weston portrait from Weston's Westons: Portraits and Nudes by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. (From my collection). Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Robinson Jeffers, Time, Vol. XIX, No. 14, April 4, 1932. Edward Weston cover photo.
The Bruton Sisters, Helen, Margaret and Esther (right). Imogen Cunningham portrait. From "The Brutons and How They Grew" by Dorothy Puccinelli, California Arts & Architecture, October 1940, p. 18. (From my collection).
Pauline published wood block and linoleum cut prints by Esther Bruton (see above 2 images), Carmelite staff artist and early Kings Road visitor Virginia Tooker, Carmelite contributing editors Stanley Wood and Ray Boynton, also a faculty member at the California School of Fine Arts (see below) and others. She published a Special Robinson Jeffers issue featuring his poetry, and also published poems by Dora Hagemeyer (see above front page), sister-in-law of photographer Johan Hagemeyer, long-time friend of Edward Weston, and erstwhile Schindler House tenants and briefly roommates Galka Scheyer (see below) and John Bovingdon (see earlier). PGS also published Scheyer's article "Free, Imaginative and Creative Work in Drawing and Painting" in the June 26th issue on the work of her art students at the Anna Head School for Girls in Berkeley which was selected for European and West Coast exhibition tours sponsored by the American Federation of Arts. (For more on this see my Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism: Richard Neutra's Mod Squad).
Raymond Boynton, circa 1940. Imogen Cunningham portrait.
Ray Boynton woodcut. The Carmelite, March 27, 1929, front cover. (From my collection).
Left, poems by Galka E. Scheyer. Right, an example of Pauline's crisp ad and page layout. The Carmelite, July 3, 1929, pp. 5 & 9. (From my collection).
Pauline's circle ran ads in The Carmelite which she took great pleasure in designing, as she did redesigning the front page masthead beginning with the May 30, 1928 issue, her first at the helm as editor. (see earlier covers above). The page layout and ad design in the July 3, 1929 issue (above right) includes ads for contributing editors Edward Weston and Stanley Wood and supporter Dene Denny.
In 1930 Pauline had a review of Robinson Jeffers' poetry published in the prestigious literary journal Transition edited by Eugene Jolas in which she called him "a major American poet." She was also likely responsible for the article "American Nature Photos" featuring Edward Weston's work in the same issue. Pauline published a review titled “Poet on a Tower” of Jeffers' latest book of poems, Dear Judas, in the April 30, 1930 issue of Survey Graphic. This period was the pinnacle of Jeffers' fame as evidenced by Weston's April 4, 1932 Time Magazine cover photo (see above). Weston, (see portraits below) one of the earliest recruits to the Schindler's Kings Road circle with his first enthusiastic visit recorded as being in May 1922, became a lifelong friend. (Sweeney, p. 92).
Left, Edward Weston circa 1940s. Ansel Adams Portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Right, Weston portrait by Henrietta Shore, 1927. (From Henrietta Shore: A Retrospective Exhibition: 1900-1963, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, p. 48).
"Edward Weston on the Way" by Pauline Schindler, The Carmelite, December 26, 1928, p. 2. (From my collection).
Johan Hagemeyer Studio, Carmel. Photo courtesy OAC and U.C. Berkeley Bancroft Library, Johan Hagemeyer Photo Collection.
Tired of city life, Weston moved to Carmel in early January 1929, trading spaces from a temporary stay in fellow photographer Johan Hagemeyer's studio in San Francisco to renting his Carmel summer studio. Pauline's article "Edward Weston on the Way" in the issue above announced the impending arrival of another friend from her Kings Road salons and soirees. Weston described the move at length in his Daybooks. (Weston, pp. 99-108). Pauline published Dora Hagemeyer's poetry periodically in The Carmelite. (In 1923 Hagemeyer opened a portrait studio in San Francisco and also built a summer studio in Carmel (see above) which soon became a meeting place for artists and intellectuals. Weston and Hagemeyer had a falling out in April 1931 over the studio lease agreement. Weston then moved his studio to the Seven Arts Building upstairs from The Carmelite's offices. (See photo below). (DaybooksII, April 14 & 28, 1931, pp. 213-5).
Weston Studio, Seven Arts Building, CarmelLewis Josselyn photo.
Left, Johan Hagemeyer, 1928. Edward Weston portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents. Right, Johan Hagemeyer and Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, 1921. From Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2001, p. 85.
"To the Kedroff Quartet: the most exquisite vocal music I have heard. The folk-songs were especially thrilling, and the Strauss Waltz! ... After, I went with Pauline to a reception for the Quartet, and there met Carmel "society," everyone that I should meet I suppose! I have certainly been flatteringly presented to Carmel with many newspaper columns [by Pauline in The Carmelite] of flowery praise. Once could easily become "a big toad in a little puddle" here. Not my intention!" (Daybooks, March 16, 1929, pp. 112-3).
Pauline kept steady tabs on the comings and goings of Weston and various combinations of visiting sons in the pages of The Carmelite. For example she reported on a serious Brett Weston accident while riding with long-time Weston patron and book designer Merle Armitage. Brett suffered a compound fracture when his horse threw him and rolled over onto his leg. ("Personal Bits", by Pauline Schindler, The Carmelite, March 27, 1929, p. 3).
In 1927 Lincoln Steffens and wife Ella Winter came to the U.S. and by chance to Carmel, where Steffens, looking for a quiet place to work on his autobiograohy, decided to settle. They bought a house from the artists Cornelis and Jessie Arms Botke on San Antonio near Ocean, which they called the Getaway. Steffens referred to it as a "refuge for any poor s.o.b. in a jam." They lived there from 1927 to 1936. Typically, having avoided all of his friends by moving to a remote locality, he next invited them all to come visit. Their house became a gathering place for intellectuals far and wide. Robin and Una Jeffers and Edward Weston became their close friends. Winter and Steffens became contributing editors to The Carmelite beginning in 1928. Being used to the excitement of New York, Winter's involvement with The Carmelite made living in "the sticks" bearable. Winter recalls in her 1963 autobiography And Not to Yield
, "I became absorbed in the job. I was a journalist at last. It began to take all my time; when Pauline was away I did all her jobs." (For more on Winter and Steffens and Carmel in the 1930s see "Ella Winter: Gallant Fighter" by Connie Wright http://www.carmelresidents.org/News0505.html).
, "I became absorbed in the job. I was a journalist at last. It began to take all my time; when Pauline was away I did all her jobs." (For more on Winter and Steffens and Carmel in the 1930s see "Ella Winter: Gallant Fighter" by Connie Wright http://www.carmelresidents.org/News0505.html).
Ella Winter, 1932. Edward Weston Portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Describing Pauline's impact on the village's intelligentsia Winter continued,
"She was the divorced wife of an Austrian architect in Los Angeles she always called Aramess - later I discovered they were his initials, R. M. S. - and she was in many ways the moving spirit of the village...Pauline had to be modern about everything, but in her undifferentiating enthusiasms she sometimes saw further than the rest of us. When her friend Galka Scheyer came in 1928, with pictures by Paul Klee and the Blue Four that people laughed at and wouldn't think of buying, Pauline said Klee could be understood in either poetry or music. She was the first to introduce us to Dada, surrealism, Schoenberg...This "crazy nut" as we thought of her, kept everything at a boil, the sensible and the ridiculous all mixed up. "
"But she's crazy in the best sense," Harry Dickinson maintained; and it must be said that Pauline achieved a good deal. She started our art gallery to show the work of local painters and exceptional photographers, Edward Weston, Edward [Johan] Hagemeyer, Ansel Adams; helped set up a music society that became celebrated, with international artists stopping on their way from Los Angeles to San Francisco to perform in Carmel; and it was Pauline the flibbertigibbet who sparked off our weekly, The Carmelite...The whole village was drawn into The Carmelite's orbit. At studio parties they didn't discuss psychoanalytical plurality or "the inevitable polarity of thought," but the paper, its style and vocabulary, its make-up, illustrations, circulation."
Ironically, Ella Winter would later become an avid collector of the Blue Four after marrying author, screenwriter and fellow communist David Ogden Stewart in 1940 in Hollywood. In a backhanded compliment to Pauline Schindler and Galka Scheyer she wrote in "I Bought a Klee" which appeared in the July 1966 issue of Studio International,
"My relation to Klee had been non-existent. In 1928 a woman had come to the art colony-by-the-sea where I then lived with an exhibition of Die Blau Reiter. We were used in that colony to very modern music, ultra-modern design, avant-garde poetry, but the latest in painting had not yet reached Carmel. I looked at the pictures and with the rest of our jeering art population I'm afraid I jeered. Galka Scheyer, the Swiss woman who brought them, and an old friend of Klee's, tried to explain them, but I don' think it made any impact. She left with as many as she brought."
In January 1929, contributing editor Lincoln Steffens tried to gain control of The Carmelite and turn it over to his wife Ella Winter. Pauline published Steffen's letter to the editor in the January 23rd issue:
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A comparison these two mastheads indicates who Steffens' "gang" members might have been. Left is from the December 26, 1928 issue and right is from March 20, 1929. The additions of trusted friends Edward Weston, Galka Scheyer, and Richard Neutra from the Kings Road circle after Steffens' and Winter's departure and financial help from her father gave Pauline the strength to continue publishing for eight more months, maintaining The Carmelite's undeniably high editorial standards and crisp graphic design and modern typography. (See example below).
"There are rumors in circulation of a conspiracy...to oust me and my gang from the Carmelite. We are leaving of our own free, mechanistic will. You have always been glad to have us do all the work we would, as long as what we did was up to the high-flying standard you kept mentioning..." Taking exception to her lack of business acumen and flighty editorial style, Steffens continued, "I lifted up my highbrows and thought such an editor would be happier if she had the time to dance and sing and compose music and music criticism unhindered by and unhindering the mere business of journalism..." (Sweeney, p. 105).UPS staff writer Frank H. Bartholomew reported on the controversy which was picked up as far away as Pittsburgh. "The staff of the "Carmelite" has quit en masse, and the blanket resignation includes such prominent names as Fremont Older, Lincoln Steffens, Mrs. Lincoln Steffens (Ella Winter), Charles Erskine Scott Wood and Sara Bard Field. Mrs.Pauline G. Schindler, the publisher, now holds the fort alone." Pauline answered Steffen's above diatribe thusly, "That staff tried harder to acquire the paper than to write for it." ("Dispute Over Carmel Paper Amuses Coast", Pittsburgh Press, February 15, 1929, p. 21).
Lincoln Steffens, Carmel, 1929. Edward Weston portrait from Weston's Westons: Portraits and Nudes
by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. (From my collection). Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. (From my collection). Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
A comparison these two mastheads indicates who Steffens' "gang" members might have been. Left is from the December 26, 1928 issue and right is from March 20, 1929. The additions of trusted friends Edward Weston, Galka Scheyer, and Richard Neutra from the Kings Road circle after Steffens' and Winter's departure and financial help from her father gave Pauline the strength to continue publishing for eight more months, maintaining The Carmelite's undeniably high editorial standards and crisp graphic design and modern typography. (See example below). 
Announcement for a special issue devoted to modern architecture from the March 20, 1929 issue, p. 6. (From my collection).
A June 12, 1929 entry in Edward Weston's Daybook describes a drive into the valley with "Paul" (Weston's new nickname for Pauline Schindler to her great delight) and dinner with her and Dene Denny and Hazel Watrous. The evening's conversation was on how to run the Carmelite, and its aspirations. Weston wrote,
Weston writes in his January 3, 1929 Daybook entry,
member Imogen Cunningham (along with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, and others), to be included in this seminal show alongside the European avant-gardists. The above catalogue as well as the Russian exhib installation were designed by El Lissitzky who also designed Neutra's 1930 book Amerika
(see directly below) which features a 1927 Brett Weston photo of a factory in Los Angeles in El Lissitsky's cover photomontage and internal photos by both Brett and Edward. This was likely the first cover photo Brett had ever had published and it was also published in the Los Angeles Times as part of Athur Millier's review of his first one-man show in July 1930 at Jake Zeitlin's Book Shop. (Millier, Arthur, ""Photographs for Himself," L.A. Times, July 25, 1930, p. III-12).
Film und Foto exhibition catalog and poster
, 1929, Deutschen Werkbunds, Stuttgart and Willi Ruge poster design. Film und Foto
Right, Manuel Hernandez Galvan, 1924. Edward Weston portrait from above exhibition catalog.
"I, being on the editorial staff, had to listen in until after midnight though bed called me, having retouched all day. Village gossip about the divorce of the Lincoln Steffens and Ella Winter. A letter from Una Jeffers, written on the train, again expressing their pleasure in the portraits. And a catalogue from Film und Foto - Stuttgart (see below): they reproduced my head of Galvan, and published my article, hung 18 of Brett's photographs and 20 of mine. I sent 20 from each of us."Film und Foto was a very important avant-garde traveling exhibition in which Richard Neutra, through his European publishing and Deutscher Werkbund connections, was responsible for America's contributions.
Weston writes in his January 3, 1929 Daybook entry,
"... Neutra is always keenly responsive, and knows whereof he speaks. Representing in America an important exhibit of photography to be held in Germany this summer, he has given me complete charge of collecting the exhibit, choosing the ones whose work I consider worthy of showing, and of writing the catalogue forward to the American group. ... I have busy days ahead." (Weston, pp. 102-3).
Weston wrote in his catalog section introduction "America and Photography",
"I have written of photography as direct, honest, uncompromising, - and so it is when it is used in its purity, if the worker himself is equally sincere and understanding in selection and presentation. Then it has a power and vitality which moves and holds the spectator. There can be no lie in such photography. No human hand of possible frailty has in the recording lessened its pristine beauty, nor misrepresented its meaning, destroying significance."Neutra's choice of Weston to make the American selections provided the entree for him, son Brett and friend and future Group f.64
member Imogen Cunningham (along with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, and others), to be included in this seminal show alongside the European avant-gardists. The above catalogue as well as the Russian exhib installation were designed by El Lissitzky who also designed Neutra's 1930 book Amerika (see directly below) which features a 1927 Brett Weston photo of a factory in Los Angeles in El Lissitsky's cover photomontage and internal photos by both Brett and Edward. This was likely the first cover photo Brett had ever had published and it was also published in the Los Angeles Times as part of Athur Millier's review of his first one-man show in July 1930 at Jake Zeitlin's Book Shop. (Millier, Arthur, ""Photographs for Himself," L.A. Times, July 25, 1930, p. III-12).
Amerika: Die Stilbildung des Neuen Bauens in den Verienigten by Ricard Neutra, Verlag Von Anton Scholl, 1930. 1927 Brett Weston photo of a Los Angeles factory included in the cover photo montage designed by El Lissitzky. From my collection.
by Ricard Neutra, Verlag Von Anton Scholl, 1930. 1927 Brett Weston photo of a Los Angeles factory included in the cover photo montage designed by El Lissitzky. From my collection.
Film und Foto exhibition catalog and poster
, 1929, Deutschen Werkbunds, Stuttgart and Willi Ruge poster design. Film und Foto
On September 16th, the Steffens "gang" finally wrested control of The Carmelite from Pauline. The meeting she called to hopefully garner badly needed financial support turned into a palace coup. The September 20 issue of the Carmel Pine Cone reported in an editorial titled "Torn From the Arms of its Mother", "Coolly, almost coldly then, the deal was put through. New papers were drawn, strictly legal: a pen was placed in the shaking hand of Mrs. Pauline Schindler; "Sign on the dotted line," came the command. And Mrs. Schindler signed." The Carmelite folded for good in December 1932. (Sweeney, p. 105).
A September 20, 1929 entry in Weston's Daybook references Pauline's freelance work and a peek into the Carmel social scene she was undoubtedly involved in.
A September 20, 1929 entry in Weston's Daybook references Pauline's freelance work and a peek into the Carmel social scene she was undoubtedly involved in.
"Up at 4:00 and in my darkroom straightening prints from work of yesterday and the day before: work which was strenuous enough to put me to bed at 8:30. At last I have been printing the peppers. I had to have an excuse to do them for conscience's sake, for orders are still behind: the excuse was Pauline's request for several prints for Vogue. But I notice that instead of printing just one, I found it necessary to print five, - for selection! Well, they are gorgeous, - the strongest things I have done, outside of some portraits... A big mask party planned for tomorrow night, which Ramiel [McGehee] is engineering. Over fifty invited from all walks of life: Pebble Beach and Highlands Society to Carmel Bohemians! I am in the excitement only as a spectator: until the night!"
Weston's Daybook entry for October 27, 1929 reads,
"...Dr. and Mrs. Lovell arrived wanting to take Brett and me to a football game. Another day lost, at least for work. Friends arrive here on their vacation, and in vacation moods. One cannot always deny them."This visit occurred just four days after receiving the certificate of occupancy for their new Neutra-designed Health House near Griffith Park in Los Angeles.
PGS left Carmel a short time later but returned to visit often, especially for exhibition openings such as her May 1930 traveling "Contemporary Creative Architecture" show and several of Edward Weston's at the Denny-Watrous Gallery. For example, her review of Weston's July 1931 retrospective exhibition was published in the July 29th issue of The Carmelite indicating that she was still actively participating in Carmel events although no longer officially associated with her old pride and joy. (See the 1946 MOMA exhibition catalogue The Photographs of Edward Weston edited by Nancy Newhall, p. 36).
For a period of years she gravitated between the Theosophist communities of Halcyon and nearby Oceano and Ojai where Mark was in enrolled in the private Ojai Valley School from October 1932 to June 1937. (Sweeney, p. 111). The Schindlers and Neutras were both involved with people associated with the Krotona Institute of Theosophy headquartered in Beachwood Canyon until it moved in 1926 into a complex of buildings near Ojai, California, designed by Robert Stacy-Judd. (Krotona Colony in Hollywood).
Renowned Indian mystic and guru Jiddu Krishnamurti also set up shop for his Order of the Star sect in Ojai the same year where he was visited by wealthy Theosophist supporter J. J. (Koos) van der Leeuw, brother of future Neutra VDL Research House financier C. H. (Kees) van der Leeuw in 1928. (See article below). Koos gave numerous Theosophical lectures around Los Angeles during visits in 1924, 1928 and September 1931. (Los Angeles Times). He could very well have crossed paths with the architect as his Industrialist/Theosophist brother had visited Neutra in Los Angeles during May 1931 to view the Lovell Health House and Neutra's other projects and lecture on "The Future of Modern Factories" at an Electric Club meeting at the Biltmore Hotel. It was likely during this visit that Kees introduced Neutra to Rosalind Rajagopal resulting in a commission for an apartment in Hollywood three years later. (See "Architecture to be theme of Dutch Speaker", L.A. Times, May 18, 1931, p. I-3 and Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti by Radha Rajagopal Sloss, Bllomsbury, 1991, p. 136. See also Richard Neutra and the California Art Club for more on Kees and Neutra).
Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1928, pp. 1-2. From ProQuest.
Sitting: Nityananda (Krishnamurti's brother), Philip Baron van Pallandt, Krishnamurti, Harold Baillie-Weaver (teacher of Krishnamurti), Count Fabrizio
Ruspoli and Miss. Cornelia Dilkraaf, National Representative of the Association in the Netherlands. Photo taken 09-30-1923. From http://www.landgoedeerde.nl/Krishnamurti.htm
The above group portrait of a 1923 Theosophical get together at Castle Eerde is important as it links the van der Leeuw brothers, Krishnamurti and D. Rajagopal. Rajagopal's wife Rosalind later had an affair with Krishnamurti and commissioned Neutra in 1934 to design a remodel of her apartment in Hollywood. (Discussed in more detail later in this article).
Jiddu Krisnamurti, ca. 1920s. Photographer unknown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti
Pauline lived in Ojai intermittently living in a series of rented cottages. From this base she continued to visit Santa Barbara, Halcyon and the Oceano Dunes settlement of Moy Mell. She also traveled to Santa Fe, the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. During her periodic stays in Los Angeles she lived briefly on Hillcrest Road and also occasionally stayed at Kings Road for brief stints between the comings and goings of tenants in the guest-studio and/or her wing.
In early 1930 Pauline submitted a six-page article, "Samuel House, Los Angeles, Lloyd Wright, Architect", to Architectural Record which was eventually published in the June 1930 issue. She also submitted photos and an article on the Kings Road House to the same publication which was rejected. This prompted an angry letter of protest from RMS. Oddly, Kings Road, arguably the most iconic modern house in the country would not be published until 1932. (Sheine, p. 261).
PGS authored an article, "The Suburban Home Moves Out of Doors", featuring RMS's furniture designs which was published in the May 1930 issue of The Small Home. Later in the year she had an article published in the highly-regarded literary journal Pagany: A Native Quarterly. Editor Richard Johns frequently featured the work of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and many other legendary poets and authors thus Pauline, as was her custom, was keeping famous company indeed.
In early 1930 Pauline submitted a six-page article, "Samuel House, Los Angeles, Lloyd Wright, Architect", to Architectural Record which was eventually published in the June 1930 issue. She also submitted photos and an article on the Kings Road House to the same publication which was rejected. This prompted an angry letter of protest from RMS. Oddly, Kings Road, arguably the most iconic modern house in the country would not be published until 1932. (Sheine, p. 261).
PGS authored an article, "The Suburban Home Moves Out of Doors", featuring RMS's furniture designs which was published in the May 1930 issue of The Small Home. Later in the year she had an article published in the highly-regarded literary journal Pagany: A Native Quarterly. Editor Richard Johns frequently featured the work of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and many other legendary poets and authors thus Pauline, as was her custom, was keeping famous company indeed.
In January 1930 Pauline had an article "A Significant Contribution to Culture: The Interior of a Great California Store as an Interpretation of Modern Life" published in California Arts & Architecture. The article described in glowing terms the new Bullock's Wilshire Department Store and the interiors designed by Jock Peters, John Weber and Kem Weber. Of the store she wrote,
PGS was undoubtedly aware of the December 1928 "Decorative and Fine Arts of Today"exhibition seen in the L.A. Times ad above when writng the article. The Bullock's show featured the work of the RMS, Richard Neutra, Kem Weber, Jock Peters, Edward Weston and many others and was organized by Kings Road salon regular and UCLA art teacher, Annita Delano (also in the show) and Eleanor Lemaire for Bullock's Department Store's downtown Los Angeles location while Bullock's Wilshire was under construction. (For much more on this exhibition see my "Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism").
Delano's Bullock's exhibition was undoubtedly the genesis for Pauline's March 1930 decision to organize and curate a traveling exhibition of Contemporary Creative Architecture in California (see above announcement) featuring Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, R. M. Schindler, Jock D. Peters, John Weber, Kem Weber and J. R. Davidson for the Western Association of Museum Directors, write a book featuring their work and act as their agent for booking lectures (see agent contract below). Nothing ever came of the book project. (McCoy, p. 58).
"It constitutes an unmistakable advance in the movement of contemporary design. Much of its effect is due to color and light; and it must be actually seen for its artistic significance to be realized. Not one or two, but a number of different persons worked together in creating this extended and complicated series of compositions, which constitutes a small village off specialty shops."
Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1928, p. III-23. From ProQuest.
PGS was undoubtedly aware of the December 1928 "Decorative and Fine Arts of Today"exhibition seen in the L.A. Times ad above when writng the article. The Bullock's show featured the work of the RMS, Richard Neutra, Kem Weber, Jock Peters, Edward Weston and many others and was organized by Kings Road salon regular and UCLA art teacher, Annita Delano (also in the show) and Eleanor Lemaire for Bullock's Department Store's downtown Los Angeles location while Bullock's Wilshire was under construction. (For much more on this exhibition see my "Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism").
Exhibition Poster for "Contemporary Creative Architecture of California", UCLA April 21-29. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Delano's Bullock's exhibition was undoubtedly the genesis for Pauline's March 1930 decision to organize and curate a traveling exhibition of Contemporary Creative Architecture in California (see above announcement) featuring Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, R. M. Schindler, Jock D. Peters, John Weber, Kem Weber and J. R. Davidson for the Western Association of Museum Directors, write a book featuring their work and act as their agent for booking lectures (see agent contract below). Nothing ever came of the book project. (McCoy, p. 58).
Memorandum - agent contract between Pauline G. Schindler to Richard Neutra, Lloyd Wright, R. M. Schindler, Jock Peters and "contemporary creators," 03-10-1930. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
She was likely coached on how to plan and publicize the exhibitions by Galka Scheyer who had organized a similar traveling show for her Blue Four in 1926 for the same venues, designed and prepared exhibition catalogs (see below) and arranged lectures in each locale. By then close friends with Neutra and Scheyer, Annita Delano helped Scheyer organize the Blue Four exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum (see below) and similar shows at UCLA in late 1926.
Catalogue for traveling "Blue Four" exhibition, Los Angeles Museum of Art, October 1926. Courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Peg Weiss Papers.
The "Contemporary Creative Architecture in California Exhibition" was first on display at UCLA from April 21-29, 1930 and the related Symposium featuring speakers Richard Neutra, R. M. Schindler and Kem Weber took place on April 27th. The above exhibition poster features Pauline's trademark typographic layout and design in which she taught courses at USC Extension in the fall and winter of 1931-2. (See below). ("Editors Offered Course", Los Angeles Times, Sep 22, 1931, p. I-2 and "Printing Lecture Booked," Jan 8, 1932, p. II-1).
Above and below: "Modern Typographical Design" class brochure designed and taught by Pauline G. Schindler, ca. September, 1931. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Annita Delano undoubtedly also assisted with the organization of this exhibition as it was on her home turf. Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier, also in Pauline's salon circle, gave the important show a lengthy and generally favorable review. Millier wrote,
"...this exhibit at U.C.L.A. is not of a school of modern architecture, but represents the work of thinking artists each trying to design creatively for the present age. He continued later with, "...this is still an ungrateful field in which these architects are plucky pioneers. So far, in this country, there is no public demand or interesst in the modern house which does not borrow its style from a past period. They swim upstream and are men of ideas and ideals. Whether their work is good or imperfect it is honestly conceived and of a different breed to the imitation French-modern stuff that is issuing copiously, just now, from the draughting-rooms of academic architects who regard the whole modern idea as a temporary fad." ("Building for Our Age: California Designers of Modern Style Architecture Distinguished From Those Who Imitate," Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1930).
He adds insightful critiques of each man's work and included a Will Connell photo of Kem Weber's light fixture for the Sommer & Kaufman store in San Francisco, a Mott photo of John Weber's auditorium lounge at Bullock's Wilshire, a Brett Weston photo of the clock face at Bullock's Wilshire designed by Jock Peters, the facade of the San Francisco skyscraper at 451 Sutter St. by Miller & Pflueger, an interior of Schindler's Lovell Beach House and Willard D. Morgan photos of Neutra's Lovell Health House and J. R. Davidson's facade for the Hi-Hat restaurant on Wilshire Blvd.
An excerpt from Pauline's opening statement for the exhibition reads,
Pauline's visionary curatorship of this show is extremely important as it preceded the New York Museum of Modern Art's seminal and legendary 1932 "Modern Architecture-International Exhibition" by a full two years. A reprise of much of the work from this show would also be included in the Architectural League of New York's 50th anniversary exhibition in the Grand Central Palace in April 1931. Most of the work in Pauline's show was also concurrently published in a series of articles throughout 1930-31 in the Architectural Record through the largess of modernist managing editor A. Lawrence Kocher. (For more details on April 1931 Architectural League of New York exhibition see my Richard Neutra and the California Art Club). Ironically, Pauline received a letter from Kocher shortly after the opening of the seminal Museum of Modern Art exhibition discussing publishing work by RMS who was excluded from the MOMA show. (See below).
"Based upon the principle that form follows function; influenced by the work of Louis Sullivan and of Frank Lloyd Wright, and by the logic of the machine age, modern architecture strongly tends toward a structural integration, a freedom from applied decoration, a reduction of forms to their essence." ("Modern Architecture Shown," Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1930).The exhibition would travel to the friendly turf of the Denny-Watrous Gallery in Carmel for a May 1-15 run and then move to the California Art Club at Barnsdall Park in June (see below). From there it traveled to the Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts, the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Portland Art Association and the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery. (Sheine, p. 256).
"Contemporary Creative Architecture of California" Exhibition announcement designed by Pauline Schindler, 1930. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Pauline's visionary curatorship of this show is extremely important as it preceded the New York Museum of Modern Art's seminal and legendary 1932 "Modern Architecture-International Exhibition" by a full two years. A reprise of much of the work from this show would also be included in the Architectural League of New York's 50th anniversary exhibition in the Grand Central Palace in April 1931. Most of the work in Pauline's show was also concurrently published in a series of articles throughout 1930-31 in the Architectural Record through the largess of modernist managing editor A. Lawrence Kocher. (For more details on April 1931 Architectural League of New York exhibition see my Richard Neutra and the California Art Club). Ironically, Pauline received a letter from Kocher shortly after the opening of the seminal Museum of Modern Art exhibition discussing publishing work by RMS who was excluded from the MOMA show. (See below).
A. Lawrence Kocher letter to Pauline G. Schindler, February 27, 1932. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
PGS organized a lecture series around her exhibition that was offered to a wide range of societies and clubs in the greater Los Angeles area in 1930 and the various cities the show traveled to. In Los Angeles, lecture announcements (see below), pamphlets and individual speaker letters were sent to the Friday Morning Club, the Ebell Club, the Los Angeles City Club, the Hollywood Women's Club, the Engineers Club and likely others. The pamphlet reads.
“A new architecture has come into being in our time and is moving toward fulfillment … It is not a mere style. It is profoundly based. But it is necessary that it be understood for an imitative pseudo-modernism blurs the clear line and confuses the layman.” (See below).
R. M. Schindler lecture announcement in conjunction with the Contemporary Creative Architecture in California Exhibition, 1930. Schindler portrait by Edward Weston. Designed by Pauline Schindler. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
RMS's prospective speaker's letter read,
"The more I see of the reaction the so-called ‘modern architecture’ causes at large, the more I can perceive the confusion this new style is creating in the minds of the public and the experts. Nobody seems able to distinguish between sincere contemporary work and the atrocities of the fashionable fakers. It is urgently necessary to explain the real meaning of the movement and to give the public a vocabulary thru which to understand it intelligently … I am not a professional lecturer but find myself forced to undertake such educational efforts as a matter of self defense." (From Framed Space).
Henry Braxton Gallery, 1624 N. Vine, Hollywood, R. M. Schindler, 1929. Viroque Baker photos. (From Sheine, p. 144). Note the Schindler-designed Braxton Chair in the right photo.
There is evidence that PGS was collaborating with Galka Scheyer's efforts to market the "Blue Four" as the Braxton Gallery (see above) was consecutively exhibiting Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Feininger and Klee from March through May, 1930. R. M. Schindler designed the "ultra-modern" gallery next door to the Hollywood Brown Derby Restaurant at Hollywood and Vine for art dealer Henry Braxton which opened in September 1929. (For much more on this see my Richard Neutra and the California Art Club).
The nexus for the commission was none other than Pauline's now close friend Galka Scheyer who introduced RMS to Braxton. Scheyer and Braxton had hammered out the details for a long-term collaboration the previous May in San Francisco. Scheyer probably knew Braxton through her connection to Edward Weston and art dealer Howard Putzel, as well as with Sam and Harriet Freeman, whose house guest she was in 1926, 1930 and 1933 after staying again at Kings Road in 1931-32 in the Chace wing. Galka collaborated on the gallery design with Braxton and Schindler and helped plan the initial exhibitions in Braxton's new space.
The nexus for the commission was none other than Pauline's now close friend Galka Scheyer who introduced RMS to Braxton. Scheyer and Braxton had hammered out the details for a long-term collaboration the previous May in San Francisco. Scheyer probably knew Braxton through her connection to Edward Weston and art dealer Howard Putzel, as well as with Sam and Harriet Freeman, whose house guest she was in 1926, 1930 and 1933 after staying again at Kings Road in 1931-32 in the Chace wing. Galka collaborated on the gallery design with Braxton and Schindler and helped plan the initial exhibitions in Braxton's new space.
Harry Braxton, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1929, p. II-8.
The Blue Four Exhibition Catalogue, Braxton Gallery, Hollywood, 1930. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute, Peg Weiss Papers.
Braxton and Scheyer had originally planned to open the new space with the "Blue Four" but their most important prospective client, movie producer and future Neutra client Josef von Sternberg, had already scheduled a trip to Europe. The duo substituted Peter Krasnow, close friend of Scheyer, Pauline and Edward Weston (see images below), for the inaugural show which included seven of his carved wood reliefs. Schindler had recently collaborated with Krasnow on the design of a major commission for a ceremonial cabinet for Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco which was reviewed as "an unusual thing of wood and glass which houses vestments and religious objects." Krasnow carved the three 3 ft. by 8 ft. panels which were applied to the sides of the cabinet which was designed by Schindler and Neutra and built by Paul Williams (not the architect), a former student of another mutual friend, UCLA art teacher Annita Delano (see below). ("Krasnow's Work Shown," Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1929 p. )
Exhibition poster designed by R. M. Schindler for Krasnow's ceremonial chest, Los Angeles Public Library. From Peter Krasnow Artist File, LACMA.
Schindler plan for the Krasnow ceremonial chest. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
The Handicrafter masthead and table of contents, March-April 1930, Vol. II, No. 3, p. 1.
While visiting Weston in San Francisco in December 1928 just before his move to Carmel, Krasnow took Weston to the Temple to proudly show him the chest after which he wrote, "I take my hat off to you Peter, for a superb piece of work both in conception and technical execution. Tears came to my eyes, ..." (Weston, December 12, 1928, p. 98). Pauline Schindler would later feature Krasnow's work in Paul Bernant's The Handicrafter Magazine, a publication for which she was associate editor and frequent contributor during the early 1930s. (See masthead above). Pauline described the cabinet (see below), "Its three panels slide open to disclose these symbolic gifts lying upon a background of lacquer red modified by a slight bluish shadow, and illuminated by light from hidden sources. ... A deeply elemental Hebraic feeling pervades the work. The three panels depict symbolically the economic and cultural life of the Jewish people." ("The History of a Race Is Told by a Modern Craftsman in Wood," The Handicrafter, March-April, 1930, p. 21. Author's note: I wish to thank Congregation Emanu-El historian and Edward Weston bibliographer par excellence Paula Freedman for the above illustration and alerting me to Pauline's associate editorship of The Handicrafter).
Three sliding panels carved by Peter Krasnow tell symbolically the story of the ancient Hebraic culture. Ceremonial Cabinet in the Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco. Photographer unknown. (Edward Weston?). (Ibid).
L.A. Times art critic Arthur Millier gave the Braxton's avant-garde gallery space a rave review with a September 15, 1929 article "'Ultra' Gallery Arrives: Hollywood Sees 'Modern' Spaces and Angles as Background for Art."
Ad for Weston Exhibition at the Braxton Gallery, Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1930, p. II-18.
An exhibition of Edward Weston photographs (see above) followed Krasnow and Scheyer's "Blue Four" series of individual shows soon followed in March and April 1930 after von Sternberg's return from Europe. All of the exhibits were favorably reviewed by Millier. Weston had a concurrent show open February 8th at the Denny-Watrous Gallery in Carmel. It seems logical that Pauline and Galka coordinated their efforts to draw bigger crowds to, and enhance the impact of, their related exhibitions.
Left, Peter Krasnow, 1929. Edward Weston portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents. Right, "The Photographer" (Edward Weston), lithograph, 1928, by Peter Krasnow. (From "Naturally Modern" by Victoria Dailey in LA's Early Moderns
, p. 78).
Schindler also was commissioned to draw preliminary plans for a beach house (see below) for Braxton and actress, author and screenwriter Viola Brothers Shore which never came to fruition possibly due to their move too New York not too long thereafter.
Henry Braxton and Viola Brothers Shore Residence, Venice Beach, 1928-30, unbuilt.
The Handicrafter masthead and table of contents, January-February 1930, Vol. II, No. 2, p. 1.
After leaving Carmel in late 1929 Pauline moved into Ellen Janson's house in Halcyon while she and son Praxy were living in London with Maurice Browne. It was here where Pauline began her associate editorship on The Handicrafter (see above). After a few months in Halcyon and a brief stint in San Francisco Pauline moved back to Los Angeles into Frank Lloyd Wright's Storer House at 8161 Hollywood Blvd. where she lived for over a year. In 1930 Pauline wrote to her father of her caretaker opportunity paying nominal rent and her ambitious plans involving "...an active association with four or five modern architects here, and which was the purpose of selling their design services to the rest of the world." She intended "...to influence the culture of the coast, but from a business end." She further stated that "there is a great deal of equipping to do" and that "r.m.s. is going to look it over with me this afternoon, to design furniture." (Wright in Hollywood: Visions of a New Architecture by Robert L. Sweeney, MIT Press, 1994, p. 247, note 31).
Schindler, Pauline, "The Suburban Home Moves Outdoors", Small Home, May 1930, p. 18.
Ibid, p. 19.
During this time Pauline published an article in Small Home magazine on Wright's Storer House and her former home, the Kings Road House (see above). This May 1930 article contained likely the first commissioned architectural photographs by Roger Sturtevant, who would go on to become the Bay Area's equivalent to Julius Shulman. Pauline had also promoted erstwhile Dorothea Lange apprentice Sturtevant's work during her editorship of The Carmelite (see below for example).
Galka Scheyer also stayed for a few months and Pauline also made the entire first floor available to Brett Weston where he established his first photographic studio with his young bride Elinore Stone. Weston wrote of his brief stay with Brett and Pauline in his Daybook on February 21, 1931,
"...it took me over an hour on the bus from Pauline's, who lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house [Storer House] in the foothills. Brett has his studio there, so I stayed with him rather than Flora. Paul, I got to know and appreciate better than ever, to really love her." (Weston, p. 204. See also my "Brett Weston's Smokestacks and Pylons" for more on his studio time in the Storer House.).
Typed letter, from Pauline Schindler, Storer House, to Edward Weston, Carmel, dated February 13, 1931. Courtesy Center for Creative Photography, Edward Weston Collection.
Pauline wrote Edward shortly thereafter (see above) expressing the joy she felt from his visit and with ideas for publishing some of his images in various publications and requesting an image of his Mexican gourds (see below) for an article on toys she was preparing for The Handicrafter (see reference later below) for which she was then a contributing associate editor.
Edward Weston, Mexican gourd toys, 1926. From Schindler, Pauline G., "The Craftsman Turns to Making Toys," The Handicrafter, May-June 1931, p. 18.
Brett Weston portrait of Jock Peters, ca. 1930, likely commissioned by Pauline for her "Creative Contemporary Architecture of California" exhibition while Brett was staying at the Storer House. Image discovered by Melinda Gandara, archivist, UC Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, Jock Peters Collection.
In note 31, p. 247 in his Wright in Hollywood: Visions of a New Architecture
, Robert L. Sweeney writes,
, Robert L. Sweeney writes, "Mrs. Schindler had earlier justified moving into the house to her father, who was supporting her: she was there as a caretaker, paying a nominal sum each month; the house was to serve as a "background" for work she was "planning to do, - which involves an active association with four or five modern architects here, and which has the purpose of selling their design services to the rest of the world."
Brett Weston, 1931. Edward Weston portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
In a March 1, 1931 letter to Frank Lloyd Wright's wife Ogilvanna from the Storer House (see photo below), Pauline wrote,
"the room in which I sit writing is a form so superb that I am constantly conscious of an immense obligation to mr. wright. when my small son, - eight years old, - was feeling very tender toward me one day he said, "muv, i love you so much...as i love this room." such superlative joy it gives us both. like a drama of sophocles, a violin sonata of haendel." (Wright in Hollywood, p. 63).This letter could have been an attempt to mollify Wright after his refusal to participate the previous year in her "Creative Contemporary Architecture in California" exhibition and lecture series plans. It is hard not to see the irony (and the psychological interplay in her relationships with RMS and Wright) of Pauline's staying in Wright's Storer House with young son Mark so close to Kings Road.
Storer House, 8161 Hollywood Blvd., 1924, Frank Lloyd Wright. R. M. Schindler photo. From Wie Baut Amerika? by Richard Neutra, Julius Hoffmann, 1927, p. 61. (From my collection).
Pauline undertook another entrepreneurial venture while staying in the Storer House. She developed a line of stuffed animals called "Christopher Robin's Friends" to hopefully take advantage of the "Winnie the Pooh" craze sweeping the country at the time. Her distinctive graphic design for the below ad appeared in the November 1930 issue of Toy World. An accompanying story by "Winnie-the-Pooh Rockets to Toy Stardom" in the same issue references "Pauline Schindler, Hollywood, maker of Christopher Robin's Friends soft toys." (Toy World, November 1930, p. 58). She more than likely was working with noted Stephen Slesinger, creator of comic strip characters and the father of the licensing industry, who had acquired US and Canadian merchandising, television, recording and other trade rights to Winnie-the-Pooh from A. A. Milne in the 1930s, and developed Winnie-the-Pooh commercializations for more than 30 years.
Pauline might have learned a few pointers on the craft of toy making from erstwhile Kings Road salon habitue Barbara Morgan who was a renowned puppeteer, artist and art teacher at UCLA. (Annita Delano Oral History). Morgan's husband Willard was also Richard Neutra's photographer of record for his 1927 Jardinette Apartments and 1929 Lovell Health House. Pauline and Barbara shared interests in painting, theater, dance, exhibiting, puppetry, and music thus it is not a stretch to imagine her picking up some tips from Barbara on stuffed-animal making before she and Willard moved to New York in 1930. (For more on this see my "Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism"). Pauline also contributed articles on her stuffed animals "The Craftsman Turns to Making Toys" to The Handicrafter where she was contributing associate editor during the early 1930s.
Pauline might have learned a few pointers on the craft of toy making from erstwhile Kings Road salon habitue Barbara Morgan who was a renowned puppeteer, artist and art teacher at UCLA. (Annita Delano Oral History). Morgan's husband Willard was also Richard Neutra's photographer of record for his 1927 Jardinette Apartments and 1929 Lovell Health House. Pauline and Barbara shared interests in painting, theater, dance, exhibiting, puppetry, and music thus it is not a stretch to imagine her picking up some tips from Barbara on stuffed-animal making before she and Willard moved to New York in 1930. (For more on this see my "Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism"). Pauline also contributed articles on her stuffed animals "The Craftsman Turns to Making Toys" to The Handicrafter where she was contributing associate editor during the early 1930s.
"Christopher Robin's Friends" ad, Pauline Schindler, Toy World, November 1930, p. 19. Courtesy of Timothy Schwartz, 10-7-2010.
Scheyer and Schindler likely continued to coordinate their exhibitions and lecture bookings as their "Blue Four" and "Creative Contemporary Architecture of California" exhibits traveled the circuit of West Coast galleries and Western Association of Art Museums. (See "The Impact From Abroad: Foreign Guests and Visitors" by Peter Selz in On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art 1900-1950, p. 102). As an example, either Pauline or Galka booked a lecture for RMS on the relationship of architecture to the Bauhaus at the Oakland Art Gallery in conjunction with Scheyer's April-May 1930 Lyonel Feininger exhibition. (See "Modernist Photography and the Group f.64" by Therese Thau Heyman in On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art 1900-1950
, p. 249). (For a fabulous John M. Weatherwax character study of Galka Scheyer with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in San Francisco at about this time, go to Diego, Galka and Toby).
, p. 249). (For a fabulous John M. Weatherwax character study of Galka Scheyer with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in San Francisco at about this time, go to Diego, Galka and Toby).
Edward Weston's Daybook indicates that on April 7, 1930, Galka Scheyer, traveling between the Braxton Gallery and Oakland Art Gallery Feininger shows with Schindler, visited him in Carmel for two days and critiqued his print of fish and kelp from Point Lobos. Weston wrote that she [Scheyer] was a "dynamo of energy"; her insight was "of unusual clarity"; she had "an ability to express herself in words, brilliantly...she is an ideal go-between for the artist and his public." (Weston, p. 151-2). Weston's account of a February 2, 1927 costume party hosted by Peter Krasnow, is indicative of the closeness of his friendship with Scheyer. He writes,
"...Galka Scheyer begged my leather breeches, putees, pistola and Texano, so I got in exchange her outfit even down to panties, and a marvelous make-up job to boot. As a ravishing woman I was a success with the women. (Weston, p. 3).
Announcement for an "Exhibition of Contemporary Architecture, Interior Decoration and Store Design", October 5, 1931 Plaza Art Center. Graphic design by Pauline Schindler. (Author's note: See also "Harwell Hamilton Harris and Fellowship Park.").
An expanded version of the Pauline's exhibition under the title "Contemporary Architecture, Decoration and Store Design" (see announcement above) was exhibited at the new Plaza Art Center (see photo below) in October 1931 in the old Italian Hall Building's newly remodeled second floor gallery space run by the Plaza Art Club. (See "Roundabout the Galleries", L.A. Times, Oct. 11, 1931). Austrian emigre and Kings Road salon habitue F. K. Ferenz was responsible for remodeling the building and commissioning R. M. Schindler to design plans for remodeling the building's arcade shops and a restaurant. (See "Plaza Art Center to Open", August 16, 1931 Los Angeles Times and"Embassy Restaurant and Arcade," 1931 project, in Schindler by David Gebhard, p. 200). Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, after consulting with Richard Neutra and Sumner Spaulding on fresco techniques and materials, completed his Mural "Tropical America", also commissioned by Ferenz, on the side of the building in 1932. (See photo below). (See my "Richard Neutra and the California Art Club" for much more on the Siqueiros mural. See also Eric Merrill's excellent blog post for more on Siqueiros and Neutra's involvement with the California Art Club. Thanks to Ellen Landau, Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve for alerting me to this link.). (See also the Ruben Martinez article "Uncovering L.A.'s whitewashed history" in the September 19, 2010 issue of the Los Angeles Times and "Bringing 'America Tropical' back to life" in the September 9, 2010 issue).
Italian Hall, Plaza Art Center, Olvera Street as it looks today. Note the 1932 David Siqueiros mural "Tropical America" on the side of the building.
Many of the same participants were included in an exhibition at the New York Architectural League from April 18 to 25, 1931. Pauline's curatorial work bringing together this group for the West Coast traveling show prompted Joseph Urban, who had been in contact with RMS since 1922, to write to show organizer Ely Jacques Kahn on December 12, 1930,
"Group of at least seven California architects, including Schindler, Neutra, Peters, Davidson, Webber [sic], Wright, are willing to send drawings for Architectural League Exhibition. Will be valuable stimulus to the progressive movement East. Can we give them a good room or alcove for them to show effectively together?" (Sheine, p. 256).This show also preceded the 1932 MOMA exhibition by a year. Helping to grease the skids was Neutra's presence in New York on a stopover during his world tour the date the letter was written. Three weeks later Neutra would have the honor of presenting an inaugural series of three lectures in Urban's recently completed New School for Social Research Building's new auditorium.
After initially agreeing to be part of the West Coast exhibition, and despite Pauline's praise of his groundbreaking work and heartfelt recognition of his influence on her husband and Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright angrily requested to be removed from all future showings. He had apparently heard through son Lloyd, who had refused to participate, that the exhibition was being titled "Three Architects of International Renown" or as he later described it, "Frank Lloyd Wright middle, Neutra right, Schindler left" or as "Christ crucified between two thieves." As Wright explained it in a letter to Lewis Mumford, "All novices, in the nature of the Cuckoo, have not hesitated to lay their eggs in my nest..." (Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography
by Meryle Secrest, p. 393 and Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water by David Hoffmann, p. 88). In an April 15, 1930 letter from Frank Lloyd Wright to Pauline Schindler, in response to her letter asking him to participate in the exhibit in Los Angeles, Wright wrote,
"While many of my sworn adherents and generous admirers have in the past profited considerably by my work and by my own clients, - I can remember no such instance ever happening to me concerning them or theirs. Richard [Neutra] is evidently gone head over heals, - Le Corbusier, Rudolph, too. It is a pity. But there is nothing to be done about it. I suppose I shall have to turn on them myself and show them up soon." (Sheine, p. 42.). Much on the correspondence with Frank Lloyd Wright can also be found in Sheine.
In an April 30 letter Pauline asked Wright for permission to plan a lecture series for him in the West. She wrote, "Let me explain to you why I concern myself so actively with architecture: my own first contact with it was simultaneous with a central ecstasy, so that it has the equivalence and force with me of some critical emotional impression of childhood which dictates the direction of life." (McCoy, p. 58). After turning her down she wrote back, "There is nothing I can say except that I love you profoundly for the majesty and meaning of your work, that I should have been utterly proud to serve it..."
A July 28, 1930 letter from her father Edmund reveals the financial state she usually seemed to be in. "What have you been doing young lady to bring about a ponderous flood of bills? Am enclosing August check and will send an additional $50 about the middle of the month...Let's consider ourselves in conference going over your business affairs and analyzing present conditions and prospects. This with a view to whether any part of your plans need modification, or here or there reshaping." (McCoy, p. 60).
Pauline had also written to Neutra while he was on his world tour after moving out of Kings Road asking for permission to represent him in a series of lectures. In a December 1930 reply from Cleveland near the end of his tour Neutra wrote, "Dear Ghibeline: Am ready to be managed by you and grateful naturally...Not usually interested in chapter AIA meetings. More in laypersons, who might be our clients...Richard." She then successfully arranged for a Neutra speaking engagement in Chicago through a former Smith College classmate. (McCoy, p. 60).
A July 28, 1930 letter from her father Edmund reveals the financial state she usually seemed to be in. "What have you been doing young lady to bring about a ponderous flood of bills? Am enclosing August check and will send an additional $50 about the middle of the month...Let's consider ourselves in conference going over your business affairs and analyzing present conditions and prospects. This with a view to whether any part of your plans need modification, or here or there reshaping." (McCoy, p. 60).
Pauline had also written to Neutra while he was on his world tour after moving out of Kings Road asking for permission to represent him in a series of lectures. In a December 1930 reply from Cleveland near the end of his tour Neutra wrote, "Dear Ghibeline: Am ready to be managed by you and grateful naturally...Not usually interested in chapter AIA meetings. More in laypersons, who might be our clients...Richard." She then successfully arranged for a Neutra speaking engagement in Chicago through a former Smith College classmate. (McCoy, p. 60).
About this time PGS wrote Edward Weston trying to interest him in doing a book of his photographs. He replied quoting from her letter, "'Let's do a book on Edward Weston.' I do not think he has had the nationwide publicity to warrant a publisher's interest. They are not in business except to make money. My love and greetings, Edward." (McCoy, p. 59). (Weston's first monograph would be produced by his friend and patron Merle Armitage in 1932). Weston presented Pauline a portrait of Diego Rivera made in Mexico in 1924, possibly around this time. (McCoy, p. 60, n.d.).
Diego Rivera, Mexico, 1924. Edward Weston portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Rendering of Schindler's Wolfe House on Catalina Island announcing Schindler's upcoming lecture at the Denny-Watrous Gallery. The Carmelite, September 4, 1930, p. 1.
Schindler lecture announcement. The Carmelite, September 4, 1930, p. 4.
Pauline had also been trying to arrange lectures by Neutra and Schindler at the Denny-Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Hazel Watrous guaranteed either a $25 fee, replying, "Schindler has a mastery and charm, Neutra has ideas about mass production. I'll leave the choice to you...We have arranged with Galka Scheyer to have her exhibit here in June. Edward Weston has been showing his prints for several weeks." (McCoy, p. 60). PGS then booked a lecture for Schindler on September 6th. (See above). Still a frequent contributor since her ouster, Pauline introduced Carmelite readers to Schindler with an introductory article in which she wrote,
"Of the three architects [Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra and R. M. Schindler] it is often said that Schindler is most the creative genius. He sees first the pure form. His designs are uncompromising as far as period architecture is concerned. Those who have wondered why the modernist does not build himself a "Spanish house" will have an opportunity to hear the basic principles back of modern building when Schindler speaks on Saturday. An opportunity for questions will also be given, and slides of Schindler's and Neutra's buildings will accompany the talk." (Schindler, Pauline, "Schindler, Modern, Speaks on Architecture," The Carmelite, September 4, 1930, p. 7).Long-time family friend and still on the Carmelite's editorial board, Edward Weston took great exception to the treatment Schindler suffered at the hands of his patron John O'Shea after his gallery lecture.
"Schindler bore himself with dignity, he was a gentleman, the others were not. I admit John O'Shea had been drinking, good, - one's character is revealed with a few drinks. After the lecture he made disparaging remarks, even indulging in personalities in a loud voice standing near Schindler, head turned toward him, face in a leering mask. Disgusting! I sat down and wrote The Carmelite an article giving full vent to my feelings, not using names, but several offenders were plainly enough indicated." (Weston, p. 187).Weston's angry letter to the editor presciently ended with,
"Always the new in art, science, philosophy, has been ridiculed. But this time the joke is on the persecutors, for the new architecture has long ago been accepted, is spreading all over the world. It is for those who live today. Future generations, looking back upon the beginnings of the American Renaissance, which we are in, and being so close cannot recognize, will point out such names as Wright, Neutra, Schindler, who in the face of smirks and guffaws, went their own way - building with foreesight, faith and hard work." (Weston, Edward, "Schindler,: The Carmelite, September 11, 1930, p. 6.Soon thereafter, John O'Shea invited Weston to a stag party which he tried to get out of but finally attended. He wrote in his September 17th Daybook entry,
"I spent my evening trying to keep them off art and keep my temper. Dickinson said, "Weston is too serious!" But they were the serious ones - that [Carmelite] article had a sting! I was sober enough to sit back and watch the others, especially John: and his face revealed much. I saw a man, soured, cynical, negative. Perhaps he knows he can never reach the heights he tried for. A fine painter, but nowhere near a great artist. I feel sorry for him, but that does not excuse his childish nonsense."In April 1932 Hazel Watrous asked Weston to write a review for The Carmelite for the Denny-Watrous Gallery John O'Shea exhibit and he agreed writing, "I sweat doing it, - because to a degree I had to resort to evasion..." Hazel, Dene, John and wife Molly all asked him to do the review. "Each one of these friends has not only been very kind to me, but has helped materially to raise my economic status. Of course I am trying to excuse my guilty conscience." (Weston, p. 211-2).
"Carmel Hours", Pauline Schindler, Touring Topics
, November 1931. Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.Pauline's above 1931 slice-of-life story "Carmel Hours" with Edward Weston photos depicting a day in Carmel and surrounding area was published in editor Phil Townsend Hanna' Touring Topics. (See my related post Phil Townsend Hanna). The article mentions many of her old friends and haunts and gives insight to her memorable days spent editing The Carmelite in 1928-29 where, in my opinion, she was at her creative best and was probably most happy.
Schindler continued to get mileage from her "Contemporary Creative Architecture in California" exhibition into 1932 as Creative Art's editor Henry McBride published her "Modern California Architects" in the February issue, the same month the "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition" opened at the Museum of Modern Art. The five-page article included Brett Weston photos of RMS's Wolfe House on Catalina, Neutra's Lovell Health House, and The Bachelors, Ltd. Haberdashery by J. R. Davidson and also described work by Lloyd Wright, Jock Peters and Kem Weber. PGS was successful in placing three-page article, "Group Offices for Physicians, Los Angeles; J. R. Davidson, Designer" in the August 1932 issue of Architectural Record. She wrote of Neutra in the Creative Art article,
"His work is the coolest, the furthest removed from stylization or a conscious esthetic. It is the most closely related to the neue Sachlichkeit of contemporary Europeans." Of RMS she opined, "Schindler's work is particularly lyric, an utterance of a definite life feeling. It is profoundly organic, the parts moving into the whole by transition of an inner logic."
Pauline's activities were centered in Ojai between 1932-35. Mark was attending the Ojai Valley School between October 1932 and June 1937. She lived there intermittently in a series of rented cottages. From this base she traveled to Santa Barbara, Halcyon and the nearby Oceano Dunes settlement of Moy Mell. There were numerous connections between Carmel and Halcyon and Oceano which Pauline seemed destined to be involved with. The Neutra's may have been the first to tell Pauline about the Oceano Dunites whom they observed on there way to Carmel in November 1928 for their previously mentioned lecture and recital. Pauline also reviewed concerts by avant-garde pianist Henry Cowell who frequently collaborated and stayed with John Varian (see below) and wife Agnes in Halcyon. Irishman Varian was an amateur musician, mystic poet and ardent Thesophist, prominent among the Halcyon sect known as "The Temple of the People." (See below).
John Varian, Halcyon, 1920s. Ansel Adams Portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Edward Weston's Daybook provides another link between Cowell and Halcyon with this August 24, 1930 entry, "Last night to Henry Cowell's New Operetta, "the Building of Bamba," given at the Forest Theater: So poorly produced that one could hardly say whether it had possibilities or not. Many of the cast were from Halcyon, colony of mystics. I have my doubts about the esoteric when it does not include the aesthetic! I certainly would not have gone to an opera, disliking stage bellowing, - worse combined with acting, even if the bellowers are good: these were awful, - most of them, but I had hopes this might be a new note, or new music from Henry. But no, much of it sounded like old church hymns poorly sung."
Another close friend of the Varian's was Irish poet and mystic Ella Young who, after emigrating from Ireland in 1925 to escape imprisonment for supporting the Irish Republican Army, lectured widely across the United States and taught Celtic mythology and Irish history at U. C. Berkeley before settling in Oceano. Ella’s audiences were enthralled – not only by her great knowledge but also by the beauty and romance of her words. She became an important literary and spiritual figure in California, much as she had been in Dublin, influencing people like poet Robinson Jeffers, photographers Ansel Adams and Edward Weston (see portraits below), artist John O’Shea, and composer Harry Partch. She found her faeries again in the sacred land of Point Lobos and in the isolation of her cottage garden on the dunes of Oceano . http://www.thesunsraven.com/dsellayoung.html
Ella was responsible for introducing her lifelong friend and fellow Irish Republican Army supporter Gavin Arthur, grandson of former President Chester A. Arthur, to the Varian's, through which he discovered the Oceano Dunes. (see below). Arthur settled in the Dunes in 1930 with the vision of forming a utopian society of like-minded individuals there. Ella would visit often and christened the Dunite settlement Moy Mell, Gaelic for "Pastures of Honey." She could feel the rhythms of the Dunes and the vibrations in the individual coves.
Chester Allen (Gavin) Arthur III, Moy Mell, 1932. Photo courtesy of Dr. Rudy Gerber. (From The Dunites
by Norm Hammond, p. 56).
by Norm Hammond, p. 56).
Another interesting link between Carmel and Halcyon-Oceano were painter John O'Shea and his wife Molly mentioned earlier. They had a place in Carmel Highlands at which Edward Weston first met Ella Young on February 22, 1930 while doing the O'Shea's portraits. The O'Sheas also spent a lot of time in Halcyon with their friends, the Varians. Weston wrote in his Daybook of the O'Shea sittings, "With them was Ella Young, who impressed me more than any of the party." (Weston, p. 142). Young also accompanied Taos art patron Mabel Dodge Luhan and her husband on a visit to Weston's studio on February 25th. Luhan and Young visited again on March 25th after which Weston entered, "...Ella Young with her and I asked for a sitting, because I admire her and because her portraits may sell. Ella Young believes in fairies, - and of course that would appeal to me, anything unorthodox does..." Young sat for her portrait on March 31st. (See below left). Weston wrote of the occasion, "Then I did that fairy-like person, Ella Young, with good results." (Weston, p. 149). (Author's note: See my "Edward Weston and Mabel Dodge Luhan Remember D. H. Lawrence" to view Weston's portraits of the O'Sheas, the Luhans and many other Carmelites).
Left, Ella Young, Carmel, March 31, 1930. Edward Weston portrait. Right, Ella Young, 1929, Ansel Adams Portrait. Photos courtesy of Center for Creative Photography. http://ccp.uair.arizona.edu/
, New York Graphic Society, 1985.
On a 1929 trip to Santa Fe to photograph people and landscapes, Ansel Adams and wife were accompanied by Ella Young whom Adams described,
"Ella was an event! Superficially an eccentric, she was a brilliant and sensitive woman with an imposing career in law and politics and had been dangerously active in the Irish Revolution. Feeling that she had fulfilled her obligation to society, she turned to poetry and Irish myths. Ella believed in the Little People and said that she communicated with them often, especially her indentured pixie, Gilpin."
Ella Young's cottage in Oceano, 2008. Denise Sallee photo. http://www.thesunsraven.com/dsellayoung.html
In the August 29, 1929 issue of The Carmelite Pauline featured a Helen Bruton woodcut and a poem by John Varian on the front page and a Dora Hagemeyer article "A Day with Ella Young" which described her home and garden and John Varian installing a bookshelf for her. Ella Young sat for both Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, both of whom were very impressed by her persona and beliefs.
In his autobiography Maurice Browne described Ella Young as "looking like a six-thousand-year-old Druid priestess who had just sat to Rider Haggard for her portrait." He recalled a picnic with her and Ellen Janson on the sand-dunes where Young invoked a spell on a firm of Los Angeles realtors who were selling lots to far-distant Middle-Westerners.
"She drew a circle in the sand...and for an hour within that circle performed rites and in a language unknown to me chanted incantations. When finished she erased the circle and said: "I think that we should hurry home." We hurried home. Within ten minutes over those few thousand square yards there broke a storm unparalleled, it was said later, in living memory." (Too Late to Lament, p. 281).Some very interesting interviews indeed of Ella Young herself, and Gavin Arthur and Ansel Adams specifically pertaining to Young and her circle can be listened to at the following link. http://www.dunescollaborative.org/EllaAudio.html
Gavin Arthur invited part-time Halcyon resident and Kings Road habitue Ellen Janson mentioned earlier and friend Pauline to be assistant editors of his new publishing venture, Dune Forum. Pauline's first recorded visit to Moy Mell was in September 1933. (Sun-Hines p. 325). The initial six-page "Contributors Number" (see below) published in late summer 1933 included an opening one-page editorial by Gavin describing the Dunes, their psychological importance being halfway between the two West Coast metropolises of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the aims of the magazine and solicitations for contributions of material from like-minded individuals. Later in the issue he describes the Dunes lifestyle in much detail.
Oceano Dunes, Drawing by John O'Shea. Front Cover, Dune Forum Contributor's Number, circa August 1933.
Editorial Headquarters for Dune Forum, Moy Mell, 1933-4. Courtesy Schindler Family Collection, Friends of the Schindler House. (Sweeney, p. 111).
Ella Young then described Gavin and Janson:
"Gavin Arthur will make a good editor primarily because he is so man-sided and has such wide views and sympathies. His life is colored too with memories of many people and many places; he has known labour leaders and royal dukes, has looked from the view-point of both, yet kept his mind free. Always an agnostic; poet, rebel, sailor, gentleman, vagabond; born a westerner; cosmopolitan yet proudly a Californian; eager to test, to experiment,— his whole life has been lived in the spirit which motivates this magazine. Such a project has been his life-dream.
Ellen Janson is a recognized poet whose work has appeared in such magazines as the London Mercury, Harper's, Vogue, Poetry. Born and brought up in Seattle, she is a westerner of the modern generation, tall, free, forward-looking. Although she has spent just enough time in London, Paris, Berlin, New York to be thoroughly cosmopolitan, her heart has always been on this Coast, her home in Los Angeles, her chief inspiration in the Dunes. Her exquisite taste, her sure sense of beauty, will bring to the Dune Forum a distinction of which it will have the right to be proud."
Janson can be seen in the below 1948 photo on the deck of her Schindler-designed home during the most serious period (late 1940s and early 1950s) of their likely long-term relationship. Schindler apparently previously received the steep hillside lot in payment for design of the Laurelwood Apartments. (Sheine, note 27, p. 283). Janson also wrote the first significant Schindler biography in 1938 which was later included in a "book" he assembled compiling all of his published written articles, a map, notes, a directory, and a list of works which was sent to various publishers in the late 1940s, including Peter Blake at the Museum of Modern Art to try to promote interest in a monograph of his work. (Sheine, p. 265).
Ellen Janson, 1948, Janson Residence, R. M. Schindler. Photo courtesy of the Architecture and Design Collection, UC Santa Barbara. (From The Architecture of R. M. Schindler, p. 164).
, p. 164).
Janson also dedicated her self-published collection of verses, Poems, 1920-1949 to RMS, "For Michael, Who Makes All Things Possible." The book was printed in a small edition of 100 copies for distribution to her friends; with a short foreword by Ella Young, and with the book design by Schindler and dated "December, 1952" on colophon. Copy 69 was sent to the Skolnicks, Schindler's last clients, signed and inscribed by Janson on the colophon:
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Arthur closes Dune Forum's Contributors' Number with acknowledgments to: John O'Shea who did the cover drawing, Ella Young, Leone Barry, and Harwood White; and for the promised co-operation of Jack Conroy, Lincoln Steffens, Robinson Jeffers, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Sara Bard Field, Charles Erskine, Scott Wood, J. Paget Fredericks, Marie Welsh, Roderick White, Stewart Edward White, and the many other good friends of the Dune Forum.
All seven issues of Dune Forum are available in their entirety in PDF format on-line at Dune Forum.
"For Mr. & Mrs. Skolnick [sic] -- In memory of R. M. Schindler, who built their beautiful house, and mine also, and who designed this book -- Ellen Janson". She sent the book to the Skolniks with a Christmas card in 1953 in which she wrote, "Dear Skolnicks [sic], I still haven't told you how much I appreciated your kind note, after Mr. Schindler went; but I know you will understand why I have been so long in answering. It is very hard for me to adjust to being without him. Yet the wonderful inspiration that he always was to me still remains ... I am sending you, under separate cover, a copy of the book of my poems that Mr. Schindler had printed during that last year of his life. He designed the cover himself, so it is especially precious to me because we made it together. I don't know if you care for poetry, but I am sure you will like having it, if only for his sake. Sincerely, Ellen Janson". The card had RMS's last holiday note included on a blue 3X5 card which read, "From a snowy / mountain top / Best & Warmest Wisches [sic] / R M Schindler". (From Vashon Island Books).
Envelope for a letter from RMS to Ellen Janson, postmarked October 22, 1947. From LA Modern Auctions Catalog, February 10, 2008, lot 61, Rudolph M. Schindler ephemera. Lot included numerous letters from Rms to Janson spanning a 20-year period.
Letter from RMS to Ellen Janson, dated October 28, 1947. From LA Modern Auctions Catalog, February 10, 2008, lot 61, Rudolph M. Schindler ephemera. Lot included numerous letters from RMS to Janson spanning a 20-year period.
Arthur closes Dune Forum's Contributors' Number with acknowledgments to: John O'Shea who did the cover drawing, Ella Young, Leone Barry, and Harwood White; and for the promised co-operation of Jack Conroy, Lincoln Steffens, Robinson Jeffers, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Sara Bard Field, Charles Erskine, Scott Wood, J. Paget Fredericks, Marie Welsh, Roderick White, Stewart Edward White, and the many other good friends of the Dune Forum.
All seven issues of Dune Forum are available in their entirety in PDF format on-line at Dune Forum.
Oceano Dunes, 1933. Chandler Weston photo. Front cover, Dune Forum Subscribers' Number, Fall 1933.
Pauline's first appearance on the Dune Forum masthead as Associate Editor is in the Subscriber's Number which was published some time in the fall of 1933. (See below left). Her opening editorial in the same issue can be seen below right. She also wrote an article called "Note on the Contemporary Arts" in which she wrote,
"Mies van der Rohe in Germany designs a building which says exactly what Chavez in Mexico writes in a sonatina. There is not a superfluous line or tone in either." She continues on music, "Edgar Varese tells in sound playable orchestrally, of the impact of the electrons in the swirling vortex of the atom, the splitting, the explosions, the shock. In this moment of music (the composition called "Ionization") he transcends the factor of scale between human being and atom, takes us within the atom (whose interior dynamic necessarily half-deafens us)."This number also included a Chandler Weston cover photo, the first of three published by the Weston family, poetry by Ellen Janson and letters of support for the new venture from Henry Cowell, Mary Austin, Havelock Ellis, Lincoln Steffens, William Carlos Williams, Jack Conroy, Sara Bard Field and many others. Chandler Weston and brother Brett apparently were the first professional photographers to discover the Dunes in the fall of 1933. (See also Brett's 1933 photo after his January 15, 1934 cover photo below). Father Edward, along with Willard Van Dyke appeared to have made their first visit in early 1934. (See their below cover photos and reference in John Cage letter below). Edward credited Galka Scheyer with first telling him about the Dunes inscribing the verso of a print of the Dunes in her private collection, "To Galka/ Who first told me about the Dunes/ Edward/ 1936. (From The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum, 1976). Pauline's editorial expertise and contacts gained while running The Carmelite came into strong play in making Dune Forum the quality publication that it was.
About this time Pauline was having an affair with Los Angeles Daily News reporter Pat O'Hara. (See Letters from John Cage to Pauline Schindler). It is likely that she met O'Hara at Moy Mell. Pat was introduced to the Oceano Dunes through Dunite Elwood Decker, whom he met at a party in Ojai, where a number of the Dunites would periodically make there way to attend events by previously-mentioned Jiddu Krishnamurti. Pat had gone to Ojai to visit some nudist friends when he met Elwood at a party in late 1931. Elwood read Pat some of his poems about the dunes which inspired Pat to visit. Pat found his way to Moy Mell and quickly became good friends with Gavin Arthur around the time of the creation of Dune Forum. Finding a ready-made Irish community of previously-mentioned painter John O'Shea, John Varian and Ella Young, a Halcyon resident and long-time friend of Arthur from their days together in Ireland supporting the Irish revolt. (Gavin Arthur Interview About Ella Young)
Pat O'Hara, circa 1934. Courtesy of Dr. Rudy Gerber. (From The Dunites, by Norm Hammond, p. 62).
The January 22, 1934, issue of Time Magazine published an article about Arthur and his new magazine.
"At Moy Mell, near Oceano, Calif., halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, appeared last week the first Subscriber's Number of the monthly Dune Forum, to "express the creative thought of America looking not toward Europe but toward the West." Editor of Dune Forum is Chester Alan Arthur Jr., 33-year-old grandson of the 21st President of the U. S. Five years ago Editor Arthur worked his way around the world on S. S. K. I. Luckenbach, for "material." In March 1932, his wife sued him for divorce for non support, said ''he just wouldn't work." Under the pseudonym of Gavin Arthur which he uses to create an ''independent name," Editor Arthur last week thought he had ''sufficient financial backing and . . . literary support to make Dune Forum the outstanding magazine of culture and controversy in the West." Time Magazine
Westways, February 1934. Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.
Pauline wrote the above article, "Oceano Dunes and Their Mystics" in the fall of 1933 and submitted it to editor Phil Townsend Hanna's Touring Topics to hopefully help market Dune Forum. By the time it was published, in February 1934, the magazine had changed its name to Westways and Dune Forum was into its third issue. The article describes the Dunes and surrounding environs and local inhabitants including Ella Young and Gavin Arthur and the impending publication of Dune Forum. I speculate that the two people saluting the sun on top of the Dunes are nudists Elwood Decker and Pat O'Hara who had to don bathing suits for the photo shoot. One of them, most likely O'Hara, wrote a "Rejoinder" to Loring Andrews' article "Nudism - What Is It?" for the January 1934 issue under the nom de plume "A Goofy Nudist."
Maurice Browne expounded at length on the Dunites in his autobiography. "Near a tumbledown jetty jutting into the ocean stood a cluster of dilapidated hovels. Here for eight or nine months of the year lived the hobo commoners, ... Unseen in the sand-dune desert, the hobo aristocracy [the Dunites] lived all year round." (Too Late to Lament, p. 279).
The January 15, 1934 issue of Dune Forum above featured a cover photo by Brett Weston and an editorial by Pauline titled "North South" in which she reports on a school to be designed by Richard Neutra and Krishnamurti's impending visitation to Ojai. The issue also contained poetry by Ella Young and an article on Communism by Ella Winter, who continued to contribute to The Carmelite after Pauline's ouster. Her page 5 contributor's bio reads, "Ella Winter is known to many as Mrs. Lincoln Steffens. She is a writer and lecturer highly valued by the Communist Party. She is the author of "Red Virtue", and represents The New Masses in California."
The February 15th issue features a Willard Van Dyke cover photo of the dunes. Edward Weston, a longtime friend and mentor of Van Dyke and fellow Group f.64 member along with Ansel Adams, visited the dunes with him for the first time just weeks earlier. The duo were possibly commissioned or enticed with a place to stay by Gavin and/or Pauline, in return for cover photos for this and future issues.
The opening editorial reviews Ella Winter's article in the previous issue,
Cage attended the February issue editorial meeting at Moy Mell and possibly began the affair with Pauline shortly thereafter. Cage visited Pauline in Ojai on several occasions in early 1935 and dedicated his 1934 "Composition for Three Voices" to her. Their affair is documented in the letters at the following link. (http://www.ex-tempore.org/ExTempore96/cage96.html) The letters indicate a couple references to Pat [O'Hara] thus John was likely aware that Pauline may have been seeing him concurrently. They also discuss mutual composer friends such as Henry Cowell, Richard Buhlig, Arnold Schonberg, Edgar Varese and others.
The first letter references his February visit to Moy Mell and was written on the back of his "Counterpoint" typescript written for the February issue. It reads:
Maurice Browne expounded at length on the Dunites in his autobiography. "Near a tumbledown jetty jutting into the ocean stood a cluster of dilapidated hovels. Here for eight or nine months of the year lived the hobo commoners, ... Unseen in the sand-dune desert, the hobo aristocracy [the Dunites] lived all year round." (Too Late to Lament, p. 279).
Oceano Dunes, 1933, Brett Weston. From The Photographer and the American Landscape, Museum of Modern Art, 1963.
The February 15th issue features a Willard Van Dyke cover photo of the dunes. Edward Weston, a longtime friend and mentor of Van Dyke and fellow Group f.64 member along with Ansel Adams, visited the dunes with him for the first time just weeks earlier. The duo were possibly commissioned or enticed with a place to stay by Gavin and/or Pauline, in return for cover photos for this and future issues.
Willard Van Dyke, 1932. Edward Weston portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
The opening editorial reviews Ella Winter's article in the previous issue,
"In Carmel, Lincoln Steffens and Ella Winter seemed equally convinced that unless every intelligent person throws himself body and soul into the Communist Cause we will soon have a Fascist Terror in this country that will put both Mussolini and Hitler into the shade..."and references composer John Cage's first visit to Moy Mell and includes his "Counterpoint" to Roderick White's critique on "Modern Music." Poetry by John Varian was published posthumously. This may have been about the time Pauline's relationship with Pat O'Hara temporarily ended and her affair with John Cage began. Cage stayed at Kings Road at the end of 1933 and staged concerts there which might have been where they met. (Sweeney, p. 110 and Sun-Hines, p. 325).
Cage attended the February issue editorial meeting at Moy Mell and possibly began the affair with Pauline shortly thereafter. Cage visited Pauline in Ojai on several occasions in early 1935 and dedicated his 1934 "Composition for Three Voices" to her. Their affair is documented in the letters at the following link. (http://www.ex-tempore.org/ExTempore96/cage96.html) The letters indicate a couple references to Pat [O'Hara] thus John was likely aware that Pauline may have been seeing him concurrently. They also discuss mutual composer friends such as Henry Cowell, Richard Buhlig, Arnold Schonberg, Edgar Varese and others.
The first letter references his February visit to Moy Mell and was written on the back of his "Counterpoint" typescript written for the February issue. It reads:
"Dear Pauline:
Gavin gave me Roderick White's article and asked me to answer it and it somehow gave an impetus with the attached result. Hazel [Dreis, Dune Forum graphic designer] and Edward [McLean] have not yet returned and Mary [McMeen, acting secretary to Dune Forum], Don [Sample, Cage's companion], and I are having dinner tonite at the Dunes with Gavin [Arthur]. Probably by tomorrow we will leave as Don is very anxious to get settled. Dr. Gerber was over last nite and proved very stimulating. Henry Okuda made sukiyaki. The pump stopped working according to Don, W.C.'s up the Western Coast cease functioning as we approach.
Love to you and Mark.
John.
How's Mozart? Don sends his love too and thinks of you often" (Author's note: For much more on Dreis and Cage see "Schindlers-Westons-Kashevaroff-Cage").
About this same time Cage was introduced to Jawlensky's work by Galka Scheyer and purchased on of his pieces on the installment plan. (From "It is a Long, Long Road." John Cage and Galka Scheyer by Maria Muller in The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Klee in the New World, p. 272).
John Cage circa 1935. Photographer unknown. From "It is a Long, Long Road." John Cage and Galka Scheyer by Maria Muller in The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Kleen in the New World, p. 272.
Pauline also included in this issue estranged husband RMS's seminal and oft-cited three-page piece, "Space Architecture" which defined his architectural design philosophy. He wrote that the modern architect would be “dealing with a new medium as rich and unlimited in possibilities of expression as any of other media of art: color, sound, mass etc. This gives us a new understanding of the task of modern architecture. Its experiments serve to develop a new language, a vocabulary and syntax of space.” (For much more on the Schindler-Cage affair see my Schindlers-Westons-Kasheravoff-Cage and Their Avant-Garde Relationships and more on the Oceano Dunes see my The Sands of Time: The Oceano Dunes and the Westons).
Pauline also included in this issue estranged husband RMS's seminal and oft-cited three-page piece, "Space Architecture" which defined his architectural design philosophy. He wrote that the modern architect would be “dealing with a new medium as rich and unlimited in possibilities of expression as any of other media of art: color, sound, mass etc. This gives us a new understanding of the task of modern architecture. Its experiments serve to develop a new language, a vocabulary and syntax of space.” (For much more on the Schindler-Cage affair see my Schindlers-Westons-Kasheravoff-Cage and Their Avant-Garde Relationships and more on the Oceano Dunes see my The Sands of Time: The Oceano Dunes and the Westons).
The March 15th number features another John O'Shea drawing of the Dunes on the cover, another article by Ella Winter, "Outside Agitators" on farm labor activism, and an article by Henry Cowell, "Double Counterpoint" critiquing Roderick White's and John Cage's articles on modern music in the previous issue. "Four Dune Poems" by Ellen Janson, and "Los Angeles: The Ugly Duckling" a love-hate critique by editor Dunham Thorp were also included. Pauline's issue-ending two-page article, "The Guilty Liberal" was basically a call-to-arms for liberals to make their voices heard more loudly.
The April 15th issue cover featured a recent Edward Weston photo, likely his first published photo of the Dunes, and presaged his now iconic 1936 Oceano Dunes portfolio. Also included are poems by Gavin Arthur and fellow Dunite Hugo Seelig, and numerous articles by editor Dunham Thorp.
Ansel Adams, 1933. Willard Van Dyke portrait. (From "Modernist Photography and the Group f.64" by Therese Thau Heyman in On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art 1900-1950, p. 249).
The May 15th number, which would turn out to be the illustrious publication's last, featured the above Ansel Adams cover photo. In this issue Pauline placed Richard Neutra's three-page article, "Balancing the Two Determinates of Creation" which discoursed upon architectural functionalism. She was also likely responsible for former Kings Road tenant Dr. Alexander Kaun's article, "With Trotsky in Prinkipo" being published. Kaun commissioned Schindler to design a beach house for him in Richmond that same year. Kaun's contributor's bio reads, "Dr. Alexander Kaun (see below) is Professor of Slavic Languages at the University of California in Berkeley. It was last summer on his way back from the Balkans that he had this interview with Trotsky."
Dr. Alexander Kaun. Portrait by Johan Hagemeyer, April 5, 1932. Photo courtesy OAC and U.C. Berkeley Bancroft Library, Johan Hagemeyer Photo Collection.
Kaun Beach House, Richmond, 1934, R. M. Schindler. Uncredited photo. From "A beach house for Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Kaun, Richmond, Calif. R. M. Schindler, Architect", California Arts & Architecture, May, 1937, p. 26. (From my collection).
Coincidentally, Pauline's influence was beginning to pay off for both RMS and Neutra as Schindler's Kaun beach house in Richmond (see above) and Neutra's house for Galka Scheyer in the Hollywood Hills (see below) were being completed just about this time.
In his Daybook, Edward Weston mentions a January 3, 1929 dinner party he attended at Kings Road a week before his move to Carmel hosted by the Neutra's which included Greta and J. R. Davidson and the Kauns,
"...I like Richard Neutra so much, and found Kaun and the others stimulating, so the evening was a rare gathering I do not regret. Even the showing of my work was not the usual boresome task. Neutra is always keenly responsive, and knows whereof he speaks, Representing in America an important exhibit of photography to be held in Germany this summer (see reference and covers of the Film und Foto exhibition above), he has given me complete charge of collecting the exhibit, choosing the ones whose work I consider worthy of showing, and of writing the catalogue foreword to the American group." (Weston, p. 102-3).
Galka Scheyer House with painting by Lyonel Feininger, Hollywood Hills, Richard Neutra, 1934. Arthur Luckhaus photo. From RN-Hines, p. 117.
In his Neutra monograph Hines wrote that the Neutras surmised that Richard was chosen over RMS for the Scheyer commission due to the breakup of a stormy affair between her and RMS directly after Pauline's departure in the summer of 1927. (RN-Hines, p. 116). In a 1970s letter to Diana Balmori Esther McCoy wrote,
"A woman professor of art [Peg Weiss] is doing a book about Galka Scheyer; we’ve talked on the phone several times. She is at Univ. of Syracuse. Tom Hines, discouraged at trying to find proof of Schindler’s affair with Leah Lovell (not true) he grabbed the next at hand—Galka Scheyer. U. of S. researcher says “no way” so do Galka’s closest friends. But it makes a racy story for Hines." (Courtesy of author Susan Morgan who is currently working on Esther McCoy's biography and has an Esther McCoy Reader scheduled for release this fall).
It is not hard at all for me to imagine the philandering Schindler having a fling with Scheyer as early as her three-month stay at Kings Road during the summer of 1927 upon viewing the below photo.
Also during 1934 Neutra was completing a second-story addition to a town house in Hollywood for Raja and Rosalind Rajagopal, caretaker and secret lover of Krishnamurti and later founder of Happy Valley School, whom he met through C. H. van der Leeuw, financier of his VDL Research House. (See group photo of the van der Leeuw brothers, Krishnamurti and Rosalind's husband D. Rajagopal earlier in this article). Rosalind and Galka Scheyer also became close friends at about the same time. Scheyer gave painting classes to Rajagopal and renowned ceramicist Beatrice Wood, also a big Krishnamurti follower, who later moved across the street from him in Ojai. Wood and Krishnamurti also played major roles in establishing Happy Valley School which was attended by Raymond Neutra and Erica Weston, Brett's daughter. (July 23, 2010 e-mail message from Raymond Neutra, Happy Valley School and Lives in the Shadow With J. Krishnamurti by Radha Sloss, Universe, 2000, p. 136).
Galka Scheyer at Kings Road, circa 1931. (From Frida Kahlo: Her Photos
, edited by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, Editorial RM, 2010, p. 333)
, edited by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, Editorial RM, 2010, p. 333)Also during 1934 Neutra was completing a second-story addition to a town house in Hollywood for Raja and Rosalind Rajagopal, caretaker and secret lover of Krishnamurti and later founder of Happy Valley School, whom he met through C. H. van der Leeuw, financier of his VDL Research House. (See group photo of the van der Leeuw brothers, Krishnamurti and Rosalind's husband D. Rajagopal earlier in this article). Rosalind and Galka Scheyer also became close friends at about the same time. Scheyer gave painting classes to Rajagopal and renowned ceramicist Beatrice Wood, also a big Krishnamurti follower, who later moved across the street from him in Ojai. Wood and Krishnamurti also played major roles in establishing Happy Valley School which was attended by Raymond Neutra and Erica Weston, Brett's daughter. (July 23, 2010 e-mail message from Raymond Neutra, Happy Valley School and Lives in the Shadow With J. Krishnamurti by Radha Sloss, Universe, 2000, p. 136).
(From Beatrice Wood Biography)
The May issue of Dune Forum also included an Ella Young review of John O'Shea's April 23-May 21 one-man show at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Arthur paid Young a fitting tribute in her contributor's bio, "Ella Young needs no introduction, having herself introduced the editors in the initial number. She it was who christened this oasis Moy Mell which in Irish means the "Meadow of Honey"—the part of the Celtic Heaven world set apart for poets. She is likewise the Godmother of the Dune Forum."
Depression era financial reality finally set in and publication ceased after the May number. Gavin Arthur left Moy Mell shortly thereafter. The next place he pops up in print is the November 26, 1934 issue of Time Magazine in which an article, "Recovery: Utopians Eastward" reports on the whereabouts of Arthur and Dunham Thorp after Dune Forum folded earlier that year. They had moved to Utopian Society founder Eugene John Reed's Greenwich Village apartment in New York.
"Men strange to the janitor had indeed been climbing the stairs to visit the new tenants of No. 23 Barrow St., Apartment 4 C. Greenwich Village. The chief tenant was Eugene John Reed, 47, who was once a partner in an investment banking house in Denver. His co-tenants were Chester A. Arthur Jr., 33-year-old grandson of the 21st President of the U. S., and Dunham Thorp, onetime editor of a literary magazine (Dune Forum) in California. All three had taken up residence in Greenwich Village with a small table, some wicker chairs, a few cots. Thus did Utopia move East." (Time Magazine)
The last significant event to take place at Moy Mell occured on Christmas Day, 1934. Dunite Sam Cohen (see below), an avid follower of spiritual master Meher Baba met world-renowned Indian mystic and on a trip to Los Angeles in 1932 and upon his return to Hollywood in 1934 invited him to come to the Dunes for a visit. Baba did indeed pay a visit with eighteen of his followers, including Norina Matchabelli, wife of Georges Matchabelli, known for a popular perfume brand. Norina had previously arranged for a special cabin to be built for Baba, but he chose instead to stay in Gavin's cabin. Baba granted interviews to some fascinated Dunite friends of Cohen's including poets Hugo Seelig and John Doggett (see below). Gavin, by then in New York was not there to host Baba and his 18-person entourage.
Sam Cohen, Meher Baba, Hugo Seelig and John Doggett at Moy Mell, Christmas day, 1934. Courtesy of the Dr. Rudy Gerber Collection, copyright.
Seelig, Hugo, "Dawn Song," and Ansel Adams, "Kaweah Peaks," The Carmelite, October 10, 1928, p. 1.
Pauline had met Dunite poet Hugo Seelig during earlier stays at Halcyon and published his work on the cover of The Carmelite (see above for example). She also likely partied with him on numerous occasions evidenced by her later reminiscence,
"The artists were poor and did not have too much to eat. Hugo Seelig, a poet who lived in a tent, said he knew the owners of the artichoke fields around Halcyon and it would be alright for him to take artichokes home and cook them for us. And he did – and we had artichoke parties. Sometimes they became quite wild!” (Borough, Reuben W., “Halcyon is Quiet Echo of Bygone Days When Utopian Colonies Abounded in California,” Sacramento Bee, July 2, 1968, pp. A1).
Pauline's next modernism marketing activity was acting as guest-editor for the January 1935 issue of California Arts & Architecture. Editor and publisher George Oyer courageously entrusted her to select the entire content and verbiage for the twenty pages of material she included. She editorialized on the masthead page where she was listed as "Associate Editor of This Issue" and under a photo of the spec house in Westwood her parents commissioned from RMS,
"This issue of California Arts & Architecture has for its special subject that contemporary movement in architecture which is called "modern"...Contemporary creative architecture*, which for lack of a truly definitive word we call "modern", is organic, based upon principles of structure and spirit profoundly realized." (See entire editorial below left). *(The same title Pauline used for her 1930-32 traveling exhibition mentioned above).
California Arts & Architecture, January 1935, Modern Architecture Issue, guest editor, Pauline Schindler. (From my collection).
This was the first issue of a magazine in Southern California dedicated entirely to modern architecture and also included work by Richard Neutra (Lovell Health House, VDL Research House, Koblick, Mosk, Beard and Sten-Frenke Residences), R. M Schindler (Oliver, Gibling and Wolfe Residences), J. R. Davidson (The Bachelors' Haberdashery and Wilshire Blvd. Shops), Kem Weber, Lloyd Wright (Jobyna Howland Residence), Jock Peters (L. E. Sheperd and Gilks Residences with photos by Chandler Weston), Morrow & Morrow (Henry Cowell Residence), Hunter & Feil (Gude's Shoe Store) and a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright, "Modern Architecture Acknowledges the Light Which Kindled It" by Pauline Schindler (see above right). Harwell Hamilton Harris was featured with a two-page spread of his 1934 Pauline Lowe House and an article under his byline, "In Designing the Small House." Pauline also included a slightly reworked version of RMS's "Space Architecture" with two photos and floor plans of his Wolfe House on Catalina Island.
Publisher George Oyer's editorial in the same issue titled "California - As We See It" reads,
"For some months we have been considering the advisability of recording some of the work of our California modern designers. To the layman, the term modern applies to any house or building with dominating horizontal or vertical lines: to any shop front with polished aluminum or bronze wainscoting. The term modern applied to architecture and interior furnishings has but a vague meaning....It is quite impossible to show all of the distinctive work of our outstanding architects, nor are we able to include in this issue the work of all of our California modernists. In the selection of photographs and articles we are grateful to Miss Pauline Schindler for her able assistance. Whether or not you like it, is beside the point. It is here so we acknowledge it." (See my related post at the following link. http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/california-arts-architecture.html).
Architect and Engineer Modern Architecture Number, December 1935. Oliver House by R. M. Schindler on the cover.
PGS was successful in producing an even more extensive guest-edited theme issue on "The Modern Movement in Architecture" for the December 1935 issue of Architect & Engineer. Pauline was also entrusted with the graphic design for this issue and created the above layout and a new editorial masthead which the editor liked so much he continued it for the rest of volume 123 and all of volume 124. Pauline led off the issue with her editorial "Form, Function and Modern Architecture." The number featured Richard Neutra's Galka Scheyer Residence, VDL Research House, Ring Plan School and Corona Avenue School in Bell with accompanying articles "Comparative Studies on the Construction and Cost of the Activity Classroom" and "A Revision of the Concept of the School Building: A New Plan for California Schools" and Koblick Residence in Atherton with the article "Problems of Pre-Fabrication." Work by RMS included the articles, "Furniture and the Modern House: A Theory of Interior Design", and the Wolfe House (with Brett Weston photos), Oliver House (including cover photo) and Buck Residence. This entree enabled RMS's follow-up article "Furniture and the Modern House" in the March 1936 issue of the same magazine still under the PGS graphic design format.
The Museum of Modern Art's Philip Johnson finally recognizing the importance of what was happening in California, organized an exhibition "Contemporary Architecture in California" which ran from September 30 to October 24, 1935 which included work by Neutra, Schindler, William W. Wurster and others. The exhibition traveled to 20 other locations from 1935-1939. Still feeling the sting of being left out of MOMA's 1932 Modern Architecture Exhibition, Schindler almost dropped out of this show when he read Arthur Millier's September 15 Brush Strokes column in the Los Angeles Times , "An exhibit of models, plans, photographs, of recent work of California modern architects, with special emphasis on Richard J. Neutra, is announced by New York's Museum of Modern Art for October 2 to 24." Ernestine Fantl of MOMA reassured him that was not the case and he decided to remain in the show. (Sheine, p. 256). This show was undoubtedly influenced by Pauline's 1930 "Contemporary Creative Architecture in California Exhibition" and triggered by the January 1935 California Arts & Architecture Modern Architecture Issue she guest-edited and expanded in the December 1935 issue of Architect & Engineer.
Pauline's gradual shift from Socialism to Communism evident in her Dune Forum editorials resulted in her in 1935 writing for the Western Worker, "the Western Organ of the Communist Party USA" as she coined the publication in an August 30, 1935 letter to her mother. She had also just spent the previous month with Mark at Commonwealth College in Mena, Arkansas which was subsequently investigated by the Arkansas House of Representatives as a "Communist" organization. (Sweeney, p. 111). Soon thereafter Pauline returned to Kings Road for good. She had finally tired of her vagabond existence and was ready to settle down. She would communicate with her ex-husband and house-mate RMS by letter for the rest of her days at Kings Road until his 1953 death. (Sweeney). At one time Pauline had expressed an interest in doing RMS's biography but that would have been hard to accomplish communicating only via letter as they had chosen to do.
The Schindler's led such interesting lives that even their divorce proceedings were influenced by people from their salon circle(s). RMS's attorney was erstwhile actress Anna Zacsek, friend of Edward Weston (see portrait below) who likely introduced her to Kings Road in the early 1920s. Under the stage name of Olga Grey, Zacsek had a distinguished career in the Hollywood where she appeared in numerous films including D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation." She also founded "The Actor's Theater" in Hollywood where her troupe included the likes of Boris Karloff. Tired of acting and running her theater, on the advice of an attorney friend she decided to study law and passed the bar in 1932. She practiced in anonymity until 1935 when she was "unmasked" in the fascinating Los Angeles Times article cited below. It is easy for one to speculate upon an affair between RMS and Zacsek at some point in their friendship based upon his track record with other clients. (For much more on Zacsek see my "R. M. Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright,Lawrence Tibbett, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles").
Anna Zacsek, 1919. Edward Weston portrait. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
"Portia Once Screen Star: Trial Unmasks Olga Grey", Los Angeles Times, Jun 10, 1935, pg.I-1, 8. From ProQuest.
Zacsek commissioned Schindler to design her house in Playa del Rey in 1936 and it was completed in 1938 (see below), not long after divorce proceedings began in earnest in late 1937. In a December 21, 1937 letter to RMS Zacsek writes, "I suggest that you have assembled your income and expenditures. Not that I desire to look into your private life, but, it is truly necessary if we are to muzzle Pauline." There is also 1938 correspondence in the Schindler Archive at UCSB from Pauline's attorney, Morris E. Cohn, regarding child support. Cohn, like Pauline, was an amateur composer, thus they were also probably longtime friends from happier times at Kings Road. (I am indebted to author Susan Morgan for the above UCSB Zacsek-RMS and Cohn-PGS correspndence from UCSB. She also included the Zacsek portrait in her Edward Weston: Portraits published by Aperture in 2005).
Zacsek Residence, 114 Ellen St., Playa del Rey, 1938. From R. M. Schindler by Judith Sheine, Gustavo Gili, 1998, p. 151.
The last, but not least, luminous benefactor of being in Pauline's circle was Esther McCoy who began working for RMS as a draftsperson at Kings Road in 1944. She was introduced to Kings Road a few years earlier by Schindler neighbor Theodore Dreiser (see below), became intrigued by the house and befriended Pauline. She was encouraged to apply for the drafting position by Pauline who heard RMS had an opening due to his draftsman going off to war. (McCoy Oral History). In my opinion, this event turned out to be the symbolic passing of the baton from a writer who was creating history through her promotion of the work of her estranged husband and salon circlists in Los Angeles's fledgling Modern Movement to another who was destined to be Southern California's first serious historian of modern architecture.
RMS and Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Jefferson Art Gallery, Santa Monica, 1945. (McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art)
McCoy (see below) began her illustrious career with her apropos first article, "Schindler, Space Architect," published in the Fall 1945 number of Direction and the rest, including her invaluable efforts in the preservation of Kings Road, as they say, is "History." (See "Being There: Esther McCoy, the Accidental Architectural Historian" by Susan Morgan, in the Spring 2009 issue of the Archives of American Art Journal, pp. 24-26 for a more detailed account of McCoy's genesis as an architectural historian and her first architectural article. Morgan has a McCoy biography in progress and is publishing an Esther McCoy Reader to be released this fall.)
Esther McCoy, 1944. (McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art)
PGS's driving need to be at the forefront of progressive thought and salon mistress of all things modern in the arts and architecture landed her in some very interesting positions indeed and allowed her to befriend an extremely interesting and influential circle of artistic luminaries. Her wandering existence between 1927 and 1936 and Mark's enrollment in at the private Ojai Valley School would not have been possible without the continued financial support of her father Edmund. He not only provided funds for land purchase and construction of Kings Road and loans when RMS's clients' fees were late in arriving, but also supported RMS with commissions for their Westwood spec house in 1925-28 and subsequent 1935 remodel and for two unbuilt residences in the 1940s.
Edmund also subsidized Pauline's editorial efforts at The Carmelite. He helped with the rent for her stay at Wright's Storer House and most likely all of the other places she leased while away from Kings Road. Thus the Giblings' unflagging support of their daughter enabled her efforts to widen the understanding and acceptance of modern architecture, the avant-garde arts and progressive social causes. Her accomplishments were remarkable considering RMS's constant string of infidelities and sometime lack of cooperation. The members of her inner circle, including RMS and Richard Neutra who received numerous commissions through her salon contacts, exhibitions, editorials and articles; Edward, Brett and Chandler Weston; Galka Scheyer; John Cage; Esther McCoy and countless others, benefited significantly as did we all for the rich modernistic tapestry she wove.
It is my hope with this post to spark further research into the life and times of the enigmatic free spirit of Pauline Gibling Schindler whose modernism marketing efforts and editorialism during the late 1920s and early 1930s are sorely under-recognized and under-valued. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this post and any leads to further related material.
Pauline Schindler at Kings Road, November 1941. Courtesy Schindler Family Collection, Friends of the Schindler House. From "Life at Kings Road: As It Was 1920-1940" by Robert Sweeney in the MOCA exhibition catalog The Architecture of R. M. Schindler organized by Elizabeth A. T. Smith and Michael Darling.