Willard Metcalf: The Armory Show

"October Morning" by Willard Metcalf

"The International Exhibition of Modern Art, the celebrated Armory Show, was the most important exhibition of modern art ever held in the United States. Willard Metcalf went first to the Montross Gallery to catch the fifteenth exhibition of The Ten; and then he proceeded to the 69th Regiment's Armory to view the exhibition that shattered the complacency of the genteel. It shattered equally that harmony in life and art sought by so many members of the American art community, a goal of singular importance to Metcalf and many of his peers. Marcel Dechamp was a major disruption, with his infamous 'Nude Descending a Staircase.' There were other extraordinary works in that huge show of some thirteen hundred entries.

"This, however, was not the first sign of modernism in America. Steiglitz had opened his gallery '292' in 1905, when Metcalf was just beginning to achieve success. And while Metcalf was painting his winter landscapes, Stieglitz showed Cézanne and Matisse in addition to such Americans as John Marin and Georgia O'Keeffe. But the Armory Show did it all on a grand scale, and its special significance was that it permanently opened the United States to the new. Its effect on American artists was profound and far-reaching, but Willard Metcalf, at least for a time, was unaffected.* 

"Metcalf registered no opinion of the new work in his diary, referring casually to the exhibition as the 'Cubists Show,' although his wife reported that she felt compelled to hold his arm, because he seemed about to faint from shock as he viewed the work on display. A few nights later 'Les Anciens de l'Académie Julian gathered at the Brevoort in their old smocks and corduroys to burlesque the production of the 'cubes.' Metcalf, instead, played piquet at Charles Platt's and lost $14.30. Deliberate casualness was an appropriate defense against a niggling suspicion that sunny optimism would no longer be as appealing a theme in his work. And as the Armory Show was being prepared to travel to Chicago and Boston, Metcalf readied himself for a trip abroad.""** 

To be continued

(*Excerpt from "Sunlight and Shadow: The Life and Art of Willard L. Metcalf" in a portion by Richard J. Boyle.

**Excerpt from "Sunlight and Shadow: The Life and Art of Willard L. Metcalf" in a portion by Elizabeth de Veer.)