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Noted ceramicist Beatrice Wood, who earned the title "Mama of Dada" because she outlasted the original crowd by half a century (dying in Ojai, California in 1998 at age 105!), was a close friend of the Arensbergs and habitue of their salon. She was also the apex in the triangle of Duchamp and Henri-Pierre Roche, which was supposedly at least partial inspiration for Roche's JULES ET JIM.
Given Wood's admitted lust for handsome lovers (her secret to long life was "chocolate and young men"), Cravan's attraction to women Duchamp found attractive and his claim to have collected phone numbers from every woman he met at the Arensbergs', is there any mention of hanky-panky between our boy and Ojai's randy patron saint prior to his hooking up with Mina Loy?
Inquiring minds want to know...and then dish about it on my next trip up to that artists' haven in the California hills.
Given Wood's admitted lust for handsome lovers (her secret to long life was "chocolate and young men"), Cravan's attraction to women Duchamp found attractive and his claim to have collected phone numbers from every woman he met at the Arensbergs', is there any mention of hanky-panky between our boy and Ojai's randy patron saint prior to his hooking up with Mina Loy?
Inquiring minds want to know...and then dish about it on my next trip up to that artists' haven in the California hills.
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Re: Beatrice Wood...and Arthur Cravan?
Tue, January 16, 2007 - 9:15 PMWell that's an interesting possibility. Beatrice Wood wrote an autobiography called "I Shock Myself". While I have never read it, I wonder if that could serve as a source of information to either confirm or deny your suspicions? -
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Re: Beatrice Wood...and Arthur Cravan?
Tue, January 16, 2007 - 10:34 PMGuess I will have to peruse said tome...which I was aware of, but my reading list is SOOOOO long and from what I know of Beatrice, no WAY she included and index. Just learned of Cravan via the Richardson/Geary graphic novel, which admits to errors and omissions (and fictionalizations), so now my journey begins. Hopefully not into the Caribbean without a paddle, so to speak. -
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Re: Beatrice Wood...and Arthur Cravan?
Wed, January 17, 2007 - 6:18 PMA Google search brought up the following, which, while not direct evidence of a connection between Wood and Cravan, does imply a connection between Wood and Mina Loy.
In a New York Times article of July 6, 2006, entitled "Dada's Women, Ahead of Their Time", reviewing "Daughters of New York Dada" at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art on the Upper East Side ("a small show that adds a crucial chapter to the current Dada exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art"), Holland Carter writes, "...Beatrice Wood (1893-1998) ... was a Duchamp protégé. It was he who suggested that she add a provocatively placed bar of soap to a sculpture of a nude female torso she submitted to the 1917 Independents Exhibition. Her piece was a sensation, the prologue to a career as a ceramicist that lasted until she died at 105. Far more sensational today, though, is a watercolor she painted the same year. Titled "Marcel's Bed,' it depicts Duchamp, Wood and Mina Loy mixed in with others as an after-the-ball jumble of body parts and sheets."
There is a photo accompanying the article of a late piece by Loy (circa 1955-1958) entitled "Christ on a Clothesline," which I have posted. Is it merely my imagination, or could it be Arthur, finally dragged up from the depths of the sea and hung up to dry?
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