80 Years After the Artist’s Death, Landmark Project Will Be Led by Biographer Dr. Barbara Bloemink
The Wildenstein Plattner Institute is thrilled to announce a new catalogue raisonné project devoted to the works of the American artist Florine Stettheimer. The publication will provide a comprehensive accounting of all the artist’s known works, including her paintings, drawings, set designs and furniture, the majority of which are in the collections of major museums throughout the United States. The project will also seek to collect information on those few works remaining in private hands that have never been recorded, showcasing the full scope of the artist’s creative output in the visual arts. This landmark undertaking will be led by the artist’s biographer Dr. Barbara Bloemink and will be published in a dynamic digital format on the WPI’s platform in the coming years. As the first WPI initiative devoted to an American woman artist, the Stettheimer Catalogue Raisonné project marks a significant milestone within the field of cultural heritage. “A critical investigation of Stettheimer’s corpus is long overdue,” said Elizabeth Gorayeb, Executive Director. “The WPI is honored to work with Barbara Bloemink in ensuring that the artist’s legacy will be celebrated and safeguarded by this critical publication.”
Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944) is a figure of extraordinary cultural significance, lauded by artists Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns and credited during her lifetime by curators from MoMA and the Whitney as one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century. Born into a German-Jewish family of New York’s high society, Stettheimer began making art at an early age, studying painting and drawing across Europe before the Great War. During her life, she showed her innovative paintings in more than forty of the most important international museum exhibitions and salons. She also wrote poetry, designed unique furniture, and gained international fame for the sets and costumes she created for Gertrude Stein’s avant-garde opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. Stettheimer’s vibrant, uniquely feminine, and subtly subversive style showcased her interests as an outspoken feminist and liberal Democrat: Her Nude Self-Portrait (c. 1915) is thought to be only the second full-length nude self-portrait ever painted by a woman. In the period between the two World Wars, Stettheimer and her two sisters hosted one of Manhattan’s most influential Salons, which was a gathering place for many members of New York’s cultural avant-garde, ranging from members of the Harlem Renaissance to the era’s lesbian and gay intelligentsia. Most famous among her works is her Cathedrals series now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which features scenes of Wall Street, Broadway, 5th Avenue, and the city’s celebrated museums. After her death, Marcel Duchamp organized a retrospective of Stettheimer’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946, which was the museum’s first major solo retrospective exhibition of a woman artist.
The lead scholar behind this publication is Dr. Barbara Bloemink, who was the first to identify, find, and date many of Stettheimer’s works. After writing a chronology of the artist’s life for Yale University Press 25 years ago, she began work on Stettheimer’s Catalogue Raisonné. Along with authoring numerous articles on the artist over the decades, she wrote the acclaimed Florine Stettheimer: A Biography, which the New Yorker recognized as “One of the Best Books of 2022”.
“Now that Florine Stettheimer has again been accorded the significance she deserves as a highly innovative, influential and important 20th century artist, it is critical that her reputation and work be protected from the increasing number of fakes appearing on the market,” Bloemink said. “After my offer to give my work on the Catalogue Raisonné, alongside a gift of financial support, to the two institutions that hold the artist’s papers and her early works was turned down, I was devastated. The Wildenstein Plattner Institute not only understood the significance of Stettheimer’s, work but through WPI’s agreement to publish the Catalogue Raisonné and make it available to the public, they have ensured that the work of this extraordinary artist – from beautiful early sketches to remarkable but rarely seen paintings – will be easily accessible to scholars, students and the public. For me, it is a 25-year dream come true’”
In keeping with WPI’s commitment to fostering accessibility to archival materials that support critical research in the field of art history, the Stettheimer Catalogue Raisonné will be accessible to the public online for free. The project will launch with a comprehensive accounting of all the artist’s known works, and a committee, including Bloemink, will be formed to review those few works remaining in private hands that have never been recorded. As is the case with all WPI publications, the Stettheimer Catalogue Raisonné will be continually updated and expanded as new scholarship and information comes to light.
Stettheimer bequeathed the grand majority of her production to major American museums, which is one of the reasons why the artist has not featured prominently in the art market. But with the recent resurgence of interest in her, and the increased demand for works by women artists, a few Stettheimer works in private hands are now surfacing at exhibitions and auction houses. With this new project underway at WPI, Stettheimer will now take her place among other essential WPI catalogue raisonné projects, including those for Romare Bearden, Jasper Johns, Tom Wesselmann, as well as those for Impressionist artists under the WPI imprint.
In the Press
Artnet: “Beloved Modernist Florine Stettheimer Finally Gets the Catalogue Raisonné Treatment” by Brian Boucher
Hyperallergic: “Art History Darling Florine Stettheimer to Get Digital Catalogue Raisonné” by Rhea Nayyar
The Collector: “American Modernist Florine Stettheimer Gets Catalogue Raisonné” by Emily Snow