Florine Stettheimer: Public Privacy in the 1920s

The American artist, Florine Stettheimer, 1871 – 1944, lived through a tumultuous moment in American history.  Her mature body of work blossomed in the midst of the “Roaring Twenties,” a time which redefined and revitalized individual life with an emphasis on material enjoyment, bringing into the active public sphere the once-private aspects of life. This is seen literally in the replacement of hand-made and personalized items with factory-made home goods, but also metaphorically demonstrated by the increasing attention being brought to women’s experiences and rights.  Previously associated inescapably with the home, in the 1920s women begin to move more into the public sphere, taking on the world as more than wives and mothers, but as active individuals.  Stettheimer’s work is saturated with these themes of privacy versus publicity as she illustrates her cultural surroundings.  In her personal life Stettheimer conformed to the newly public and participatory role of the “New Woman,” embracing independence in many areas of her life, yet she shielded herself from the spotlight through consciously withholding details of her private self, actively cultivating the creation of a mysterious persona.  In a similar fashion, her art gives the appearance of being conceptually shallow, pleasant, and easily read, embracing the expository and vibrant tone of the time, yet it retains a privately profound meaning.  As the dichotomies of inner and outer, of public and private are shuffled in the activity of the 1920s culture and once-closeted women moved into the sight of the world, the old privacy of male oppression was broken down.  Florine Stettheimer, though actively participating in the new public life of the “New Woman” and rejecting the old ways of confinement, reclaims a new type of privacy.  In both her art and her person, Florine Stettheimer appeared to expose herself to the public eye, yet in reality she preserved her personal privacy through careful control over precisely what is revealed and what is concealed.  By embracing the private life, she is not regressing, but rather advancing as an individual.  Her privacy is her choice – no longer an oppressive cage, but a sanctuary of empowerment and of personal creativity.

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The consumerism of the 1920s, caused by an enormous economic boom, revolutionized life in America.  Factories, new money, and a young and active populous led to an increasingly mass-produced and industrial way of life.  Home furnishings, once the definition of individuality, ancestry, and above all, privacy, are replaced with items from the outside.  This trend in furniture, though seemingly obscure, is a fitting metaphor for the ways in which the public sphere replaced and infiltrated the private sphere due to the materialistic inclinations of the new age.  The largest supporters of this newly consumerist society were those who historically have been relegated to the world of the home: women.  Consumption was an expression of power, of activity, of new involvement in the greater world that revolutionized the life of a housewife.  Previously imprisoned in the household, women functioned as a piece of furniture themselves – displayed, owned, used for support and comfort.  Women in the 1920s began to reinvent themselves in the public sphere.  They fought for liberation from the smothering walls, clothes, and roles that once contained and defined them, made great strides, and went out to buy some real furniture for their men to use instead.   

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Women reached new milestones of liberation during this era.  Politically freed, they gained the right to vote with the 19th amendment.   This time in history “marked the first decade of significant transformation in the legal and professional possibilities for middle class Western women.”  Thus women, who used to be the very definition of the private home life as mothers and wives, become actors on the public stage.  Florine Stettheimer, reaching young adulthood in the midst of this flashy and tumultuous milieu, becomes an important character in the struggle between the public and private spheres and must learn to locate herself within this reconfiguration of traditional social organizations.  

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This redefinition of public and private space that whirled around 1920s America necessarily infiltrated Florine Stettheimer’s lifestyle.  A young, rich, artistic woman, she embodied the ideal of the “New Woman” in many aspects of her person.  A term coined to represent a new model of femininity in the late 19th century, “New Woman” describes a feminist, educated, independent career woman who pushed the limits set by male-dominated society.  Stettheimer was the very image of this independence, “an intelligent, caustic woman and a hardworking, driven artist who consistently fought for the time and opportunities to express herself visually.”  Florine Stettheimer was, in print, the perfect “New Woman.”

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The familial structure of the Stettheimer family helped to form Florine as an independent woman.  Coming from a family of wealthy German-Jewish ancestry, she possessed the financial independence to lead her life as she pleased.  She spent much of her early life travelling around Europe and studying art.  Her father left the family while they were abroad, leaving his five children with their mother to whom they were very close throughout their lives.  Thus the Stettheimer household became a matriarchy.  This event perhaps contributed to her later attitudes toward men and marriage, allowing her to avoid the common idea held by many young women, that marriage is the ultimate goal of a woman’s life.  In fact, Florine and her two youngest sisters, Carrie and Ettie, never married, but rather remained at home with their mother, forming a close community of independent women.  Their hermetic lifestyle attracted skepticism and attention, as the scholar Barbara Bloemink writes, “all too often the fact that neither Florine nor her two sisters ever married is interpreted as intimating that their single status was a result of eccentricity, lesbian inclinations, or physical appearance, rather than personal choice.”  Florine Stettheimer chose her spinsterhood and her independence, a way of life that was “not only a highly viable but occasionally even a preferable option as women assumed visible roles in the professions and in education.”  Additionally, Stettheimer embraced the ideals of the Women’s Rights Movement, the feminist group that rose in influence during this time, being an “outspoken, active feminist.” Her poetry, which she wrote privately and profusely, reflects her feminist sentiments and her ironic and skeptical views of marriage, particularly in the following sardonic rhyme.  

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Sweet little Miss Mouse

Wanted her own house

So she married Mr. Mole

And only got a hole.

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Stettheimer displayed her independence academically as well as romantically.  One of first women to achieve a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College of Columbia University, she also earned a formal master’s degree in psychology in 1898.  This knowledge of the private world of the individual mind gave Stettheimer greater insight into the private worlds of individuals.   

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True to the model of the independent 1920s woman, Stettheimer was dedicated to her profession, rather than to marriage or a husband.  She saw herself as an artist very totally; “one of the common threads throughout Stettheimer’s life and work is that she saw herself not in the traditional role of woman as wife, helpmate, and mother, but as an earnest, professional artist.” In her few self-portraits, in addition to looking eternally youthful, Stettheimer is always depicted in her artist’s outfit and smock, most notably in her Self Portrait (ca. 1912-14) rather than in fashionable clothing of the time period as her sisters were.  In this work she stares enigmatically out at the viewer, as if interrupted from her painting in which she was absorbed.  She envisions herself clearly in these works for the public, creating the character of a mysterious and independent artist, intent upon depicting the vivacity of her surroundings with energy and color.

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However, this image of Florine Stettheimer is not the entirety of her identity, but rather it is the story she chose to tell, the facet of herself that she chose to reveal to the viewer.  Her same self-portraits are evidence of self-censorship and creation of a façade.  Exclusively portrayed as a young woman in artist garb, even into her old age, this image illustrates her desire to present an approved image of herself to the public, rather than to expose herself fully.  She consistently took measures that “actively contributed to a certain vagueness surrounding [her] origins, willfully shrouding her private self.”

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While present in many social circles, her role was usually that of the silent observer rather than that of the entertainer.  There are several documented instances of her expressing her avoidance for large crowds, including diary entries in which she complains of having to leave her work to attend social events with her sisters and mother.  Poetry of hers, published posthumously in Crystal Flowers, 1949, best illustrates her thoughts, as she shared them with few others than herself.  This fraction of an untitled poem is especially enlightening.

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When I meet a
stranger—
Out of courtesy
I turn on a soft
Pink light
Which is found
modest
Even charming.
it is protection
Against wear
and tears…
And when
I am rid of
The Always-to-be-
Stranger
I turn on my light
And become
myself.

In social situations, Henry McBride writes that Stettheimer was shy despite her fame and often “seemed often a furtive guest rather than of the genii loci which she undoubtedly was, for her demure presence was invariably counted.  The artists who came to these parties came there because of her.”  In pieces such as Picnic at Bedford Hills (1918), she depicts herself apart from the group, holding the white parasol, observing the activities of her sisters and friends, and even in Soiree/Studio Party (1917-19), she is shown on the right edge, head in hand, looking out of the painting to gaze knowingly into the viewer’s eyes while those around her preoccupy themselves separately.  In this public place, she creates a space for herself alone.  Thus she is shown to be the mixture of public and private.  Even as an independent and well-admired woman in an age of activity and celebrity, privacy is important to her.

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She in fact actively cultivated a mysterious aura for herself, among the art circles of New York, yet never does she “let the casual spectator in at last upon a world of explicit charm, of quaint humor and incisive wit.”  Florine Stettheimer avoided public showings of her work in general, preferring to have smaller social gatherings of friends.  She seemed to not be too concerned with her fame, as Henry McBride suggests, “Miss Stettheimer’s semi-obscurity was not so much due to the public’s indifference as to her own.”  This strange battle between publicity and privacy, this continual rebalancing of fame and obscurity, lasts even beyond her death.  In her will, Stettheimer requested that her art be totally destroyed after her death – a request that luckily for the art world, was not honored.  Instead her art was donated to galleries and given away to friends.  Her diary, a means of private expression, was edited by her sister Ettie, removed of any “personal” details, before being published.  

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Thus it is seen that while Stettheimer exemplified certain aspects of the 1920s “New Woman,” the newly public model of womanhood, she retained some of the privacy usually associated with the old model of the ideal wife or mother.  She generally preferred the home over the public sphere.  But this reclamation of the home, born of her extreme independence, rather than being a degradation, allowed Stettheimer to flourish as a creative and powerful individual – a total reversal of the previous domestic dynamic in which women were locked away from the world and as a result kept from their potential.  As Bloemink writes, “Stettheimer’s studio was the “room of her own” within which she could seriously pursue her painting undistracted.” The personal freedom allowed by the shift in her cultural surroundings allowed Stettheimer to explore the interiority of herself and her art in a new way, unhindered.

In her art as in her person, Florine Stettheimer appears to follow the trend of the private becoming public.  Many of her mature pieces, such as Heat and Picnic at Bedford Hills, focus upon the depiction of social and familial scenes.  By illustrating these private spaces and displaying them as art, she allows the viewer a glimpse into her personal world, making it public.

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She finds inspiration in the materialistic consumerism that surrounds her, seen explicitly in Spring Sale, where she illustrates the mood of consumerism that pervaded the times.  Her colorful and seemingly superficial style provides the viewer with much to gaze at and much to appreciate in terms of pleasurable aesthetics.   The frenetic energy of her work seems to be a direct interpretation of her surroundings.  There is much “surface level” interest to be had in Stettheimer’s work.  She paints, embracing the acidity of unnatural colors, stylish figures, and flat planes.  This stylistic artificiality that Stettheimer embraces in her work presents a filmy façade to the viewer that is attractive and appealing, but sometimes works to conceal and prevent further examination of the deeper content and intentionality.

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The manner in which Stettheimer paints these scenes seems to withdraw any personal attachment and to interpret them rather as performances and a look at the actors upon a stage, acting out a scene of her life.  The figures are rather two-dimensional and spaced in a manner that suggests careful placement of dolls or characters upon a stage.  Each is distinctly and specifically characterized.  There is a definite “lack of psychological relation and active interaction among the figures.  In Sunday Afternoon, the artist structured a composition of individual figures who stand, sit, or lie about in isolation, and who look out of the picture frame but almost never at each other.  There is no unified action that brings them into mutual play.  The figures poses and gestures have no apparent exterior motivation but are seemingly compelled solely by each one’s interior mood.”  This method serves to publicize private scenes, creating a complete image that presents itself agreeably to the viewer, clearly made to be seen, but there is clearly more to these works.

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In her artistic career, Stettheimer also designed costumes for the Ballet Russes.  Influences of the theater can easily be traced throughout her work.  The theater, like a painting, is almost by definition an item of publicity.  Visual arts are, obviously enough, meant to be seen, to be viewed, by an audience.  In her engagement with the revelation of private aspects of her life through publicizing techniques, Florine Stettheimer appears to be an artist very much in touch with the outer world.  Her art is enjoyable to witness, presenting a gauzy scene for the viewer, full of distraction and fancy.  But this façade of garish flippancy is not all that can be seen.  If one only realizes that, as she did in her personal life, Florine Stettheimer is fashioning a screen of ebullience with which she veils her true self from the prying eyes of the “ever to be stranger.”     

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Some critics and biographers are of the opinion that her art is too shallow, too “feminine,” too obviously a mere illustration of events.  These are the individuals who cannot see past the persona, those who take her at face value rather than bother to pry more deeply into her psychology.  “her paintings…may seem childish at first glance, but they are written with the underlying modernist irony of a mature observer of contemporary life” Another common misconception is that her work is grounded in nothing more than female fantasy.  Her bright colors and whimsical style are not deemed legitimate as more than charming but ultimately insubstantial fluff.  As Bloemink writes, critics “often mistakenly attribute Stettheimer’s later painting style to personal eccentricity, rather than to the numerous factors coalescing across Europe during the years before WWI.  The changing role of women, the rococo revival and its “feminine” affiliations, a new psychology centering around associative memory and the redefinition of “interior space,” and a zeal to integrate all the arts played a significant role in forming her mature aesthetic.”  These words reveal the multiple factors that Stettheimer took into consideration in her work.  Her work, the opposite of absentminded and superficial, takes great pains to appear so.

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While her art does take the form of illustrating everyday events with charm and energy, there is more to be said for its content.  The hidden inner meaning of Stettheimers work can be illustrated well by her work in the theater.  In costuming, there is an innate pretense and performance.  Performance seems to be a theme of all her interactions and therefore her self-expression.  Like she performed an individual role in society, she seems to be intrigued by the presentation of an image that belies the thought beneath.  Her paintings too seem to be performing for the viewer.  The bright color and pleasurable feelings are the first thing that the viewer notices.  But beneath the wash of color, there are deeper elements at work.  

Stettheimer was intrigued by the “concept of the interior space as the visual correlative for individual persona.”  In a time of industrialization there existed a backlash consisting of a greater focus on the personal.  The idea of the “New Woman” demanded a more active lifestyle from women.  The set individuals free to decide more clearly upon their individual preferences.  Florine Stettheimer took advantage of this new public life in order to reassert her individual privacy.  

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Throughout her life, Stettheimer complicated the dichotomy of public and private.  In her decisions for the decoration of the gallery where she had her first one-person exhibition at Knoedler & Company, a major New York gallery, she purposefully adjoins private and public elements.  She decided to decorate the gallery rooms “to replicate her own rooms where the paintings usually hung.  She wanted the gallery rooms to appear intimate, as though viewers stepped from the street into the salon of a private home.  She felt compelled to present her paintings as part of an integral environment, as she believed an appropriate context was crucial to viewing her work.”  These decisions of hers to incorporate inner and outer elements reveals much about her interest in exploring the layers of what is seen and what is revealed, both in her art and in her life.

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Full of contradictions, Florine Stettheimer “is both obvious and obliquely mysterious.”

She is born into a time of change, a time of redefinition, where art, femininity, and life itself are brought into question.  With these changes comes a reordering of space.  The public sphere, previously the domain of men, is shattered.  The public invades the private and the private explores the public.  In this hubbub, women must find themselves once more.  Freed from their houses they embrace the role of the “New Woman” and expand into the public world.  But where does this new vibrant world leave room for individual privacy?  Florine Stettheimer, on one hand the ultimate independent “New Woman,” explores and ultimately finds the balance between the public and private spheres.  In her art she depicts her experiences, allowing the viewer to experience the push and pull of consumerism and privacy as well.  Stettheimer’s creation of her public persona is balanced by her staunch defense of a new private space for herself.  Though active in the bustling world of the 1920s, Stettheimer learns to control her own privacy, reinterpreting the home as a place of inspiration and power.   In her choice of privacy, she advances beyond both the newly public woman as well as the traditionally secluded woman.  Florine Stettheimer controls her own exposure and therefore transcends the dichotomies of public and private, existing as herself.