The Cathedrals of Broadway captures the magical atmosphere of neon-lit theaters, which offered films as well as live performances. As the United States entered the Great Depression, many Americans turned to the world of entertainment to escape reality. Here, New York’s mayor Jimmy Walker throws out the first pitch of the baseball season in a cinema newsreel. An elaborate stage show takes place below the screen, while the names of famous theaters glow around the central proscenium arch. Stettheimer gives little hint of the harsh conditions that confronted many New Yorkers in the 1930s.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Cathedrals of Broadway
Artist:Florine Stettheimer (American, Rochester, New York 1871–1944 New York, New York)
Date:1929
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:60 1/8 × 50 1/8 in. (152.7 × 127.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Ettie Stettheimer, 1953
Object Number:53.24.3
Inscription: Signed, dated, and inscribed (at left on edge of banner): Cathedrals of Broadway / 1929 / Florine Stettheimer
the artist, New York (1929–d. 1944); her sister, Ettie Stettheimer, New York (1944–53; her gift to MMA)
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Exhibition of the American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers," February 6–28, 1932, no. 131.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Florine Stettheimer," October 1–November 17, 1946, unnumbered cat. (p. 46; as "Cathedrals of Broadway," lent by Miss Ettie Stettheimer, New York).
Arts Club of Chicago. "Exhibition of Paintings by Florine Stettheimer," January 3–25, 1947, no. 11 (as "Cathedrals of Broadway," lent by Miss Ettie Stettheimer, New York).
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Vassar College Art Gallery. "Florine Stettheimer," January 1949, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors from the Museum's Collections," October 1–December 7, 1969, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The 10s, the 20s, the 30s: Inventive Clothes, 1909–1939," December 13, 1973–September 3, 1974, not in catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "New York City," January 12–July 1, 1990, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Painting: 1905–1950," April 19–October 7, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica," July 13–November 5, 1995, unnumbered cat. (p. 28; as "Cathedrals of Broadway").
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900–2000. Part 1: 1900–1950," April 23–August 22, 1999, unnumbered cat. (fig. 264).
Marsden Hartley. "The Paintings of Florine Stettheimer." Creative Art 9 (July 1931), p. 23.
Edward Alden Jewell. "In the Realm of Art: Important Current Shows." New York Times (February 14, 1932), p. X10.
Guy Pène du Bois. "The American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers." Creative Art 10 (February 1932), ill. p. 132.
Paul Rosenfeld. "Art: The World of Florine Stettheimer." Nation 134 (May 4, 1932), pp. 522–23.
Ralph Flint. "Whitney Museum Opens Its First Biennial Show." Art News 31 (November 26, 1932), p. 4.
Henry McBride. "Florine Stettheimer: A Reminiscence." View 5 (October 1945), p. 15.
Henry McBride. Florine Stettheimer. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1946, pp. 21, 46, 55, ill.
Edward Alden Jewell. "Stettheimer Art in Memorial Show." New York Times (October 2, 1946), p. 27.
Betty Burroughs. "Of Art and Artists: Florine Stettheimer. By Henry McBride." New York Times (April 20, 1947), p. BR16.
Esther I. Seaver. "Florine Stettheimer and the Gay Twenties." Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin (January 1948), p. 1.
Parker Tyler. Florine Stettheimer: A Life in Art. New York, 1963, pp. 46, 52, 59, 68, 71, 78, 97, 109, 112, 152, 158, 162, 171–72, 181, ill. opp. p. 115.
Anthony Bower. "Florine Stettheimer." Art in America 52, no. 2 (April 1964), p. 90.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, p. 126.
Barbara Zucker. "An 'Autobiography of Visual Poems'." Art News 76 (February 1977), pp. 70–71.
Linda Nochlin. "Florine Stettheimer: Rococo Subversive." Art in America 68 (September 1980), pp. 73, 75, 81, fig. 12 (color), dates it about 1929.
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett. POPism: The Warhol '60s. New York, 1980, p. 16.
Elisabeth Sussman. Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants, 1910 to 1942. Exh. cat., Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. [Boston], 1980, unpaginated.
Robert McDaniel in Elisabeth Sussman. Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants, 1910 to 1942. Exh. cat., Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. [Boston], 1980, unpaginated.
Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein. American Women Artists from Early Indian Times to the Present. Boston, 1982, p. 194.
Maureen Mullarkey. "Tuesday at the Met." Hudson Review 40 (Summer 1987), p. 199.
Roberta Smith. "Shifting Art Scene Gets Fresh Venues." New York Times (September 11, 1987), p. C23, ill. p. C1 (installation photo).
Paul Richard. "Mixing It Up At the Metropolitan: Standards & Surprises at the Museum's New Wallace Wing." Washington Post (February 1, 1987), p. F9.
Thomas Bender. New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City, from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time. New York, 1987, pp. 327–38.
Mark Lancaster. "Andy Warhol Remembered." Burlington Magazine 131 (March 1989), p. 200.
Donald Goddard. American Painting. New York, 1990, p. 178, ill. p. 180 (color).
Eleanor Heartney. "Looking at Art. Florine Stettheimer: Saints, Esthetes, and Hustlers." Art News 90 (May 1991), p. 95.
Jerry Saltz. "Notes on a Painting. Twilight of the Gods: Florine Stettheimer's 'Cathedrals of Art,' 1942." Arts Magazine 66 (March 1992), p. 22.
Barbara Bloemink. Friends and Family: Portraiture in the World of Florine Stettheimer. Exh. cat., Katonah Museum of Art. Katonah, N. Y., 1993, pp. 16–17.
C. N. "Art Between the Wars. 'Friends and Family: Portraiture in the World of Florine Stettheimer'." Women Artists News Book Review 19 (Spring 1994), p. 35.
Elisabeth Sussman inFlorine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1995, pp. 50, 52, 62, 126, 140, ill. p. 28 (color).
Barbara Bloemink inFlorine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1995, p. 90.
Linda Nochlin inFlorine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1995, pp. 107–8, 113–14.
Roberta Smith. "Extreme Artifice Directly From Life (in New York Between the Wars)." New York Times (July 21, 1995), p. C18.
Barbara Bloemink. The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer. New Haven, 1995, pp. 166–68, 175, 178, 183–84, 214, 218, 221, 242–43 n. 14, p. 277 n. 26, p. 279 n. 44, fig. 96 (color).
Roger Kimball. "Florine Stettheimer at the Whitney." Modern Painters 8 (Autumn 1995), p. 98.
Jed Perl. "Jazz Age Pastoral." New Republic 213 (October 2, 1995), pp. 41–42.
Mario Naves. "Art: 'Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica'." New Criterion 14 (September 1995), pp. 48, 50–51.
Hilton Kramer. "Critic's Notebook: Stettheimer Primer." Art & Antiques 18 (September 1995), p. 86.
Stephen May. "Florine Stettheimer: Whitney Museum of American Art." Art News 94 (November 1995), p. 244.
John Loughery. "American Treasures: Whistler, Stettheimer, Scully." Hudson Review 48 (Winter 1996), p. 652.
Ann Lee Morgan. "Florine Stettheimer." Art Journal 55 (Summer 1996), p. 93.
Trevor Winkfield. "Very Rich Hours." Art in America 84 (January 1996), p. 66.
Barbara Haskell. The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900–1950. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1999, p. 137, fig. 264 (color).
Nancy Mowll Mathews. "Review: 'The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer'; 'Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan fantastica'." Woman's Art Journal 20 (Spring/Summer 1999), p. 56.
David Jacobson. "Review of Books: Operatic Modernism." Art in America 87 (September 1999), p. 37.
Cécile Whiting. "Decorating with Stettheimer and the Boys." American Art 14 (Spring 2000), pp. 40–41, 43, 49 n. 21, ill. frontispiece (color detail), fig. 16.
Pamela Wye. "Florine Stettheimer: Eccentric Power, Invisible Tradition." M / E / A / N / I / N / G: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism. Ed. Susan Bee and Mira Schor. Durham, N.C., 2000, pp. 375–76, 382.
Helen Langa. "Review. Recent Feminist Art History: An American Sampler." Feminist Studies 30 (Fall 2004), p. 716.
Klaus-Dieter Gross. "Four Saints in Three Arts: V. Thomson's, G. Stein's, and F. Stettheimer's Portraits of Each Other." AAA: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 29, no. 2 (2004), p. 212 n. 14.
H. Alexander Rich. "Rediscovering Florine Stettheimer (Again): The Strange Presence and Absence of a New York Art World Mainstay." Woman's Art Journal 32 (Fall/Winter 2011), pp. 24–25, colorpl. 9.
Lara Susan Kuykendall. "'By Popular Demand': The Hero in American Art, c. 1929–1945." PhD diss., University of Kansas, 2011, pp. 19–20, 41, fig. 1-2.
Katherine Hoffman. Alfred Stieglitz: A Legacy of Light. New Haven, 2011, p. 183.
Jarrett Earnest. "Florine Stettheimer—Hieroglyphs of Pleasure." brooklynrail.org. March 2012.
Megan Brandow-Faller. "Feminine Vessels: The Ceramic Sculpture of Vally Wieselthier." Woman's Art Journal 35 (Fall/Winter 2014), p. 35 n. 6.
Karin Althaus and Susanne Böller inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, p. 34.
Karin Althaus inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, pp. 63–64, 68, fig. 45 (color).
Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, fig. 71 on p. 114 (in the artist's studio, 1944).
Jutta Koether inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, pp. 164, 166.
Richard Meyer. "Changing Partners: Richard Meyer on 'Reimagining Modernism' at the Met." Artforum 54 (November 2015), p. 146.
Roberta Smith. "A Trans-Atlantic View of Modernism." New York Times (January 9, 2015), p. C30.
Stephen Brown in Stephen Brown and Georgiana Uhlyarik. Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry. Exh. cat., Jewish Museum, New York. New York, 2017, pp. 40, 45 n. 34, ill. p. 123 (color).
Lucy Ives. "The Repatriation of F$." Art in America 105 (September 2017), pp. 96, 100.
Joan Snyder. "Florine Stettheimer's 'Cathedrals' Paintings." The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art. Ed. Chris Noey. New York, 2017, p. 214, ill. (color detail, installation view).
Roberta K. Tarbell. "'Florine Stettheimer: Painting and Poetry'; 'Marguerite Zorach: An Art-Filled Life'." Woman's Art Journal 39, no. 1 (2018), pp. 46, 48 n. 7.
Barbara Bloemink. "Florine Stettheimer for the Twenty-First Century: Moving Beyond the Marginalizing Myths." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, pp. 24, 36–37.
Irene Gammel and Chelsea Olsen. "Configuring a Feminist Sisterhood: The Case of Ettie's Memorializing." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 94.
Patricia Allmer. "Temporalities: Stettheimer's Baroque Modernism." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 106.
Jason Wang. "Miss Flutterby: Florine Stettheimer's Dispassionate Flâneuse and Subversive Urban Consumer." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, pp. 209–12, 218–19, fig. 10.1 (color).
Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. "'An Opera to be Sung': Intermediality and the Making of 'Four Saints in Three Acts'." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, pp. 223, 242.
Georgiana Uhlyarik. "Curating Florine Stettheimer: Reflections on an Exhibition." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 270 n. 28.
Barbara Bloemink. Florine Stettheimer: A Biography. Munich, 2021, pp. 114, 273–77, 290, 293, 354, 374, 379, 381, 387, fig. 94 (color).
Helen A. Cooper. "Celebrating and Satirizing New York's Aesthetes." Wall Street Journal (April 10–11, 2021), p. C20.
Suzanne Smeaton. "Crossing the Threshold: The Frames of Florine Stettheimer." American Art 39 (Summer 2025), pp. 69, 75–76, 89–90, 92, 97 n. 71, figs. 4 (in the artist's studio), 21 (color).
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)
1927
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