This lush drawing reflects de Zayas's mastery of the charcoal medium. Within a single composition, he combined delicate weblike lines with dense black, heavily applied areas of charcoal, while injecting a subtle range of black and gray tones through smudges and erasures. Katharine Nash Rhoades was an American beauty who caught Stieglitz's eye during her many visits to 291 and who was one of the few female painters to show there. In January–February 1915 she and Marion Beckett had a joint exhibition at the gallery. De Zayas's charcoal renderings of both women (see Beckett's portrait, MMA 49.70.189) probably date from that year and were two of his last abstract caricatures. Although the dating is speculative, the Rhoades drawing was done prior to May 1915, when 291 published a variation on its composition with poems by Rhoades and Agnes Meyer. In June 1915 Stieglitz took several photographs of Rhoades, arm bent in an elegant V across her chest, that paid homage to de Zayas's drawing.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Katharine N. Rhoades
Artist:Marius de Zayas (Mexican, Veracruz 1880–1961 Stamford, Connecticut)
Date:ca. 1915
Medium:Charcoal and graphite on paper, mounted on paperboard
Dimensions:24 × 17 3/4 in. (61 × 45.1 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Object Number:49.70.186
the artist (to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (ca. 1915–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA)
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings Showing the Later Tendencies in Art," April 16–May 15, 1921, no. 219 (lent by Alfred Stieglitz).
New York. Whitney Studio Club. "Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings: Selected and Arranged by Mr. W.E. Hill," January 23–February 6, 1924, no catalogue.
Lawrence. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. "Marius de Zayas: Conjurer of Souls," September 27–November 8, 1981, no. 31.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Marius de Zayas: Conjurer of Souls," December 18, 1981 – February 14, 1982, no. 31.
New York. Center for Inter-American Relations. "Marius de Zayas: Conjurer of Souls," March 2 – April 4, 1982, no. 31.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Marius de Zayas: A Mexican in New York," September 13, 1990–March 1991, no catalogue.
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "To Be Modern: American Encounters with Cézanne and Company," June 15–September 29, 1996 (p. 76; ill. of Exh. Philadelphia 1921 cat.).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Marius de Zayas & Stieglitz Circle," March 19–June 27, 2004, no catalogue.
Paris. Musée d'Orsay. "New York et l'art moderne: Alfred Stieglitz et son cercle (1905–1930)," October 18, 2004–January 16, 2005, no. 94.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 255.
"Review of Whitney Studio Club Exhibition." Evening World (March 7, 1924).
Craig R. Bailey. "The Art of Marius de Zayas." Arts Magazine 53 (September 1978), p. 141.
Douglas Hyland. Marius de Zayas: Conjurer of Souls. Exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Lawrence, Kansas, 1981, pp. 43, 116, 118, 120, no. 31, ill. p. 121.
Kathleen Pyne. Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle. Berkeley, 2007, pp. xvi, 185–86, fig. 104.
Jessica Murphy. "Portraiture and Feminine Identity in the Stieglitz Circle: Agnes Ernst Meyer, Katharine Rhoades and Marion Beckett." PhD diss., University of Delaware, 2009, pp. 240, 242, 245, 249–52, fig. 5.5.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 237, 291, no. 255, ill. (color).
Marius de Zayas (Mexican, Veracruz 1880–1961 Stamford, Connecticut)
ca. 1910
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