Florine Stettheimer

“What I should like is to paint this thing,”¹ wrote Florine Stettheimer in the closing line of her poem, “Then Back to New York.” By “this thing,” Stettheimer meant New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, when its streets, parks, theaters, museums, parties, and personalities became the subjects of her paintings and poems. “How can I choose,” Stettheimer asked in a different poem. “So many/So much/New York’s make up.”²

The “many” and “much” of New York is found in Family Portrait, II (1933), in which Stettheimer depicts herself, her mother, and her sisters against the city skyline. Stettheimer is standing at left with a paintbrush in one hand and a palette in the other; standing at right is Stettheimer’s sister Carrie, who designed a cherished dollhouse. Between them is another sister, Ettie (a novelist), reclining in a blue armchair, and their mother, Rosetta, ensconced in her own gold-colored armchair. Behind the Stettheimers are emblems of New York, from the Chrysler Building (above Ettie) to the Statue of Liberty (above Rosetta). But Family Portrait, II is hardly a conventional cityscape—or, for that matter, a conventional portrait. Skyscrapers and chandeliers float side by side in the light-blue background, and three enormous flowers hover between the stylized figures of the Stettheimers, who occupy an elaborate carpet decorated with floral, vegetal, avian, and geometric patterns.

Born in Rochester, New York, Stettheimer spent much of her childhood and adulthood in Europe, studying art and visiting museums. While in Paris in 1912, she attended an early performance of L’après-midi d’une faune (The Afternoon of a Faun), an avant-garde ballet staged by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The performance—celebrated by some, criticized by others—inspired her to create a ballet of her own, complete with sets and costumes.³ But in 1914, World War I prompted Stettheimer, along with her mother and sisters, to relocate to New York. There, the gatherings hosted by the family attracted artists, writers, composers, and performers as varied as Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Stieglitz, and Carl Van Vechten. Over the years, Stettheimer painted a portrait of each of these friends, a format she also used for family. In Portrait of My Mother (1925), Rosetta Stettheimer is surrounded by a piano, bookcase, vase, and card table, all signs of the life—rich in music and literature, art and games—that she cultivated for her daughters.

The abundance of petals, jewels, lace, and ribbons in works such as Portrait of My Mother and Four Panel Screen led the feminist art historian Linda Nochlin to describe Stettheimer’s sensibility as “subversive rococo.”⁴ Stettheimer embraced the sinuous lines, dainty forms, and light colors associated with rococo, an ornate, stereotypically feminine style that emerged in 18th-century France. But Stettheimer, according to Nochlin, used this style to undercut the sexism of the 20th-century art world. While some assumed that she was untrained and inexperienced, the opposite was true. “Stettheimer,” wrote her friend, the critic Henry McBride, “knew what she was doing.”⁵

Note: Opening quote is from Linda Nochlin, “Florine Stettheimer: Subversive Rococo [1980],” in Elisabeth Sussman with Barbara J. Bloemink, Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art/Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995)

Annemarie Iker, independent scholar, 2023