Katherine Dreier was an Americal art collector and an artist, but first and foremost she is known for promoting understanding and appreciation of modern art. She promoted living artists such as Paul Klee, Jacques Villon, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Naum Gabo and others.

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Dreier was born into a family of German immigrants in the US. Her father was in steel business and her mother was a social activist and volunteer for social causes. In the 1890s she studied in the Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Art Students League. Her parents died when she was in her 30s and they left a considerable inheritance which provided Katherine and her sister with lifelong financial security. She used the funds to travel to Europe where she immersed herself in the study of art.

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In 1913 she contributed 2 paintings to the ground breaking Armoury Show, which Kelly talked about in one of our previous seminars. To remind you, this show is so well known because it introduced American public to European modernism.

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This event inspired her to devote herself to promoting the work of modern artists, who were largely dismissed and misunderstood by American audiences. In the book Three Lectures on Modern Art Dreier thought about exactly why this exhibition made such a lasting impression on the public. She believed it was because ‘ a whole new World of Art was revealed there—an art which belonged to our twentieth century and not to the Renaissance or even to the “Impressionists”.

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And this particular bit seems worth mentioning. She writes that: “ Few of us are conscious of the change which has taken place within all of us. No one today would think of an 'Impressionist' painting as being difficult to see and yet I have lived long enough to have experienced Monet's "Hay- stack" being hung upside down in New York”.

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But despite the novelty of the impressionists, over time this novelty wore off and small galleries vanished. It was then that Dreier and Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray decided to establish a centre conceptualised as a ‘library’ of works embodying the new movements. In that centre people could come and study the good examples of new forms in art. Thus the Society Anonyme was born in 1920. The activities of the society took place in various venues in and around New York City as well as in Dreier’s home in Connecticut.

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But before we go into that I need to mention the Society of Independent artists, which Dreier joined in 1916. At this society Dreier met Duchamp and this way their lifelong friendship started. She became know for abstract work, this is a good example titled Abstract Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (1918). She thought of this painting as a ‘psychological portrait’. Where colour and form capture the character of Duchamp.

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She is, however, more distinguished by her support of the understanding of modern art in America. The very meaning of this society refers to the non-alignment of this organisation with any particular artistic school. This society promoted new artists through exhibitions which introduced their work and allowed artists to develop relationships with galleries and collectors. She also wrote essays and gave lectures in support of those artists. Although she supported a number of European artists fleeing the Nazi regime during WWII, in the 1930s, she went to hear Hitler speak on at least three different occasions while traveling in Germany.

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Dreier was also influenced by the art and writings of Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who became her life-long friend. Dreier organized Kandinsky’s first one-man show in 1923 in the U.S. and later made him an honorary Vice-President of the Société, he held this position until his death in 1944. Dreier and Kandinsky shared an interest in Theosophy, they were exploring the ideas like spiritual unity of all things and the idea of universal brotherhood. She explained her spiritual leanings in her 1948 lecture on the “intrinsic significance” of modern art. She credited Kandinsky’s book On the Spiritual in Art (1911) for giving form to her “vague thoughts” while she was studying in Munich during the winter of 1911–12. After the Kandinsky’s death in December 1944, Solomon R. Guggenheim got in contact with Dreier to acquire Kandinsky works from her. This way entered some of the key pieces of surrealism and abstract art in Guggenheim came from Katherine Dreier.

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It was the only institution that supported contemporary art in the U.S before the creation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1929. It’s collection offers a unique record of modernist innovation and experimentation.

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She was the main driving force behind the organisation. A self-proclaimed “experimental museum” for modern art that was managed by artists, which allowed them rather than critics and historians to shape the narrative of the development of modern art.

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The first large-scale exhibition of the Societe included works by 59 artists and took place in 1921 in Worcester Art Museum, five years later in 1926 the Societé mounted the International Exhibition of Modern Art in Brooklyn Museum. This exhibition forever influenced the curation of Modern Art exhibitions.

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Dreier produced a then innovative installation. So instead of stacking artworks in rows in Salon style, she installed the works in a single row at eye level, an innovative display at the time. From then on, this manner of display became the convention that continues to this day.

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Dreier wished to use the exhibition to habituate the public to the new, and to some, still strange aesthetic of the avant-garde. For this purpose, she turned several exhibition galleries into middle- and upper-class interiors. Featuring a selection of figurative and abstract work by contemporary artists, the rooms were outfitted with furniture and decor from Abraham & Straus, a popular Brooklyn department store. For Dreier, the notion of integrating modern art into domestic space was essential for not only supporting artistic production, but also advancing American society as a whole. She wrote: “Unless we, as a nation, value art, we will not live. Unless we, as individuals, live with art, we cannot understand it” showing visitors how one might live with the abstract art that they found difficult and sometimes incomprehensible. Over its existence from 1920 to 1950, the Société: organised over 80 exhibitions of contemporary art, produced nearly thirty publications, assembled an extraordinary collection of artworks.

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As part of her educational mission, Dreier wrote prolifically and lectured often on modern art. Notable publications are Western Art and the New Era: An Introduction to Modern Art (1923) and Three Lectures on Modern Art (1949). During the 1920s and ’30s she lectured widely on modern art, including talks at the Berlin Bauhaus (at the invitation of Vasily Kandinsky) and Black Mountain College (with Josef Albers).

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She described the purpose of art as follows: "because Art is a Force within man—it is constantly in the making. It is fluid—not static nor a state of development reached by man—but a developing Force in man. Its real purpose is to stimulate our energies and increase our vision of Life. And because we are all so different it takes many various forms of Art to achieve this"'.

Until her death Dreier continued to add to the collection, eventually leaving more than 1,000 works of art to the Yale University.

  

Duchamp arranged for Dreier to leave a small but generous bequest to the Guggenheim Museum on her death in 1952. Among the 28 works given to the museum were Constantin Brancusi’s Little French Girl (The First Step [III]) (La jeune fille française, ca. 1914–18) and a standing mobile by Alexander Calder. Duchamp was one of the executors of Dreier’s estate and organized a 1952 memorial exhibition of her collection and her own work at Yale University, including a published catalogue for which he wrote the dedication, praising her as a “pioneer collector of modern art,” with “infallible taste,” and a “clairvoyant mind.”

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Bibliography

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Katherine Dreier, James Sweeney, Naum Gabo, Three Lectures on Modern Art (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1949)

 

Katherine Dreier, Western Art and the New Era: An Introduction to Modern Art (New York, Brentano’s, 1923)