N 3^ ART '",■-■ •V fieihoT /??7fen f 130 WEST 87TH STREET New York, April 4, 1919. Mr. William K. Bixby, King's Highway and Lindell Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. Dear Sir : A copy of this letter and a copy of the Brochure en- titled ART MUSEUMS AND ARTISTS are for the consideration of the recipients of that Brochure and of the two books entitled respectively PAINTER AND PATRON AND PICTURE BUYING Among such recipients are, or will be, the following: 1. The President and members of the Council of the National Academy of Design. 2. The members of the National Academy of Design, both the Academicians and the Associate National Academicians. 3. Non-members of the National Academy of Design, who had Exhibits in the Winter Exhibition of the National Academy of Design in New York City in December, 1918, and January, 1919. 4. The Trustees of the Boston Museum of Art. 5. The Trustees of the Worcester Museum of Art. 6. The Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City._ 7. The Directors of Museums of Art throughout the United States of America. 8. The Presidents and other officers of Universities, Colleges, Libraries, and Clubs throughout the United States of America. 9. Members of the Class of 1873 Harvard College. 10. Individuals not included in above classes. Some of the readers of that Brochure or of either of the two books above mentioned, may be able and willing to add to the suggestion contained in your letter to me dated March 27, 1919, printed in that Brochure or to the suggestion contained in both of the books above mentioned. Perhaps some of such readers may be will- ing to give their opinion of your suggestion contained in your letter printed in the Brochure. Yours truly, Edward D. Bettens. ART MUSEUMS AND ARTISTS 'The Strongest Man on Earth Is He Who Stands Most Alone' With the Compliments of P^DWARD DETRAZ BeTTENS 130 West 87th Street new york, new york U. S. A. The privately distributed books entitled PAINTER AND PATRON AND PICTURE BUYING ask why Art Museums do not cultivate the habit of buying contemporary paintings from living painters. On the title page of the book Picture Buying are printed the words : "The Strongest Man on Earth Is He Who Stands Most Alone" The letters, now printed for private distribution, may interest some of the readers of the books above mentioned. Edward Detraz Bettens. April 11, 1919. Cambridge, Mass., March 21, 1919. Dear Mr. Bettens I thank you for sending me your new book Picture Buying; for I find in it many interesting letters. Will you allow me to say that the motto on your title page needs a good deal of interpreting to make it safe for general use? I, for example, should say as a result of my observation that no human being can become very strong mentally and morally unless he has numerous contacts with his fellow-beings. I cannot think of any great man in times past who stood alone. Have not the greatest teachers, rulers, and writers always been men who lived with and served innumerable other people? Perhaps the context would explain the motto. I do not know the source of the quotation. Sincerely yours, Charles W. Euot.* Edward D. Bettens, Esq. *President Emeritus of Harvard University. 394.148 New York, March 22, 1919. Dear Mr. Eliot: As a Christmas gift to my mother in 1890 I gave her a translation of Henrik Ibsen's book, then entitled An Enemy of Society, but now published under the title of An Enemy of the People. The last words spoken by Dr. Stockmann in that play were: "You see, the fact is that the strongest man on earth is he who stands most alone." For years Dr. Stockmann had been and still was in active contact with his fellow men, but becoming con- vinced that typhoid germs were in the water of the Swimming Pool, of which Pool, as a medical doctor, he had charge, he refused to change that opinion or to keep from publishing his discovery, although substan- tially the whole community demanded that he should do one or the other. The consequence to him of such refusal is the leading theme of the Ibsen play, ending in the words quoted on the title page of Picture Buying. Were not Socrates, Christ, Huss, Savonarola and William Lloyd Garrison supremely strong, when they were very much alone? In the book Painter and Patron, a copy of which you have, an art dealer is quoted as saying that fear often prevents Directors and Trustees of Art Museums from buying the paintings of living painters, although con- vinced that they should be purchased. Dr. Stockmann's words are printed on the title page of the book Picture Buying as a suggestion that such Directors and Trustees should follow their own well considered judgments re- gardless of what others may think or say. Sincerely, Edward D. Bettens. Dr. Charles W. Eliot. BROOKS MEMORIAL ART GALLERY OVERTON PARK MEMPHIS. TENNESSEE Office of Director March 22, 1919. Mr. Edward D. Bettens, 130 West 87th St., New York City. My dear Mr. Bettens: I am exceedingly glad to have an opportunity, to thank you again, for another of the lovely books, dedicated to your mother — the book Pic- ture Buying. I am most interested in your idea of getting in closer touch with the artist, and think it a splendid plan to buy direct from the artist. And also the point you make, in trying to get more of the best artists to send to the regular exhibitions. This would simplify the buying and also the collecting of works of art for exhibitions, for the various Museums. I think it too bad we are not always able to get first class canvases, for our temporary exhibitions. There are many things that should be adjusted in the art world and especially in regard to Museum work. Realizing this, I can say again sincerely, — Anything done along these lines, is most worthy. I wish you all possible success in your work. Sincerely yours, Florence M. McIntyre, Director. KINGS HIGHWAY AND LINDELL AVENUE St. Louis, Missouri, March 27, 1919. Edward Detraz Bettens, Esq., New York City. My dear Sir: Many thanks for your book on Picture Buying. Your idea is all right, and if all the artists desired to carry out the idea, there would be little diffi- culty in accomplishing it. I realize fully the difficulties, and the practical questions involved, but we all know that if the leading artists, and the Directors of Art Museums would unite in the work, and have several traveling exhibitions, moving from one museum to another, so that each museum would have at least three represen- tative exhibitions each year, of the work of Amer- ican Artists, there would be many sales, and what is more important, the work of the different artists would be known to a larger circle. But of course this would involve juries of selec- tion, — and we all know what that means — and unselfish work to give the promising young artists a chance, and still have the older and 6 stronger ones strongly represented. It is an iron clad rule in our Museum that neither the Museum itself, nor any employe, shall receive any com- mission or compensation of any kind from sales made to our citizens of any exhibit. The mu- seums would undoubtedly gladly pay the cost of transportation and insurance, but of course the difficulty is that the best known artists who, by their cooperation could make such a plan a suc- cess, do not need to send their pictures from their studios. Personally I prefer to buy pictures by living artists from the artists themselves, and the greater part of my own American pictures, and those in the Bixby collection at the St. Louis City Art Museum, have been so purchased. But there are so many difficulties in the way of practically carrying out such a plan as I have suggested in this letter, and have the cooperation of the more important artists, that I fear there is little chance of changing present methods. Sincerely, W. K. Bixby.* ♦William Keeney Bixby, retired manufacturer; LL.D. Univer- sity of Missouri; President of City Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. CASE SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE Cleveland, Ohio, March 24, 1919. Mr. Edward Detraz Bettens, 130 West 87th St., New York. My dear Classmate : I thank you cordially for the book Picture Buying which you were kind enough to send me. I rejoice to see that your earnestness and persist- ence is accomplishing your worthy purpose, and is provoking those interested in pictures to the consideration of a subject which only requires iteration to secure universal approval. Without such insistence as we owe to you, this busy age would overlook an evident truth, that painters rather than brokers deserve the rewards of ar- tistic skill. You are sowing good seed and the harvest will appear after patient waiting. With many thanks yours in the bonds of '73. Geo. H. Johnson.* *H.73; Professor in Case School of Applied Science. MRS. LOUISE E. BETTENS "Pippa passes" With the Compliments of Edward Detraz Bettens 130 West 87th Street new york, new york V. S. A. A Book entitled, Painter and Patron, suggests that Art Museums cultivate the habit of buying paintings direct from living painters. A Brochure, entitled, Art Museums and Artists, sug- gests that Artists and Art Museums unite in sending, three times a year, to Art Museums throughout the United States of America, travelling exhibitions of the art of living American painters. These suggestions are the result of the influence on Art, of the spirit of Mrs. Louise E. Bettens. This Brochure is For Private Distribution. Mrs. Louise E. Bettens On a farm, near Ghent, Kentucky, there was born, January 7, 1827, Louise E. Rochat, the daughter of Jacob and Nancy Rochat. A reader of books, this father usually had one with him, even when at his work. When this daughter was old enough, she became his companion, and not infrequently, he would unhitch the horses from the plow, or stop whatever work he was doing, and read aloud to his daughter. The Book of Job, the Psalms of David, the poetry of Moore, Burns and Byron quickened the mind of the girl, and a strong desire for knowl- edge and wisdom early came to this child, from such a father, but, at the same time, the neg- lected farm work soon ended in the loss of the farm. With his family, Jacob Rochat went to Vevay, Indiana, and there on January 31, 1843, Louise E. Rochat, not yet seventeen years of age, married Alexander Bettens. From that mar- riage were born, in Vevay, Frank, Rose, Edward Detraz and Thomas Simms Bettens, naming the children in the order of their births. Rose, born May 10, 1846, died June 28, 1849. The girl, Louise E. Rochat, and the matron, Mrs. Louise E. Bettens, loved nature and ani- l mals. In Vevay a crow became her friend and the two would go together into the woods, the crow flying off among the trees, but returning to its friend at her call. At the expiration of about ten years of mar- ried life, Alexander Bettens' health failed. He never regained it, dying August 11, 1870. That sickness, and financial embarrassment, brought Mrs. Bettens face to face with the prob- lem of supporting and educating her three young sons from her own earnings. Teaching for a few years, in and about Vevay, gave her but a small and precarious income, and writing for the newspapers, none at all. About 1857 she and her three sons were in Cincinnati, Ohio, and for about ten years she remained in that city, with them, supporting them with wages, never more than about twelve dollars per week. No friendly bird visited her in her Cincinnati room. No books, except school books, were pur- chased by her during those ten years, but her boys entered and passed through the District Schools into the Intermediate Schools, Frank being in Woodward High School when he died March 10, 1864. The poverty and grief of Frank's mother, the hopes, centered in him, shattered by his death, 2 at the age of twenty, did not interfere with the education of her two remaining sons. They passed through the Intermediate, and Wood- ward High Schools of Cincinnati, and entered Harvard College, and at the age of forty-six, their mother joined them in Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, in June, 1873. In Appleton Chapel, she heard Edward speak on Hildebrand, and saw him receive, on com- mencement day, in June, 1873, his degree of A. B. from Harvard College. She remained in Cambridge, and in June, 1874, Thomas gave her his Harvard College diploma of A. B. received by him that month, and the next year she received from him his Harvard College diploma of A. M. From June, 1873, until she died she and Edward had one home. Thomas was a teacher in Lake Forest Acad- emy, Lake Forest, Illinois, during 1875 and 1876. In 1877 he joined his mother and brother in New York City, where Edward was a lawyer, and there the three lived united in one home until Thomas died July 2, 1907. In the Harvard College Library (Gore Hall) Mr. John Fiske gave Mrs. Bettens an alcove and a special table, and talked with her about music and books. In Boston she attended the lectures of the Reverend James Freeman Clarke. She absorbed the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Congenial friends met in her room to read books, and to discuss art, music and literature, and with some especial friends, she attended, in Bos- ton, the concerts of the Symphony Society. So passed about three years of her life in Cam- bridge. The last thirty-eight years of her life she lived in New York City. She was in Bar Harbor, Maine, for the summer, for about thirty succes- sive years, up to and including the summer of 1911. She went to the Grand Opera in New York City and was a constant attendant at the Con- certs given in that city, by Theodore Thomas, Leopold Damrosch, the New York Philharmonic Society and the Oratorio Society. She did not neglect lighter music such as Gilbert and Sulli- van's. She heard Salvini, Booth, Irving, Mod- jeska and Sara Bernhardt; was delighted with the acting at Wallack's and Daly's Theatres and with that at Harrigan & Hart's and Tony Pastor's. At weekly reunions of a few friends in her home in New York City, music, art and litera- ture, were, as in Cambridge, the subject of con- versation. 4 Surrounded by her books as her friends, and by a few men and women, and by her sons, until Thomas died July 2, 1907, and then with Edward, she passed into the evening of life, losing her eyesight in 1909, her optic nerve dying. But even then she heard re-read the poetry of Byron, Browning, and other poets, and the novels of Dumas. She still went to the New York Philharmonic Concerts, and in the Sum- mers of 1909, 1910 and 1911, at Bar Harbor, she was an almost daily attendant at the Boston Symphony Concerts given at the Swimming Pool. This life continued until the evening of Novem- ber 10, 1911, when, for the last time, sitting in her library, she listened to one of the glowing descriptions in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That night a stroke of paralysis made her helpless, from the effects of which she never recovered, dying March 23, 1914. In the Treasure Room of the Widener Library, Harvard College, is a quarto volume of inlaid letters and illustrations, entitled Louise E. Bet- tens, bound in levant by Stikeman & Co., with no star on its back. These letters, written from her home, during this last sickness, to intimate friends, describe her life of about two years and four months in that sick room, and show that music, literature of the highest kind, and con- 5 versation, sustained her and enabled her to for- get her age, and physical infirmities. The Reading of the Medea of Euripides to her on November 25, 1912, described in that book, is but one of similar readings occurring almost daily during that sickness. In March, 1864, she lost Frank, her eldest child, and her grief and poverty were then extreme. But she rose superior to that grief and pov- erty, and in her last sickness she was superior to the infirmities of age and sickness, being sup- ported by the thoughts and visions spread before her by some of the world's great minds. We may be living today in a materialistic age, but idealism is not dead when a Louise E. Bettens lives. The picture of the Reading of the Medea of Euripides shows that the mind and soul of such an idealist conquers even the grim visage of approaching Death which ceases to have any terrors for her. Perhaps her life and aspira- tions may have a good influence upon some who see that picture and understand its meaning. Looking Back Since July, 1907, an effort has been made to create an enduring record of the life and character of Mrs. Louise E. Bettens. A brief statement of some of the means employed and of their money cost is as follows : I. Five family portraits have been painted by Walter cost Florian, three of which are in the Louise E. Bettens Room in the Phillips Brooks House, Harvard College. $3,260.00 II. Seven family miniatures have been painted by Alyn Williams, and all are in a case in the Treasure Room of the Harry Elkins Widener Library, Harvard College 4,742.00 III. The case above mentioned has been presented to the Harry Elkins Widener Library 165.00 IV. The Louise E. Bettens Room in the Phillips Brooks House, Harvard College, has been repaired and furnished 2,733.11 A case in that room, for books, has been presented to the Phillips Brooks House Association 75.00 V. The Louise E. Bettens Fund, Phillips Brooks House Association, has been created 2,500.00 VI. The Louise E. Bettens Fund, established by her children, in the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, Harvard College, has been created 20,000.00 Five paintings have been presented to the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum 8,300.00 VII. The Thomas Simms Bettens Fund, Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of Massachusetts, has been created 2,000.00 VIII. Five quarto volumes of inlaid letters and il- lustrations, bound in levant, with doublure and silk fly leaves, have been presented to Harvard College... 1,008.00 7 Four of these quartos are in the case in the Treas- cost ure Room above mentioned. The fifth quarto is in the case in the Louise E. Bettens Room in the Phillips Brooks House. IX. Books, octavo in size, one copy of each edition being in the case in the Treasure Room above men- tioned, have been printed and privately distributed as gifts. They are entitled as follows: (1) Thomas Simms Bettens, A Memorial, 325 copies; printed on hand made imperial Japan paper; photogravure illustrations ; cloth covers $637.57 (2) Thomas Simms Bettens, 250 copies; printed on hand made imperial Japan paper; photogravure illus- trations; bound in levant with doublure and silk fly leaves 4,434.55 (3) Mrs. Louise E. Bettens, 150 copies, 25 of which were extra illustrated ; printed on hand made imperial Japan paper; photographs as illustrations; bound in levant with doublure and silk fly leaves 2,078.90 (4) Louise E. Bettens, 250 copies ; printed on Strath- more paper de luxe, photographs as illustrations ; cloth covers 1,278.81 (5) The Family of Mrs. Louise E. Bettens, 350 copies ; printed on Strathmore paper de luxe ; photo- graphs as illustrations ; cloth covers 1,611.50 (6) Painter and Patron, 650 copies; printed on Strathmore paper de luxe; half tone illustrations; cloth covers 1,489.29 (7) Picture Buying, 650 copies; printed on Strath- more paper de luxe; half tone illustrations; cloth covers 1,341.47 (8) Picture Buying, 450 copies; printed on Dill & Collins superb dull coated paper; half tone illustra- tions ; paper covers 330.41 (9) Art Museums and Artists, 1,200 copies of a paper covered Brochure printed on Strathmore paper de luxe 102.50 Edward Detraz Bettens. New York, April 11, 1919. New York, May 13, 1919. Samuel B. Clarke, Esq., 53 West 85th Street, New York City. Dear Clarke: In my opinion the true memorial of my mother, Airs. Louise E. Bettens, is the sketch of her life and character, and that life and character are what is valuable to the world more than the gifts to Harvard College. The gift of a fine life and character to the world, such as that of Saint Francis of Assisi, is far more valuable to the world than the gifts of all of the temples, cathedrals, churches and church endowments that the world has ever received. For that reason I have placed books, contain- ing the sketch suggesting my mother's life and character in many different libraries, art museums and clubs, and among many different people. About 100 copies of the brochures "Art Museums and Artists" and "Mrs. Louise E. Bettens — Pippa passes" are now being bound together in volumes. 1 propose to place these little books in libraries throughout the world, and may, when list is com- pleted, give you a copy of it. Sincerely, Edward D. Bettens. 53 West 85th Street, New York City, May 14, 1919. Dear Edward: I should be very glad to have one of the little books mentioned in your letter to me dated May 13, 1919. What you say about the memorials of your mother in that letter is so convincing that I wish you had put the substance of it into this last book or one of the prior books. I shall follow the Cincinnati developments with much interest.* Sincerely yours, Samuel B. Clarke. Edward D. Bettens, Esq. *This refers to a possible memorial of Mrs. Louise E. Bettens in Woodward High School, Cincinnati, Ohio, as to which there has been some correspondence recently. PRINTERS THE EVENING POST JOB PRINTING OFFICE. INC. IS6 FULTON STREET NEW YORK. NEW YORK THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. JAn 25 1937 LD 21-100m-8,'34 YD 31648 394148 0+ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY