i|^ii»#( PEACE "If 'hen I am crucified upon his brow, Hill the strange god be at peace?" — From "Thb Belovid Stbanceb.' EVENAIr \ RECOED OF HIS UFE ANDAET lOStTHER WITH AN IS SAT ON STYLE BY IHE ARTIST ;VND INGlUElNGr^ lOI EEPRODUCnONS 9F fflS DRAWINGS, PAFNIINGS DECORATIVE WOE! PRIVATELY PRIMTED JBZZ COPYRIGHT 1922 BY ALICE DE LA MAR THE EDITION IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED COPIES OF WHICH THIS IS N o d^l'k V \ .""N* *;i'*iw«*~'^ "A* S !•; I. !•- r () K T K A ! 1, I 'J 2 O A T W I) R K |-)|i>tTn»,R *rH n^ mxrcia stein PAUL THEVENAZ THE ARTIST and HIS WORK PAUL THEVENAZ THE ARTIST AND HIS WORK "^^^^^O the inherently artistic, the decoration of ■ ^ j one's home is perhaps the most absorbing of ^^^ all thoughts. To make beautiful these homes was the work of Paul Thevenaz, mural decorator. Thevenaz was born at Geneva, Switzerland, on February 22, 1891. His childhood, spent in the clear heights of the Swiss mountains, his very soul was immersed in nature's beauty. The crystal lakes of Switzerland, the flaming sunrise, behind glistening, towering peaks, white rushing torrents, emerald fields, carpets of vivid flowers — all of these indescribable influences were burning into his sensitive appreciation. He no doubt [ '■ ] PAUL THEFENAZ inherited diverse artistic tendencies. These he sought to gratify by travel and arduous work. First he visited Italy and then proceeded to Paris to study and earn his living. The struggle there was a difficult one, a hand to mouth existence, but he said, "It did me good." It was there Thevenaz gained recognition as a portrait painter. His work was distinctive in two ways, there was much elimination of background, and more pure likeness put into the portrait. During these six years in Paris, the pre-war cubistic movement was strong enough to claim him, in so far that he became known as a Crystalist, a Prismatist and so on. He met Igor Stravinsky and Jean Cocteau, both of whom became strong influences in his artistic de- velopment. They endeavored to teach him that art is not a dramatic, hair-raising performance, but full of subtle humor, and very dependent upon hard work. In his long talks with Stravinsky, he became con- vinced of the necessity for the knowledge of Geometry, mathematics, and the absolute mastery of technique. A thorough grounding in Dalcroze's Rhythmics, at r PAUL THEVENAZ his school of Music in Switzerland had laid the founda- tion of a clear musico- rhythmical knowledge, which he carried through all his work. In collaboration with Stravinsky and Cocteau, Thevenaz was devoting his energies to the production of the ballet, which was destined never to be given, on account of the breaking out of the great war. During his training in the American Army his work of necessity stood still. Since the ending of the war, Thevenaz devoted himself entirely to his decorative work, and labored rapidly and untiringly. It became his creed! One finds in it all the glory of his early youthful surroundings, all the rhythm of his musical education, all the art of his creative genius. Thevenaz said: "No matter what the subject is, deco- ration is related to music and the higher mathematics, it is a part of a highly educated life, an education for the 'non-educated. ' It is the only honest and satis- factory form of art because it answers to a need and tries to fulfill someone's wishes. A painter of the Re- naissance would not have painted a Madonna unless the Church had expressed a desire to worship it." [ -3 ] PAUL THEFENAZ This desire to please — this willingness to adapt his work — did not frighten Thevenaz, a characteristic rare in the successful modern painter. Thevenaz felt that rather than lose by this, he gained. "The educated artist of today knows too much" he said, "and in too subjective a way." "By doing decorative work the artist is given limi- tations by his customer's tastes or wishes; he has to fit his personality into the new shape every time, thus en- larging his means of expression and discovering that variety is not the enemy of style, but quite the contrary, its friend. If one has personality it will come out, no matter what one does." The things that we live with are the things that we should grow to love, and so in these creations Paul Thevenaz found his work a serious attempt to please the one who is to dwell with them. To him it was more than just "painting a picture." He felt the desire of the home lover to fill his dwelling with beauty — an untiring, unfading beauty. He tried to meet that aspiration in whatsoever phase it might be expressed. He realized that he was not painting a canvas to be hung, first in [ ■+] PAUL THEVENAZ one room, then in another; but, with the architect, making his wall a veritable part of the house itself. There must be no monotony, no false note of color, no undue proportions — all must be harmonious. "I believe," said Mr. Thevenaz, "that decoration is the most abstract form of art, the most musical, the most creative. That it requires more intelligence, more tact, more knowledge than any specialization in a particular form of landscape, or still life, or portrait." In the exquisite harmony of colors, the use of brilliant tones, the laying on of pure paints, the vivid daring combinations, one feels the intense joy of the painter. In the summer home of Mrs. Frederick Havemeyer on Long Island, in a spacious marble dining room, Mrs. Havemeyer requested Thevenaz to paint a nineteen-foot frieze on white oil-cloth. "It was like ice-skating with red hot skates," said Mr. Thevenaz. In soft pastel tones, the tall buildings and broken skyline of Manhattan appear. If one has crossed the ferries at sunset, caught the red glow reflected upon gold towers and myriad window panes, he has also seen the ugly docks and piers transformed [ '5 1 PAUL THEFENAZ into soft blending spots of color between the dark water and the jagged background of skyscrapers, and the liners and little craft sailing up and down. With infinite patience Mr. Thevenaz persuaded his colors to remain fixed on the glazed white surface, and the result is unique and altogether stately and pleasing. Another masterpiece is the private swimming pool in Mrs. George Blumenthal's New York home. The bare walls surrounding the pool have been transformed into a gorgeous, poetic sea garden. Against an aqua-marine background of undersea tone, float myriad-colored sea anemones, glittering shoals of deep-sea fish, tall irridescent water flowers, great jewelled shells and dreaming mermaids with long tresses of seaweed texture. Corals, greens, pinks and blues, and rythm in every detail! Here a phantom ship appears wrecked upon rocky depths, in a vivid mass of star fish. A great translucent octopus coils and uncoils below a little sea child clinging to an overhanging rock and gleefully deriding all danger. In this swimming pool, as in much of his work, Mr. Thevenaz revelled in the exotic, the foreign, the imagin- [ -6 ] PAUL THEVENAZ ative! .\% Chippendale, in his master conceptions, dared to use the best of all countries and periods, so this modern painter believed in a mixture of decoration, not as an aim, but as a means to achieve new effects. By employing so far as expedient, all experiences of the past, of the foreign, anachronisms, knowledge of whatsoever known of nature; he infused into one painting all that the varied musical instruments could bring into a symphony. Thus he collaborated with the great Tiepolo of centuries ago, in painting a ceiling for the open Casino on Mr. James Deering's estate in Miami. The walls and gallery, original and restored, belong to the great master, and Thevenaz has completed the ceilings with the singing ladies and gay cavaliers of Eighteenth Century Italian charm. Very modern, and thoroughly expressive of subtle humor is his decoration of a private moving picture ball- room on Long Island. About the oblong room, between delicate pink columns, appear decorated panels done alternately in charcoal and colors. Charlie Chaplin, characteristic and familiar, accompanied by the well I -7 1 PAUL THEFENAZ known Edna Purviance, Coney Island and the cop; Theda Bara reclines upon a couch surrounded by suicide lovers. In the New York harbor, the most daring of aviators hangs by a rope ladder rescuing the lovely Pearl White, while William S. Hart, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks each appear with unmistakable personality. The alternate colored panels are fanciful and vivid in coloring. The everloved Punch and Judy — "The Final Kiss" — in charming Tyrolean costumes, and others of equal charm. To children Paul Thevenaz is an unexpected de- light. In a most original nursery, designed by Mrs. Ruby Ross Goodnow, Thevenaz has enchantingly covered the walls with his own ideas of childhood pictures. A winsome pink lady in her garden carries a jade green parasol and wanders among her brilliant posies. A sturdy farmer grows his gorgeous pumpkins and carrots, a valiant hunter in sola toupee, an African jungle; lions, elephants, automobiles, ships of adventure, spouting whales, locomotives and Esquimaux, each is given its place. Above them floats a phantom balloon [ ,8] PAUL THEFENAZ with "Vive la France!" to arouse their curiosity. What child could be anything but happy with such com- panions. Whether it be a long drab hallway transformed in- to a gallery of panels — each a charming picture — one poetic and romantic as a Fragonard, or a child's nurs- ery — its walls metamorphosed into a fairyland or Mother Gooseland— it makes no difference; either one is equally fascinating. !•■ A U N E V A R I T Y AN ESSAY BY PAUL THEVENAZ f>i ' 1)1 i>iiiitiiiij r J">'ilfJ) '' iiui * i^yiT fiijni" J • I I n,t ^ Igor Stravinsky once told me, "Ce que le public te reproche, d'eveloppele, c'est toi." ^Y struggling against one's fault one does not reach anywhere. It is smothering it and giv- ing it more power Hke putting a cover on a boihng pot. Open it. Let the steam come out and use this power by adjustment. But, although limitation is style, it would be better to reach style and keep it through variety of expressions and means. Most artists reach success through doing the same thing over and over again. They develop a "personality" by exaggerating some tricky way of doing one thing and usually overdoing it. They would think I '' 1 PAUL THEVENAZ themselves dishonored to sign their name on a thing different from the easy routine of their own. They hold to their "personality" as they would walk on very thin ice not daring to do anything that would break it and let the under-water play freely. This is why there are on exhibition a display of more or less skillful techniques. Without object they belittle the sub- ject of their pictures; but they would not change it for anything, because their means do not allow them to do so. It seems to me that if one has a real individuality it will come out anyway, more or less successfully, but it would improve greatly through the greatest variety of mediums and subjects possible. Most of the artists are too much specialists. They go on a track like a railroad train. They are very much troubled if a wheel slips out, while they ought to be glad. Life is nothing but a field of experiences and the more we get the better. None of the pre-Renaissance artists ever thought of wearing the proud corslet of a strong origi- nality. They tried very hard, as a matter of fact, to paint as well as they could and satisfy Mr. Medici, who had ordered a Madonna for his family's chapel. This did [ " J PAUL T H E V E N A Z not prevent them from doing great things that have a meaning and can stand criticism on any point of view, even Hterary and sentimental. When I see a man painting very successfully a pear on a plate, I admire his technique. His means of expression, his marvelous way of getting out of a plain subject such a refined harmony of rhythm, poetry and geometry. But the aim of art, whatever one thinks it might be, is certainly not that. If the artist is limited to that sort of thing he will go on painting pears on plates all his life and make a brilliant career of it. But is this the way a human life ought to be spent? If he deliberately limits himself to such works of art, then he is a lazy dilettante and no more worthy of consideration than a singer who would limit himself to singing notes and scales. Perfection has been reached on that line by Chardin, but his still life paintings are not his only title to fame — and this very perfection ought to have done the job for his successors. One does not climb about a moun- tain where a funiculaire can take you unless one wants to do it for the personal fun or the physical training. [ ^3 ] PAUL THEVENJZ The artist today has the priceless advantage of all the experiences of the past Masters. He should have a perfect knowledge of them and of all that which has been learned through the centuries. He should use freely and tactfully the various lessons of the past, and by placing his aim further and higher, try to express new ideas through the infinite variety of means he should possess instead of merely developing petty per- sonal tricks and repeating the same thing over and over again. The "heirlooms of humanity," museums, those moseleums of art, would not be so absolutely dead if people could realize that the past is not the past any more. If artists would dare to be romantic with Dela- croix, when they have something romantic to do, classic when need be, and primitive when they want to! Why should not an artist, free of prejudice and self-admira- tion, use in the same composition, Tiepolo's fantasy, Watteau's distinction, and Monet's discoveries? He would not lose a particle of his own personality, but he would have to use something new in art, tact. He would not have to copy, but simply, even as the latest discoveries in electricity are applied to every use, he [ ^4] PAUL THEVENAZ would use Tiepolo's, Watteau's and Monet's experi- ences, thus doing them honor, bringing them back to Hfe, and gloriously giving their labor new fruits. The past would not be so far away and the present would be richer. Artists would then need intelligence and absolute and perfect sense of rhythm, poise and tact. They would find out that they lacked these qualities and they would start out to develop them. It would be a new educa- tion for them and for the public. It would link together the different flowers of our civilization now scattered and dry throughout the whole world and throughout time. Anachronism and exotism ought to be conquered; then there would be no more anachronisms and exotisms, be- cause by destroying time and space in reality? we should arrive at such a practical and simple way of dealing with all the works of the dead and the foreign that there would not be any more uneasiness or self-consciousness; thus no artist with a real personality would be deprived of it, and local color or racial characteristics would not suffer. We need perfect assimilation through rhythmic- [ ^5 ] PAUL THEVENAZ al education, serious technical training and absolute mental clarity. Quality cannot be annihilated. It will come out. It is the sparkle of divinity that will give life to any work. Should it not be used to give life to better things in- stead of being wasted so prodigally as it is now.'^ Through mastering all style and manners, the artist of today knows too much to forget, and not enough to generalize, too much to be unconscious, and not enough to be unconscious again. It is foolish for him to pre- tend not to know anything, and escape all influence to create something new. He must acquire more knowl- edge in order to grasp the ensemble of the world's knowledge, and extract from it the leading principle of beauty. PORTRAITS SELF PORTRAIT, I '; I 4 1' I i: K U K I) i; I. A N U X msr vt'.'tWvc^v*^ I '^^(5~ V O K 1 K A I I (,) !■ A N i; c; R O 1 V \ V 8 \ \ •/ MISS F A N 1 A MARINO K F \coc- MISS V. I. S I !• 1) !•: VV () 1. F E ■\ 9 \ 9 \ % o u a « s o o c '*»«s r () R r R A I T M A 1) A M I- n K n A I 1. I. I T s 1' () K 1 K A I T \ I V \ \ y" \ ,// ,/■ 4 i ,y M A I) A M K T A V V V. wi^ -I J^-^ ' ! \ ra. MRS. I () II N A L D E N C A R I' K N T 1. R E S T R 1- 1. I. 1 T A MRS. (. i; o K (I i: 11 1. I' M !■; N T II \ I. ^ f t ''^■"l \/t > U/t >.«•-, JL, M K. S . R I' i: V H O S S t. II «' II N <> ^^ \^SSXPi*ft7f*^ MISS A I. 1 C !■: 1> i: I. A M A R !l M I S S s K V A N <; I I. 1 N I'. 1 o 11 N S () N \ '/ W/ R (1 li |- U T () . II A N 1> I. V. Y s E I. r r o u T p. A IT, 1 i; : I 1) I A N !■; C II A S ,S 1-; K i: s s r. DRAWINGS and PAINTINGS T 11 IC S 11 1 1' I! 1 K I) I. S S L E l> 1< I N T E M r S N Y M 1' 11 AND 1- A U N li L E R E V E !•■ A U N li LA DA N S K R II Y T II M I) A N c i; K ?0^^ 'VVj.vt'i^^A T II 1 V N C <) N c i: K N 1 n TVRni. FAN FANTASY T II r FIN A I. KISS THE PURITAN 1 II I I) I. 11 I 1 A N T E L F. I A U I) I N 1) A M O U R ST. G E O R c; E AND T II E I) R A C; () N I I '• 1 A IT UN K K () I S U N K 1> R I N C V. S S E L K R ft V !• I. i: \ O Y A G K U R TOUTE LA NUIT JAl LUlTt AVEC L AMOUR L A T A M !■ !•: T E ISRAFEL (unfinished SKETCH) A N G i; I. ( U N 1 I N I S H I- D S K I- T C 11 ) E Q U E S T RIENNF (unfinished sketch) L E C 1 R Q V r. I, E D A I, A 1! i: I. 1. !•; C K E I) I. 1- T II i: C 1. A S S K I. E P 11 A N T N A S T n K T I II M S SNAP S H O T FLORIDA FLORIDA JUNGLE FLORIDA SKETCH F I. n R I II \ I U N C I. F. I I. I. I' S T R A T I () N r () R A SONG R O () K >«> « 3^5 o , ^ I L I, U S I" R A r 1 () N K O R A S O N Ci B O U K THE YOUNG C II K I ,S T IN 1 H li TEMPLE COSTUME SKETCHES , c 1 1! A I- ' '■ •'" GUAR 1) DOMINO ,^ ''VtNa vl^-o<7. v S A I I' M !■; V •^ ? ^ ^h^ <^^ V-€'v.^«^' COSTUMU SKETCH MURAL DECORATIONS —T Z/ .^V^ ..'^ *' /- n E S I f; N FOR A C U R T A I N M U R A I, DECORATION FOR A T H F A T R F ORIENTAL DANCE I' I 1 K R O T , C () I. I! M I! I N I- A N |i 11 \ R I 1 y H I N M II R A I. 1) i; f <) R A T 1 () N I O R A I II I A 1 R P. S K E T C n F OR A THEATRE FOUNTAIN STTPS — SKKKII lOK A .SCRKl-.N MURAl. PFCORATION FOR THK SVVIMMINC POOL OF MRS. (iKOROE BIAJMKNTHAI. 1) i; c () K A I I () N {; r o () I K I- () R r II i: M r R A I S \V I M M I MURAL DliCORATION IN THIi SWIMMING TOOL OF MRS. GHORGli BLUMENTHAL THK DISIMBARKATION — ML RAL DiaoRATION ^.s». MURAL D 1-: C O R A 1' I O N CHARLIE f H A P L I N I ,r^ ^r ■ r ^,%: '\^^l/^^- ^"^^^f * ''^.■\. ,.■ -^ > 4^ @^ -*>^ ^ ^ V ^ —^^»tn^^ ^v > /T- ^ J M L I< A I. 1) I. L H K A I 1 () N - I 11 U U A li A U A k '-^, L- — / -vS. "^r '■"^•^y J ^ ^^ v^ MURAL UECORATUIN — WILLIAM S. HART ^^^. — ^ "^ ^^-*.>,^^ > >^ MUKAI, mXORATlON UOLUil.AS lAIRlSANKS iM U R A 1, I) i: C (I R A 1 I O N 1 UK A 1' I. A V K O O M M II R A I, I) 1- ( () It A T I I) N I () K A P I A \ K D I) M MliRAI. Dl.CORATlUN lOR A I'l.AY K()(iM MURAL Di;C()RA'I ION 1 OR A PI, AY ROOM M 1' R A I, n r C O R A T I (1 N FOR A I' I. A V R (1 n M MURAL D t C O R A T I O N — 1' L A 'S ROOM TROPICAL BIRDS — SKETCH FOR A SCREEN ORPHEUS '^'W M 11 K A I. n !■; C O R A T I O N U R A I, I) K C <) R A T 1 O N BLIND man's buff ( M U R A L ) MIRROR DECORAT riON KOR THK ARTS CiUlLI) EXHIBITION Z-^t;^ DESIGN FOR A MIRROR DESIGN I- O R A M I R R () R ( I) !■; l' A I L ) A I- R E S LA 1> L U I K L E BEAU TEMPS U N 1- I N 1 S 11 K D s K i; r c 11 1 o K A (-■ i; 1 1. 1 N u c 11 1-; R <-: u (P