‘Art is for all of us, not merely a luxury, but a very precious necessity.’
Marie Sterner, Town and Country, 10 November 1918
One of the current projects I am working on is a study of America's first women art dealers, promoting contemporary and modern art between 1900 and 1950.
I have previously written blog posts on this topic on my Impresario Website, and in 2022 I spent six months in Washington D.C. and NYC doing archival research with a Fulbright scholarship at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.
One of the important characters in this study is Marie Sterner, whose career I give the briefest summary of below. If you have an interest in Sterner, or knowledge of any of the people in her orbit or family tree (see below), please get in touch.
Introducing Marie Sterner
I have been researching what I call ‘the first generation’ of women art dealers in the United States since 2017. I have already completed a Masters at the University of Buckingham on San Francisco art dealer Beatrice Judd Ryan (c. 1880–1966), and I am currently completing a PhD (or NEXT BOOK!) on Brooklyn-born Marie Sterner (née Walther) (1880–1953) who had a varied and important career promoting modern American art in New York from 1915 to 1950. In this effort she joined many other notable women in the art market including Agnes Ernst Meyer (1887–1970) (291, Modern Gallery), Katherine S. Dreier (1877–1952) (Société Anonyme), Edith Gregor Halpert (1900–1970) (Downtown Gallery) and Antoinette Kraushaar (1902–1992) (Kraushaar Galleries).
Sterner was unique because between 1915 and 1921 she held an influential position as Director of Contemporary Exhibitions at Knoedler & Co., Inc., in their New York branch. This made her one of the first—if not the first—woman to hold significant power in a global art business. ‘The presence of a woman in the Knoedler Galleries’, the November 1915 issue of American Art News writes, ‘in a professional capacity is such a novelty as to attract the attention of many visitors.’ Adding, ‘Knoedler’s new departure has greatly heartened the Suffragists and encouraged them in their new and fresh campaign.’
Between 1915 and 1921, Sterner—also a mother of two—directed at least 60 exhibitions at Knoedler, travelling to Paris in the summer months to talent-spot artists. In this role she helped establish and develop the careers of George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Elie Nadelman, Florine Stettheimer, Mark Tobey, Isamu Noguchi, and artists of The Eight, The Ten, and the Ashcan School: realist, impressionist-influenced painters of the urban metropolis.
Harold and Marie Sterner, ca. 1899.
Harold Sterner papers, 1929-1978.
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sterner as a Business Woman
Following on from Knoedler, Sterner was the director of Marie Sterner Galleries (1921-1942), The International Gallery (1932-1932), and [Junior] Art Patrons of America (1921–1928). Working until 1950, she also directed (or 'curated' to use the current term) exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, Durand-Ruel Galleries, French & Co., James O’ Toole Galleries, and facilitated touring exhibitions of artists she represented in Toronto, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Buffalo N.Y., Paris and London.
Sterner sold art to the foremost collectors of the era (e.g. Stephen Clarke, Chester Dale, Henry Clay Frick, Albert Barnes, Adolph Lewisohn, Sam Lewisohn, Duncan Phillips, and Claribel and Etta Cone) and the foremost museums (e.g. MFA Boston, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum etc.). At an international level, she was responsible for one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary American Art shown in Europe, at the 1924 Paris Exhibition of American Art.
Rockwell Kent, Poster for Exhibition of American Art. Private Collection.
I’ve included below some of the artists Sterner programmed in her roles at Knoedler, Marie Sterner Gallery, International Gallery and [Junior] Art Patrons of America. One of the fervent debates in American culture in the time period was the definition of American art; what was American art and how was it different to European modernism, both in terms of subject and style? This debate also included the topic of private and state-sponsored support for the artist, whether through patronage or cultivating an art market so the artist could make a living from sales. In many ways the identity of the American artist went hand-in-hand with the evolving identity and role of women in the time period, as they (in particular white women and women born of some means) secured more rights to autonomy in employment, education, health care, romantic relationships, self-expression, fashion, politics, and public roles. ‘Women are supposed to be yielding and accommodating and I’m not,’ Sterner informed The New York Evening Post in 1929, indicating her early feminist approach to business and art.
With Alfred Stieglitz’s 291, and the Macbeth Gallery and Daniel Gallery, Sterner was dedicated to providing opportunities for American artists. That said, she also continued to represent European, Russian and Eastern European artists—and German and Jewish artists—at a time when post-WWI isolationism took hold in the US and European and German art came under attack. Her dedication to German artists (herself of German descent) is particularly notable, as was her support of the émigré artists Rudolf Jacobi and Annot Jacobi, who also founded their own school and gallery in New York in the 1930s.
Exhibition photograph: "Fifteen Heads by Isamu Noguchi,"
Marie Sterner Gallery, New York (February 1 - February 14, 1930)
Photograph: Peter A. Juley & Son
Despite, what I am trying to communicate are, her considerable successes, Sterner remains barely a footnote across the fields of the art market, art history, museum studies, or women’s studies. I hope to change all of that with my research.
Hiding in Plain Sight
Like many of her aforementioned peers, Sterner is often hiding in plain sight in museum collections today. Her portraits (especially by her first husband Albert Sterner, and second husband, Edward Bernard Lintott) exist in many collections; and she was something of a Carrie Bradshaw in her day. A news profile of Sterner, early in her career, cited shoes (38 pairs) as her ‘weakness’. But her taste for collecting went beyond foot ware (though, as a side note, in 1949 she donated a Premet Evening Coat to the MET). Perhaps inspired by great women collectors (e.g. Isabella Stewart Gardner, Jane Stanford, Louisine Havemeyer and Gertrude Stein) Sterner also amassed an impressive collection of art, including works by Claude Monet, Marcel Duchamp, Marie Laurencin, Mary Cassatt and her favourites: George Bellows, Arthur B. Davies and Rockwell Kent.
A detail from Florine Stettheimer's The Cathedrals of Art (1942)
which features Marie Sterner in a blue dress (right),
holding a portrait bust. Metropolitan Museum of Art NY.
It could be suggested that one of Sterner’s greatest legacies was her support for younger women art dealers, including Helen Hackett, Katharine Kuh, Marie Harriman, Alice Roullier and Edith Gregor Halpert. Additionally, many artists who Sterner took an early interest in went on to be supported by the ‘second generation’ of women art dealers who followed in Sterner’s footsteps. Isamu Noguchi was affiliated with Marie Harriman, Katharine Kuh and Eleanor Ward, and Carl Spinchorn exhibited with Mary Quinn Sullivan (co-founder of MoMA), Bertha Schaefer and Georgette Passendoit. The list, and my words, could run on.
I’m excited to make this research public and to be deep in the narrative of Sterner and this ‘first generation’ of women art dealers, and look forward to sharing more soon.
The Sterner Family
Despite some online research I have not been able to identify any ‘leads’ into remaining members of the Sterner family. Marie Sterner was married to the artist Albert Sterner from 1894 to 1922, and to the artist Edward Barnard Lintott from 1932 until his death in 1951. Her daughter was Olivia Sterner (later Chadbourne) (1907–1987) and her son was Harold Sterner (1895–1976), the architect and artist. Harold Sterner was first married to Leonie Clare Knoedler (1897-1985) from 1923 to xxxx, and later to Paula Truman, from 1936 to 1976. His son with Leonie Knoedler, Michael Sterner (1928–2023) was a diplomat and the U.S. Ambassador to the U.A.E. from 1974–1976. He was survived by a daughter, and Son, Lucian Sterner, who in turn had two children: William and Charlotte.
It would be wonderful to reach out to surviving members of the Sterner family, so they are aware my research into their Great (or Great Great) Grandmother is taking place; in the event they have any family archives or stories to share.
Key locations for Marie Sterner include Nutley (NJ), Newport (RI), New York City, and for her descendants include NYC, Washington D.C., Princeton (NJ) and Jamesburg (NJ). Perhaps you know a Sterner?
Artists in Marie Sterner’s Personal Collection
Marie Laurencin, Henri Matisse, Isamu Noguchi, Georges Seurat, Amedeo Modigliani, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Metzinger, Auguste Rodin, André Derain, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Henri, Claude Monet, Eugene Delacroix, Chaim Gross, Paul Signac, Marc Chagall, Mary Cassatt, George Bellows, Odilon Redon, Marc Chagall, Yasho Kuniyoshi.
Tête de Jeune Fille (1913–14) by Jean Metzinger,
purchased by Sterner at the 1926 John Quinn Memorial Sale in New York.
Some Works Sold by Sterner
Hermes and the Infant Dionysus, 1900–1915. Arthur B. Davies.
The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Palazzo da Mula, Venice (1908) by Claude Monet.
National Gallery of Art. Chester Dale Collection.
Baigneuse accroupie (1924, cast 1938) by 'Chana Orloff
Marie Sterner, Selected Exhibitions
16–24 October 1916
Paintings of Miss Florine Stettheimer
Knoedler & Co., Inc. (Direction of Marie Sterner)
29 January–10 February 1917
Exhibition of Forty Wash Drawings by Kahlil Gibran
Knoedler & Co., Inc. (Direction of Marie Sterner)
17–24 November 1917
Portraits by Mark Tobey
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc. (Direction of Marie Sterner)
November 1917
Paintings by Edward [Éduard] Steichen
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc. (Direction of Marie Sterner)
April 1919
Lithographs by James McNeill Whistler
Knoedler & Co., Inc. (Direction of Marie Sterner)
27 October–8 November 1919
Sculpture and Drawings by Elie Nadelman
Knoedler & Co. Inc, Lower Gallery (Direction of Marie Sterner)
Elie Nadelman Exhibition Leaflet, 1919, Clayton-Liberatore Gallery Records, 1889-1980, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
16 March–ND 1920
The Alaska Paintings of Rockwell Kent
Knoedler & Co., Inc. (Direction of Marie Sterner)
7–21 May 1921
First Retrospective Exhibition of American Art 1689-1921
Junior Art Patrons of America, Fine Arts Building, 215 West Fifty-seventh Street
(Direction of Marie Sterner)
Including Gifford Beal, Cecilia Beaux, Marion Becket, George Bellows, Nanette Calder, Sterling Calder, Mary Cassatt, John Singleton Copley, Hunt Diederich, Charles Demuth, Thomas Eakins, Frederick Frieseke, William Glackens, Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Malvina Hoffman, Winslow Homer, William Morris Hunt, Rockwell Kent, George Inness, Leon Kroll, Gaston Lachaise, Ernest Lawson, John Marin, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Rembrandt Peale, Charles Willson Peale, Maurice Prendergast, Man Ray, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Singer Sargent, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Albert Sterner, Florine Stettheimer, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Mark Tobey, James McNeill Whistler, William Zorach, Marguerite Zorach.
9 June–5 July 1924
Exhibition of American Art
Chambre Syndicale des Beaux-Arts, Paris (Direction of Marie Sterner for Art Patrons of America)
Including Gifford Beal, George Bellows, George Biddle, Charles Burchfield, Arthur B. Davies, Stuart Davis, Guy Pène du Bois, William Glackens, Samuel Halpert, George “Pop” Hart, Rockwell Kent, Leon Kroll, Walt Kuhn, Yasou Kunyoshi, George Luks, Paul Manship, Alfred Maurer, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Man Ray, Henrietta Shore, Marguerite Pumpelly Smyth, Eugene Speicher, Carl Sprinchorn, Albert Sterner, Edith Blight Thompson, Marguerite Zorach, William Zorach.
ND November–2 December, 1927
Plastic Paintings, a New Medium by Hilla Rebay
Marie Sterner Galleries
10–22 October, 1928
Ink and Pencil Drawings from a series "Mexico in Revolution" by José Clemente Orozco
[Transferred from Alma Reed’s Delphic Studios]
Marie Sterner Galleries
1–14 February, 1930
Fifteen Heads by Isamu Noguchi
Marie Sterner Galleries.
Travels:
27 February–15 March, Harvard Society for Contemporary Art (Dir. Lincoln Kirstein)
26 March–9 April, The Arts Club of Chicago (Dir. Alice Roullier)
2–14 February, 1930
George Bellows
Durand-Ruel Galleries (Director, Marie Sterner)
George Bellows, Exhibition Leaflet 1930, Clayton-Liberatore Gallery Records, 1889-1980, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
16 April–6 May, 1932
Loan Exhibition of Sculpture by Eli Nadleman: Private Collection of Helena Rubenstein
International Gallery (Director, Marie Sterner)
13–25 January, 1936
Drawings by Vincente Minnelli
Marie Sterner Galleries
15–31 January, 1940
Watercolors by Jacob Epstein
Marie Sterner Galleries
February, 1948
Max Liebermann
French & Co., Inc., NY (Arranged by Marie Sterner)
Marie Sterner Family Tree, by Henry Martin
Photographic Portrait of Marie Sterner (detail)1923 (recto) Clayton-Liberatore Gallery Records, 1889-1980, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Photographic Portrait of Marie Sterner (detail)1923 (verso) Clayton-Liberatore Gallery Records, 1889-1980, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Handwritten by Sterner: "Taken at the time I opened my own gallery 22 w 49th Street 1921, Signed In - Marie Sterner 1923