Turning her gaze to Fifth Avenue, Stettheimer treats the spectacles of high society and consumerism with affectionate humor. A newly wedded couple emerges from a church, ready to begin a life of excess and acquisition. Floating above them are the names of New York’s most exclusive shops and food establishments; "Tiffany’s" is spelled out in jeweled letters, and "Altman’s" is shaped from fine home furnishings. At right, Stettheimer and her sisters exit a limousine near Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s gilded Sherman Monument. Like the other three paintings in the series (see MMA 53.24.1, 53.24.2, and 53.24.3), a gilded frame of the artist’s design surrounds the canvas.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue
Artist:Florine Stettheimer (American, Rochester, New York 1871–1944 New York, New York)
Date:1931
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:60 × 50 in. (152.4 × 127 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Ettie Stettheimer, 1953
Accession Number:53.24.4
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): N.Y.-31- FLORINE STETTHEIMER
the artist, New York (1931–d. 1944); her sister, Ettie Stettheimer, New York (1944–53; her gift to MMA)
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting," November 22, 1932–January 5, 1933, no. 110 (as "Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue").
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Florine Stettheimer," October 1–November 17, 1946, unnumbered cat. (p. 49; as "Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue," lent by Miss Ettie Stettheimer, New York).
Arts Club of Chicago. "Exhibition of Paintings by Florine Stettheimer," January 3–25, 1947, no. 13 (as "Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue," lent by Miss Ettie Stettheimer, New York).
Hartford, Conn. Wadsworth Atheneum. "Florine Stettheimer," January 9–February 1, 1948, no catalogue.
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Vassar College Art Gallery. "Florine Stettheimer," January 1949, no catalogue.
Northampton, Mass. Smith College Museum of Art. "Paintings by Florine Stettheimer," March 3–21, 1952, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The 10s, the 20s, the 30s: Inventive Clothes, 1909–1939," December 13, 1973–September 3, 1974, not in catalogue.
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. "Peinture américaine, 1920–1940 (Amerikaanse schilderkunst, 1920–1940)," November 10–December 30, 1979, no. 20.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Painting: 1905–1950," April 19–October 7, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica," July 13–November 5, 1995, unnumbered cat. (p. 29; as "Cathedrals of Fifth Avenue").
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900–2000. Part 1: 1900–1950," April 23–August 22, 1999, unnumbered cat. (p. 137).
Alfred Stieglitz. Letter to Georgia O'Keeffe. November 21, 1932 [published in Ref. Greenough 2011, p. 664], describes seeing this picture at the opening night of Exh. New York 1932–33, calling it "one of the few real things there".
Ralph Flint. "Whitney Museum Opens Its First Biennial Show." Art News 31 (November 26, 1932), p. 4.
Henry McBride. "Great Variety Marks the Invitation Exhibition at the Whitney Museum: $20,000 Purchase Fund Leads to Gay & Vivacious Display." New York Sun (November 26, 1932), p. 10.
Henry McBride. "Florine Stettheimer: A Reminiscence." View 5 (October 1945), p. 15.
Henry McBride. Florine Stettheimer. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1946, pp. [7], 55, ill. p. 49 (color).
Edward Alden Jewell. "Stettheimer Art in Memorial Show." New York Times (October 2, 1946), p. 27.
Betty Burroughs. "Of Art and Artists: Florine Stettheimer. By Henry McBride." New York Times (April 20, 1947), p. BR16.
Esther I. Seaver. "Florine Stettheimer and the Gay Twenties." Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin (January 1948), p. 1.
Parker Tyler. Florine Stettheimer: A Life in Art. New York, 1963, pp. 46, 52, 59, 68, 78, 109, 122, 138, 152, 162, 164, 181, 183, ill. p. 122 (color).
Anthony Bower. "Florine Stettheimer." Art in America 52, no. 2 (April 1964), p. 90, ill. p. 89 (color).
Barbara Zucker. "An 'Autobiography of Visual Poems'." Art News 76 (February 1977), p. 71.
Linda Nochlin. "Florine Stettheimer: Rococo Subversive." Art in America 68 (September 1980), pp. 73, 75, 81, fig. 22 (color), dates it about 1931.
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett. POPism: The Warhol '60s. New York, 1980, p. 16.
Elisabeth Sussman. Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants, 1910 to 1942. Exh. cat., Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. [Boston], 1980, unpaginated.
Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein. American Women Artists from Early Indian Times to the Present. Boston, 1982, pp. 194, 196, fig. 5-18.
Thomas Bender. New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City, from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time. New York, 1987, pp. 327–38.
Mark Lancaster. "Andy Warhol Remembered." Burlington Magazine 131 (March 1989), p. 200.
Donald Goddard. American Painting. New York, 1990, p. 178.
Eleanor Heartney. "Looking at Art. Florine Stettheimer: Saints, Esthetes, and Hustlers." Art News 90 (May 1991), p. 95.
Jerry Saltz. "Notes on a Painting. Twilight of the Gods: Florine Stettheimer's 'Cathedrals of Art,' 1942." Arts Magazine 66 (March 1992), p. 22.
Barbara Bloemink. Friends and Family: Portraiture in the World of Florine Stettheimer. Exh. cat., Katonah Museum of Art. Katonah, N. Y., 1993, pp. 16–17.
C. N. "Art Between the Wars. 'Friends and Family: Portraiture in the World of Florine Stettheimer'." Women Artists News Book Review 19 (Spring 1994), p. 35.
Elisabeth Sussman inFlorine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1995, pp. 50, 52, 62, 127, 140, ill. p. 29 (color).
Barbara Bloemink inFlorine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1995, pp. 89, 95 n. 43.
Linda Nochlin inFlorine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1995, pp. 107–8, 113–14.
Roberta Smith. "Extreme Artifice Directly From Life (in New York Between the Wars)." New York Times (July 21, 1995), p. C18.
Barbara Bloemink. The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer. New Haven, 1995, pp. 168, 178, 180, 182–84, 186, 214, 218, 221, 277 n. 29, p. 279 n. 44, fig. 103 (color).
Roger Kimball. "Florine Stettheimer at the Whitney." Modern Painters 8 (Autumn 1995), p. 98.
Jed Perl. "Jazz Age Pastoral." New Republic 213 (October 2, 1995), p. 42.
Mario Naves. "Art: 'Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica'." New Criterion 14 (September 1995), pp. 48, 50–51.
Hilton Kramer. "Critic's Notebook: Stettheimer Primer." Art & Antiques 18 (September 1995), p. 86.
Stephen May. "Florine Stettheimer: Whitney Museum of American Art." Art News 94 (November 1995), p. 244.
John Loughery. "American Treasures: Whistler, Stettheimer, Scully." Hudson Review 48 (Winter 1996), p. 652.
Ann Lee Morgan. "Florine Stettheimer." Art Journal 55 (Summer 1996), p. 93.
Trevor Winkfield. "Very Rich Hours." Art in America 84 (January 1996), p. 66.
Barbara Haskell. The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900–1950. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1999, p. 137.
Nancy Mowll Mathews. "Review: 'The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer'; 'Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan fantastica'." Woman's Art Journal 20 (Spring/Summer 1999), p. 56.
David Jacobson. "Review of Books: Operatic Modernism." Art in America 87 (September 1999), p. 37.
Cécile Whiting. "Decorating with Stettheimer and the Boys." American Art 14 (Spring 2000), pp. 40–41, 43, 49 n. 21.
Pamela Wye. "Florine Stettheimer: Eccentric Power, Invisible Tradition." M / E / A / N / I / N / G: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism. Ed. Susan Bee and Mira Schor. Durham, N.C., 2000, p. 382.
Helen Langa. "Review. Recent Feminist Art History: An American Sampler." Feminist Studies 30 (Fall 2004), p. 716.
Klaus-Dieter Gross. "Four Saints in Three Arts: V. Thomson's, G. Stein's, and F. Stettheimer's Portraits of Each Other." AAA: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 29, no. 2 (2004), p. 212 n. 14.
Betsy Fahlman. "The Great Draper Woman: Muriel Draper and the Art of the Salon." Woman's Art Journal 26 (Fall/Winter 2005), p. 35.
Betsy Fahlman. Chimneys and Towers: Charles Demuth's Late Paintings of Lancaster. Exh. cat., Amon Carter Museum. Fort Worth, 2007, pp. 57, 196, fig. 24 (color).
Rebecca Hart. "Love Flight of a Pink Candy Heart: Flights of Fancy." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 83, no. 1/4 (2009), p. 77.
Sarah Greenough, ed. My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Vol. 1, 1915–1933. New Haven, Conn., 2011, p. 664 n. 515.
H. Alexander Rich. "Rediscovering Florine Stettheimer (Again): The Strange Presence and Absence of a New York Art World Mainstay." Woman's Art Journal 32 (Fall/Winter 2011), pp. 24–25, fig. 2.
Lara Susan Kuykendall. "'By Popular Demand': The Hero in American Art, c. 1929–1945." PhD diss., University of Kansas, 2011, pp. 19–20, 41, fig. 1-3.
Katherine Hoffman. Alfred Stieglitz: A Legacy of Light. New Haven, 2011, p. 183.
Jarrett Earnest. "Florine Stettheimer—Hieroglyphs of Pleasure." brooklynrail.org. March 2012, ill. (color).
Megan Brandow-Faller. "Feminine Vessels: The Ceramic Sculpture of Vally Wieselthier." Woman's Art Journal 35 (Fall/Winter 2014), p. 35 n. 6.
Karin Althaus and Susanne Böller inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, p. 34.
Karin Althaus inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, pp. 63–64, 70, fig. 46 (color).
Jutta Koether inFlorine Stettheimer. Ed. Matthias Mühling, Karin Althaus, and Susanne Böller. Exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau. Munich, 2014, pp. 164, 166.
Richard Meyer. "Changing Partners: Richard Meyer on 'Reimagining Modernism' at the Met." Artforum 54 (November 2015), p. 146.
Roberta Smith. "A Trans-Atlantic View of Modernism." New York Times (January 9, 2015), p. C30.
Stephen Brown inFlorine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry. Exh. cat., Jewish Museum, New York. New York, 2017, p. 40, ill. p. 125 (color), dates it 1932.
Lucy Ives. "The Repatriation of F$." Art in America 105 (September 2017), pp. 96, 100–101.
Joan Snyder. "Florine Stettheimer's 'Cathedrals' Paintings." The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art. Ed. Chris Noey. New York, 2017, p. 214.
Roberta K. Tarbell. "'Florine Stettheimer: Painting and Poetry'; 'Marguerite Zorach: An Art-Filled Life'." Woman's Art Journal 39, no. 1 (2018), pp. 46, 48 n. 7.
Barbara Bloemink. "Florine Stettheimer for the Twenty-First Century: Moving Beyond the Marginalizing Myths." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, pp. 24, 32, 36–37.
Irene Gammel and Chelsea Olsen. "Configuring a Feminist Sisterhood: The Case of Ettie's Memorializing." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 94.
Patricia Allmer. "Temporalities: Stettheimer's Baroque Modernism." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 106.
Jason Wang. "Miss Flutterby: Florine Stettheimer's Dispassionate Flâneuse and Subversive Urban Consumer." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, pp. 211–13, 218–19, fig. 10.2 (color).
Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. "'An Opera to be Sung': Intermediality and the Making of 'Four Saints in Three Acts'." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 242.
Georgiana Uhlyarik. "Curating Florine Stettheimer: Reflections on an Exhibition." Florine Stettheimer: New Directions in Multimodal Modernism. Ed. Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. Toronto, 2019, p. 270 n. 28.
Barbara Bloemink. Florine Stettheimer: A Biography. Munich, 2021, pp. 273, 276, 290, 292–94, 354, 374, 379, 381, 387, figs. 99 (color), 104 (in the artist's studio).
Helen A. Cooper. "Celebrating and Satirizing New York's Aesthetes." Wall Street Journal (April 10–11, 2021), p. C20.
Edward Hopper (American, Nyack, New York 1882–1967 New York)
1930
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