Marius de Zayas - The Picnic

Marius de Zayas (1888 - 1961) - The Picnic, 1912
Watercolor, Ink, and Graphite on Paper

The Mexican artist and author Marius de Zayas was one of the most important promoters of modern art in the first decades of the twentieth century. Here is one of his witty caricatures of the New York artistic elite: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz are there (behind the driver), along with John Marin (could be the little man behind Stieglitz), and with the caricaturist himself (the guy with the cap). The man keeping a hand on the shoulder of Zayas is the French photographer Paul Haviland. As for the driver, she is an artist less known today, Katharine Rhoades.

The folks were hurrying to a picnic at a farm somewhere near the village of Mount Kisco (not so far from NY City). The farm was owned by a couple who appears also in the picture, Agnes and Eugene Meyer. He was a financier who would buy in 1933 Washington Post and would serve as the first president of the World Bank, in 1946. His wife Agnes was a great art lover, friend with Marie Curie and Auguste Rodin, with Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein.

Here are two more drawings of Marius de Zayas: two charcoals on paper, dating from the years 1910s. The first one depicts Stieglitz and Marin. The second is the image of Haviland.








(American Art and Portraiture)