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DODGE, from page 1
He wrote and published the story of his trip, getting the attention of other writers and artists back east. Three years later the painters E.M. and R.N. Kern arrived. These brothers were the forerunners to the Taos artists' colony that was at its peak in the early 20th century. In 1880 two more painters, Bert Phillips and Ernest Blumenschein went to Taos to visit Joseph Henry Sharp who was already sketching the Southwest. These three men along with Irving Louse founded the Taos Society of Artists. They sent their work east and soon New York took notice.
One artist who arrived in New Mexico during its peak as an artists' colony was Maurice Sterne, third husband of Mabel Dodge Luhan. He went to Santa Fe alone, separated from his wife, to regain focus on his work. However, he soon began to write to his wife, describing his new world and particularly sending her stories of the Native Peoples. At that time interest in "Indians" was fashionable, and he captured Mabel's attention. She arrived in 1917, ready for her "escape to reality."
Mabel had been born Mabel Ganson on February 26, 1879 in Buffalo, New York. Both of her grandfathers had made their fortunes in banking. Mabel's violent and unpredictable farther and her cold, self-centered mother had left Mabel with many emotional needs. They were not met by her education either, not at Saint Margaret's School for Girls where the class motto was "They also serve who only stand and wait," or at Miss Graham's School in New York, or at the Chevy Chase, Maryland finishing school she attended. Her education with its continuing lack of emotional fulfillment did prepare her for just what she did at the age of 21. She got married to Karl Evans a man to whom she was attracted because he was engaged to another woman. Unfortunately this belief that she had to "steal" love
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whenever she could find it would repeat itself many times in her colorful life.
In 1903 Mabel had a son, John Evans, and soon thereafter her husband was shot in a hunting accident. She suffered a nervous breakdown, and her family shipped her and her son along with two nurses off to Europe. On her way to Paris Mabel met Edwin Dodge. This wealthy architect became her second husband, and they moved to Florence in 1905. It was in Florence, in another loveless marriage, that Mabel began her devotion to art of its own sake. She and Edwin purchased and restored the Villa Curonia, a wonderful Medician estate. Mabel filled her home with art and artists. She lavishly entertained such notables as painter Jacques-Emile Blanch, French author Andre Gide, actress Eleanor Duse, Lord and Lady Acton, and Leo and Gertrude Stein. Mabel, often dressed in Renaissance attire, became a celebrated muse
However, by 1912 Mabel was bored with her life in Florence. She had become influenced by the philosophy of the Steins that said an individual could overcome the bad effects of heredity and environment by creating oneself anew. Mabel returned to New York and Greenwich Village where at 23 Fifth Avenue she founded the most successful salon in American history. Her guests there included such notables as Leo and Gertrude Stein, Walter Lippmann, Isadora Duncan, and Amy Lowell. She devoted her time and money to all the causes she believed would free Americans from the shackles of Victorian society. She was a sponsor of the controversial Armory Show, which was the first introduction of Postimpressionist art to most of America; she wrote for The Masses, a left-wing literary and political journal; she popularized
See DODGE Page 7
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