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A Fatally Pretty and Talented Woman from Poughkeepsie, NY
Stanley Meltzoff |
Stanley Meltzoff is an art scholar/historian, scuba diver and
painter of fish in their natural habitat, illustrator and collector/curator
of the "Meltzoff Reliquarium," a fantastic collection of relics Stanley
describes as "real and imaginary palettes, paint rags, brushes and other
technological objects in a long 'ballad' of comments, praises, memories,
snide remarks, jokes, and art historical clichés." There is a complete
illustrated catalogue, in two copies, with explanatory texts. They look
authentic at first glance and may even actually be authentic but they
require further examination and consideration. He will add pictures of many
of the items to his web site in due time.
A number of the relics are already on his website:
http://www.stanleymeltzoff.com.
Stanley was featured in a Smithsonian Magazine story by Constance Bond
titled "A collection of palettes surfaces in New Jersey" dated December of
1993.
In an e-mail to Stanley dated May 6, 2004, I asked him to refresh my memory
about Lee Miller, a friend of Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. This request
triggered the following "remembrance of things past:"
"Lee Miller was a fatally pretty and talented woman from Poughkeepsie,
New York, who went to Paris in the nineteen thirties and became Man Ray's
assistant and lover. She went to England during WWII and became the founder
of what was then called the Museum of Modern Art (perhaps not exactly that
name) in London and it's first director. She took Man Ray's gear with her: a
brown fiber suitcase, tripods and lights, an 8 x 10 camera (no lens) and an
enlarger.
When she began to use more modern gear and then stopped being a
photographer, she sent the old photo equipment and other personal items to
her father in Poughkeepsie for storage. One of her admirers during the war
was David Scherman, of Life Magazine, who was also a close friend of mine.
He, I, Denis Flanagan and Jimmy Fitch bought some land across the river from
Lee Miller's father. He had gotten quite old and tried to empty his barn
of all the old family stuff stored there. Old man Miller had met Dave while
he was close friend of his daughter, Lee. He asked Dave to take the gear
rather than junking it. Dave was a Life photographer, using a 35mm camera
and a Rollie, so had no use for the carrying case and its enclosed gear. He
asked me if I wanted it. I did, but not because it was Man Ray's or Lee
Miller's, but because I was starting to become a photographer myself. I used
some of the gear, improvised equipment with some of it and kept the rest, to
this day. Unfortunately, there is no paper trail, and in my collection it is
regarded as perhaps an improvisation like some of the others. It is
authentic but impossible to prove. Man Ray was thirty years older than me
and Marcel Duchamp even more removed, so I never knew either of them
personally. At the time of the Armory show in 1913 Duchamp was already in
his late twenties and I was waiting impatiently for another four years to be
born." - Stanley Meltzoff
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