Aleister Crowley in America

by Tobias Churton

  Chandler [sic] came again and again to gaze and gloat. He brought everyone he knew to look at it. And even artists famous for their classical refinement had to admit its grisly power. In short, the dead souls conquered the city and their Queen their creator. She came like Balchis to Solomon, bringing gifts, an endless caravan of fascinations. Innumerable elephants groaning under the treasury of virtues, while in her own slim-fingered hands, she brought her heart. Before her coming the concubines covered their faces and fled. We found almost at once a splendid studio on the south side of Washington Square, a long and lofty room with three wide windows, looking out across the tree tops to the opening of Fifth Avenue.7

  Crowley now felt his desert journey was close to its conclusion, and he began to feel very good indeed. We know this because more than twenty years later, when about to set off on an August holiday from London to Cornwall, he relished the “really delightful day, . . . exactly in quality to the days of Lea in Washington Square, New York City.”8

  Fig. 33.2. “Genius Row,” Washington Square. Crowley’s 2nd floor apartment (no. 63) is lower left of the large studio window at no. 62 (center). (photo courtesy New York University)

  The Beast and Ape of Thoth’s new home at 63 Washington Square South was perfect. Situated on the opposite side of the opening of 5th Avenue, between what is now LaGuardia Place—formerly South 5th Avenue, then by 1918, West Broadway—and Thompson Street, opposite New York University, No. 63 and its neighbors to right and left were known affectionately as “Genius Row,” before being crudely demolished in 1948.*190

  Fig. 33.3. Another view of Genius Row; Crowley’s apartment at No. 63 obscured by tree (center)

  Fig. 33.4. Genius Row from Washington Square Park. Crowley’s apartment is just cut off, left of left frame.

  Two doors to the right from Crowley’s second-floor studio at No. 63, No. 61 was known as the House of Genius. Banker James Speyer leased the property in 1886 to Swiss-born Madame Katherine Reude Blanchard. She converted the family dwelling into a boardinghouse for writers, artists, and musicians. Residents included writer of short stories with twisted endings “O. Henry” (William Sydney Porter); Eugene O’Neill, playwright of the comedy Ah, Wilderness! Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage; and novelist Frank Norris. Other distinguished residents included Willa Cather, John Dos Passos, and poet Alan Seeger, who died fighting with the French Foreign Legion at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

  Next door, bohemian painter Ellen Emmett (later Ellen Emmett Rand) had enjoyed a fourth-floor apartment and ground-floor studio at 62 Washington Square South from 1902 until at least 1909. Her abode featured in the January 19, 1908, New York Times society column under the headline COSTUME CARNIVAL IN ARTIST’S STUDIO, where we learn that Ellen’s “old-fashioned house was given over to the revelers, and, on the top floor, the spacious studio, lighted with wax candles, was the mecca of the gay throng. . . . John Alsop, who resembles Clyde Fitch, was dressed as a Morrocan sheik.” The event attracted more than 150 art-minded New Yorkers. Famous as a portrait painter, Ellen Emmett gave the world portraits of President Franklin Roosevelt and wife, Eleanor.

  Moving back to No. 63, sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens (1848–1907) held chamber concerts in his studio there during the 1880s. English critic and writer Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) met artist of the American Renaissance Kenyon Cox (1883–1919) at one such concert in November 1884. Crowley was familiar with Edmund Gosse’s autobiographical Father and Son (1907), because Gosse’s parents, like Crowley’s, were committed Plymouth brethren, and Gosse, like Crowley, rebelled against his father’s religion. Gosse’s confessional work stimulated Crowley’s part-autobiographical The World’s Tragedy (1910).

  In 1919, Crowley probably shared No. 63 with Australian modernist Cubist painter Frank Arthur Nankivell (1869–1959). Between 1915 and 1920, Nankivell painted an Italian Parade in Washington Square, probably as seen from the studio Nankivell rented during this period. Remembered today for printing etchings by Arthur B. Davies and Childe Hassam, Nankivell was closely involved in 1913’s breakthrough Armory Show, which Quinn patronized and which opened Jeanne Foster’s aesthetic horizons.

  Fig. 33.5. Robert Winthrop Chanler (photo by W. C. Ward, ca. 1913)

  A member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, Nankivell served on the Armory Show’s Committee on Domestic Exhibits, an experience that led him to adopt the modernist aesthetic, something Crowley himself easily accommodated, though without forsaking representational elements. Another contemporary painter working at No. 63, from 1919 to 1927, was illustrator and teacher Robert Wesley Amick (1879–1969).

  Crowley’s visitor and friend artist Robert Winthrop Chanler (1872–1930), who in 1911 had leased the double house at 147 East 19th Street that would be his home until he died, was extremely well connected socially, not only on his own behalf (being related to the Stuyvesant, Livingston, Astor, and Dudley-Winthrop families) but also in his range of patrons and associates.

  In 1918, Chanler had made stunning stained glass for the studio of close friend multimillionaire sculptor and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1874–1942), based in the village at 19 Macdougal Alley and West Eighth Street, which studio would house her exhibition of World War I sculpture in November 1919 (Gertrude’s brother Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt had died in the Lusitania atrocity of 1915). Chanler had already made stunning panels and murals for Gertrude’s studio and private rooms at her estate at Old Westbury, New York, in 1914. Whitney and Chanler were both wild in imagination, serious in essential intent, and socially nonconformist.

  Fig. 33.6. Aleister Crowley, by Robert Winthrop Chanler, 1919. (image courtesy of Ordo Templi Orientis)

  Chanler certainly had the depth of imagination, joy in life, and breadth of intelligence to value an outsider on the scale of Aleister Crowley, as is evident in Chanler’s portrait of Crowley, presented as pure presence, smartly indifferent to the world. Ivan Narodny, who was Chanler’s secretary and wrote a book about Chanler, also became Crowley’s friendly acquaintance. Heavily influenced by Chanler, Crowley borrowed several motifs from him, including exotic birds, mythological creatures fantastically colored, symbols amid flowing tropicana reminiscent of Gauguin. Chanler’s creation of a complete aesthetic environment for Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Macdougal Alley Studio in 1918 was paralleled in 1920–1921 by Crowley’s decorating his “Abbey of Thelema” residence at Cefalù in floor-to-ceiling visual fantasy and allegory.

  It can hardly have been coincidence that made Crowley paint his first triptych screen with Hindu images of the elements when Chanler that same year had executed heavenly, planetary themes in a dynamic screen for Gertrude Whitney, variously called Firmament, Astrology Screen, and Dance of the Planets showing Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, shooting stars, and constellations.

  Chanler understood that the first “studio” was the cave of the primitive magician and that art directly related to cult and to spiritual powers of imagination: magic. And not all of the inspiration was one way. According to Avis Berman’s fascinating account of Chanler’s work on Whitney’s Greenwich Village Studio, “After traveling around the country, he [Crowley] moved to New York in 1918 [sic], where he joined the revels on East 19th Street. Between heroin and alcohol and ‘sex magick’ practices he demanded from both sexes, Crowley was even more of a libertine than Chanler, but his controversial presence may have been a perverse source of inspiration for the mildly diabolical nature of the Medusa window [in Whitney’s studio].”9

  Crowley set to paint in earnest, but also in good humor. He famously placed the following advertisement in a New York daily.

  WANTED

  Dwarfs, Hunchbacks, Tattooed Women, Harrison Fisher Girls, Freaks of All Sorts, Coloured Women, only if exceptionally ugly or deformed, to pose for artist. Apply by letter with photograph. Box 707.

  Readers may note the sly reference to “Harrison Fisher Girls” among the intentional deformity and excess. Famed for beauty and liveliness, Jea
nne Foster had been a popular Harrison Fisher Girl.

  Something of a friendly competition had emerged between Crowley and Engers, and Engers, thanks to Crowley perhaps, got in first, not only with the Atlanta Constitution mentioned above but also in the New York Tribune, which printed the following in their art section “Random Impressions in Current Exhibitions” on Sunday, February 16.

  Mr. Leon Engers Kennedy is exhibiting a group of Psychochromes at the Paint Box Galleries, Washington Square South. Mr Kennedy explains that “Psychochrome” translated means “soul colour,” and “the eye of the soul directs the hand of the craftsman.”10

  But Crowley came back strongly with a fascinating interview for the Syracuse Herald, published with illustrations on March 9, 1919. Curiously, a heavily abridged version of the interview had appeared in the New York Evening World earlier, on February 26, under the headline Crowley the Village Artist. The Syracuse Herald story had more meat and less sarcasm.

  Fig. 33.7. Crowley the artist, The New York World, February 26, 1919

  ARTIST PAINTS DEAD SOULS BUT REFUSES TO BE CLASSED WITH FUTURISTS’ SCHOOL

  Englishman Portrays Weird Spirits at His Studio in Greenwich Village.

  Doesn’t Wear His Hair Long and He’s Not Poor Like Many Artists Are.

  A new artist has drifted into Greenwich Village.

  His name is Aleister Crowley. He doesn’t look at all like the average village artist, having more of the snappy appearance of a Wall Street broker. His hair, instead of being worn with Bolshevik abandon, is close cropped. Instead of shaving once every three months he shaves every day. His clothes are neat but not gaudy and have the close-fitting and knobby lines of a fashionable tailor.

  His shoes are not out at toe or down at heel. Those he had on yesterday were low cut and obviously made to order. They looked well under pale, opalescent socks with black clocks.

  Mr. Crowley’s studio, on the third floor of No. 63 Washington Square, South, is far removed from the den of the average village artist of the well known “struggling” type. It is luxuriously fitted with cavernous easy chairs, mahogany davenports, expensive tapestries, a fine rug or two, an expensive and many-pillowed divan, with here and there a rare rosewood antique.

  Riot Of Untamed Colors

  Set in the west wall is an old-fashioned fireplace, while close by is a mahogany tea wagon with a half-filled bottle of rare cognac and a silver box of imported cigarettes. One enormous window, nearly twenty feet wide, looks across Washington Park and directly up Fifth Avenue.

  The walls of this studio are covered with the wildest maelstrom of untamed and unrelated colors ever confined under one roof. They look like a collision between a Scandinavian sunset and a paint-as-you-please exhibit of the Independent Artists association.

  The effect is riotous, blinding—but not distressing, after one gets used to it. Mr. Crowley helps one to do that, with a dash of cognac, an imported cigarette, and a delightful personality.

  On entering the studio one is apt to be taken with a severe attack of the blind staggers, the chromatic camouflage is so overwhelmingly brilliant. But after one has been there for a short time one is in no hurry to leave.

  Came from England

  Mr. Crowley is an Englishman who at the outbreak of the Great War was in the confidential service of the British government. In this service he was shot in the leg he says. He then came to this country, late in 1915 on a special mission for the British and later became editor of the International, a radical magazine, published in Greenwich Village.

  “I had been engaged in various literary pursuits all my life,” said Mr. Crowley as he held a small glass of cognac up to the light.

  “I have written forty books of poetry, among other things. There are some of my works on those shelves.” He pointed to several rows of books over the fireplace.

  “But, somehow, I couldn’t attain the desired expression in either prose or poetry. I chafed under the restraint of the pen.

  “However, I probably would never have taken up painting if it hadn’t been for the International, of which I became editor. I couldn’t find artists who would draw the covers I wanted, so finally, I became disgusted about fifteen months ago and decided to draw my own covers.*191

  “I had never studied art and had never drawn or painted a picture in my life. When I tried to draw those covers I became so interested in the work that I gave up the editorship of the magazine and went in for art. What you see around you is the result. What sort of artist am I. Oh I don’t know just what to call myself. I’d say off-hand that I was an old master because I’m a painter mostly of dead souls.

  Not a Cubist

  “My art? Well, I don’t know just what you’d call it. But please, whatever you do, don’t call me a cubist or a futurist or anything queer like that. I guess you might call me a subconscious impressionist, or something on that order. My art really is subconscious and automatic.

  “I’ll tell you why. When I found I couldn’t paint a portrait I didn’t decide to go abroad and study for thirty or forty years.

  “Instead, I walked up to a blank canvas one day and, standing very close to it, I placed the wet brush upon it and closed my eyes. I had no preconceived idea of what I was going to paint. My hand simply moved automatically over the canvas.

  “I don’t know how long I worked in that subconscious way, but you can imagine my astonishment when I found that I had painted a likeness of a friend whom I had not seen in many years. It was that person’s dead soul I had painted. I have it about the studio somewhere.

  “All my work is done that way. I never know or have a preconceived idea of what is to appear on the canvas. My hand wanders into the realm of dead souls and very frequently the result is the likeness of some living person.”

  Fig. 33.8. The International, November 1917; cover by Helen Woljeska (edited by Crowley)

  Fig. 33.9. The International, January 1918; cover by Helen Woljeska

  Fig. 33.10. The International, February 1918; cover by Helen Woljeska

  Fig. 33.11. The International, March 18, 1918;cover by Thelma Cudlipp. Lover of Theodore Dreiser, Thelma appeared in Crowley’s “Eight Vampire Women” (Vanity Fair, July 1915, vol. 4, no.5) in a “hokku” called “ThelmaCudlipp’s Laughing Fury.”

  Arnold Bennett’s Soul

  “Now take that picture hanging over there, for instance. It is done in water color. It is entitled The Burmese Lady. If you will look at it closely you will discover that it is none other than our old friend Bennett.”

  The painting indicated by Mr. Crowley did resemble Arnold Bennett as he might look if he blackened his face and donned a Hottentot’s wig.

  “Now over there you see a weird looking lady with something resembling a pig. The title of that is Ella Wheeler Wilcox and the Swami. One of my best works, that.

  “Of course, my impressions are not always those of well known people. That one over there on the east wall isn’t a bad thing. That girl’s head. It is entitled Young Bolshevik Girl with Wart Looking at Trotzky.

  “That one with all the little figures? Oh, the name of that is A Day Dream of Dead Hats. You see, it shows a lady asleep on a veranda while the spirits of bygone bonnets pass across a mystic bridge on the heads of a dozen undressed ladies. You’ll probably admit that most women when they take a nap dream of dead bonnets.

  “The painting of the colored girl in the rear of the studio is something I did in rather a hurry. It is called Is That the Face That Launched a Thousand Ships. That one called the Witches’ Sabbath, with all the little features in it is interesting.

  Little Eva, Too

  “That fluffy one dancing on one toe is supposed to be the dead spirit of Eva Tanguay.”

  One of his pictures which Mr. Crowley likes best is that of Madame Yorska, the French actress. It shows the face of a woman, thrown backward in death, a bejewelled dagger thrust into her throat.

  “I got that impression at some affair given in Greenwich Village. Mme. Yorska was there.
The violinist, in rendering one striking piece, asked that the lights be turned low. While he was playing I saw Mme. Yorska throw her head back and close her eyes. I carried the impression of that long white throat home with me. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. During the night I got up and going to the canvas closed my eyes and that picture was the result.”

  “How about the dagger in the throat?” the artist was asked. A “GOOD EFFECT.”

  “Oh, that long sweeping white line of throat had to be cut somewhere and I couldn’t think of any better way to cut a throat than with a dagger. So I stuck the knife into it. Rather good effect, I think.

  “That large three-paneled screen is called the Screen of the Dead Souls. All those figures you see on it are dead souls in various stages of decomposition. That central figure in the middle panel is the queen of the dead souls. Of course you recognize the head looking over her shoulder. That’s Hearst. Over her other shoulder is Oscar Wilde. I don’t know how he got in there, because I really hate him. The parrot sitting on the head of the dead lady’s soul in the third panel is one that belongs to Bob Chanler.

  “The screen is a fair example of my subconscious art. It was done like the pictures, with no preconceived idea.

  “Study art? Never have and never intend to.”

  Eventually, the “Greenwich Village Liberal Club” on MacDougal Street, with a floor above its restaurant opened as exhibition space, exhibited Crowley’s paintings until the scandal of The Equinox first began to hit in March and April 1919. Despite the anarchist credentials of couple Polly Holladay and Hippolyte Havel, who ran the restaurant and club space, such was the storm of protest whipped up by Christian ladies of the club when they realized that Crowley expected his religion of Thelema to replace Christianity that the exhibition was closed: a fitting tribute to a survivor of the Decadent movement (English import version). The picture that caused the cataclysm was displayed at the club and was also featured in Crowley’s latest perplexing periodical The Equinox, unfortunately, in the light of the exhibition, with an interpretation of a certain “hag” with dyed and bloody hair hanging from a tree while shepherd and nymph danced, a knowing satyr smiled, and an Amanita muscaria hallucinogenic mushroom popped out of the earth to greet the revel, as they traditionally do after a storm: the French word for such post-tempest growths being le Bot, nickname for the Devil. True to form, Crowley brooked no compromise on essentials. The “hag” was Christianity, and while her stringing up was a cause for joy in Crowleyland, it was not so in the United States of America.