Sensation among the blond typewriters!
The working of a business man’s mind can never be guessed at beforehand. I painted two decorations for one of America’s foremost financiers. In making the sketches I was mindful of the fact that he was a pillar of an orthodox denomination of the strictest type, and, while I suggested a group of dancing figures, I was very careful to drape them sedately with several layers of chiffon. What was my surprise when the criticism came:
“Mr. Simmons’s idea is very delightful, but the figures are not nude enough!”
The late Andrew Carnegie was a good old-fashioned type of man who thought the God-given power to amass a large fortune was indication of an all-embracing good judgment and taste. I never met him but once. It was in ’91, at a show of pictures of the Society of American Artists. I was presented to this short, stout little man. “Mr. Carnegie” meant nothing to me, as I had just come straight from England, and his fame had not managed to penetrate the shores of Cornwall. He was most indifferent, did not like the exhibition very much, and announced that he has purchased the only good picture, pointing to an unimportant landscape. Abbot Thayer’s “Madonna” (which Clarence King said should have buckets under it to catch the dripping sentiment), a charming Thomas Dewing, a beautiful thing by Theodore Robinson, and others were all about him, so I ventured to tell the doughty Scotsman that he must be deeply ignorant on the subject of art. That naturally closed the interview.
For the Astor Gallery I chose as subjects women—which I like best to paint—representing the twelve months of the year and the four seasons, sixteen panels in all. How I labored over the color of the room, changing the tone every three feet all the way up, until it looked all the same! My idea was to make a background that would seem to be white, but against which a woman’s complexion would be beautiful and a man’s shirt front would tell. They have painted the whole thing over now, of course. My decorations are untouched, but it is no longer my room.
“JANUARY”
Panel by Edward Simmons, Astor Gallery, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York
Copyright by Edward Simmons; from a Copley Print, Copyright by Curtis & Cameron, Publishers, Boston
People do not realize what these little things mean. The architects had given me the whole control, but even at the time I was doing the work I was greatly restricted. There were four little panels that were not in the contract, but sadly needed to be decorated. I offered to do them at my own expense and also to change the terrible red-velvet railing that ran around the balcony, but do you think the hotel authorities would let me do it? No; the opening was on a certain day and all the workmen must be out before then. Business before art every time.
I had to insure the panels twice—once to the contractor and again to John Jacob Astor, whose lawyer, by the way, demanded that all the artists working in the building hand over their copyrights to him, which they “had improperly taken out on Mr. Astor’s property.” We had a meeting, and the others decided not to do anything to antagonize him. I was furious and asked my friend, Luther Lincoln, what to do about it. “Oh, come away and take a walking trip with me to the Delaware Water Gap,” he said. I went and I still have my copyright. To show that my rights in the matter are recognized by the authorities, the architect once wrote to me and, saying that Mr. Boldt had asked for permission to reproduce my panels in the Hotel Guide, and commanded me to grant the same. I answered and gave him permission to buy the photographs of my work from Curtis and Cameron, relinquishing my royalties. Mr. Astor, therefore, paid for the reproductions, so establishing my case.
This question of copyright is one that crops up all the time and never will be really settled until some artist has money enough to carry a case to the Supreme Court of the United States. Anyone who writes a book, a play, or music, and even those who make etchings and engravings, are protected, but the law does not apply to the painter or the sculptor. I do not believe that the Supreme Court would decide in our favor, for over here we are more apt to follow the English law, where the buyer, unless otherwise stated, retains the copyright, and not the French law, where the artist always has it.