SOLD Romany Marie’s, 1912

Information

Provenance

The artist

Private estate, Maine

Sale, Fairfield Auction, Monroe, Connecticut, December 1, 2021, lot 147 (as New York City Cafe (possibly McSorley’s)), from above

Private collection, New York, New York, acquired from above

Exhibited

(Possibly) Newark Museum and Public Library, New Jersey, Paintings by Stuart Davis, February 7–March 1, 1925 (as Greenwich Village Inn)

(Possibly) Whitney Studio Club, New York, New York, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by Stuart Davis, December 8–22, 1926, no. 3 (as Cafe)

Literature

(Possibly) “Cross Word Puzzle Motif in Art Expressed on Canvas at Museum,” Newark Evening News, February 7, 1923: 11 (supplemental section) (as Greenwich Village Inn).

Stuart Davis, Stuart Davis (New York: American Artists Group Monographs, 1945), n. p., no. 6.

Bruce Weber, Stuart Davis’ New York (West Palm Beach, FL: Norton Gallery & School of Art, 1985), 12, 18, fig. 2.

Ani Boyajian, Mark Rutkoski, eds., Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné, volume II, Catalogue Entries 1–1323 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2007), 474, no. 985.

Note: Romanian born Marie Marchand owned several Greenwich Village bistros that were frequented by Davis and Ashcan artists like John Sloan (1871–1951) and George Bellows (1882–1925). She often displayed artwork by her patrons and even permitted the barter of art for meals when needed. About Marie, Davis said:

It was indeed early on when I became a daily patron of Marie’s various places…Marie operated at some kind of universal human level. She could take on anybody, talk to them all night, and they’d feel they had a friend.

The figure in the lower right appears to be the artist himself.

Artist Biography