The Duchamp connection
Two houses with legendary owners connected by Marcel Duchamp
Los Angeles social butterfly author Eve Babitz has taken on an almost mythological quality over the last few years as she’s been rediscovered by a new generation. She’s a looser and more vivacious Joan Didion; her memoir/novels are witty and self-effacing and showed she was up for anything LA had to offer.
This was the teenage home of Eve Babitz. Her artist mother and violinist father would regularly host parties and events here. Matthew Specktor’s wonderful book “Always Crashing in the Same Car” led me to realize I walked past this house all the time.
But any introduction of Babitz doesn’t talk about her parents, though some mention her godfather Igor Stravinsky, usually, it begins with the famous Julian Wasser photo of her playing chess in the nude with iconoclastic painter, sculptor, and modernist Marcel Duchamp. The photo was taken at Duchamp’s long overdue first American retrospective in 1963 at the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon).
There’s some backstory that Babitz had been involved with the married curator, Walter Hopps; that she agreed to the photo in retaliation for Hopps not inviting her to the opening for the Duchamp retrospective, but it’s best to read her own words on it here
But wait, let’s look at this part-
They probably were home wondering where they went wrong, why they’d ever allowed him to go into that program for gifted children, ruing the day he set off on that field trip for the Arensbergs’, the only people in LA with a houseful of Duchamps.
So who are the Arensbergs?
Ohhhh, this is who I really want to talk about. There’s an argument to be made that this photo wouldn’t have ever happened without them. This quote references when curator Walter Hopps had been deeply influenced by a school trip to their collection and Eve Babitz may have first seen Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” at their home.
Walter Conrad Arensberg was born in Pittsburgh to a father in steel and banking and went on to Harvard. He met and married Mary Louise Stevens, whose father was also a man of steel from Massachusetts. These fortunate beginnings allowed them to follow their passions and live a life where art was the most important element. Walter published two books of poetry, before moving into writing about cryptology. He published a book on Dante’s Inferno, attempting to prove through codes and symbols and newfangled psychoanalysis that the entire work was just leering at Beatrice and was one big sexual metaphor (this was not well received by literary critics). He moved on to using cryptology and Rosicrucian symbolism to establish Sir Francis Bacon as the true author of Shakespeare’s works (the reviews were much better for this book). This became a lifelong fascination for him and the Huntington Library in Pasadena has the Arensbergs’ library of Bacon-related rare books.
But what drove the Arensbergs was art. Walter and Louise were early embracers of modernism and tried to buy their first Duchamp at the 1913 Armory Show in New York. They didn’t initially succeed but befriended Duchamp, and their NY apartment became a perpetual dinner party of who’s who of upcoming artists, including ceramicist Beatrice Wood, and author Henri-Pierre Roche. Several decades later, Wood stated that Roche’s love triangle book Victor was supposedly based on herself, Duchamp, and Louise Arensberg, but that Roche “took significant liberties.”
Thanks to family inheritances, the Arensbergs bought what they liked, whatever moved them, and started filling their apartment with works by Cezanne and Duchamp and Matisse before moving to Los Angeles in 1921. They purchased the home glimpsed here in 1927.
A Modernist Paradise
This house was initially built in 1920 by William Lee Wollett for Lee Memefee. The Arensbergs never left but instead made the house evolve to fit their ever-growing collection. In addition to supporting their artist friends, they supported their architecture friends (and yes, obviously, architecture is art, but the delineation felt necessary).
Henry Palmer Sabin added a foyer in 1926 specifically designed to showcase two Brancusi sculptures. Richard Neutra added a sunroom in 1933 to display Duchamp’s glass sculptures. This was the same year Neutra built art dealer Galka Scheyer’s house, and Louise initially didn’t care for Galka’s “loudness,” which is an aside I find amusing. Gregory Ain added a second-story sitting room in 1936 (and removed one of Neutra’s windows for a support beam in the process). John Lautner later added a carport in the 50s and redesigned the front patio, covering the Mediterranean tile with brickwork.
But this house! Art covered every surface. Pauline Schindler wrote in a letter that she couldn’t focus on the party conversations because she couldn’t stop looking at everything. The Arensbergs had finally obtained “Nude Descending a Staircase” and it hung in their staircase. The collection was always evolving, and they would regularly move pieces around as they fit their mood. Art historian James Thrall Soby commented in 1945, “The house is invested with magic, as if it were a studio in which nearly all the finest modern artists had worked together, with what they created still holding the warmth and excitement of original discovery.”
Louise had purchased the home next door when Outpost Estates was first established, they were toying with the idea of housing a more formal museum. Instead, the Arensbergs helped their friend, innovative gallerist Earl Stendahl, finance the purchase with a trade of Pre-Columbian art in 1941. Lloyd Wright did the interiors of that home, and Walter would run over to have a first look at all Stendahl’s deliveries. Stendahl’s career flourished with access to the artists and collectors attending salons at the Arensbergs,’ and guests would pop back and forth between homes. And what parties they had- Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanner had a double wedding here with Man Ray and Juliet T. Browner.
Build Another Art House
Walter and Louise had the largest private collection of modern art in the country, and by the 40s, they knew it would eventually need to go somewhere. Their attitude had always been that anyone who wanted to see their home was invited, and they had no interest in their collection being sold piecemeal. Initially, it was offered to Stanford, Harvard, and the Los Angeles County Museum with the stipulation that a proper gallery space would be built within five years of the war ending and were rebuffed. They reached an agreement with UCLA, with the same contingency. In 1947, Kenneth Ross wrote a scathing exposé in the Los Angeles Daily Express on the lack of care and authenticity in university collections, intimating many schools hid the art in unseen basements, kept horrible archives, and the collections contained fakes. Walter Arensberg’s impassioned letter to the paper in outraged solidarity was published the following week.
Shortly thereafter, the Arensbergs sent their collection to Chicago on its first public tour in 1949. It had become apparent UCLA had no intention to hold up their side of the agreement, so they began to shop the collection elsewhere. When it was announced that Philadelphia had become the winner for the finest private collection of art in the country, the art world of Los Angeles went into an uproar. Dr. Breathed at the Los Angeles County Museum was forced into resignation for dismissing their early offer.
The collection was valued at millions at that point and contained 30 Duchamps (three-quarters of his life’s work) and 19 drawings and sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, in addition to works by Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Diego Rivera, Renoir, Miro, Knud Merrild and more pre-Columbian art than the National Gallery had.
Louise Arensberg died of cancer in November 1953, and Walter died of a heart attack at the house in January 1954. The collection was dismantled and sent off to Philadelphia. Earl Stendahl purchased their home, and his family operated it as the Stendahl Gallery until a few years ago.
So that’s how we get back to Duchamp and Eve Babitz playing chess. Duchamp first visited California in the 30s, staying at the Arensbergs, and called California “a white spot in a gloomy world.” Babitz’s godfather (and probably her parents) was friendly with Earl Stendahl and the Arensbergs- the people who immediately saw the gift and vision of Duchamp.
Walter and Louise Arensberg and Eve Babitz, what stellar examples of what can be built, what this city can be if you choose to immerse yourself in art.
All photos by Cahuenga Past, unless otherwise noted. Please note these are all private homes. We do not disturb nor do we discuss current residents.