Sunday May 4, 2008 - Today I took the Metro North up to New Haven where I met my friend Debbie after we had realized that an exhibit we were both keen to see at the Yale Museum would be closing as of tonight. MAKING IT NEW pays tribute to the lives and work of Gerald and Sara Murphy who are iconic figures for me. In the old sepia photo, Sara is on the beach at Cap d'Antibes wearing her strand of pearls. Click on each tiny image to enlarge.
Gerald Murphy, heir to the Mark Cross fortune, and his wife Sara moved in 1921 to Cap D'Antibes where for a few summers they were the center of a circle which included the Fitzgeralds, the Hemingways, Pablo Picasso, Archibald MacLeish, Philip Barry, John Dos Passos and other literary and social luminaries. They were sort of pioneers in making the Riviera a desirable 'summer' destination. Gerald spent endless days raking a thick coating of seaweed and stones from the sandy expanse of the plage to make is comfortable for sunbathing. Guests would spend all day down at the beach below the couple's Villa America snacking on sables and sherry while the Murphys' three children romped along the shoreline. Famous for their casual hospitality, Gerald and Sara seemed the ideal happy couple and it was only later in life that tragedy overtook them: both of their sons died in their teens.
The Murphys moved in a circle of artists and writers; they even helped paint scenery for Diaghilev's Russian Ballet. Their friends included many expatriates like Gerald's college chum Cole Porter, seen here with the Murphys and Genevieve Carpenter in Venice in 1923.
Gerald had dabbled in painting but eventually became more serious about it, producing the enormous canvas BOAT DECK shown in Paris at the Salon des Independents in 1924 (photo left). The painting, like several others of Gerald's works, has gone missing. It has been reproduced from a black and white photograph for this exhibit. Gerald was a loving husband and father though there are indications that his true nature may have been homosexual; Amanda Vaill delves into this aspect of Murphy's nature in her book. In a long letter to Archibald MacLeish, Gerald had written: "...not for one waking hour of my life since I was fifteen have I been entirely free of the feeling of these defects...my subsequent life has been a process of concealment of the personal realities..."
The Yale exhibit has brought together such works of Gerald's as could be gathered, including WATCH and WASP & PEAR. Viewing them was a highly emotional experience for me because I have felt an odd kinship with Gerald and Sara and their world ever since I first came to know of them. It was especially moving to be at Yale in the same corridors where Gerald must have walked as a student. I've thought and read so much about him over the years; to see things he actually touched and used, and the paintings that I'd seen only as small reproductions in books, was quite an experience.
The exhibit has gathered remarkable original photographs and we were also able to view a two-part film narrated in part by the actress Marian Seldes (whose parents knew the Murphys) and in part by their daughter, Honoria. We even hear Gerald's voice. Footage from the Murphy's home movies held me mesmerized. Most poignant were letters - the actual letters - that Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald sent to the Murphys following the deaths of Baoth and Patrick.
My fascination with the Murphys can actually be traced way back to the late 1960s when I became intrigued with the Fitzgeralds - or more specifically, with Zelda Fitzgerald - after reading David Dalton's biography of Janis Joplin in which the singer talked of her passionate admiration for the Fitzgeralds (left) and mentioned the Nancy Milford biography ZELDA which I have read a hundred times since then. In her book, Milford relates many stories about the Fitzgeralds and their friends the Murphys; some of them offer eerie forewarnings of events to come.
I'm in the habit of reading books I love over and over again and so in the days leading up to my trip to New Haven I've been basking in the pages of Amanda Vaill's magnificent EVERYBODY WAS SO YOUNG, a joint biography of Gerald and Sara. From time to time I think I must have lived in their circle because the mention of people, places and things in their lives give me a strong sensation of deja vu. The tragic deaths of their sons seem all the more unfair in view of their earlier happiness and their great generosity. The description of Sara rushing out of St. Bartholomew's Church during the memorial for her son Baoth and raising her fist to heaven, cursing God, is so moving.
For all the wealth and gaiety and warmth of their friendships, the sorrow that overtook them - like the madness and alcoholism that destroyed the Fitzgeralds - makes their story extraordinarily touching. One of the first things I did upon moving to New York City almost exactly a decade ago was to find the house at 50 West 11th Street where the Murphys lived when they were first married. I remember imagining Sara coming out of the front door on a Spring day some 90 years earlier. (Photo of the house as it looks today).
The Murphys are generally remembered more for their friendships than for their own lives and accomplishments; this exhibit shows us that they were more than cardboard celebrities. When I inquired of the young woman at the desk as to the availability of a DVD of the films shown (no such luck!) she told me how thrilled the Museum was by the huge turnout and the scope of interest the exhibit had generated. Today there was a real throng of people of all ages who were truly absorbed in everything the exhibit offered. The show now travels to Dallas; I regret only having seen it once and hope it will eventually come to NYC where I will spend many more hours poring over the relics of a lost era.
On his deathbed, Gerald Murphy endured the ministrations of a priest Honoria had felt compelled to summon; looking past the clergyman to his weeping wife and daughter Gerald uttered: "Smelling salts for the ladies," and then closed his eyes forever.
Below: the sign marking the gate to the Murphy's home at Cap d'Antibes - the original is part of this exhibit (!); Dorothy Parker was one of their friends - she proved her loyalty by spending much time with them in the frigid Alpine air of Switzerland after their son Patrick has been diagnosed with tuberculosis; the Murphys were annoyed with Scott for his having used them as models for Dick and Nicole Diver in his novel TENDER IS THE NIGHT; the Fitzgeralds' grave at Rockville, Maryland.
Thank you so much for your impressions of the Murphy exhibit. I too, am intrigued by them and have read the Vail book, over and over again. If you could kindly tell us, (in another blog), what you saw in the Muprhy home movies, I would be so grateful. I am unable to travel to Dallas to see the exhibit and maybe, New York. But alas, when would that be?
By the way, the photo of the south of France with the fabulous trees...was that taken of Villa America. Wouldn't it be fabulous to see it for ourselves?
Thanks again for the wonderful blog,
Ziggy
Posted by: Ziggy Lorenc | June 16, 2008 at 04:32 PM
The home movies show the Murphys and their friends on the beach at Antibes, sailing on their various boats, at several of the different places they lived, the children at play and much else. Hearing Gerald's voice was really interesting. I had hoped that a DVD of the documentary footage (narrated by Honoria and Marion Seldes) would be available and maybe eventually it will be. In fact, I will write to the exhibit's curator and inquire.
The photo from the beach area at Antibes is not specifically of the Villa America property.
After Patrick's diagnosis most of the fun went out of the Murphys'life and that casts a shadow over the entire exhibit.
Posted by: Philip | June 16, 2008 at 10:14 PM