Clarence Joseph Bulliet
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Clarence Joseph Bulliet, or "C.J." Bulliet, (March 16, 1883 - October 20, 1952) was an American art critic and author.
Bulliet grew up in Corydon, Indiana and graduated in 1904 from Indiana University. For nine years he pursued a journalism career in Indianapolis. His theater reviews resulted in an offer from Robert Mantell, the head of a touring Shakespeare company, to become his press agent. Bulliet traveled in advance of the company throughout the United States and Canada for nine years, except for one year when he was a regional advance man for D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation." After a brief return to newspaper journalism in Louisville, Kentucky, he moved to Chicago to edit the weekly art magazine of the Chicago Evening Post. Art criticism then remained his primary occupation even after the Post was absorbed by the Chicago Daily News.
He played a central role in popularizing of modern art in the Middle West and in organizing Chicago's independent artists, who felt snubbed by the conservative tastes that dominated the Chicago Art Institute. "Robert Mantell's Romance," Bulliet's first book, appeared in 1918. His "Apples and Madonnas" (1927) gained great popularity as an introduction to modern art. "Venus Castina" (1928) was a pioneering work on males impersonating females. "The Courtesan Olympia" explored relations between artists' models and mistresses. His most popular work was a collection of newspaper articles entitled "Art Masterpieces of the [Chicago] World's Fair" (1933-4). His final book was "The Significant Moderns and their Pictures" (1936).
He was married to southern Indiana artist Katherine Adams Bulliet and they had one son, Leander Jackson. After the death of his first wife in 1947 he married Catherine Girdler Bulliet. He was the grandfather of Richard Bulliet, a present day historian.
