Marius de Zayas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Marius de Zayas (March 13, 1880 - January 10, 1961), a Mexican artist and writer whose witty caricatures of New York's theater, dance, and social elite brought him to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz and his circle at "291," was among the most dedicated and effective propagandists of modern art during the early years of the 20th century. His writings were the first to provide the American pubic with an intellectual basis upon which to understand and eventually appreciate the newest artistic developments. De Zayas had a younger brother, George de Zayas, who was also a caricature artist. It was Marius de Zayas's work as a caricature artist that first brought him to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz, whom he portrayed several times, most notably in an abstract caricature that was published in the magazine Camera Work (to which de Zayas also contributed articles). De Zayas opened the Modern Gallery (1915-1918) and the De Zayas Gallery (1919-1921), and later wrote an important book on these years: How, When, and Why Modern Art Came to New York (written in the 1920s, but published by MIT Press in 1996). When his galleries closed, de Zayas spent the next twenty years in Europe, where he organized important traveling exhibition of modern art. In the late 1930s, he married Virginia Harrison, descendant of the railroad tycoon, Charles Crocker. De Zayas returned to the United States after World War II, settling in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he died on January 19, 1961, at the age of eighty-one.