250,000 Americans saw their first Picasso thanks to a Connecticut treasurer

Elmer MacRae’s Revolutionary 1913 Armory Show

In 1911, four fed-up artists met at a New York gallery to plan something big.

They formed the Association of American Painters and Sculptors with Elmer MacRae, a Bush-Holley House resident, as treasurer. Soon after, they put on the 1913 Armory Show that shocked America to its core.

The exhibit brought works by Picasso, Matisse, and Duchamp to U.S. soil for the first time. Over 250,000 folks gawked at Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” which one critic called “an explosion in a shingle factory.”

This show changed American art forever, and you can still visit MacRae’s preserved studio at Bush-Holley House in Connecticut today.

Four Artists Got Fed Up With New York’s Art Scene

On December 14, 1911, four artists met at Madison Gallery in New York because they were fed up.

Henry Fitch Taylor, Jerome Myers, Elmer Livingston MacRae, and Walt Kuhn all hated how the National Academy of Design controlled American art galleries.

The Academy kept pushing old-fashioned styles while Europe had moved on to new ideas.

The four men talked about ways to shake up American art and create space for forward-thinking artists who couldn’t get their work shown.

A Group Forms to Challenge the Art Establishment

In January 1912, Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, and Arthur B. Davies joined with about two dozen other artists to start the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS). The group wanted to lead public taste rather than follow it.

Elmer MacRae joined in 1911 and became Treasurer from 1912 to 1916. Most members were young artists who rejected old-fashioned approaches.

Other founders included D. Putnam Brinley, Gutzon Borglum, and Leon Dabo.

MacRae Found Love and Art at a Connecticut Boardinghouse

Summer 1896 changed Elmer MacRae’s life when he visited Cos Cob for an outdoor painting class and fell for Emma Constant Holley.

By 1899, MacRae moved into the Bush-Holley House full-time, and on October 17, 1900, he married Emma. For twenty years, they ran the boardinghouse together, which also served as MacRae’s studio.

After John Henry Twachtman died, MacRae took over the Cos Cob Art Colony.

The Bush-Holley House became Connecticut’s first art colony and the birthplace of American Impressionism.

Plans for a Groundbreaking Art Show Take Shape

The AAPS put together the Armory Show in 1913 with a clear goal: showing Americans the newest European art movements.

They went beyond just helping American artists to bringing cutting-edge European styles across the ocean. Walt Kuhn told his friends, “We will show New York something they never dreamed of.”

Walter Pach worked hard to borrow paintings from European artists. The organizers knew they were planning something that would change American art forever.

They Needed a Massive Space for 1,400 Artworks

The 69th Regiment Armory on East 25th Street was perfect because it could fit the huge 1,400-piece show.

Art expert Kimberly Orcutt noted, “There were lots of comparisons in 1913 of the Armory Show being a bomb from the blue, so the Armory is not inappropriate. ” The building normally stored weapons and trained troops.

This was the biggest art show ever put together in America at that time. The military space would soon host a different kind of revolution.

Thousands Showed Up for Opening Night

On February 17, 1913, the Armory opened to 4,000 eager visitors.

The AAPS president started things off by calling the show “epoch making in the history of American art.”

The International Exhibition of Modern Art brought the term “avant-garde” into American art talks for the first time. The walls held over 1,300 works from both American and European artists.

Nearly 300 creators from both sides of the Atlantic had their vision shown in this massive collection.

Americans Got Their First Look at Cubism and Fauvism

The show worked like a crash course in European Modernism, showing Impressionists, Symbolists, Postimpressionists, Fauves, and Cubists. Most Americans had only seen realistic art in galleries before this.

Viewers stood shocked because “they’d never seen anything like this before. And they didn’t know how to relate to it.”

Critics compared Marcel Duchamp’s Cubist painting “Nude Descending a Staircase” to “an explosion in a shingle factory.”

Some Chicago art students even hung artists Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, and Walter Pach in effigy.

MacRae Handled the Money While Showing His Own Art

Elmer MacRae played two roles during the famous show. As Treasurer of the AAPS, he managed all the money matters.

He also showed 10 of his own pastel works alongside the European masterpieces. Three of his paintings hung in the exhibition, including “Battleships at Newport.”

Though his money management skills came up short and the show didn’t make much profit, MacRae did more to make the exhibition happen than most art experts have noticed.

Lines Wrapped Around the Block to See the Art

The show drew over 85,000 visitors during its month in New York. By the final days, people stood in long lines that stretched around the block.

The show went viral in 1913 terms – “Cubism became a catchall term for anything new.” People threw Cubist-themed dinner parties and fashion designers created Cubist-style clothes.

Newspapers couldn’t get enough of the controversy, with stories about the Armory Show appearing almost daily while Duchamp’s “Nude” was on display.

The Exhibition Hit the Road to Shock More Cities

After New York, the show traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston. The Boston venue lacked space, so organizers removed all the American artists’ work for that stop.

The Art Institute of Chicago became the only museum to host the 1913 Armory Show. This traveling exhibition brought European modernism to thousands more Americans across multiple cities.

Each new location sparked fresh debates about what counted as “real art.”

American Artists Would Never Be the Same

The 1913 show marked the moment Modernism officially arrived in America.

Artist Stuart Davis later said: “The Armory Show was the greatest shock to me—the greatest single influence I have experienced in my work.”

The exhibition’s impact on wealthy American collectors led to the creation of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum in later years.

Most importantly, the 1913 Armory Show finally gave artists permission to create work that wasn’t traditionally beautiful.

The power of the Academy collapsed almost overnight, freeing American artists to explore new directions.

Visiting Bush-Holley House, Connecticut

The Bush-Holley House at 47 Strickland Road in Cos Cob shows you where Elmer MacRae lived while helping organize the famous 1913 Armory Show that brought European modern art to America.

You can only visit on guided tours at 12pm, 1:30pm, and 3pm Wednesday through Sunday for $15 ($10 for seniors/students). Tours last 45 minutes through eight historic rooms.

Get free admission the first Wednesday each month, but make reservations ahead of time.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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