page_title: Modest Stein
section_title: Artistic success
hierarchical_section_title: Modest Stein / Artistic success
caption_attribution_description: English: 1918 photograph of American dancer Desiree Lubovska as captured by Marcia Mishkin Stein. A whimsical avant-garde portrait, Lubovska is an erotic Orientalist ballerina dream as she strikes a dramatic pose in a risqué costume. This image was used to help promote Lubovska's turn in Charles Dillingham's musical spectacle Everything that played at New York City's Hippodrome Theatre and was accompanied by music by John Phillip Sousa. Mlle. Lubovska, as she was known, was, like so many of the prominent figures in early 20th century American dance, a creature of her own creation. Born in Minnesota, Lubovska invented a mysterious Russian past as a way of capitalizing on the glamour of Pavlova, who was at the time, the reigning queen of ballet. Her romantic origin story also lent an air of mystery to her "Egyptian dances" as they were billed, and she went on to become the toast of New York, who modeled for fashion and fine art photographers such as Arnold Genthe, Edward Steichen and Baron de Meyer.
context_page_description: Modest Stein, born Modest Aronstam, was a Russian-born American illustrator and close associate of the anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. He was Berkman's cousin and intended replacement in the attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick, an industrialist and union buster, in 1892. Later Stein abandoned active anarchism and became a successful newspaper, pulp magazine, and book illustrator, while continuing to support Berkman and Goldman financially.
context_section_description: Berkman did not reveal his co-conspirators, and was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment. Even so, Goldman continued to give speeches advocating anarchism, and was imprisoned for a year in 1893. During this time, Stein turned away from active anarchism, though he regularly sent parcels to his friends in jail. Instead he became a successful pen and ink artist for the New York World, New York Sun, and other New York newspapers. After Goldman was released in 1894, Stein moved in with her and her most recent lover, Austrian anarchist Edward Brady, for over a year, but did not resume his sexual relationship with her. In 1895, Stein was earning enough as an artist to be able to pay for Goldman's trip to Austria to become a nurse, send her regular money there, and pay for her ticket back. When she returned in 1896, he had completely stopped attending anarchist meetings, and only rarely wrote to Berkman in prison. His interests had become artistic rather than political; he spent all his leisure time at art auctions, and every few months would furnish a new studio with hangings, vases, canvases, or carpets, only to lose interest in another few months. The apartment Goldman shared with Brady was decorated with items originally from such studios.
  Stein married photographer Marcia Mishkin on June 18, 1899. She was born in Minsk, Russian Empire, in September 21, 1880, and emigrated to New York in 1885 along with her brother, Herman Mishkin. Both siblings became interested in the new art of photography, with Herman eventually becoming the official photographer for the Metropolitan Opera from 1905 to 1932. (In 1907, Herman Mishkin became father of the Steins' nephew Leo Mishkin, who became a renowned theater, film, and television critic.) Marcia began work as a commercial portrait photographer in the mid 1890s, before marrying Stein. Her career significantly expanded in 1919, when she was hired by the French government to publicize a season of New York art and theater. Magazines such as Theatre and Vanity Fair then began publishing her photos of stage performers.
  The Steins' only child, a daughter, Luba, was born in 1902. In 1904, the three of them traveled to Kovno to visit Stein's family; the same year, the New York World sent Stein to East Asia as an illustrator to cover the Russo-Japanese War. Though he hosted Berkman at his home regularly from his release in 1906, in 1907, Stein changed his and his family's last name to Stein, to protect them from association with the attempt on Frick's life. To similarly protect Stein and his family, both Goldman and Berkman referred to him as "Fedya" in their memoirs, though Stein would try to dissuade Goldman from mentioning him even this way. Goldman would write that by 1908, "Fedya" "had married, had a child, and disappeared from [her] ken". In the 1910s, Stein found even greater success as an illustrator for periodicals such as Argosy, and drew numerous covers for other pulp magazines including The Cavalier, All-Story Weekly, and People's Favorite Magazine.
  Marcia Stein died February 5, 1927. In 1929, with his wife dead, and his daughter grown, Stein traveled to visit Berkman in Paris, and Goldman in St. Tropez, for her sixtieth birthday. In 1930, though, he refused to attend Berkman's symbolic sixtieth birthday celebration in New York (Berkman was legally barred from attending). In 1931, Stein visited the Soviet Union, which made him less sympathetic to the Bolshevik Revolution. Also in 1931 and 1932, Stein made multiple visits to southern France bringing large sums of money as gifts for Berkman and Goldman, essentially supporting them as their incomes decreased. From 1933 to 1934, Berkman refused Stein's support, but in 1935, Stein visited again, and Berkman was persuaded to accept a monthly stipend. When Berkman committed suicide in 1936, Stein continued supporting Berkman's last lover Emmy Eckstein.
  When Goldman died in 1940, Stein drew a likeness of her for the bronze plaque on her monument, which was eventually sculpted by Jo Davidson. Stein continued to be a successful artist, of portra
caption: 1918 photograph of American dancer Desiree Lubovska by Marcia Mishkin Stein
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