SOCIÉTÉ ANONYME INC.

TEMPORARY ADDRESS
88 CENTRAL PARK WEST
% MISS DREIER

REFERENCE LIBRARY

NEW YORK May 24, 1923.

CABLE
ADDRESS;
"SOCIENYME"

KANDINSKY.
FIRST HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT

DR. RAYMOND HENNIKER-HEATON
SECOND HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

KATHERINE S. DREIER.
PRESIDENT

ANDREW MCLAREN.
VICE-PRESIDENT

PAUL GROSS.
TREASURER

FRANKLIN J. WALLS.
SECRETARY

DR. CHRISTIAN BRINTON
MARCEL DUCHAMP
HENRY MCBRIDE
MRS. DANIEL O'DAY
MRS. JOHN SIMON
JOSEPH STELLA
BERTHA VON ZASTROW
A. Walkowitz

My dear Mr. Hartley,

As one of the very first friends of the Societe Anonyme, one of the very first to grasp what we were trying to do, I am deeply grieved to think that in some manner we have lost you. You were so keenly interested in our work at the beginning, that I cannot understand what has happened that you did not renew your subscription.

Maybe it has been just an oversight, for our
work has grown so tremendously that we need you more than
ever, and we feel that you have much more cause to be
proud of belonging to us than when you first joined.

We have held during the past four and a half
months, five exhibitions in New York - issued four pam-
phlets - and held seven lectures; besides sending an im-
portant exhibition of fifty-nine pictures to Vassar Col-
lege, and also two exhibitions to the Arts Club of Chicago.

We are beginning to establish an exchange of
pictures with Europe, and hope to have an exhibition of
the work of Stella go over this Fall. Not only is Paris
collaborating with us, but Berlin as well.

The value of our work lies especially in prevent-
ing a recurrence of not having the art of the day reach
America, as happened prior to 1913, when the men who made
the previous thirty years important, the men who followed
Manet, did not reach our country. It is the difficulty of
bridging this period of the past, that makes it so hard for
modern art to be understood today in America. If we had
followed it as consecutively as it appeared in Europe, we
should not be facing this dilemma now.

I am enclosing a slip of renewal, and our pamphlet
on Kandinsky, and hope very much that I may include your
name in our list, before we go to press for our Year Book,
the end of next month.

Very sincerely yours,

(MUSEUM OF MODERN ART)