March 9, 1923.

My dear Mr. Storrs,

I find that the Grace Horne's Gallery in Boston would like to consider an exhibition of your work, but are not sure that they have sufficient funds to finance the cartage.

I was wondering whether your Boston friends would not be glad to stand as guarantors of the expense, and you might follow an international custom, of giving them in return, one of your small sculptures, in appreciation of what they are doing for you. This is very often done, and helps to establish friends for you, which is of great value for further exhibitions. This is only a suggestion in case you really want an exhibition in Boston.

Apparently the Coply Society, the St. Botolph Club and Doll & Richards are impossible. Miss Sears was kind enough to interview everybody with regard to your exhibition, and as she is one of the best known families in Boston, her father having been the well-known architect who did Mrs. Gardner's famous house for her, she was the right person to be our envoy.

At the last meeting it was decided to extend your exhibition until the 22nd of March inclusive. Mr. McBride also kindly said that he would speak to both Mrs. Whitney and her Secretary about purchasing one of your pieces for her Long Island estate.

I hope that you got off safely, though I had a frantic telephone from your friend Mr. Joy, in search of you. Fortunately I remembered that you had gone to see Madame Leblanc.

With kind greetings, believe me

Cordially yours,

Mr. John Storrs,
5323 Greenwood Ave.,
Chicago, Ill.

April 6, 1923.

My dear Mr. Storrs,

I just received a telephone message that your telegram
has arrived, asking for the sizes of your pieces sent, for the
making of pedestals, and the number of pieces.

Everything was sent, except the little piece purchased
by me.

Enclosed on a separate sheet, you will find the dimensions of each piece given.

I sent you a telegram stating that I would try to see
whether we could handle the situation so that the Arts Club of
Chicago could have the five big Stella panels of "New York Inno
terpreted". I hope I can handle it so that you all may not be
disappointed, and at the same time, that he will not lose the
chance of selling these very valuable pictures. You can readily
understand that it means everything to him to have this sale go
through.

We are sending to the Arts Club twenty-five (25) pamphlets by Andre Salmon, on consignment. The price is 50 cents apiece, and their commission is 33-1/3%.

Our exhibition at Vassar looks perfectly stunning, and
I had lots of fun hanging it.

Wishing you all success, believe me

Sincerely yours,

Mr. John Storrs,
5323 Greenwich Ave.,
Chicago, Ill.

May 18, 1923.

My dear Mr. Storrs,

I was delighted to find that your
exhibition in Chicago was such a success, though
very sad that nothing was sold.

I regret so much that our funds make it
impossible to send your exhibition to the Salon of
America. I wrote to Mr. Laurent, that if he was
in a position to pay for the cartage, packing and
unpacking, we would be only too glad to co-operate
with him. Unfortunately, his letter reached me
while I was away, as I had to take my sister, Miss
Dorothea Dreier, to the Adirondacks, as she is so
far from well, as you know.

I am sending you a few more clippings,
which I do not think you already received. There
has been a great deal of work in connection with
the Societe Anonyme, and as you know, our funds
are distressingly small.

Hoping to see you before you sail on
May 31st, believe me, with most cordial greetings
to Mr. Aldis and yourself,

XXXXXXXXXXXX

A.Walkowitz

SOCIETE ANONYME I nc. Museum of Modern Art: 1920

c.o.

May 9th - 1949

Dear John Storrs;

Mr. Rich of the Art Institute of Chicago gave me
your address for we are feverishly working on
the Catalogue of the Société Anonyme Collection
now a part of Yale University.

It is so long since we heard from each other and so I do not know
whether you ever heard that in 1941 Marcel Duchamp and I, as Trustees
of the Collection presented it to Yale University for it to go forth to do its educational work.

Where this Collection differs from the Collections formed by others is
that it is the Collection of the New Movement in Art since 1909.
Whereas others have collected simply those works belonging to artists
who are well known - we made a collection of those who created or
turned it into a Movement. To me the most important thing which hap-
pened to Art since Giotto and his circle broke from the Byzantine.

As you know you are represented by two drawings - but I shall give to
the Collection the little Abstract Form which I have called - The Dancer
and which I have always had standing either in my library or studio -
for I love and value it very very much.

I am enclosing our Questionnaire for you please to answer and return
to me as soon as possible. At first we thought that as long as our end
of the work would be completed by December, that that would be time enough
but President Seymour's resignation to take effect June 1950, has made it
imperative that it go to the printer sooner - and so I am writing today
to ask your cooperation in letting me have this back as soon as possible

As you see I no longer live in New York but here in Milford which is only
about ten miles from Yale University and makes it possible for me to
lend a hand occasionally.

And what are you doing - I would love to see some photographs of your
latest work both as to painting and sculpture. Could you send us some?
How is Madame Storrs and is your daughter who married the young Spaniard
living in France or Spain. Time flies and with it many changes come. I
have grown so lame that I do not know if I can ever again go to Europe

But I love my corner here - and Life is very busy.
My greetings to you all - and do write soon and answer all my questions.

With warm regards - Faithfully

JOHN H. STORRS

CHATEAU DE CHANTECAILLE MER, LOIR ET CHER, FRANCE

Mer, 15th. May, 1949

Dear Katherine:

It would not be you if you were not working "feverishly" for our good old Société Anonyme - and it was so good to have news of you after all these years - and what years!

No, we have not heard a word of your and Marcel's doings since before the war and it is very exciting to learn that you have made a gift of the collection of the Société Anonyme to Yale; and you can imagine how happy I am to be represented in such a collection - the collection "avant le lettre" of collections in America.

I hope now, that the collection is taking a permanent and official place in American art life, and that it will at last (and in spite of certain of the last-minute authorities on "Modern Art") also be given its proper place in the sequence of constructive art appreciation of our day.

It has always been a sore point with me the way you and the Société Anonyme were passed right over by the Museum of Modern Art crowd and their steam-roller, and very happy to see you bouncing back into your rightful place.

And I am glad too that you are giving to the collection my dancing terra cotta of many colors - as far as I know, the first "mobile" in three dimentional form. You acquired it, as I remember, about 1922 or 23, and it possibility dates from 1917 or 18, when I was first experimenting in polychrome abstract and semi-abstract forms.

If either you or Yale have any intention, or are interested in adding to the collection other pieces of that period, I still have here two or three of my most important pieces dating from 1917 to 19. At that time, for example, I did three large abstract pieces in stone with black marble inlays - one of which belongs to William C. Bullett, the remaining two being here, and all three - as I remember, were shown at the Société Anonyme.

As for new work - I did not get much done during the war, which we spent together - except for a few "side trips" - at Chantecaille. But there is actually at the International Show of Sculpture of the Pennsylvania Museum of Art at Philadelphia, a bronze relief of mine dating from 1939 - 40.

After the liberation, when one could again begin trying to be one's self, and due to the then state of my health and the utter lack of sculpture's materials, I found that I still had on hand quite a stock of canvases and paint left over from before the war, so I have been painting ever since and have been having a grand time. It may seem strange for you to think of me as painting.

I began to paint in 1931 in an abstract and non-representative way; but the forms I then used were mostly forms as felt by a sculptor; whereas, after the war I had an overwhelming desire to be free of all restraints including the restraints and limitations of three dimentional and abstract forms.

So it has been mostly painting, and painting as a painter paints I hope.

/:-

Des tables d'opérations - les praticiens autour - on anesthésie - on ouvre l'estomac - les fenêtres seront ouvertes ensuite et l'avion passe - pourquoi sourire vous étiez mort hier vous serez vivant demain - le patient ne connaît pas l'importance du suc gastrique... l'opéré supporte.

— L'œuvre de JONSTORRS est acceptée —

Dans la vie d'un créateur se logent des noms des dates fatales ... qui favorisent le jaillissement de ses recherches - le silence fait le reste. - Rodin lui apprend à faire vibrer la pierre - l'abstraction de 1920 transforme ses corps humains en machines à explorer le monde et en 1931 naîtra sa peinture - la Loire.

Créateur JONSTORRS découvre le monde - même dans sa prison de Compiègne - le détail est brûlé - la cendre est jetée sur la couleur fraîche ... il soupèse la ligne générale - l'analyse - la tord - l'incruste dans la toile - la creuse dans la pierre - la spiritualité la sensibilité comblent les failles.

JONSTORRS parle de la Loire - la Loire - sa lumière argentée - le ciel l'élève - le dragueur l'approfondit - le silence l'endort - ses jardins la regardent.

J'ai peur - j'ai peur - disait le peintre - il y a la vie - le quotidien du Monde - le sifflet strident - les bagages sont trop lourds - le pied me fait mal - c'est le voyageur - je ne suis plus voyageur. J'ai vu les « peintres fauves » et leurs couleurs trop pures - le sifflet la couleur irritants - je suis au bord de la Loire - je vis en secret - timide - j'accorde les tons délicats en toute humilité - la rareté du ton - je me lamente devant le Mur - vous le verrez là tout près de mon historique demeure et puis l'arbre toujours le même ... J'ai peur - j'ai peur vous m'avez fait parler - je n'ose plus parler. -

JONSTORRS est dans le Val du Monde - caché - libre et inquiet - libre de peindre son jardinier travaillant comme lui profondément - simplement - libre de peindre le ciel de tous. -

Je pense au cher MAX JACOB abandonnant sa Bretagne - Paris - pour vivre à l'ombre de Saint-Benoit ... JONSTORRS quitta la grande cité mécanique de Chicago - attiré lui aussi par le ciel de Loire donnant équilibre et grandeur à l'œuvre du chercheur. -

ROGER TOULOUSE

## PEINTURES EXPOSÉES

1. LA PLANTE VERTE

2. LE JARDINIER

3. LA PORTE OUVERTE

4. VIEUX BATIMENTS

5. L'ŒILLET

6. JEUNE DANSEUSE

7. LE FEU

8. VISITATION

9. L'ESCALIER

10. PRÉSENCE INVISIBLE

11. L'ATELIER

12. L'ARTISTE ET SON MODÈLE

13. TROIS IFS

14. TROIS ARBRES

15. LA FIN

16. RÊVE

17. TOITS ET MURS

18. ADAM ET ÈVE

19. LES ARBRES ROSES

20. L'EXODE

21. L'OIE CURIEUSE

22. VUE ENTRE DEUX IFS

23. PRÉSAGE

## SCULPTURES

### CÉRÈS (DANS LA COUR D'HONNEUR)

MAQUETTE DE LA STATUE EN ALUMINIUM CHROMÉ DE 15 MÉTRES DE HAUT, PLACÉE AU SOMMET DE LA BOURSE DE COMMERCE DE CHICAGO.

1. LA NUIT

2. LE JOUR

MAQUETTES DE STATUES EN BRONZE DORÉ GRANDEUR NATURE. COLLECTION ALFRED HAMILL (CHICAGO).

3. RÉSISTANCE

MAQUETTE POUR LA STATUE DE 18 MÉTRES DE HAUT PIÈCE CENTRALE DE L'EXPOSITION CENTENNALE « A CENTURY OF PROGRESS » A CHICAGO 1933.

4. ESPÉRANCE

MAQUETTE DE LA TERRE CUITE DANS LA COLLECTION ROULLIER (États-Unis).

LES ŒUVRES DE JOHN STORRS FIGURENT :

## MUSÉES

MUSÉE RODIN (PORTRAIT DE RODIN SUR SON LIT DE MORT)

MUSÉE DE BROOKLYN

ART INSTITUTE DE CHICAGO

MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE LOS ANGELÈS

MUSÉE DU CHATEAU DE BLOIS

MUSÉE DE L'UNIVERSITÉ DE YALE

## COLLECTIONS

ROCKEFELLER

HAMILL

DREIER

BRUMMER

BREWSTER

WORCESTER

ELISABETH ARDEN

EDWARD BENNET

WILLIAM C. BULLITT

FONTAINE POUR MRS DE FRENEUSE — NOUVELLE-ORLEANS ET EN SÉUDE, ITALIE, ANGLETERRE, JAPON, ESPAGNE, SUISSE ETC...

## MONUMENTS

MONUMENT POUR LA MARINE AMÉRICAINE A BREST

CHRIST ROI (FAÇADE DE LA PREMIÈRE BASILOQUE AU CHRIST ROI — CORK (IRLANDE)

MONUMENT DE WILBUR WRIGHT PRÈS DU MANS

STATUE DE LA LOI - PAVILLON DU GOUVERNEMENT EXPOSITION DE CHICAGO

STATUE EN BRONZE SUR LA TERRASSE DU HAUT DE ROCKEFELLER CENTER A NEW-YORK ETC...

IMP. LEBUGLE BEAUGENCY