2024 Focus Tour: Women Artists in the Rosen House | Caramoor (2024)

“Mosaic material provide an excellent opportunity for approach—let the material guide your hands.”

– ELSA SCHMID

What would you do if your courtyard white clock seemed too plain? In 1950, Walter and Lucie Rosen had the same thought. It seemed to personalize the clock with art was the perfect idea, and Arthur Powell, the Rosen’s interior decorator and planner, knew the perfect local artist: Elsa Schmid. A talented artist in various mediums, Schmid made a name for herself as a contemporary mosaic artist. Her work was exhibited in New York galleries, installed in churches, and can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Harvard’s Fogg Museum. Through her artistic philosophy and methods, Schmid contributed to the modernization and revival of mosaics in the 20^th century.

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Born March 22, 1894 in Stuttgart, Germany, Elsa Schmid traveled around Europe with her aunts, being exposed to different languages, cultures, and art histories. She learned about art, painting, and mosaics during her summer stays in Sicily and at an artist colony in Anticoli Corrado, Italy. In 1927, watching mosaic restoration in St. Mark’s in Rome inspired her to create mosaics. By 1932, she presented a unique collection of 15 mosaic works at Knoedler’s Gallery. After moving to New York and marrying art gallery owner JB Neumann, Schmid continued creating with stones and glass, fulfilling project commissions and giving classes and lectures on artistic expression and mosaics.

Schmid believed mosaics had waned in popularity due to industrialization that quickly produced mosaics based on a fixed design. “The artist must function as a spiritualizing force,” she wrote.¹ “The material should create its own choreography—allow free improvisation as execution proceeds.”² Schmid did just that. She created mosaics face up so she could find the desired effect between the material and the changing daylight. Her training as a painter and her appreciation of the material enabled her to have a passionate approach towards mosaics that, together, created genuinely modern art that sparkled with life.

For Caramoor’s clock, Schmid received inspiration from nature and the sky. She drew a variety of designs, indicating her enthusiasm for the “fascinating job.” ³ In the end, the Rosens chose Schmid’s original idea: “a shimmering sun on the morning blue sky.”⁴ Schmid proceeded and installed the mosaic in situ in 1951. The Rosens’ grandson, John Scholz, remembers the scaffolding placed over the lower tile roof of the first floor, and that one had to climb through the second-floor window to access the clock. Scholz even remembers helping with a few tesserae. “[Schmid] allowed me to go up and she instructed me where to put the little pieces on the clock.”⁵

Schmid’s appreciation of the material, artistic method, and creative design make her artwork modern and full of life. Today, as you’re looking at the clock, stare a little longer than usual. Make a note of the different colors you see. Now, find another new spot to study. The longer you stare, the more the sun and colors sparkle and move in the shimmering sunlight.

¹ Elsa Schmid Papers, 1910-1967. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
² Ibid.
³ Letter from Lucie Bigelow Rosen to Elsa Schmid. April 9, 1951. Elsa Schmid Papers, 1910-1967. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.; Letter from Walter Towers Rosen to Elsa Schmid. November 6, 1950. Walter T. Rosen Letters. Caramoor Collection.
⁴ Letter from Lucie Bigelow Rosen to Elsa Schmid. April 9, 1951.
⁵ Phone Conversation with John Scholz. March 15, 2024

Marian Anderson (1897—1993), the world-renowned contralto, could bring one to tears with her voice. By 1928, Anderson won several vocal competitions and sang with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She received greater opportunities for her rich voice and musicianship in the early 1930s in Europe, where she continued her vocal studies. With her musicality and dedication, she created legendary performances that overcame racial barriers and, as in the case of Caramoor, dreadful weather.

Throughout her career, Anderson worked methodically to achieve an impressive experience for the audience. When deciding upon music, Anderson chose “music with which I feel at home.” ¹ She felt comfortable portraying vulnerable emotions with such music or else, “I cannot reach others with it.”² She studied the lyrics separate from the music to better analyze the story, the feelings, and the history of the song. Once she practiced the lyrics with the melody, she concentrated on the mood she wanted to convey and on maintaining correct vocal techniques. With all her hard work, she avoided over-practicing, as that would kill any spontaneity. “Onemust leave something to be achieved at the performance, whatever that magical thing is; otherwise one does not reach the public…”³ Anderson’s balance of practice, studying and planning enabled her to accomplish the highest level of success as a classical singer.

Despite this, Anderson was still subjected to racial prejudices. In 1939, she was denied from performing at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. due to its white-only policy. Consequently, Eleanor Roosevelt invited Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She performed for a fully integrated audience of over 75,000 people, in addition to the millions who listened to the worldwide radio broadcast. Later, in 1955, Anderson became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera. Though she was hesitant as she had not previously participated in operas, she sang the small but crucial role of the fortune teller Ulrica in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.” These are only two instances of her professional and personal success that contributed to the advancement of equality.

The highlight of the 1958 summer season at Caramoor was the memorable performance by Marian Anderson in the newly built Venetian Theater. The Caramoor Music Festivals had grown so popular that a 1,500-seat outdoor theater was built, incorporating the Venetian columns. For the inaugural performance, Anderson premiered as Orfeo in the second act of Christoph Gluck’s opera “Orfeo” to a sold-out audience. When rain fell on the audience gathering in the open-air seating, Lucie Rosen asked if they should proceed. The consensus was “Yes!” Anderson was praised for her perfect control and powerful projection. Not even the rain could upstage her. She sang every note clearly with easy legato and effortless phrasing. At Mrs. Rosen’s invitation, the concert was reprised the following day.

When you walk the grounds, head over to the Venetian Theater. Listen to this clip of Marian Anderson singing for President Eisenhower’s second inauguration and pay attention to the richness of her voice. Now imagine how she would have sounded in front of you in our theatre.

¹ Anderson, Marian. My Lord, What a Morning (Chicago and Urbana, Illinois: U. of Illinois Press, 1968), p. 197.
² Ibid. 197.
³ Ibid. 203.

In Greek mythology, the powerful winged horse Pegasus carried thunderbolts and lightning for Zeus, the king of the gods. Wherever the immortal animal struck the earth with its hooves, a spring emerged. At Caramoor an everlasting image of Pegasus can be found in the two monumental sculptures Walter and Lucie Rosen commissioned from Malvina Hoffman and installed facing off over the entrance gate to the Sunken Garden and the Field of Columns (now the Venetian Theater) in 1931.

Hoffman enjoyed a reputation as a talented sculptor at the time she began work modeling the mythical creatures in 1928. After studying with August Rodin in Paris in the 1910s and working steadily through the 1920s, she traveled to Zagreb, Croatia, to learn and assist in the studio of sculptor Ivan Meštrović. While there, Hoffman developed her own models for a statue entitled The Four Horsem*n (later installed in Chicago, Illinois) and took every opportunity to study horses. She sketched at a neighboring horse farm and borrowed a horse that she tethered to the fence outside her studio as a model.ⁱ At Meštrović’s urging, she copied a version of a study piece he had in his studio, a cast of the horsehead of Selene from the Parthenon marbles, to familiarize herself with an example from classical Greece.ⁱⁱ

Hoffman’s observations and study appear to have informed her design, from the veins pulsing under the animal’s skin to the parted lips and wide-open eyes in the finished work. Also clear are the influences of the Art Deco movement, in the crisp C-shaped curve and geometric feather pattern of the wings, along with the fish-scale pattern in the bases. Hoffman dated her designs for the heads to 1927, but it wasn’t until four years later that the full-sized renderings of the “Cosmic Steed” were carved and placed at Caramoor. ⁱⁱⁱ

The monumental heads were recently discovered to have been carved in limestone by Robert Baillie of Closter, New Jersey.^iv Baillie worked with Hoffman many times, as well as with other sculptors, executing their designs. Baillie himself described the relationship of the sculptor and the carver as a collaboration and likened it to hearing a piece of music conducted by someone other than the composer.^v Working with a skilled stone carver like Baillie allowed Hoffman to undertake other commissions, enabling her to have a prolific career working in both stone and in bronze. Walter Rosen wrote to Hoffman about the commission, giving dimensions and other particulars for Baillie based upon the intended placement of the heads at Caramoor. ^vi Later, Rosen stopped in at the workshop in 1931 to check in on the progress of the carving.^vii

At Caramoor, the Pegasus heads flank an 18^th-century Swiss ironwork gate bearing the name of “S. ANTHONIOS” (St. Anthony) from the former palace of St. Antonierhof near Basel.^viii The gate was one of the architectural treasures the Rosens collected in Europe to incorporate into the house and garden at their beloved country estate.

ⁱHoffman, Malvina.Yesterday Is Tomorrow: A Personal History(New York, NY: Crown Publishers,1965), p. 253-254.
ⁱⁱIbid., p. 254.
ⁱⁱⁱ “Cosmic Steed” reference appears in a letter from Malvina Hoffman to Walter Rosen, February 28, 1930. Rosen House Archive.
^ivMention of limestone,ibid.
^vProske, Beatrice Gilman.Robert A. Baillie: Carver of Stone(Brookgreen, SC:The Trusteesof Brookgreen Gardens, 1946), p.22.
^vivi Letter from Walter Rosen to Malvina Hoffman, June 10, 1930. Rosen House Archive.
^vii Letter from Water Rosen to Malvina Hoffman, March 12, 1931. Rosen House Archive.
^viii Das Bürgerhaus in der Schweiz, XXII. Band: Kanton Basel-Stadt, Part II. (Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1930), p. 147-151.