The Société Anonyme

The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America has been shown, and will be showing, at several venues between 2006 and 2010.

At first glance, the site at the Yale University Art Gallery, looks very well organized, and it is. Just don't try using the 'magnify' icon - at best you'll be sent to a window that immediately closes. The coverage of art and artists is very good though, even if the art can't be examined closely. There are a few extras as well; for instance, under Artists - Duchamp and Dreier, there is a short film of Duchamp's Rotary Glass and a radio interview with Katherine Drier [sic] which, dated in 1937 as it is, has some hilarious moments, and some insight into the early opinions on abstract art.

Some links and hints to help you explore the site (which I think is a bit outdated - at least IE doesn't like it very much; maybe it will be updated when the show returns to Yale in 2010) and get a variety of information about the show: -

Under the 'Resources' tab on the main website there are good links, especially the Exhibition Catalogue. I found it easier to see if I went directly to the Resources page rather than using the tab link. The Press Release has some good information as well.

A New York Times review by Roberta Smith contains a description of the relationship between Marcel Duchamp and Katherine Dreier.

KCRW's Politics of Culture podcast did a very good discussion and description of the Société Anonyme and the shows at Yale and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in July 2006.

The Hammer show was the only one which I could find, of the several venues that were part of the U.S. national tour, that had a half-decent webpage.

Incidently, through the Wikipedia entry for Dreier, I found an excellent resource - the papers of the Société Anonyme Archive at the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. There you will find photos of artists and their art, among other things. Archives like this one, which show very good virtual reproductions of their contents, are the reason that the Web is such a marvellous invention. The Digital Images collection of the Beinecke is beyond marvellous.