Beatrice Wood

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beatrice Wood, 1908

Beatrice Wood (born March 3, 1893 in San Francisco , † March 12, 1998 in Ojai ) was an American writer and object artist ("Mama of Dada") of Dadaism and Surrealism .

Life

Beatrice Wood came from a wealthy and socially engaged family. In 1898 the family moved to New York City . Beatrice often accompanied her parents on their travels through Europe . She lived in Paris from her youth until the outbreak of the First World War , where she studied art history in 1912 at the renowned Académie Julian under Jules-Joseph Lefebvre . Wood lived in Giverny , the hometown of Claude Monet, for a few weeks .

Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Beatrice Wood, 1917

Because of the war in Europe, she returned to New York. Together with Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) and Henri-Pierre Roché (1879–1959), Wood published the art magazine The Blind Man - one of the earliest manifestations of the Dada art movement in New York. In the early 1920s, she earned the name Mama of Dada .

An unhappy relationship led Wood to Montreal , where she briefly as a vaudeville - Actress occurred. Her crushing relationship with her parents, her first marital disappointment, and the pressure to survive as an artist forced Wood to realize that she would have to support herself financially if she really wanted to lead an independent life. So she moved to Los Angeles , took ceramics classes, and made a living from pottery since the early 1930s. She later moved to Ojai, California . Since then she has been interested in Far Eastern philosophy . She had contact with the theosophist Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), who exerted an enormous influence on her. She also taught at Hollywood High School and Besant Hill School . In 1938 she married the engineer Steve Hogg († 1960).

At the age of 100, Beatrice Wood became the subject of the documentary Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada . She was also the inspiration for the role of the adventurous 101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater in the film Titanic by James Cameron , played by the actress Gloria Stuart .

Beatrice Wood is considered an eccentric artist who did not want to subordinate herself to any political or stylistic dogmas , and she has significantly influenced modern art , but above all Dadaism . Her friends and lovers included Edgar Varèse , Constantin Brâncuși , Anaïs Nin , Francis Picabia , Reginald Pole , Joseph Stella , Man Ray , Gertrud and Otto Natzler .

literature

  • Garth Clark: Gilded Vessel. The Lustrous Art and Life of Beatrice Wood. Guild Publishing et al., Madison, WI et al. 2001, ISBN 1-893164-13-6 .
  • Gaby Frank: Beatrice Wood. In: Britta Jürgs (Ed.): A little water in the soap. Portraits of Dadaist artists and writers. Aviva, Grambin et al. 1999, ISBN 3-932338-06-5 , pp. 182-201.
  • Marlene Wallace, Beatrice Wood: Playing Chess with the Heart. A Centennial Celebration of Beatrice Wood. Chronicle Books, San Francisco CA 1994, ISBN 0-8118-0607-3 .
  • Beatrice Wood: I Shock Myself. The Autobiography of Beatrice Wood. Edited by Lindsay Smith. Dillingham Press, Ojai CA 1985, ISBN 0-9616071-1-4 (Chronicle Books, San Francisco CA 2006, ISBN 0-8118-5361-6 ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Biography Beatrice Wood
  2. ↑ Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada
  3. ↑ Beatrice Wood dies at the age of 105 ( Memento from August 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Wood, Beatrice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and object artist of Dadaism
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1998
Place of death Ojai