Yaddo

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Yaddo (1900-1910)
Yaddo (2017)

Yaddo is an artist colony in Saratoga Springs , New York, founded in 1926 . It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 27, 2013 and recognized as a National Historic Landmark .

history

The property, built in 1850 and rebuilt after a fire in 1891, was purchased in 1881 by Wall Street magnate Spencer Trask and his wife Katrina. Trask had with profitable investments u. a. made a fortune in the newly established New York Times and the Edison Electricity Company. The couple moved from New York City to the countryside after the death of their five-year-old son Alan . In 1888 their daughter Christina and their son Spencer Jr. died there. of diphtheria . A fourth child died in 1889 just twelve days after birth. After the early death of their four children, the couple decided in 1900 to convert the property into a retreat for artists. After Spencer Trask's death in 1907, the long-time family friend and second husband of Katrina George Foster Peabody played a key role in the financing and continuation of the project. In 1922, the year Katrina died, Elizabeth Ames was appointed first executive director. Yaddo finally opened in 1926.

The idea of ​​Yaddo is to allow artists an undisturbed creative process for a certain period of time within a socially and atmospherically supportive environment. The stays are financed by a foundation (Yaddo Foundation). The target group are artists in the following areas: choreography, film, literature, composition, painting, artistic performance, photography, printing techniques, sculpture and video.

The area is about 1.6 km². The gardens of Yaddo are designed according to classic Italian models that the Trasks visited while traveling in Europe. It contains many statues and sculptures, including a sundial with the inscription "Hours fly, Flowers die, New days, New ways, Pass by, Love stays" . There are four lakes on the site that the couple had created in memory of their four children.

Former scholarship holders

The list of alumni is long, around 5,000. Among them are visual artists such as Robert De Niro, Sr. , Philip Guston , Anne Truitt , composers such as Leonard Bernstein , Aaron Copland , writers such as Richard Arnold Bermann , Hermann Broch , Martin Gumpert , Heinrich Eduard Jacob , Truman Capote , Sylvia Plath , Jonathan Franzen , Jeffrey Eugenides , Jan Brandt or the universal talent Miranda July .

The American crime writer Patricia Highsmith lived in the colony from May to July 1948 and set the Yaddo Foundation as the main heir of her fortune. She had already supported this foundation with several generous donations during her lifetime. During her stay she wrote the novel Strangers on a Train (Eng .: Two Strangers on a Train ) , which was published in 1950 and had great success. Alfred Hitchcock filmed the novel in 1951 (German: The Stranger on the Train ) and helped Patricia Highsmith to achieve world fame.

literature

  • Andrew Wilson: Nice shade . Berliner Taschenbuchverlag, 2005, ISBN 3-8333-0311-5 .
  • Jan Brandt : Same rooms, different voices: Truman Capote wrote his first novel in the artist residence Yaddo in the US state of New York. Shortly thereafter, he was a star. A search for clues ; in: "Süddeutsche Zeitung" No. 220, Munich, 20./21. September 2008 (weekend); S. III.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New York. National Park Service , accessed February 2, 2020.
    Yaddo on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed February 2, 2020.

Coordinates: 43 ° 4 ′ 6.5 ″  N , 73 ° 45 ′ 29.3 ″  W.