ABSTRACT
Among the reasons for which some critics dismiss the American modernist Florine Stettheimer as frivolous or eccentric is the existence of an early will asking that all of her artworks be buried alongside her body. Stettheimer was drawn to materiality, particularly if it was diaphanous and shimmered or sparkled like the wings on her self-proclaimed anima, the dragonfly. She filled her paintings and the rooms in which she lived with lace, crystal flowers and tinsel, even draping silver tinsel over a small figure of the Apollo Belvedere that she kept on the mantel facing her bed. The overtly feminine and decorative character of Stettheimer’s work separates it from the more masculine, streamlined modernism of her American contemporaries. For Stettheimer, the entire environment and context were part of the artwork, and she ecumenically appropriated from past European art in a very post-modern manner. Throughout her career, Stettheimer designed furniture based on sketches she made while visiting European museums, palaces and exhibitions.
