biography of Marius DE ZAYAS (1880-1961)

Birth place: Veracruz, Mexico

Addresses: NYC, from 1907

Profession: Art dealer, caricaturist, illustrator, writer

Exhibited: 291" Gal, NYC, 1909, 1910, 1913 (solos)"

Work: MMA (Alfred Stieglitz Collection)

Comments: Shortly after moving to NYC in 1907, De Zayas became part of the Stieglitz circle and in 1909 and 1910 exhibited caricatures (depicting New York personalities) at Stieglitz's gallery. De Zayas exhibited there again in 1913 (in solo show entitled Caricature: Absolute and Relative"), showing highly original caricature portraits in which he depicted, not external characteristics, but instead described the subject by a combination of curved lines, geometric shapes, and mathematical symbols and formula that he believed symbolized the spirit of the individual. De Zayas called these "geometric equivalents" and over the next two years made a number of portraits of various people, including Stieglitz, Picabia, the artist Katharine N. Rhoades, and Theodore Roosevelt. The works have a particular historical importance because they predate Picabia's "machinist portraits" and may have influenced them. De Zayas's main significance to early 20th-century American art, however, lies in his activities as an art dealer and his writings for several important avant-garde publications. He opened two galleries of his own: The Modern Gallery (1915-18) and the De Zayas Gallery (1919-1921), showing the most progressive of European artists, Picasso, Braque, Picabia, Van Gogh, Derain, Brancusi, Modigliani, and Cezanne; and American modernists, Marin, Dove, Walkowitz, Paul Strand, Sheeler, and Schamberg; and also African and Pre-Columbian sculpture. After the De Zayas Gallery closed, he acted as an advisor to other New York galleries, organizing exhibitions of modern art. His own collection of African art was an important visual source for American artists. In addition, he contributed several articles to Camera Work, in 1911-14 and was an editor at the short-lived avant-garde publication 291. Books: co-author, with Paul Haviland, A Study of the Modern Evolution of Plastic Form (1913); author, African Negro Art: Its Influence on Modern Art (1916).

Sources: W. Homer, Avant-Garde Painting and Sculpture in America, 62; A. Davidson, Early American Modernist Painting, 77-79, 178, 189, 261."