More than 20 artists worked in that one block. Then there was Washington Square Park - our “Little Paris”, full of refugees from Europe. Around the corner we had Jackson Pollock who lived a block and a half away. We were known as the 10th street enclave. 8th street had always been full of artists. Gertrude Whitney had a big studio house there. She made it into a studio / gallery / club. She was a model, a sculptor and quite well off, of course, and very generous. Back then you would walk down 8th street and see all the artists. Down on Bleeker Street there was a bar, the San Remo that was also a gathering place and served lousy beer. JW: Who else was in the clique, the Little Paris group? PP: Varese the famous composer was its leader. Marcel Duchamp and Varese were very close friends and Duchamp would come around the park. JW: Were the French artists a unified group? PP: Actually there was also Breton’s Surrealist bunch. Their hangout was a few doors down from San Remo’s - a restaurant called Volpe. In Washington Square Park they had their own quarters. Breton wanted only his own personal entorage, only his own artists. JW: What was it like for women back then? PP: Women really ran a lot of the art world - several of them were gallery owners. There was Peggy Guggenheim and her big gallery (Art of This Century). During the wartime she was showing people like Kandinsky and Peggy was not afraid to tell any dealer or any curator off. She gave a show of 33 women in her gallery. Gertrude Whitney’s house was the foundation for the Whitney museum. Woman like Lee Krasner and Elaine De Kooning and others were very actively involved. JW: There was also Betty Parsons’ gallery. Did the end of the War expand the community a great deal? .PP: Yes, they all came home and from all over, as far away as California. Many of them were WPA artists |
