Monumental Dreams: The Life and Sculpture of Ann Norton

10. A Reticent Romance

96 10 A Reticent Romance When Ann arrived to teach at the Norton School in 1943, Ralph Norton had already added to the Gallery’s holdings, buying, among other lesser-known works, a Courbet, a Childe Hassam, a Gauguin, a Joshua Reynolds, and a sculpture by José de Creeft. He also built two new galleries (without air-conditioning) to house the expanding collection, including a remarkable collection of Chinese jade that had just arrived. Ralph Norton acquired the jade through one of those chance encounters that lead to a sensational result. In 1942, he met Stanley Charles Nott, an English dealer in Chinese jade. For $150,000, Norton, not heretofore particularly interested in Chinese antiques but encouraged by Robert Hunter, acquired a large collection of Nott’s finest jade carvings, most of it from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He built a special gallery to house the pieces. He said later he wanted to exhibit in this new Chinese Room, “in groups which would be small but of the highest quality, most of the things for which the Chinese were famous.” These purchases came to be regarded by connoisseurs as one of Ralph Norton’s most brilliant acquisitions. Robert Hunter’s influence was omnipresent; Norton’s acquisitions after his arrival became more modern and adventurous. Hunter also brought in traveling exhibitions, including several from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Mr. Norton had a good grasp of what painting and sculpture were all about,” he said, “and it is to our eternal good fortune A Reticent Romance · 97 that he never followed the inbred and myopic ‘popular’ types of art that all seem to derive from colored photographs or sentimental illustrations.” In the first years after the Gallery’s opening, the Nortons still spent much of their time in Chautauqua, where in 1945–46 Ralph was president. They would go regularly to Chicago for business meetings and also take the train to New York to visit art dealers. But Elizabeth Norton became increasingly ill at this time, and by 1945 she was often unable to travel with her husband. It was sometime after Ann’s arrival in West Palm Beach that Ralph began to get to know her. Perhaps he noticed this diminutive figure, so serious and dedicated, working away in her studio when the students had gone home. He began to sit in on her classes, finding out about direct carving (about which he knew nothing) and the art Ann cared about (about which he knew very little). The relationship rapidly developed. By July 1946, Ralph was writing to Ann from Chicago about her vacation visit to Selma, addressing her as “Ann.” He tells her that he plans to be in New York in September and that it would be interesting for them both to visit some of the art galleries. “I am sure you would enjoy it.” By this time it sometimes happened that if Ralph was in New York, Ann would be in town to visit the Basky foundry, and they would sometimes arrange to see each other. When they were in New York together, they usually spent some time visiting dealers with Ralph’s friend William McKim. McKim was exhibition chairman of the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach at the time and a major promoter of contemporary art. (He greatly admired Alfred H. Barr Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art.) McKim was another big influence in bringing Ralph into the modern era. Not surprisingly, when Ralph introduced Ann to him, Ann and McKim found much to talk about, and they became fast friends. Ann immediately realized how helpful McKim could be professionally. She wrote to Crawford Gillis in 1945, while he was still fighting overseas, suggesting that when the war was over he get in touch with McKim, because McKim could help him find a dealer for his work. “I know that seems very remote and trivial now,” she wrote to him, “but when you get back in the art world these things count.” Ann also asked McKim to take John Lapsley’s work around the United States. Ann was always loyal, looking out for her friends’ interests. She was also loyal to her most influential teacher, John Hovannes, hoping to get him to Selma to meet her two friends and their more well-known ally 98 · Part III. From Annie Vaughan Weaver to Ann...