In the 1920s, Caresse Crosby (born Mary Phelps Jacob; April 20, 1892 – January 24, 1970) emerged as a vibrant and influential figure, an American expatriate in Paris’s rich cultural and artistic circles. Alongside her husband, Harry Crosby, she embraced the bohemian lifestyle, mingling with leading artists, writers, and intellectuals reflecting the spirit of the Lost Generation.
Harry and Caresse on holiday in Étretat.
Photo: © Special Collections, Southern Illinois University
The Lost Generation refers to a cohort of American writers and artists who grappled with feelings of disillusionment and aimlessness following World War I. Popularized by Gertrude Stein, the term describes their exploration of moral loss -- and the search for meaning -- in a rapidly transforming world, with notable figures like Earnest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald at the forefront of this introspective and innovative artistic quest. While in Paris, Caresse and Harry started the Black Sun Press and published beautiful editions of writers like James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, and Charles Bukowski, among others. Time Magazine referred to Caresse as the "literary godmother to the Lost Generation of expatriate writers in Paris" for her involvement with the cultural community.
The wide social circle of Caresse and Harry Crosby expanded even further upon meeting Polia Chentoff (Russian, 1896–1933) in the mid 1920s at a Salon where she was exhibiting. Polia was a painter, illustrator and sculptor with a magnetic presence, and the Crosbys hired her to draw for their publications. Harry and Polia eventually began a passionate affair, which further strained the complex dynamics between him and Caresse. Despite the turmoil, Polia remained a fixture in their lives for a time and painted matching portraits of Harry and Caresse in 1927-28.
The couple at the Moulin du Soleil.
Photo: © Special Collections, Southern Illinois University
“Harry and I had discovered Polia together at the Salon d’Automne in 1928 when we both fell under the spell of her painting First Communion,” wrote Caresse in her 1953 memoir, The Passionate Years. “We bought it; it had won a prize. But soon Polia became entirely Harry’s as so many of our mutual enthusiasms did—in the process she painted the strange portentous portrait which he reproduced as a frontispiece to his Chariot of the Sun. She also painted one of me and this portrait now hangs in my house in Washington where the poet St. J. Perse drops in from time to time to gaze at it with concerned admiration... He says he has never seen the distaste of one woman for another so skillfully and subtly portrayed. Harry’s portrait exists no longer, for on returning to Paris after his death I found it so metaphysically disturbing that I put it to the torch.”
Caresse and Harry's Paris flat (19 Rue de Lille) circa 1928. This may be one of the only images of the two portraits together; it appears that Polia may have just finished working.
Photo: © Special Collections, Southern Illinois University
The portrait of Harry as a frontispiece; the original painting is no longer in existence.
Photo: © Special Collections, Southern Illinois University
This portrait of Caresse came to The Conservation Center for treatment, needing care for age-related condition issues.
The portrait prior to treatment.
The canvas of the painting was inadequately secured to the strainer along the top edge and had become slightly slack. There were some minor deformations and some quilting to the canvas, and there were two pinholes in the upper right corner. Mechanical cracks were scattered throughout the painting, especially on the left half and along the bottom edge, and there were small paint losses along the edges at the pinholes. The varnish was thick and uneven; the natural glossy resin discolored and coated in a light layer of surface grime.
The portrait under ultra-violet light, during treatment.
Amber Schabdach, Head of Painting Conservation, quickly got to work. First, the painting was photographed for in-house documentation. The flaking paint was locally consolidated using conservation adhesives. The painting was then carefully removed from the strainer, and the canvas deformations were flattened as best as possible using a combination of humidity and weight techniques. The fibers of the tears at the upper corners were aligned and mended with conservation adhesive. The original canvas was strip-lined with strips of sized canvas and conservation adhesives for structural support. The painting was then restretched to a new stretcher. Next, grime was removed from the surface using an aqueous solution and the reverse was cleaned with a soft brush and vacuum. The varnish layer was removed as safely as possible with organic solvents, and a coat of varnish was applied to saturate the paint layer. Losses were filled and textured with fill material, and inpainting was carried out in areas of loss and cracking using reversible conservation paints. A final coat of varnish was applied to integrate the surface gloss.
The portrait after treatment.
Conserved and protected for years to come, this portrait of Caresse was returned to the Special Collections Research Center of the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. This portrait is currently part of an exhibition titled Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939 at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The exhibition runs through February 23, 2025, and highlights the dynamic role of portraiture in articulating the new identities that American women were at liberty to develop in Paris. Caresse Crosby is alongside other cultural influencers such as Josephine Baker, Isadora Duncan, Zelda Fitzgerald, Loïs Mailou Jones, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, Gertrude Stein, Ethel Waters, and Anna May Wong.
Caresse and a close-up of the portrait, side by side.
Photo: © Special Collections, Southern Illinois University
We are grateful to the Special Collections Research Center at Southern Illinois University for their assistance in researching this article.
