Poem by Kurt Schwitters (This was Kurt visiting the Steinitz residence in Hanover for professional assistance from Kate's husband, Dr. Steinitz.)
Links to a variety of sites that talk about Kate Steinitz
Los Angeles Times (4-16-76): The Complexity of Simple Kate ... by William Wilson (Written a year after Kate Steinitz died.)
Los Angeles Times (4-16-76): The Complexity of Simple Kate ... by William Wilson
Sometimes she called herself Simple Kate. If there was anything simple about Kate Trauman Steinitz, it was the simple clarity that comes from knowing who you are and what you want to do.
She was an art person for most of her 85 years. Friend and supporter of the avant-garde in pre-Hitler Germany, biographer of Dada Maste, Kurt Schwitters. She came to the United States in 1935. When she moved to California, she became a central energy source in establishing the Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana at UCLA, preserving the Watts Towers...
She once used the pseudonym Annette Nobody. It takes an almost oriental sense of paradox to understand that. Kate Trauman Steinitz was only Nobody in the happy self-effacement involved in giving your life to ceaselessly doing what you believe in. She was scholar, archivist, writer, conservator, collector. She was so busy giving that everybody almost forgot Nobody was an artist, poet, set designer, critic and philosopher.
Now there is a labor-of-love exhibition of the art she made when she wasn't doing everything else. It has been assembled by the young LA Louver Gallery as a memorial tribute a year after her death and consists of 90 paintings, prints, comic drawings and photographs plus selections of her scholarly papers and memorabilia.
It is like a diary of celebrations. The work unabashedly celebrates German Expressionist styles while remaining almost completely innocent of their characteristic worry and haunted obsessiveness.
Kate Steinitz liked to depict animals, circuses and pretty ladies. One of the best works on view is a photograph of the clear eyed sensuality of two young women swimming.
The exhibition traces her life beginning with the comic woodcut from 1902. It shows an unforced giftedness that never flags. Most of all it shows a twinkling with that never lets sentiment become mawkishness, an appreciation that never lets wit come sarcasm.
A Harlem series done shortly after her arrival in the States depicts blacks without a shade of prejudice. The people just knocked her out and she makes no bones about it.
At times her good spirits seem almost superhuman. A drawing of a camel is entitled, "When Hitler came I went to the Zoo." A series of comic panels deals with a kidneystone operation with a puckish bravery that would shame a kamikazi pilot.
It's a singular exhibition and that's appropriate to the unique spirit of its subject, that simple complex nobody somebody, Kate Steinitz.
Links to a variety of sites that talk about Kate Steinitz
http://www.publicaddress.us/SMario/merzbau.pdf
The above link goes to a site that allows you to read a section of Kurt Schwitters by Werner Schmalenbach
Harry A. Abrams, 1967 (out of print), Standard Book No. 8109-0477-2 Kate Steinitz's partnership with Kurt Schwitters is discussed from the view point of a biographer focusing on Kurt Schwitters life.
http://www.drleslie.com/Contributors/steinitz.shtml
| Kate Steinitz 1889 - 1975 |
|
Kate Steinitz studied at the Academie und Studienateliers fuer Malerei und Plastik (connected with the Berlin Secession), at the Ecole de la Grand Chaumiere and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1921 her work was exhibited with the Hanover Secession and in 1924 she worked on a book with Kurt Schwitters and founded Aposs Verlag, primarily to publish typographically new and progressive work. In 1925 she designed a children's book with Schwitters and Theo Van Doesberg. In 1935 she was notified by the Reichsschrif-Humskammer that she could no longer write for German publications. In 1936 she emigrated to the US, joining her husband who was already in New York. She worked as a freelance artist and researcher from 1936 to 1942. In 1940 she organized the exhibition “New Americans” at the New York World’s Fair. She relocated to Los Angeles in 1944 and from 1945 to 1975 held the position of art historian and librarian at the Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana. |
Poem by Kurt Schwitters (This was Kurt visiting the Steinitz residence in Hanover for professional assistance from Kate's husband, Dr. Steinitz.)
At Dr. Steinitz'
HaischHaischHaischaaaa
Ha --
Haischaaaaaa
It's no joke -- my sneezing poem --
but a simple notation
of the bane of my life every winter
and spring, even -- haisch -- high summer
but as Momma always told me
It's no use snivelling
over what can't be helped
so I made friends with good Doctor Steinitz --
a cultured man for Hannover --
who distributes pills from his parlour
and each month holds chamber concerts
in his drawing room
with Katie, his wife, who one winter
between the croup and flu
convinced me to write an opera with her.
So one day I sat in Steinitz' office
feeling helpless in my cubicle
half in half out of my nightshirt
wondering when the doctor would return
when a verse of song ran through me
-- spark across a gap --
and I had to write it down
but where were my clothes? a pen?
In a wink I slide off the couch
out into the empty reception room
and when the nurse walks in
she sees my bare tail wagging
as I scribble on a prescription pad.
I can't say what came over her --
or what she thought -- first I knew
she was whipping me away with a stethoscope,
screaming like Momma
last time she tried to spank me
and I'm retreating -- none too dignified --
when in walks Katie
singing the theme from our opera
-- so what should I do but hug her
and sing her my new song
and if that makes the nurse turn tomato red
well -- philistines be damned
give me an audience who understands!