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The Salmagundi Club Dining Room
From November 12th to the 20th two venerated cultural enterprises, Portraits, Inc. and the Salmagundi Art Club, will share billing in an exhibition celebrating contemporary portraiture. For decades a familiar fixture on Manhattan’s Park Avenue, a Portraits, Inc. show is always a welcome event. But what on earth is a Salmagundi?
The Salmagundi Club’s Wikipedia entry traces two references for the word “salmagundi’ that may have inspired the club’s current moniker; Salmagundi Papers was Washington Irving’s short-lived lampooning political journal and salmagundi is a type of left-over stew wrangled up with whatever is on hand and generally served onboard pirate ships—so more Melville than Irving.
Actually both references offer a surprisingly current, albeit coded, description for a turn-of-the-century art club. The Salmagundi’s earliest members included famous illustrators, such as Charles Dana Gibson, Howard Pyle and NC Wyeth, who would have been familiar with, and likely supplied images for, satirical publications like Irving’s. Similarly, the club’s initial rosters included important early American Impressionists, among them Childe Hassam and William Merritt Chase, who would have taken a more modern view of artists as cultural outsiders—best detached and able to view and report on the world with a critical and fresh eye.
The club dining hall is worth noting in this context; with rough hewn tables and benches, timbered beam ceiling, and lime washed walls it stages a Nantucket tavern and, if you can make the leap, the mess hall of a sailing ship. I like the latter as it references pirating. Artists are equally ruthless as visual thieves and no sight is too small for them to abscond away with—including a particular penchant for “capturing” likenesses. And have these “artist pirates” not abducted countless hearts and souls with their work and in their travels?
Romantic allusions aside, the Salmagundi is first and foremost a club founded for and by working artists—it was first called the New York Sketch Class and later grew to become the New York Sketch Club. Though now housed in a landmark lower Fifth Avenue townhouse, it has never entirely shaken off its humble beginnings and a culture of genteel poverty pervades—what we now call “shabby chic.” The dining room indeed serves up a glorious Salmagundi Stew—a stick to the ribs honest fare that speaks highly of the thrifty lifestyle adopted by those gifted few that gamble away financial gain to pursue artistic promise.
The art of portraiture offers this same steadfast and hearty fare—like a solid meal cooked up with love and inventiveness, so a portrait comes to life with a few pots of paint, a piece of tarp, and the earnestness and ingenuity of a resourceful inventor. And although portraiture may lack the terribly astute conceptual ingredients that sum up the fancy fare served up in far trendier Chelsea —that menu leaves me exhausted and hungry for work that is generous in its effort to draw me in rather than show me up. Your best bet is to head over to the graceful parlors at the Salmagundi this November and treat yourself to an honest and genuine display of artworks meant to feed your heart and soul. And if you have room, head down to the not-in-the-least-bit-fancy dining hall for a plate of what-have-you stew.
Michael Gormley is a painter, writer, curator and regular contributor to the Portraits, Inc. blog. Gormley is the former editor of American Artist magazine and most recently created the fine art catalog for Craftsy--an online education platform.
Portraits, Inc. was founded in 1942 in New York on Park Avenue. Over its 70-year history, Portraits, Inc. has carefully assembled a select group of the world’s foremost portrait artists offering a range of styles and prices. Recognized as the industry leader, Portraits, Inc. provides expert guidance for discerning clients interested in commissioning fine art portraits.