The National Arts Club - About the Artists


	THE GRILL COLLECTION

Above: Members relaxing in the Men’s Grill, circa 1930s, Records of the National Arts Club, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., reel 4259, fr.800. Photo courtesy the Archives of American Art

On May 17, 2005, a selection of the Grill Collection will be permanently installed on the upper walls of the Fred L. Goddard Room (also known as the Billiard Room) and unveiled. This event is open to members and their guests only.

This installation in the Fred L. Goddard Room showcases a selection of the surviving artwork from the Men’s Grill, formerly located on the ground floor of the Gramercy Park clubhouse.¹ In its previous incarnation, the Grill consisted of a spacious lounge, the Open Table library of books and memorabilia, and a billiard room that was adjoined by a room with a fireplace, luncheon tables, card tables and the “Victoria Bar.”² Accessible to women on special occasions only, it served as a popular “men’s retreat” from noon to midnight.³

Members took great delight in the Grill’s informal atmosphere, and their enjoyment of the space was heightened by the artwork that graced its walls. Indeed, shortly after the club relocated from its initial headquarters on West 34th Street to the former Gramercy Park mansion of Samuel J. Tilden in 1906, artist members would occasionally donate small-scale paintings and sketches to adorn this special facility. The practice continued sporadically in the ensuing years, as artists and members-at-large presented artwork, photographs, and other mementos, including literary and archival material. The collection was significantly enhanced during the mid-1910s, when club member and Open Table Librarian Fred L. Goddard, seeking “appropriate & novel decoration” for the Grill, came up with the idea of creating a decorative frieze that extended around its walls.⁴ Over 100 artist members participated in the program, contributing paintings, watercolors and drawings, the majority of which were executed on panels of uniform size (maximum twelve inches high) and housed in simple wood slat frames. According to Goddard’s guidelines, a “fifteen minute sketch” was “just as acceptable as an elaborate picture” and the medium could be “any old thing from oil to a lump of charcoal.”⁵ One very important requirement was that “every panel should bear the inscription of the artist so that for years to come, the complete work may be a good reminder of our artist friends.”⁶

Although the frieze was largely complete by 1921, gifts to the Grill Collection continued intermittently until well into the 1930s. Highlights include Francis Luis Mora’s deftly rendered portrayal of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain in Washington Square Park, Charles Livingston Bull’s exquisite watercolor of a tiger and dead flamingo, and an array of colorful plein air landscapes and urban scenes by painters associated with the American Impressionist and Realist traditions. Portraits and caricatures of club members, as well as photographs of masterworks by sculptor members, were also among the Grill’s treasured holdings.

Past custodians of the Grill Collection included the aforementioned Goddard, who was succeeded by club members Gates D. Fahnestock, J. Thomson Willing, James B. Pond, G. Glenn Newell, and Frank Chapin Bray, the latter serving until well into the 1930s. The Men’s Grill continued to operate for many years, with the frieze as its centerpiece. The collection itself remained in situ until the mid-to-late 1960s, when it was relegated to the club’s storage room, where, due to lack of funds, it fell into a state of disrepair.⁷ However, with the formation of the Curatorial Committee in 1991, whose mission involves overseeing the preservation and documentation of the club’s artistic legacy, its place in the history of this venerable institution has been revived: the majority of artwork that comprises the Grill Collection underwent restoration treatment between 1993 and 2004, bringing it back to the splendor of its original presentation.

—Carol Lowrey, Ph.D., Curator of the Permanent Collection

1. Founded in 1898, the National Arts Club was originally based in a double brownstone at 37-39 West 34th Street, which it quickly outgrew. In 1905, financier, philanthropist and club president Spencer Trask arranged for the purchase of the Tilden home, which, over the next year, was transformed into a clubhouse under the able direction of member and decorative-architect Charles Rollinson Lamb.
2. Established in 1909, the Open Table was a table in the grill where “from fifty to two hundred men dine and meet, informally, in social intercourse on Monday nights—a table of most delightful experiences, to which all men of the club and their guests are cordially invited.” See F[rank] C[hapin] B[ray], “The Grill,” in The National Arts Club, New York, Fortieth Anniversary Dinner to Charter Members, January Eighteenth, 1939 (New York: National Arts Club, 1939), unpaginated. Dinner was usually followed by a lecture given by either a club member or an invited speaker.
3. Report of the Curator of the Grill, Minutes of the Annual Meeting, 13 April 1937, Records of the National Arts Club, reel 4239, fr. 616.
4. Untitled typescript, circa 1915, Records of the National Arts Club, reel 4256, fr. 553.
5. Untitled typescript, fr. 553.
6. Untitled typescript, fr. 554.
7. Around 1975, the space was renovated and transformed into the multiple galleries in use today. Information courtesy of club members O. Aldon James and Everett Raymond Kinstler.

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