Zelda by Herself
Feb - Mar, 2003
intro | images | essay
about the show
This exhibition was organized by International Arts and Artists and is co-sponsored by the School of Humanities and the School of the Arts in conjunction with a semester-long focus on The Jazz Age.
Funded in part by The Humanities Council SC, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities: inspiring, engaging, and enriching South Carolinians with literature, history, culture, and heritage.
introduction
Although
best known as the beautiful and flamboyant wife of writer F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald was quite an accomplished artist in
her own right. Her creative endeavors in writing, dancing, doll
crafting and painting were highly successful yet overshadowed by
her husband's work. Born at the turn of the century, July 24, 1900,
Zelda was raised in a family and culture that promoted feminine
grace, but she was determined to create her own unruly and extravagant
path through life. By the age of eighteen, she was already drinking
and smoking and bobbing her hair. Shortly after she turned twenty,
she met and married F. Scott Fitzgerald,who even at this time was
one of America's most promising young authors. Soon after the wedding,
the couple moved to New York and celebrated the success of Scott's
first book, This Side of Paradise. 
The
wild pair, who split time between New York and Paris, became well-known
for their extravagant lifestyle that epitomized the roaring twenties. Zelda
and Scott were seen as celebrities during the 1920s, and as their
granddaughter Eleanor Lanahan states,"They invented a kind
of American self-image of fun and irresponsibility. People still
like that. They established that as an American identity."
In 1921, the Fitzgerald's only child was born, a daughter whom they
named Scottie. During this time, Zelda painted periodically and
wrote a few social commentaries for Metropolitan Magazine,
McCall's and the New York Tribune.
As her husband Scott became more successful, Zelda sought to bolster her own artistic reputation. She took her first painting lesson in 1925. Painting would eventually become the one artistic expression that Zelda pursued her entire life. However, she only painted casually during her restless years with Scott and the majority of her works were painted in the last fourteen years of her life. Zelda began creating her detailed paper dolls in 1927, and during the same year, at the age of 27, she threw herself into the art of dance. She studied ballet with the director of the Diaghilev Ballet, and even though it was far too late in her life to become a successful dancer, she spent eight hours a day practicing. During this time, she also wrote five stories for College Humor. Scott's name was often added to the ledger of these stories so that the family could earn additional money for her writing. On several occasions, Scott would also credit his wife for helping him write parts of his stories.
In
1930, shortly after the crash of the stock market, Zelda suffered
the first of several severe psychological breakdowns. She spent
several months in a mental hospital, after which time doctors declared
her sickness in remission and she returned with the family to Europe.
She began writing her first book, Save Me the Waltz, at this time,
but while in Europe she suffered another breakdown and doctors in
Sweden diagnosed her with schizophrenia. When the family returned
from Europe, Zelda finished her novel and wrote seven short stories,
one of which was published by Scribners. Her book was a very transparent
self-portrait of herself, yet before its publication, Zelda removed
any references to mental illness since Scott was working with similar
subject matter in his novel-in-progress, Tender is the Night. Scott
balked at the overlapping subject matter and as a result, Zelda
stopped writing stories. Instead, she wrote and produced a play
in Baltimore entitled Scandalabra. Unfortunately, the three hour
long production proved to be too lengthy and the show eventually
flopped.
During this time, Zelda continued to paint two hours a day as her psychiatrists had recommended. In October 1933, she took part in the Independents' Show in Baltimore. She suffered her third breakdown in 1934, and in an effort to raise her spirits, Scott helped organize an exhibition of Zelda's paintings at the Cary Ross Gallery in Manhattan. Zelda threw herself into frenzied preparation for the show and Scott became concerned that her overzealous interest in her painting, similar to her dancing, was beginning to take a toll on her mental stability. In 1934, Zelda published her last article in Esquire and began to concentrate on painting as her sole artistic outlet. In the following decade, Zelda exhibited her works in only a few selected exhibitions and eventually gave away many of her paintings to family members, friends and doctors.
From
1930 to 1948, Zelda was intermittently hospitalized for schizophrenia.
In 1934, she was hospitalized for the third time and Scott lost
hope that she would ever make a full recovery. He moved her to a
slightly more affordable hospital in 1936 and took a position as
a script writer in Hollywood. In 1940, he died suddenly of a heart
attack at the age of forty-four. Zelda, unfortunately, was too sick
to attend Scott's funeral in Rockville, Maryland.
Despite her struggles with schizophrenia, Zelda's daughter described her mother as being quite lucid for very long periods of time. She spent the majority of her days painting a variety of subjects that reflected her interest in fairy tales, her appreciation of landscapes and flowers, and in her Alice in Wonderland series, her wonderful sense of the absurd. The majority of her remaining paintings were completed in the forties, and Zelda became fanatical about religion in the final years of her life, a penchant which is clearly reflected in many of her later pieces. Tragically, Zelda died in a hospital fire in 1948. Many of her paintings were also lost in the fire.
Zelda's granddaughter Eleanor Lanahan is also an artist and has dedicated herself in part to further explaining Zelda's life. She states, "The misconception is she (Zelda) was this forlorn, forgotten, unproductive woman when really she developed her own separate life." More than 50 years after Zelda's death, Lanahan and IA&As Zelda By Herself exhibition help ensure that Zelda's legend endures. As Lanahan states, "She danced. She painted. She wrote. And she lived. Those were all art forms for her. It's her total being that is a legacy."
*Eleanor Lanahan quotes in this section are from Panama City's The News Herald article, Lanahan determined to have a famous grandmother's art remembered, by Troy Espe.
