RECOGNITION
“You know, by observation, too much of the worst of art—the egos that are needed to carry the new art through discouragement. But how they struggle and what bitter indignities they, who should be the proud, invite! Art has been and still is very nearly everything to me, but, as the artist had enlarged himself with a new vision, I feel that there is another manner of seeing that is far beyond art. And sometimes I think that art is the last shackle—not the perfect liberation.” —Evelyn Scott to Elizabeth Ames, 1930
Artistic recognition (or misrecognition) comes in all sorts of varieties. Some artists are readily feted, catapulted into roles of celebrity and renown early in their careers. Others achieve professional respect within their creative communities, only to be largely overlooked by wider audiences. Still others achieve widespread fame, but are slighted by peers for their popular successes. Some become the subjects of late-life or posthumous revivals. Others, well known and widely read during their lifetimes, are all but forgotten today, including the remarkable Evelyn Scott, Josephine Herbst, James T. Farrell, and Guy Endore. Yaddo’s artists, writers, and composers are no exception to what sometimes appears to be the capriciousness of literary, artistic, and intellectual tastes. Cultural hierarchies of taste—high, low, and middle-brow, popular and elite, fine art and entertainment—made artistic recognition even more complicated and nuanced for the artists of the 20th century. Those who gained popular success, such as Irving Stone and Mario Puzo, were often denied critical acclaim, while those who created their work for specialized audiences of aficionados risked both poverty and obscurity.