Description:

White Stanford 1853 - 1906 Stanford White writes to MacMonnies "Stewart is nearly going crazy"
Single typed page on stationary stock addressed to "Mac" (Frederick William MacMonnies), on the firm's letterhead of "McKim, Mead & White". Dated "December 9th, 1895", and signed in graphite by Stanford White as "Stanford White". 8" x 10.25". Expected folds, faint handling marks, three small pinholes, with small pencil notes, corrections, and edits in Stanford White's hand.


A wonderful Stanford White TLS written during his arguably most productive years during the 1890's. Through his firm of McKim, Mead and White, Stanford dominated the architectural scene in New York. His firm applied the principles of Beaux-Arts architecture, the adoption of the classical Greek and Roman stylistic vocabulary as filtered through the Parisian Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and the related City Beautiful Movement after 1893 or so. Its vision was to clean up the visual confusion of American cities and imbue them with a sense of order and formality during America's Gilded Age.

White's letter to MacMonnies, the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, expresses concern that he has not yet heard back from "Mac" about the Washington Arch groups, noting "Stewart is nearly going crazy" as he is lacking data to determine the cost of the marble and the figures to cut and fashion the stone. He was requesting from Mac if he can determine "the work could be done as he spoke of for $30,000, and by your sending what the marble could be furnished for in Europe, and the cost of cutting separately, we would be enabled to see whether we could get the work done more cheaply here". White is emphatic in his need for a hard number from Mac, asking "Kindly cable me at once on receipt of this letter as follows: "Yes, so many thousand dollars". By this I will understand that you can do the work for $30,000., and the marble and cutting cost so much money. If you cannot do it for $30,000, instead of cabling yes, cable: "Thirty five (or whatever the figure will be) and also the cost of cutting. Please do not fail to do this."

The Washington Arch had been completed by the time of this letter, and White had moved onto several projects which were being worked on concurrently including the Cosmopolitan Building, a Neo-Classical Revival building topped by 3 domes, several grand structures for the University of Virginia, the library at the New York's Metropolitan Club, and the Gould Memorial Library, currently owned by the Bronx Community College but originally built in 1899 as the library for New York University. The Gould Memorial library boasted a central rotunda with space defined by a double row of green marble columns, capped by a gilded dome with deeply recessed coffers. MacMonnies worked on most all of his projects alongside White, so this letter could have alluded to anyone of these .

White's forte consisted of an innate ability to design buildings, no matter how grand, on a human scale. It has been said that "A single person is very comfortable being in even the largest of his spaces". Stanford White was a talented ornamentalist, in addition to having an uncanny ability to pull light into almost every corner of the building.

A wonderful TLS with handwritten notes, demonstrating the working relationship between these two great figures who dominated the architectural scene in the late 1880s.

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