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Wood, Beatrice

 Person

Biography

Beatrice Wood (1893-1998) was born on March 3, 1893 in San Francisco and raised in New York City. The daughter of affluent socialites, Wood studied painting at the Julian Academy and acting at the Comédie Francaise in Paris at the age of 18. Upon her return to New York, she joined the French Repertory Company and in 1916, befriended the artist Marcel Duchamp and the writer and diplomat Henri Pierre Roché. The three founded and published the short-lived little magazine The Blind Man, one of the earliest manifestations of Dada in Americirca Through Duchamp, Wood met the art collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg, artists Man Ray, Francis Picabia, and Charles Sheeler, and the poet Mina Loy. Wood became a regular participant in the frequent gatherings of intellectuals, artists, and writers at the Arensbergs' West 67th Street apartment. With Duchamp's encouragement, Wood returned to drawing and painting, submitting a work to the 1917 exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists.

Wood relocated to Montreal in 1919 to continue her acting career and there she married Paul Renson, a theater manager. She soon annulled the marriage and returned to New York City. Around 1926, Wood moved to Los Angeles and then to Hollywood, California, where she renewed her friendship with the Arensbergs. In 1938, she married Steve Hoag, an engineer. By all accounts the marriage was not a happy one, yet the couple lived together until his death in 1960. In 1948, they relocated to Ojai, California to be near the Indian sage Krishnamurti, the leader of the Theosophical Society, to which Wood had belonged since 1923.

Wood first became interested in ceramics in 1933 after purchasing a set of luster-glaze plates at an antique store. She soon enrolled in a pottery course in the Adult Education Department of Hollywood High School. She later studied briefly with the Austrian ceramists Gertrud and Otto Natzler. For the next sixty years, Wood supported herself creating and selling pottery and in 1956 she opened her own studio. At first, she concentrated on dinner sets, but by the mid-1970s she began to specialize in more elaborate, decorative bowls, vases and chalices with complex luster glazes. Wood continued to work at her potter's wheel until two years before her death in 1998 at the age of 105.

Found in 191 Collections and/or Records:

Ode à Marcel Duchamp, 1953 June 14-19

 Object — Box: 5, Folder: 11
Identifier: MDP_B005_F011_001
Scope and Contents

Wood, Beatrice. "Ode à Marcel Duchamp." Typescript carbon, corrected.

Dates: 1953 June 14-19

Ojai folk dances brochure with note by Beatrice Wood, 1953 October 31

 Object — Box: 39, Folder: 6
Identifier: WLA_B039_F006_001
Scope and Contents

Ojai folk dances brochure with marginalia by Beatrice Wood from Ojai Community Art Center.

Dates: 1953 October 31

Patisco Quintano, 1925

 Object — Box: 53, Folder: 36
Identifier: WLA_B053_F036_001
Scope and Contents

Photograph of Patisco Quintano by Beatrice Wood.

Dates: 1925

Philadelphia Inquirer. "Memories of Marcel", 1987 November 1

 Object — Box: 26, Folder: 64
Identifier: MDE_B026_F064_001
Scope and Contents

Philadelphia Inquirer. "Memories of Marcel" by Edward J. Sozanski [copy].

Dates: 1987 November 1

Photocopy of the 1963 "Marcel Duchamp" exhibition file, 1961-1987

 Object — Box: 8, Folder: 6
Identifier: MDR_B008_F006_001
Scope and Contents

Pasadena Art Museum. "Marcel Duchamp." Photocopy of the 1963 exhibition file, including correspondence with Marcel Duchamp, Walter Hopps, Richard Hamilton, and Beatrice Wood; clippings; installation plans; and shipping receipts. 1 of 2. Includes correspondence from Naomi Swaleson-Gorse to Anne d'Harnoncourt with inventory of photocopied materials.

Dates: 1961-1987

Photocopy of the 1963 "Marcel Duchamp" exhibition file, 1961-1963

 Object — Box: 8, Folder: 7
Identifier: MDR_B008_F007_001
Scope and Contents

Pasadena Art Museum. "Marcel Duchamp." Photocopy of the 1963 exhibition file, including correspondence with Marcel Duchamp, Walter Hopps, Richard Hamilton, and Beatrice Wood; clippings; installation plans; and shipping receipts. 2 of 2.

Dates: 1961-1963

Photograph of "Aeroplane", undated

 Object — Box: 18, Folder: 1
Identifier: MDE_B018_F001_117

Photograph of poster for The Blindman's Ball, undated

 Object — Box: 21, Folder: 1
Identifier: MDE_B021_F001_044
Scope and Contents

Wood, Beatrice. Photograph of poster for The Blindman's Ball, 1917. Photo by Bacci Attilio.

Dates: undated

Photographs, circa 1919, undated

 Series
Scope and Contents

Prints (primarily copy, but two vintage) and negatives of photgraphs taken by John Covert. The photographs are primarily of female models posed either in the artist's studio or outside in a park. Includes several detail shots of shoes and feet, as well as a handful of nudes. Covert's models include Kathleen Lawler, and perhaps Clara Tice and Beatrice Wood.

Dates: circa 1919, undated

Photographs of Louise Arensberg, Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia, Beatrice Wood[?], and Sophie Treadwell, circa 1917

 Object — Box: 50, Folder: 12
Identifier: WLA_B050_F012_001
Scope and Contents Vol. 2, p. 12 [from left to right, top to bottom]: Photograph of Louise Arensberg and Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia standing with unidentified man in automobile in New York[?], circa 1917; Photograph of Louise Arensberg [?] in New York[?] circa 1917; Photograph of Beatrice Wood and Louise Arensberg in a New York[?] park, circa 1917; Photograph of Louise Arensberg and unidentified woman in New York[?], circa 1917; Photograph of Beatrice Wood and Louise Arensberg in a New York[?] park, circa 1917;...
Dates: circa 1917

Additional filters:

Type
Archival Object 189
Collection 2
 
Subject
correspondence 76
Philadelphia, United States 35
photographic prints 32
New York City, United States 31
Hollywood, United States 30