Marian Spore Bush
Encyclopedia
Marian Spore Bush left her successful Michigan dental practice for a studio in Greenwich Village
, New York City, and became a self-taught painter
in the 1920s. She claimed her large surrealistic works were inspired by long-dead artists who were communicating with her from "beyond the veil." Her predictions of the future, her unusual artwork, her work with the poor in New York City's Bowery
, and her eventual marriage to Irving T. Bush
incited much interest in the national press.
, Michigan
, on October 22, 1878, to Melvin and Helen Miller Spore. She attended Western High School in Bay City graduating in 1895 and went on to Ann Arbor
to graduate from the University of Michigan
College of Dentistry in 1899. Flora opened a dental office in Bay City in 1901 and became the first female dentist
in Bay County
. She was widely appreciated “for her progressive and excellent work in the day when she fabricated inlays, crowns
, bridgework, and dental plates in her own laboratory. She was also a pioneer in the field of periodontal
dentistry.”
According to her sister Belle Spore Tunison, “although a woman of varied interests, Mrs. Bush never had the slightest inclination towards art--either theoretically or in practice--until after the death of her mother, Mrs. M. L. Spore, in 1919. She gave up her dental practice then and went to Guam
to spend six months with her brother, Lieut. Comm. James Sutherland Spore
, who was governor general at that time, and there she began her first painting.” After some further travels abroad, she settled in New York City
and rented a studio in Greenwich Village.
Flora Marian was “an early participant in an exploration of the field of extrasensory perception in collaboration with Dr. Walter Prince of the Boston Psychic Society. She believed firmly in life after life and the ability of the dead to communicate with the living through mental means. She felt that her painting was inspired and her art guided by artists long dead,” perhaps originally introduced to her through the spirit of her deceased mother. Yet she also insisted that she was not a spiritualist or a medium
, nor did she believe in physical manifestations from “the other side of the veil.”
Harry Houdini
, an arch-enemy of spiritualists, was fascinated by her artwork. In 1924, Houdini's remarks about her paintings were printed in the New York Sun
: “It is a great exhibition. I am certain of Miss Spore’s honesty. I have never excluded the possibility of supernatural intervention from my belief. I have been engaged in the exposure of criminal fakers… there is no question of that here. Miss Spore has something beautiful and is conveying it to her fellow men.”.
Flora Marian Spore’s paintings were exhibited in the most conservative and prestigious art galleries of New York City: Knoedler’s, Wildenstein’s, Grand Central Art Galleries
and also the Fine Arts Gallery of London, "where art critics, society reporters, and psychiatrists, as well as crowds of the general public, flocked to see them." She received much publicity from both the mainstream press and sensationalist tabloids, which printed such articles as “Mystic voices led her to romance, fame and wealth” and “Pictures my mother sends me from beyond the grave.”
in the Bowery
. First with her own money and then with the financial assistance of other benefactors, she personally dispensed such things as meal tickets, clothing, spectacles, false teeth, and wheelchairs." She became known to the press as Lady Bountiful of the Bowery. While engaged in this work she met Irving T. Bush
, founder and president of Bush Terminal Company in New York City, and Bush House
in London
. They were married in Reno
on June 9, 1930, an hour after Bush’s divorce from his second wife became final. Shortly afterwards, Marian closed her soup kitchen, feeling that other relief agencies could handle the work more efficiently.
Henceforth, Marian Bush split her life between acting the society hostess
and being a practicing artist. In “symbolism and mood her paintings seemed to forecast world events and conditions. Early in the 1930’s, her art took an entirely new trend. Up to this time her palette had been extraordinarily vivid. Now she seemed impelled to paint huge stark canvases in black and white, all of war or presaging war.” One example, entitled "New York City: When?" shows two airplanes and burning buildings amidst the skyscrapers of New York.
Edward Alden Jewell, art critic for the New York Times, said of her 1943 New York exhibition, “I should be inclined to refer to her work in this field as that of a primitive mystic
. The large black and white canvases seem at once crude and powerful….All the war paintings are symbolic in nature. Their impact is sharp and disturbing. If accepted as manifestations of psychic phenomena
, they are mysterious.”
There was one exception to the trend of her later work. In 1942, Marian produced a series of small paintings of scenes from the island of Guam, where she stayed in the early 1920s while visiting her brother. The New York Times' art critic described these canvases as "high in key" and observed they "involve extensive use of impasto
." According to an art gallery newsletter, "these Guam paintings are delightful primitives
, very colorful and full of the movement of the sea and palm trees.”
for the poor and needy in New York City
's Bowery
section, beginning in 1927. By February 1930 she worked four months annually, from January until April, relieving a populous of unskilled labor. During the Great Depression
a growing breadline formed a streetwide T from Second Avenue (Manhattan)
to the Bowery. It extended for a city block
and a half.
Marian Spore distributed more than $1,300 weekly in meal tickets purchased from the Y.M.C.A. at 22 East Third Street. She provided alms for the feebled, crippled, and the starving. Four tickets purchased for a nickel each made up the smallest semi-weekly ration. Spore added a small colored ticket which was paired with meal tickets. The colored ticket gave one admittance to a small headquarters composed of two rooms, located at 24 East Third Street. On the next day of distribution the ticket holder could enter the building where Spore spent two hours every Monday and Thursday. Inside the headquarters, converted from a squalid tenement, she carried out the distribution of pants, overcoats, shoes, and other clothing, which Spore bought from stores which sold to her.
In February 1930 Spore left her Park Avenue apartment for several weeks. However, her chauffeur, a Y.M.C.A employee, continued to give out meal tickets and clothing to the disadvantaged.
After Marian S. Bush’s death in New York on Feb. 24, 1946, a large retrospective
exhibition of her work was organized in New York City. Most of her works have not been seen in public since this exhibition more than 60 years ago. Most of her early paintings were sold to patrons, and many of her important works are still owned by her descendants.
In her obituary, the New York Times reprinted the statement of Dr. Walter Franklin Prince
, "for many years research and executive officer of the Society for Psychical Research
, [who] has said of Mrs. Bush, ‘She represents a very unusual and remarkable phenomena, at least part of which is quite beyond explanation by our present science. Her honesty and general character are beyond doubt...that she is able to state facts probably unknown to her to a degree beyond the limits of chance has been absolutely proved by me. Here is a remarkable and perplexing case.’”
, v. XLI n.23, June 7, 1943, p. 71-2
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, New York City, and became a self-taught painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
in the 1920s. She claimed her large surrealistic works were inspired by long-dead artists who were communicating with her from "beyond the veil." Her predictions of the future, her unusual artwork, her work with the poor in New York City's Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
, and her eventual marriage to Irving T. Bush
Irving T. Bush
Irving T. Bush was an American businessman. His father was the wealthy industrialist, oil refinery owner, and yachtsman Rufus T. Bush. As founder of the Bush Terminal Company, Irving T...
incited much interest in the national press.
Early Life and career
Marian Spore Bush was born Flora May Spore in Bay CityBay City, Michigan
Bay City is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan located near the base of the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 34,932, and is the principal city of the Bay City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Saginaw-Bay City-Saginaw Township North...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, on October 22, 1878, to Melvin and Helen Miller Spore. She attended Western High School in Bay City graduating in 1895 and went on to Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
to graduate from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
College of Dentistry in 1899. Flora opened a dental office in Bay City in 1901 and became the first female dentist
Dentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
in Bay County
Bay County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the 2000 census, there were 110,157 people, 43,930 households, and 30,048 families residing in the county. The population density was 248 people per square mile . There were 46,423 housing units at an average density of 104 per square mile...
. She was widely appreciated “for her progressive and excellent work in the day when she fabricated inlays, crowns
Crown (dentistry)
A crown is a type of dental restoration which completely caps or encircles a tooth or dental implant. Crowns are often needed when a large cavity threatens the ongoing health of a tooth. They are typically bonded to the tooth using a dental cement. Crowns can be made from many materials, which...
, bridgework, and dental plates in her own laboratory. She was also a pioneer in the field of periodontal
Periodontology
Periodontology or Periodontics is the specialty of dentistry that studies supporting structures of teeth, diseases, and conditions that affect them...
dentistry.”
According to her sister Belle Spore Tunison, “although a woman of varied interests, Mrs. Bush never had the slightest inclination towards art--either theoretically or in practice--until after the death of her mother, Mrs. M. L. Spore, in 1919. She gave up her dental practice then and went to Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
to spend six months with her brother, Lieut. Comm. James Sutherland Spore
James Sutherland Spore
James Sutherland Spore was a commander in the United States Navy. He served as acting governor of Guam from February 27, 1921 to February 7, 1922 and as acting governor of American Samoa from March 24, 1931 to April 22, 1931....
, who was governor general at that time, and there she began her first painting.” After some further travels abroad, she settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and rented a studio in Greenwich Village.
Spiritualism and Painting
As Flora Marian Spore, “she became well-known for a new and unusual technique, sometimes using paint so thick it seemed as much sculpture as painting. Brilliant color, power, and an unquestioned sense of design of a new and mystic school brought her work to the attention of art critics who reviewed her paintings with interest and favor.”Flora Marian was “an early participant in an exploration of the field of extrasensory perception in collaboration with Dr. Walter Prince of the Boston Psychic Society. She believed firmly in life after life and the ability of the dead to communicate with the living through mental means. She felt that her painting was inspired and her art guided by artists long dead,” perhaps originally introduced to her through the spirit of her deceased mother. Yet she also insisted that she was not a spiritualist or a medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
, nor did she believe in physical manifestations from “the other side of the veil.”
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
, an arch-enemy of spiritualists, was fascinated by her artwork. In 1924, Houdini's remarks about her paintings were printed in the New York Sun
New York Sun (historical)
The Sun was a New York newspaper that was published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune...
: “It is a great exhibition. I am certain of Miss Spore’s honesty. I have never excluded the possibility of supernatural intervention from my belief. I have been engaged in the exposure of criminal fakers… there is no question of that here. Miss Spore has something beautiful and is conveying it to her fellow men.”.
Flora Marian Spore’s paintings were exhibited in the most conservative and prestigious art galleries of New York City: Knoedler’s, Wildenstein’s, Grand Central Art Galleries
Grand Central Art Galleries
The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
and also the Fine Arts Gallery of London, "where art critics, society reporters, and psychiatrists, as well as crowds of the general public, flocked to see them." She received much publicity from both the mainstream press and sensationalist tabloids, which printed such articles as “Mystic voices led her to romance, fame and wealth” and “Pictures my mother sends me from beyond the grave.”
Later Life and Work
In the late 1920’s, having dropped the name Flora, Marian “started a breadlineSoup kitchen
A soup kitchen, a bread line, or a meal center is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church groups or community groups...
in the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
. First with her own money and then with the financial assistance of other benefactors, she personally dispensed such things as meal tickets, clothing, spectacles, false teeth, and wheelchairs." She became known to the press as Lady Bountiful of the Bowery. While engaged in this work she met Irving T. Bush
Irving T. Bush
Irving T. Bush was an American businessman. His father was the wealthy industrialist, oil refinery owner, and yachtsman Rufus T. Bush. As founder of the Bush Terminal Company, Irving T...
, founder and president of Bush Terminal Company in New York City, and Bush House
Bush House
Bush House is a building between Aldwych and The Strand in London at the southern end of Kingsway. The BBC World Service occupies the Centre Block, North East and South East wings. The North West wing was formerly occupied by BBC Online until they relocated to BBC Media Village in 2005, with some...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. They were married in Reno
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
on June 9, 1930, an hour after Bush’s divorce from his second wife became final. Shortly afterwards, Marian closed her soup kitchen, feeling that other relief agencies could handle the work more efficiently.
Henceforth, Marian Bush split her life between acting the society hostess
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
and being a practicing artist. In “symbolism and mood her paintings seemed to forecast world events and conditions. Early in the 1930’s, her art took an entirely new trend. Up to this time her palette had been extraordinarily vivid. Now she seemed impelled to paint huge stark canvases in black and white, all of war or presaging war.” One example, entitled "New York City: When?" shows two airplanes and burning buildings amidst the skyscrapers of New York.
Edward Alden Jewell, art critic for the New York Times, said of her 1943 New York exhibition, “I should be inclined to refer to her work in this field as that of a primitive mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
. The large black and white canvases seem at once crude and powerful….All the war paintings are symbolic in nature. Their impact is sharp and disturbing. If accepted as manifestations of psychic phenomena
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
, they are mysterious.”
There was one exception to the trend of her later work. In 1942, Marian produced a series of small paintings of scenes from the island of Guam, where she stayed in the early 1920s while visiting her brother. The New York Times' art critic described these canvases as "high in key" and observed they "involve extensive use of impasto
Impasto
In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...
." According to an art gallery newsletter, "these Guam paintings are delightful primitives
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
, very colorful and full of the movement of the sea and palm trees.”
Philanthropist
As a wealthy Park Avenue (New York) resident, Marian Spore operated a soup kitchenSoup kitchen
A soup kitchen, a bread line, or a meal center is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church groups or community groups...
for the poor and needy in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
section, beginning in 1927. By February 1930 she worked four months annually, from January until April, relieving a populous of unskilled labor. During the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
a growing breadline formed a streetwide T from Second Avenue (Manhattan)
Second Avenue (Manhattan)
Second Avenue is an avenue on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan extending from Houston Street at its south end to the Harlem River Drive at 128th Street at its north end. A one-way street, vehicular traffic runs only downtown. A bicycle lane in the left hand portion from 55th...
to the Bowery. It extended for a city block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
and a half.
Marian Spore distributed more than $1,300 weekly in meal tickets purchased from the Y.M.C.A. at 22 East Third Street. She provided alms for the feebled, crippled, and the starving. Four tickets purchased for a nickel each made up the smallest semi-weekly ration. Spore added a small colored ticket which was paired with meal tickets. The colored ticket gave one admittance to a small headquarters composed of two rooms, located at 24 East Third Street. On the next day of distribution the ticket holder could enter the building where Spore spent two hours every Monday and Thursday. Inside the headquarters, converted from a squalid tenement, she carried out the distribution of pants, overcoats, shoes, and other clothing, which Spore bought from stores which sold to her.
In February 1930 Spore left her Park Avenue apartment for several weeks. However, her chauffeur, a Y.M.C.A employee, continued to give out meal tickets and clothing to the disadvantaged.
Writings and Legacy
Marian wrote a semi-autobiographical book about her spirit paintings, entitled They, which was published posthumously in 1947 by the Beechhurst Press of New York. She also wrote numerous children’s stories which have never been published.After Marian S. Bush’s death in New York on Feb. 24, 1946, a large retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. For example, the term is used in medicine, describing a look back at a patient's medical history or lifestyle.-Music:...
exhibition of her work was organized in New York City. Most of her works have not been seen in public since this exhibition more than 60 years ago. Most of her early paintings were sold to patrons, and many of her important works are still owned by her descendants.
In her obituary, the New York Times reprinted the statement of Dr. Walter Franklin Prince
Walter Franklin Prince
Walter Franklin Prince was Investigating Officer of the Boston Society for Psychical Research in Boston during the years Harry Houdini served as an agent of the organization while investigating reportedly corrupt spiritualist mediums. Prince was an Episcopal minister, earning his two B.D.'s from...
, "for many years research and executive officer of the Society for Psychical Research
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research is a non-profit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena...
, [who] has said of Mrs. Bush, ‘She represents a very unusual and remarkable phenomena, at least part of which is quite beyond explanation by our present science. Her honesty and general character are beyond doubt...that she is able to state facts probably unknown to her to a degree beyond the limits of chance has been absolutely proved by me. Here is a remarkable and perplexing case.’”
External links
TimeTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, v. XLI n.23, June 7, 1943, p. 71-2
- Full text of They
- They on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...