Rita de Acosta Lydig
Encyclopedia
Adolf de Meyer
Adolph de Meyer was a photographer famed for his elegant photographic portraits in the early 20th century, many of which depicted celebrities such as Mary Pickford, Rita Lydig, Luisa Casati, Billie Burke, Irene Castle, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Ruth St. Denis, King George V of the United...
, Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
, and Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...
, sculpted in alabaster by Malvina Hoffman
Malvina Hoffman
Malvina Hoffman , was an American sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people...
, and was painted by Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini was an Italian genre and portrait painter. According to , he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.-Early life:...
and John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
, among others. She also wrote one novel, Tragic Mansions (Boni & Liveright, 1927), under the name Mrs Philip Lydig, a society melodrama described as "emotionally moving and appealing" by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
Birth and Family
Rita de Acosta was born in New York CityNew 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...
in 1875 to Ricardo de Acosta, a steamship-line executive of Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n descent, and a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
mother, Micaela Hernandez de Alba y de Alba, reputedly a relation of the Dukes of Alba
House of Alba
The House of Alba is an important Spanish aristocratic family who derive from the 12th century Mozarab nobility of post-conquest Toledo. Their claim to Alba traces to 1429, when the first Álvarez de Toledo was made Lord of the City of Alba de Tormes...
. She had seven siblings: Joaquin, Enriqué, Ricardo, Mercedes
Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta was an American poet, playwright, and socialite, best known for her numerous lesbian affairs with Hollywood personalities including Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Isadora Duncan, Katharine Cornell, Ona Munson, Adele Astaire and, allegedly,...
, Aida
Aida de Acosta
Aida de Acosta Root Breckinridge was an American socialite and the first female to fly a powered aircraft solo. In 1903, while in Paris with her mother, she caught her first glimpse of dirigibles...
, Maria, and Angéla.
Her sister Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta was an American poet, playwright, and socialite, best known for her numerous lesbian affairs with Hollywood personalities including Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Isadora Duncan, Katharine Cornell, Ona Munson, Adele Astaire and, allegedly,...
, a lover of movie star Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, was an author, a scriptwriter, and social critic. Another sister, Aida de Acosta
Aida de Acosta
Aida de Acosta Root Breckinridge was an American socialite and the first female to fly a powered aircraft solo. In 1903, while in Paris with her mother, she caught her first glimpse of dirigibles...
, became the first female to fly a powered aircraft solo.
Personal life
Rita de Acosta was married twice:- On January 3, 1895, aged 19, she became the first wife of William Earl Dodge StokesWilliam Earl Dodge StokesWilliam Earle Dodge Stokes was an American multimillionaire responsible for developing much of New York's Upper West Side.-Early life:...
, a multimillionaire with whom she had a son, William Earl Dodge Stokes Jr, born January 5, 1896. The marriage was unhappy, reportedly due to Stokes's temper and physical cruelty, and when it was dissolved by divorce in 1900, she received a settlement of nearly two million dollars, a record for the time. In February 1922 she testified in court against Stokes, then going through an acrimonious divorce from his second wife, stating that he used to beat her during their marriage. - In 1902 she married Captain Philip M. Lydig, a retired officer in the United States ArmyUnited States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. They separated in 1914 and divorced in 1919.
In 1921 Lydig announced her engagement to Reverend Percy Stickney Grant
Percy Stickney Grant
Percy Stickney Grant was an American Protestant Episcopalian clergyman. He was born in Boston and was educated at Harvard University and at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge . He was assistant minister of the church of the Ascension and minister of St...
, rector of the Church of the Ascension
Church of the Ascension (New York)
The Church of the Ascension is an Episcopal church in the Diocese of New York, located at 36-38 Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan New York City. From an austere beginning as a bastion of the evangelical movement it has become internationally known for...
. Their wedding plans were broken off in 1924 when Bishop William Manning
William Thomas Manning
William Thomas Manning was an U.S. Episcopal bishop of New York.-Biography:...
refused to authorise the marriage, citing Lydig being a divorcée with two living former husbands. Rev. Grant died shortly afterwards, leaving his personal fortune to the woman he had hoped to marry, and Lydig spent large sums of money on fashion, art, furniture, and other objects to overcome her grief. Heavily in debt, she was forced to sell her Washington Square home and its contents, was declared bankrupt, and died of pernicious anaemia at the Gotham Hotel shortly after, at the age of 54.
Lydig is buried with her mother and sister Mercedes at Trinity Church Cemetery
Trinity Church Cemetery
Trinity Church Cemetery consists of three separate burial grounds associated with Trinity Church in Manhattan, New York, USA. The first was established in the Churchyard located at 74 Trinity Place at Wall Street and Broadway...
in Washington Heights
Washington Heights, Manhattan
Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...
, 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...
.
Influence on Art and Fashion
Famous for her extravagant lifestyle, '...Rita was equally welcomed in Paris, where she spent parts of each year. She would arrive at the Ritz with a hairdresser, masseuse, chauffeur, secretary, maid,... and forty Vuitton trunks... In Paris, she joined ranks with musicians, artists, intellectuals, and philosophers, names like Rodin, Duse, Yvette Guillbert etc... Impressed by Rita's innate creative spirit, Isabella Stewart GardnerIsabella Stewart Gardner
Isabella Stewart Gardner – founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston – was an American art collector, philanthropist, and one of the foremost female patrons of the arts....
, the great collector and creator of the Gardner museum
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or Fenway Court, as the museum was known during Isabella Stewart Gardner's lifetime, is a museum in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts and near the Back Bay Fens...
in Boston, once asked their mutual friend, John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
, why Rita had never expressed herself artistically. "Why should she?" Sargent answered, "She herself is art."
Lydig lived in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and 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...
, and counted Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
, Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
and Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
among her friends. She also supported the suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
cause.
Her personal wardrobe became the basis for the start of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
.
External links
- Sotheby's Catalogue 2007
- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9901EED81130EE3ABC4C53DFB4668389639EDE Lydig in 'The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
' February 4, 1922] - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B07E0DF103BE633A25756C0A9629C946296D6CLYDIG COLLECTION SOLD FOR $362,555; Art Treasures Scattered at Two Sales to Dealers and Private Collectors 'The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
' April 5, 1913] - Death notice in Time Magazine October 28, 1929
- The Building of the Upper West Side 2005