© Roxane Gilbert
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(1883-1935) Charles Demuth was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country. He attended Franklin and Marshall Academy, and went on to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. It was in Philadelphia that Demuth became friends with the poet William Carlos Williams.

In 1904, Demuth went to Paris for the first time. He met many other Americans in Paris, including the writers Gertrude Stein and Eugene O'Neill, and the artist Marsden Hartley. Hartley introduced Demuth to Alfred Stieglitz in New York, and he became part of the Stieglitz inner circle. His early recognition came from his illustrations of stories by Henry James amd Emile Zola.

Demuth wanted to illustrate Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, but never did. He had hoped to meet Proust while visiting Paris in 1921, but the author was near death and would not see him. It was on this trip to Paris in 1921, that Demuth learned he was diabetic. At the time of his death in 1935, his friend William Carlos Williams believed Demuth had deliberately stopped using insulin.

Charles Demuth Prints & Posters

References:
Early American Moderns: Painters of the Stieglitz Group by Mahonri Sharp Young; (1974) Watson-Guptill Publications; New York, NY; pp 14-15
World Book Macintosh Edition; Contributor: Charles C. Eldredge, Ph.D., Hall Distinguished Prof. of American Art, Univ. of Kansas.