The Museum of Modern Art has an exhibition until August 7, 2021 called Modern from the Start about Alexander Calder’s (1898-1976) long residence with MOMA, their “first and only house artist.” Paul Fontaine exhibited with Alexander Calder in Frankfurt in February 1953, but Virginia Fontaine had already met him in September 1952. She had been…
A Note and Connection From Director Claudia Fontaine Chidester
A shout out to Canan Yetmen for her upcoming third volume of the Anna Klein trilogy, All That Remains (Summer 2021). This enthralling climax to the series has all the trappings of a great summer read: complex WWII history, requited love, and the chance to live through the eyes of a passionate woman as she…
Bruni Falcon and the difficult path of an opera singer
Bruni Falcon was an American opera singer born in Boston to German parents as Brunhilda Pfeiffer. Unable to travel to Europe during WWII, Bruni began her professional career at the age of 22 in Mexico City and then toured the U.S. with the Charles Wagner Opera company in 1950. Aside from singing, she was praised…
Castles and Crimes: The Nazis weren’t the only one’s who looted
While Virginia Fontaine witnessed how the occupation forces helped find and repatriate art stolen by the Nazis during her time in post-World World II Germany, the Nazis weren’t the only ones to burglarize homes. Allied military occupying local homes in Germany during the war were reported by the Stars & Stripes military newspaper of stealing…
Women Spies Part 2: Rose Mary Kunz
Rose Mary Kunz appeared in Virginia Fontaine’s diaries on January 19, 1951, but not as a new friend, but as someone flying up to Frankfurt to the Rhein-Main Air Force base to visit Virginia in particular. Rose Mary worked in the Madrid embassy but came to Germany often, always visiting Virginia. We have no information…
Women Spies Part I: Patricia Van Delden
Patricia Van Delden, (1908-unknown). Alias: Sonneveer. Van Delden was a Los Angeles native who studied biology in Munich, Zurich, and Vienna in the 1930s, and married a Dutch electrical engineer in 1939. After he was captured by the Nazis in 1942 for sabotage, and later died in a concentration camp, she continued his work transmitting…
It’s Women’s History Month! Introducing: Women Spies
Women’s History Month calls us to discover, tell and uplift the history and stories of women across the world and throughout the decades! To celebrate this month, we will be giving you a two part series on women spies and their mysterious identity and impactful legacy in breaking ground for the abilities and accomplishments of…
“Tite as a Tick” Virginia Fontaine Meets Billie Holiday and Gives Frank Review of her Performance
Congratulations to actress Andra Day for winning Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Golden Globe in “US vs. Billie Holiday” (Hulu)! Day sang remarkably close to the recordings of Holiday, and this win sparked the archive to dig up a first hand encounter Virginia Fontaine had with Holiday in New York at Club…
Photography, Dance, and Difficult Decisions
In modern dance, the American Martha Graham (1894-1991) comes to mind as the leader. But in Germany, the iconic name in contemporary dance was Mary Wigman (1886-1983), who studied under the Swiss teacher, Rudolf Laban. In 1919 she performed her first Expressionist Dance and in 1920 opened her dance school. Graham was introduced to the…
A Look into a 1947 Fasching Party (Happy Mardi Gras!)
Happy Mardi Gras! Recently the archive received a request for information and images of Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1968), a German painter, that ended in uncovering an image of a Fasching Party (Mardi Gras) from 1947. Surprisingly we didn’t have much on Nay when information was requested on him. Surprising, because he was so often at…