I was so interested in other artists, it always cooled me off on myself. When I’m not at the gallery, my own art is my relaxation. That’s my greatest joy. Betty Bierne Pierson, the rebellious, self-assured offspring of an old New York family, was 13 when she visited the historic Armory Show in 1913 and set her course on becoming an artist. Her conservative parents acquiesced to art lessons but drew the line at higher education for women. At 20, she married Schuyler Livingston Parsons, a man of wealth and social standing. He proved to be as captivated by men as she was by women, and a gambler and an alcoholic to boot. The couple divorced amicably in Paris, where she spent the 1920s in comfort, sharing her life with Adge Baker, a British art student, and taking classes with Ossip Zadkine and Antoine Bourdelle, among others. Her friends included expatriate Americans Hart Crane, Man Ray, Alexander Calder, and Gerald and Sara Murphy, as well as lesbian literati Gertrude Stein, Natalie Barney and Janet Flanner.
Artist Helène Aylon (b. 1931), who showed at Betty Parsons Gallery, interviewed her dealer on Jan. 19, 1977, for Heresies magazine’s groundbreaking issue on lesbian art and artists. But their conversation never appeared in Heresies because the 77-year-old dealer, who had been open about her sexuality in her youth, now guarded her privacy. Parsons responded warmly to Aylon, and otherwise spoke with candor about her extraordinary life. Aylon did publish an excerpt of her interview in the fall 1977 issue of Womanart, a magazine with a tiny circulation. Thirty-six years later, when I happened to meet Aylon at a benefit for the Women’s Caucus for Art, she told me she still had the original tape of her interview and sent me a copy. It proved to be as fascinating as Aylon had said. With her encouragement, I transcribed and edited it for publication here.
HELÈNE AYLON Most dealers who begin as artists don’t remain artists. Unusually, you did.
BETTY PARSONS I’ve been working in sculpture and painting since 1920. When I went to Paris to get a divorce, I had some money. I worked very hard with Bourdelle, seated right next to Giacometti, for years. I was extremely serious about it. My great love was sculpture—I wanted to work in stone. But I couldn’t afford to hire people to help me after the stock market crashed. So I did painting and watercolors. In Santa Barbara, I taught drawing and sculpture in my own studio, and kept painting.
I knew a lot of people out there, and they introduced me to people. I had a raft of young people who used to come up from the town to study with me. They were darling, and they were dying to learn something. I was glamour to them because I had lived in Europe. They didn’t have any money, and everyone was going communist. The wealthy gang in Santa Barbara used to call them “little Reds.” It was very funny. But they were no more “red” than I was.
AYLON In Hollywood you knew Greta Garbo.
PARSONS I played tennis with her. It’s interesting how we met. Her ghostwriter, Salka Viertel, asked me to come by on Christmas Eve to dress the tree. When I arrived, Salka told me to go up to the attic and help Garbo bring down a great big box full of Christmas dressing. We stared at each other over the top of the box, and that’s how I met her.
The Germans always had candles on their trees, real candles. I was standing at the mantelpiece with a little glass of brandy, and Garbo came towards me with a candle she was going to put on the tree. I said, “Which one of us burns brightest, you with the candle or me with the brandy?” She got very serious, and said, “You burn much brighter than me because you burn from within.” It was fascinating.
Rouben Mamoulian, the director, was her boyfriend then, and, God, was he jealous over her. So she was guarded by all these men, always. She was very interested in women. She liked women, she really liked women. I married a man who was jealous about everything. If I got enthusiastic about a book, about a flower, about a place, about a human being—jealous. “Don’t do it! Stop.” It was depressing, and I couldn’t take it. Men see they really haven’t got you. And that makes them jealous. And they should be, too. Friendship with a woman can be a very close relationship.
There are three things we have no control over: our birth; our emotions, if we’re sincere; and our death. We are born in the world because we have to learn something through whatever we’re born into. Although it might be awful. That’s why it’s an illusion to think that we really run our lives. We don’t.
AYLON I like the idea you once mentioned about the difference between elegance and chic: that elegant people are unaware of this quality in themselves, and those who are aware are merely chic.
PARSONS I can’t stand chic. Elegance is an inner thing, and chic is an outer thing.
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Read full interview at artnews.com.
