9th Street Show, 1951

In 1951 Joop Sanders included his painting “Death and Entrances” in the seminal artist-led 9th Street Show.  The piece, which takes its title from the Martha Graham ballet of the same name, was highlighted by Thomas Hess in his review of the show in Art News.  The poster for the show was designed by Franz Klein and included the many of the artists that Joop was close with at the time.

Death and Entrances, 1951
Oil on canvas, 40 × 48 inches
Collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum

In 2012 Sanders wrote the following recollection about the scene;

“In the 1940s, a group of Village artists met almost every night to discuss art and politics. In good weather, we met on the northwest corner of Washington Square Park near the ‘hanging tree,’ which was huge because it was fed by Minetta Brook. If nobody was there, the crowd would be around the corner at the Waldorf Cafeteria on the east side of 6th Avenue near the corner of 8th Street. The regulars were Bill de Kooning, Philip Pavia, Milton Resnick, Ahron Ben-Schmuel, Conrad Marca-Relli, Franz Klein, Landis Lewetin, Ibram Lassow and me and occasionally Aristodimos Kaldis and Charlie Egan and others.

The owners of the Waldorf would try to throw us out all the time because we sat there all night and most of us never bought food because we didn’t have enough money. We talked from 8 to midnight, when they closed. Eventually, the Waldorf owners did throw us out completely, and that is why the artist’s Club was founded.

In October 1949, on Philip Pavia’s initiative, the group rented space at 39 East 8th Street at University and Broadway. I was one of the nineteen founding members of what became known as ‘The Club.’ We’d meet, drink and hold discussions there. Later, a few of the members finally started to make money from their art, and when they were through drinking and talking at The Club, they would head to the Cedar Tavern to continue into the night. There was also heavy foot traffic back and forth between Cedar Tavern and Chuck Wagon, a coffee shop diagonally across University Place from the Cedar, where everyone ate cheaply and where those who didn’t drink as much tended to hang out.”