![]() Her secret, like Duchamp’s bottle, lay in the packaging. She survived two world wars and a depression, shepherding the Morgan Library for decades following its namesake’s death in 1913. Fortune brought her into contact with Junius Morgan preparation readied her to wow his plutocrat uncle. She came of age at a time of particular poignancy, in her own life and in the nation’s, rising to a position of power and personal satisfaction rare for a woman of that time-or any time. Asked later if she had been one of Morgan’s many mistresses, Greene would laugh and say, “We tried.”įeted for her professional acumen, wit, and style, Belle Da Costa Greene lived a life of self-invention, propelled by drive and audacity. Morgan hired her as a librarian, in which role she not only oversaw and curated his burgeoning collection of antiquities but ran personal interference for and read aloud to “Big Chief,” as she called the Wall Street dynamo. Introduced by Junius, Greene, who was 26 but claimed to be 23, hit it off with the 64-year-old tycoon. Greene and the younger Morgan, both bibliophiles, worked at the Princeton University Library in New Jersey. Greene had entered Morgan’s orbit in 1905 through the banker’s nephew, Junius Morgan, an acquaintance from her job. ![]() She dressed and behaved flamboyantly-drinking and smoking, traveling solo, enjoying numerous suitors, and conducting an affair with a married man. He did not display the work until 1965, 15 years after Greene died.ĭuchamp was among a circle of artists and scholars acquainted with the green-eyed Greene, who for her time lived the fast life. The artist used the piece as an element on the cover of the only issue of the modernist magazine New York DADA, produced in collaboration with the versatile, innovative American artist Man Ray in 1921. Aficionados (see “Decoding Duchamp,” below) argue that in creating the work Duchamp was encoding references to his temporary patroness. Duchamp dyed the container green, perhaps an allusion to the Belle Da Costa Greene story as well as a play on her family name. The bottle originally held a Rigaud brand perfume, Un air embaumé, and was made of peach-colored glass. Irked and intrigued the artist, as she did so many others. Green is survived by wife Pat and three children.Belle Da Costa Greene: The Black Activist's Daughter Who Reinvented Herself Across the Color Line Closeīelle Greene was 34 when she sat for this chalk portrait by artist Paul Helleu. “That guy over there,” said Kurri, pointing at the assistant coach Green. One day, a Finnish reporter asked Jari Kurri who the best conditioned athlete on the Oilers team was. The minute they would leave the house, Greenie would be down doing pushups and as soon as they walked back in the door, he’d go back to whatever he was doing.” “When Teddy’s sons were getting older and stronger, Greenie challenged them to who could do the most pushups in two or three months. ![]() He stayed in shape long after he finished playing. Nothing he wouldn’t do for people,” said Low. Look at his work with the Mustard Seed, he was doing that for years before anybody knew. “One thing about Teddy … he never tooted his own horn. That boy, my son Scott, is now a lawyer in town. “You’ll go a lot farther doing that than chasing for pucks in the seats,” said Green. After faking like he was going to dump the boy into a nearby garbage can, Green got serious. He once saw a kid in grade one or two reading a book outside the Oilers dressing room. Off the ice, Green was playful, in a good way.
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