NATIONAL ARTS CLUB

The 'National Arts Club' is a private club founded in 1898 by Charles De Kay, a New York Times art critic, to "stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts". Since 1906 the organization has occupied the Samuel J. Tilden House, a landmark Gothic Revival brownstone at 15 Gramercy Park, New York City, New York, immediately next door and West of the Players Club, with similar interests. The club offers a variety of shows, educational programs, and awards in areas including theater, visual arts, film, literature, and music. It is noted for allowing members access to a Gramercy Park key.

Contents

Members

Recent History

References

External Links

Members

The National Arts Club is one of the few private clubs which has, since its inception, admitted women as full and equal members. Among the distinguished painters who have been members are Robert Henri, Frederic Remington, William Merritt Chase and Cecilia Beaux. Sculptors have included Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, Anna Hyatt Huntington and Paul Manship. Many renowned literary figures (including W.H. Auden and Mark Twain) have also been members.
The National Arts Club is proud of its early recognition of new media artforms, like photography, film and digital media, and counts Alfred Stieglitz as one of its early members. Musicians Victor Herbert and Walter Damrosch were members, as were architects Stanford White and George B. Post. The Dramatic Arts are currently represented by members Martin Scorsese, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper, Robert Redford and Uma Thurman, and the literary arts by such writers as Frank McCourt and Edward Renehan. As well, through the years, the membership of the National Arts Club has included three presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Dwight Eisenhower.

Recent History

The current president is O. Aldon James, who has run the organization since 1985.^[1] No stranger to controversy, James has been credited with revitalizing the organization and doubling the membership.^[2] In the same period, however, there has been a conviction for fraudulent use of the club's nonprofit tax identity by James's twin-brother John, ^[3] and another conviction for the theft of tax receipts by the club's dining room manager, ^[4] as well as a high-profile conflict with Gramercy Park trustees over the cutting of trees which the club sought to save,^[5] and doubts aired in 2004 that the club's historic building is being properly maintained.^[6]

References

1. A Patron of the Arts in a Courtroom Drama
2. A Genteel Fellowship Turns Fractious; Money Matters Are Questioned At the National Arts Club
3. Plea In Arts Club Case
4. Arts Club Official Pleads Guilty
5. A 'Theydunit' in the Park
6. A Haven For Artists Faces Doubts At Home

External Links

★ The National Arts Club website

★ Plea in Arts Club case, ''New York Times'' 2003-07-11

★ A 'Theydunit' in the Park, ''New York Times'' 2005-05-19