HERVEY
WHITE
AND THE
MAVERICK ART COLONY
THE
JEAN GAEDE AND
FRITZI STRIEBEL
ARCHIVE
CENTER
FOR
PHOTOGRAPHY AT WOODSTOCK
The Festival
The Maverick Festival was founded
in 1915 by Hervey White at the suggestion of musicians in residence at
the Maverick Art Colony as a means of raising money to pay for the digging
of a well. Its success was such that it became an annual summer event
open to the general public, and it became White's main vehicle for fund-raising
for building projects, taxes, and other operating expenses for the Colony.
White conceived of the Festival as a Bohemian
carnival filled with communal spirit to be held on the grounds of the
Colony during the afternoon and evening of the August full moon. The culmination
of the evening was a theatrical spectacle that began after dark with riotous
performances by locals, followed by a costume ball that lasted to the
morning. Originally, the spectacle was held in a stone quarry on the property,
but as the audience and the spectacles outgrew both the quarry and a later
open-air theater, a permanent structure, the Maverick Theater, was built
in 1924.
An annual theme for the Festival was announced,
which the festival-goers enthusiastically embraced with outrageous costumes
and eccentric behavior. But eventually this began to attract visitors
from far afield more interested in catching a glimpse of a scantily-dressed
woman, or of a well-known painter in ridiculous dress. More unfortunate
however was the growing presence of outside bootleggers in this age of
Prohibition, gamblers, and other unsavory characters. Audiences grew larger
and more difficult to control every year, and in 1929 the New York
Herald Tribune reported that there had been over 6000 people in attendance.
That year the Festival was marred by ugly scenes of drunken brawls,
robberies, and even rapes, which necessitated intervention by the State
Patrol. By 1930 local censure and protest had grown to such a degree over
what was perceived by many to be a sinful and immoral event that White
was compelled to dampen the spirit of the Festival for that year. Under
the weight of outside pressure and financial difficulties White suspended
the Maverick Festival definitively in 1931.
The Theatrical
Spectacles
The first Festival in 1915 had as its culminating
event a simple recital by the Russian singer Madame Narodny and the American
dancer Lada, both of whom were accompanied by the Metropolitan Orchestra
directed by Leon Barzin, Sr. But in successive years, skits, plays, pageants,
and other more complex presentations became typical. The productions,
mostly conceived and written by Maverick residents, included Catskills'
Rip van Winkle, with nude nymphs (1917), a farce ridiculing the Kaiser
(1918), Aria da Capo (1920), prepared by Maverick resident Edna
St. Vincent Millay, Russel Wright's Cubist Circus (1923), Salammbo
(1925), and The Arabian Nights (1928). For one particularly
memorable production entitled The Ark Royale (1924), conceived
by Walter Steinhilber, an 80-foot pirate ship was built as the set and
in a spectacular climax was burnt to the ground.
Revellers, ca. 1922
Charles Rosen as Cupid and
his wife, 1930
The Pirate Ship
the Ark Royale, 1924