Blog #16 Period 4/5

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A Flapper Who Called Great Neck Her Home

ALTHOUGH F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived on Long Island for only a year and a half, they are one of the area's most celebrated couples. They are remembered as glamorous symbols of Jazz Age extravagance. They are also remembered for their great talent.

Scott's short stories earned him wealth during his lifetime, and his novels, especially ''The Great Gatsby,'' secured him literary prestige after his death. Zelda's talent was less recognized in her time but much more multi-faceted. She wrote both short stories and a novel and became a proficient ballet dancer. She also had a third creative outlet -- painting -- that is often overlooked.

That talent is showcased in a new exhibition, ''Flappers in Fashion: Zelda Fitzgerald & the Jazz Age,'' at the Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages in Stony Brook. The show incorporates an exhibition of 54 of Zelda's paintings. But also on display are many photographs, documents and artifacts from the early 1920's, when the Fitzgeralds were part of a literary and Broadway crowd that lived in Great Neck.

The Fitzgeralds moved to 6 Gateway Drive in Great Neck Estates in October 1922, two years after Scott, then 26, gained fame for his first novel, ''This Side of Paradise.'' Zelda, who was then 22, was known best as the inspiration for her husband's flapper heroines, although she was also developing skills as a short-story writer.

Some of the exhibition's artifacts relate directly to the Fitzgeralds, like a silver-plated hip flask that Zelda gave to Scott during World War I. To evoke the free-wheeling Fitzgerald lifestyle, the museum has recreated a Jazz Age party with period furnishings and mannequins in a setting loosely based on the Fitzgerald’s living room.

Zelda began painting when she was 25; her work appeared in several exhibitions throughout her life, but received little attention. Her paintings in the show range from depictions of life of the 1920's to ones with religious themes, created in the 1940's. She died in 1948.

''Her pictures don't necessarily fit into the category of impressionism or realism but somewhere in between, both real and dream-like,'' said Joshua Ruff, the museum's history curator. ''She had a wonderful sense of color, these lush tones of coral, pink and blue that really tie in with the colorful clothing styles of the Jazz Age.''

The couple’s high-living antics could often be disconcerting for Zelda. ''She was a bit overwhelmed by the huge hordes of people she entertained,'' Ms. Cline said. ''It was both quite exciting and quite tense-making.''

When the Fitzgerald’s left Great Neck for Europe in 1924, Zelda began to pursue her own creative careers more diligently. She studied painting in Capri in 1925; her husband had just written ''The Great Gatsby,'' set in a fictionalized version of Great Neck. Two years later, back in the United States, Zelda began intensive training in ballet. Her interest in dance would eventually have an influence on her artwork. ''The figures in her paintings truly leap and move…and there's this elongation of the feet and hands that brings to mind the way muscles are used in dancing.''

In 1930, Zelda suffered her first breakdown. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, she underwent treatment in a series of mental institutions for the next 18 years. She wrote her only novel, ''Save Me the Waltz,'' while a patient at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore in 1932, but painting became her foremost pursuit.

''Her painting at this time was very useful to her as an artist because she was able to try new techniques, and very helpful in boosting her low self-esteem because she was able to work at something she was good at,'' Ms. Cline said.

Zelda died in a fire that destroyed Highland Hospital in North Carolina, where she was then institutionalized. The fire also destroyed many of her paintings. Scott died of a heart attack in 1940, while writing ''The Last Tycoon,'' his novel about Hollywood.

While Mr. Ruff believes Fitzgerald's artwork has aesthetic merit on its own, he also views her paintings within a psychological context. ''There is an almost anguished look to be found in these pictures,'' he said. ''Not just that but a mixture of optimism and anguish that matched her own experience at the time.''

-Compare and contrast Zelda’s troubled life with that of the fictional troubles of Daisy Buchannan.  What is similar about their lives and struggles and what is different?

-Zelda and her husband were both artists in their own right; she was a painter and he was a writer. But why do you think that she was never famous for her art the way that her husband was for his?