DETROIT — Art clubs were a popular phenomenon around the turn of the 20th century, popping up in major cities across the United States. Several, like the National Arts Club in New York (est. 1898) and the California Art Club in Los Angeles (founded in 1909) are still in business some 100 years later. But the Beetle Club in Detroit (founded in 1907) has something no other art club has: a signature collection of the art world that spans nearly a century.
In its early days, the club was held at various locations around the city, until an official “clubhouse” was formed in October 1928. Club members oversaw and executed all aspects of design, the construction and architectural and decorative elements of the building, including the assignment of the role of chief architect to Lancelot Sukert (1888–1966), who was chosen for the honor by the body of architects members of the club. It is unclear who came up with the original idea for the ‘guest book’ – the sides and ceiling beams of the second floor salon where distinguished guests and important local artists and guests were invited to add their signatures – although signing books and collecting autographs were usual pastimes of the time.
“The building opened in 1928, that’s when it all started,” MaryAnn Wilkinson, retired executive director of the Scarab Club, who was recently replaced by Kathryn Dimond, said in an interview. with Hyperallergic. “All the guys who were in the club at the time put their names on the beams and identified ceiling beams they wanted to decorate.” In addition to the wealth of artist signatures, the ceiling rails are decorated in an array of styles, particularly the Art Deco and Egyptology motifs that were popular in the 1920s. But these are a side attraction to the ornate beams of hundreds of signatures, including those of Diego Rivera, Marcel Duchamp, Leroy Foster, Margaret Bourke-White, and the most recent, Detroit artist Cledie Taylor.
“We’ve always had music, we’ve always had literary events,” Wilkinson said. “It’s part of the Scarab Club’s DNA. It’s not as visual artists, but it’s all artists. Bill Porter signed the beam. He was a major designer for GM, and he’s now retired, but he’s a super big deal in the Detroit automotive world.
As for who was called upon to sign the beams, the decisions appear to have been made spontaneously and haphazardly – either when a major performer was visiting Detroit or by some mysterious internal process of determination by the club itself. It’s a process that Wilkinson says is not without flaws or historical biases, and today the Scarab Club is making a concerted effort to create a fairer record for the future.
“There are so many people in Detroit who should have signed the beam by now,” Wilkinson said. “So many people we’ve lost who didn’t sign the bundle. We are now trying to fill in the gaps and catch some people who are at the very end of their lives or careers, like Cledie [Taylor]Or Dell [Pryor]Or Shirley [Woodson]. Not a lot of women represented, as you can imagine, so we’re working on that, and there aren’t a lot of African American artists represented. We are therefore working on this balance.
But, she sighs, “we have a whole long list of people who should sign the bundle. And the other thing is we’re running out of space.
According to them founding proposal from 1909 club membership was open to artists and “those who, though lacking such skill, wish to support the arts”. The document cites examples of such Detroiters: Robert Tannahill, Dexter M. Ferry Jr., William Valentiner and Clyde Burroughs. Although the document does not explicitly exclude anyone based on race or gender, it was a men’s only club until 1962. The first cohort of female artists were inducted into an action organized by Patricia Hill-Burnett – founder of the Michigan chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW), as well as a sculptor and portrait painter whose subjects included Gloria Steinem, Margaret Thatcher and Rosa Parks – and included Marion Aston, Florence Maiullo-Barnes, Winifred Klarin , Maria Lalli, Elizabeth Payne, Reva Shwayder and Irène Toth.
The Scarab Club has no official record of the total number of signatures adorning the beams, although the number is in the hundreds, with only a small fraction of posthumous additions, including that of the beloved World Dean art. Gilda Snowden, whose sudden and unexpected passing continues to be mourned by generations of artists who saw her as a beacon in the community. American graphic designer Gary Grimshaw also had his signature added to the Scarab Club beams posthumously in 2014.
Signatures do more than keep a record of guests in the space; they carry with them a wealth of stories and histories, many of which the Scarab Club does its best to preserve in a growing document that compiles research on the signers.
For example, there is the story of Pablo S. Davis, born Paul Meier Kleinbordt, of Philadelphia. Legend has it that as a teenager in 1932, Davis hopped on a train to Detroit in hopes of meeting Diego Rivera, who was working on his iconic Detroit Industry Murals commissioned by the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA). Apparently Frida Kahlo discovered Davis sitting on the steps of the DIA and took him inside to introduce him to Rivera, who then hired him as an assistant. Davis decided to cement this part of his legacy by signing the beams literally above Rivera’s signature, despite the fact that, according to Wilkinson, his closeness to the famous entertainer might have been a little over the top.
“He dined on this story for years,” she said. “But this is not true.”
Franco-American painter Marcel Duchamp signed the beams of the Scarab Club in 1961, just a few years before his death, during a resurgence of interest in his work in the 1960s. Contemporary artist and director Matthew Barney signed the beams in 2013, in the middle of years working in Detroit on River of Foundations.
Detroit is a place that manages to balance an incredibly influential cultural output with an economic downturn that has left much of its history untouched (if subject to entropy). Near Motown Museum, walking tours through the joint homes that once housed international hit machine Motown Records culminate in the studio – the same studio where the who’s-who of Hitsville USA recorded their breakthrough songs. Knowing that you breathe the same air as Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the Jackson 5 – to name a few – is a moving experience. There’s a palpable energy when you realize that all these people stood here and sang here. The same goes for the beams of the Scarab Club, where the signatures serve as irrefutable proof of some of the legends of art history (and some of its lost stories).
“A lot of people refer to the Scarab Club beams as our guestbook,” Wilkinson said. “And it’s that kind of intimate connection between people – or in our case between people in an institution and the individual. It’s just a beautiful thing, because you feel the presence of people when you look at these beams. There’s someone like, say, Rockwell Kent, who was kind of a reclusive East Coast artist. But he was in Detroit, and he was in this room. It’s pretty amazing.
