Société Anonyme (art)

The Société gave Alexander Archipenko, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger, Jacques Villon, and Louis Eilshemius their first one-man shows in America, helped to familiarize American viewers with the little known work of Piet Mondrian and Kurt Schwitters and sponsored traveling exhibitions, lectures by artists and critics, and other special events.

Katherine Dreier deeply resented this upstart rival, whose wealthy backers, she felt, had stolen her mission and her ideas and even her name -- the Société Anonyme's subtitle was "Museum of Modern Art."

The Société Anonyme's exhibition rooms were too small, but Dreier's attempts to find larger quarters kept breaking down because the funds, which came mainly from her and her two sisters, were insufficient.

Her society – as time went on it became more and more a one-woman operation – could and did claim precedence, nevertheless, as the first museum anywhere in the world that was devoted exclusively to modern art.

[1] On April 30, 1950, the 30th anniversary of the Société Anonyme's first exhibition, Dreier and Duchamp hosted a dinner at the New Haven Lawn Club, where they formally dissolved the organization.