But other celebrated artists, cultural figures and major 20th-century thinkers attended meetings, including philosopher Joseph Campbell, composer John Cage and political theorist Hannah Arendt.
[6] Originally envisioned as a regular debate about issues in art during twice-weekly lectures, members-only panel conversations and other events, as the Club was also, in part, a response to American artists intimidated by the modernists who had taken refuge in New York after the war.
For some artists, such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, the subject of art was autobiographical and emerged from the sheer act of making a painting.
"[11] "The Club was a schoolhouse of sorts," writes Devin M. Brown, for Burnaway the online Atlanta-based arts magazine, after reviewing Pavia's Archive of Abstract and Expressionist Art at (MARBL), the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University,[12] which owns the collection, "but it was also a theater, a gallery space, and a dancehall.... [T]he collection demonstrates how various media constantly overlapped whether simply through discussion or in performance.
Poets, composers, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, and critics all rubbed elbows and argued with each other about aesthetics at the Club's many panel discussions...."[1] If it wasn't for our persistent gatherings, I am sure we would have all become loners and faded away.
"Those invited included philosopher Hannah Arendt, literary scholar Joseph Campbell, mathematical historian Jean Louis van Heijenoort, and composers Virgil Thomson and Morty Feldman....
"[15] "The 1950s were critical years for many of the artists involved, and the Club offered a grounding site which bolstered their connections to one another, their confidence, and their status in the broader society."
[2][11] Several had also served in the military during World War II,[16] and many of them had been "gathering in the Village since the late 1930s, and later at the Waldorf Cafeteria at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 8th Street,"[3] until they found themselves unwelcome there and, like the many ethnic clubs that proliferated during that period, they sought a space of their own.
"[3] Helmed by Philip Pavia, they rented and repaired a loft at 39 East 8th Street, which was conveniently located at the center of the arts community near Cedar Tavern.
[18] Dislike of French Surrealist influence and challenges to the validity of formalist arguments were common,[5] but weekly discussions at the Club also led to the idea of organizing the 9th Street Art Exhibition as a launching pad.