Modernist Parties

A selection of contemporaries and friends in Mary Butts' life. On some of the pictures you'll find a backstory of how they're connected.

Mary Butts lived life on her terms and wasn't shy about her convictions. Butts’ life was a colourful one and it's no secret that she loved a good party. On a more serious note, her love of partying led to addiction issues that one could say overshadowed her work as a writer and caused chaos in her life. There are other pages in this exhibit (The Poppy Drug & Tracking Butts' Addiction and Relapses Through the Years) that elaborate on the severity of her drug and substance use.

The Modernist Parties page is about notable characters in the arts scene who shared Butts’ passions for art and partying. Butts rubbed shoulders with this whole ensemble in between writing literary works and novels like Ashe on Rings (1925). She became acquainted with painter Cedric Morris while living in Paris and was good friends with artist Jean Cocteau who illustrated her book Imaginary Letters (1928). Isadora Duncan and Cocteau were among the many artists that Butts met on the French Riviera while staying at the Welcome Hotel in Villefranche-sur-Mer. Butts was connected to controversial figures like Ezra Pound and was credited as a co-author on Aleister Crowley’s Magick (Book 4) while working as the occultist’s student. According to The Journals of Mary Butts, In 1923 Butts and partner Cecil Maitland visited Ezra Pound in Rapallo before they went to Florence while travelling in Italy (Blondel 202).

Viewing the slide show you'll see authors like the Waugh brothers (Evelyn & Alec), two key names in the party scene of the day who are mentioned sporadically in the Butts Journals. Alec Waugh's "Super Party" is the subject of one of Butts' letters to Douglas Goldring. Waugh is pictured below holidaying in Butts' beloved Villefranche with his younger brother. Perhaps Butts enjoyed the pace of a chaotic life, causing her art to both thrive and suffer because of it. Either way, the work and legacy she leaves behind are more than the creations of a flawed woman, they're pieces of history Armed with Madness.

Mary Butts (1924) by Cedric Morris

Mary Butts- Partygoer Extraordinaire.

Cedric Morris (1920s)

Artist of the 1924 Mary Butts painting. Mary met Morris through her brother Anthony who was also a painter.

Jean Cocteau (c.1927)

Isadora Duncan (1896)

As a fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Evelyn & Alec Waugh

Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, April 1930

Nina Hamnett (1917) by Roger Fry

It was Hamnett who introduced Butts to Aleister Crowley in Paris (Clukey 86). Hamnett ran in the same circles as Butts and was an artist & writer herself.

Mary Butts and Cecil Maitland in Europe (1920s)

Aleister Crowley (1902)

Butts and her partner Cecil Maitland went to stay at Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily in the summer of 1921. Though it can be said that Crowley and Butts respected each other's work at a time, the two were not on good terms by the end of their acquaintance.

Ezra Pound (1919)

"The Shewing up of Ezra Pound* At last my most intimate convictions have been focused & justified, neither scholar, nor poet, nor philosopher, but a most kindly romantic, a competent, sometimes witty critic. Then dull, all dull, he & his set, dull because they have nothing to say." - Mary Butts (3 November 1917)

Paris was a dream – we didn’t go to bed for a week, & spent all our money on such binges! The last thing I remember was dancing solely supporting myself by the lobes of Cedric Morris’ ears.

Mary Butts to Douglas Goldring (1923)

Works Cited

Butts, Mary, and Nathalie Blondel. “The Journals of Mary Butts.” The Journals of Mary Butts, Yale University Press, 2002, https://doi.org/10.1604/9780300132892.

Clukey, Amy. “ENCHANTING MODERNISM: MARY BUTTS, DECADENCE, AND THE ETHICS OF OCCULTISM.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 60, no. 1, 2014, pp. 78–107. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26421705

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Butts

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