1 Kline's move to abstraction has been viewed as both an overnight revolution as well a gradual and slow progression. According to Elaine de Kooning, one day Franz Kline visited a friend at his studio and viewed one of his own drawings magnified on a wall through a Bell-Opticon projector. She wrote "from that day, his style of painting changed completely. It was a total and instantaneous conversion, demanding...a completely different method of working with a completely different attitude...Any allegiance to formalized representation was wiped out of his consciousness. The work from this moment, contradicts in every way all of the work that preceded it, and from which it had so logically and organically grown." [See Elaine de Kooning in Franz Kline Memorial Exhibition. (Washington, D.C.: Washington Gallery of Modern Art ,1962): 14.] In contrast, Alfred Boime viewed Kline's artistic development and his arrival as a painstaking evolution, also traceable to the earliest drawings. [Alfred Boime in Franz Kline: The Early Work as Signals(Binghamton, New York, University Art Gallery and Purchase, New York, The Neuberger Museum: 1977):1.] Harry Gaugh also maintained that Kline's abstraction was the result of a stylistic evolution based on the fusion of drawing and painting. [Harry F. Gaugh, Franz Kline's Romantic Abstraction, Artforum 13, no.10 (Summer 1975): 28.]

2 Kline's wife made this statement in a letter to editor of Art News, correcting a remark made earlier by the artist Elaine de Kooning, who had earlier expressed the opinion that "any extension of visual activity... into biography [in Kline s work] would appear to be falsifications." In her letter, Mrs. Kline reaffirmed that biography was an essential element in the thematic development of his art "far more so than anyone realized." [Elizabeth Kline, Letter to the Editor, Art News 61 (January 1963): 6.]

3 According to Harry Gaugh, Kline and his wife moved often, living in various walk-up apartments and lofts in Greenwich Village. However, he did not specify if such moves were for financial reasons. [See Harry F. Gaugh, Franz Kline: The Man and the Myths, Art News, 84, no. 10 (December 1985): 63.]

4 "Review of Collector's Gallery Exhibition" Arts 35 (January 1961): 50. Although Kline faced great financial hardship, the Bleeker Street Tavern Murals were not "purely commercial jobs" which he did in order to make ends meet, as was suggested in Painstaking Slapdash: Review of Whitney Retrospective of Franz Kline, Time Magazine, 11 October 1968. The painter James Brooks also referred to Kline's early works as "buckeye paintings" which helped to pay the rent. [Harry F. Gaugh, The Vital Gesture: Franz Kline in Retrospective (New York: Abbeville Press, 1985): 17.] Kline's acceptance of such commissions ask the Bleeker Street murals was defended by his colleague Elaine de Kooning. According to de Kooning, Kline was not drawn to art as a way of life, but was driven to it by "the joy of the activity itself," which resulted in his acceptance of any kind of project. "In fact," wrote de Kooning, "a subject was necessary to set his ideasYin motion." [Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline Memorial Exhibition: 13.] Early in his career, Kline was also fortunate to acquire two important patrons, Dr. Theodore Edlich, whom he met in London in 1936, and I. David Orr, an industrialist whom he met during his first big break in New York. Both Ed1ich and Orr became both close friends and influential patrons in their financial support and promotion of Kline's career. Both commissioned as well as bought numerous works. Orr owned more than 150 paintings of Kline's in the forties, and Edlich, who served as Kline's personal physician bought 35 works during his lean years. [Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline Memorial Exhibition: 12.]

5 H. M. Alexander, Strip-Tease: The Vanished Art of Burlesque (New York: Knight Publishers Inc., 1938): n.p.

6 In 1960 eight panels were removed, remounted, and sold in 1961 at The Collector's Gallery. 49 West 53rd Street, New York City. [Franz Kline Bar Room Paintings, New York, The Collector's Gallery, February 6-25, 1961]. The other two panels were said to be lost or stolen. [Review of Collector's Gallery Exhibition, Art News 59, no. 10 (February 1961):10.]

7 David Dressler, Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon (Ph. D. diss., New York University, 1937): 52.

8 This 1937 ordinance was the result of a cumulative campaign begun by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who generated petitions that described burlesque performances as inciting "immorality...bestiality and degeneracy." [See Alexander, Strip-Tease: 107.] Due to the efforts of a powerful group of public figures and church leaders who felt that "only by closing up these plague centers and keeping them closed...can the city cure itself of the moral leprosy which they spread," renewal licenses for the fourteen existing burlesque establishments in the city were denied. This type of theatrical business that had thrived in New York since the late teens was forced to move elsewhere, namely across to New Jersey.

9 His wife remembered their frequent escapes to the movie house. She recollected that "no matter how poor we were [Franz] took me [to the movies] at least once a week--usually twice." [See Gaugh, Man and Myth: 64.] During this period Kline also painted several streetscapes, capturing a realistic perception of the activity and action of the streets down to the details of the various shops and landmarks of the neighborhood. In his painting, Street Scene, Greenwich Village, 1943 (Collection: Dr. T. Edlich), amidst the thick gestural lines and solid forms, the central building with a peaked roof can be identified as the Waverly Theater on Sixth Avenue, off 4th Street.

10 See Marilyn Cohen, Reginald Marsh's New York (New York: Whitney Museum of Art and Dover Publications, 1983): 13. Kline's fascination with Hollywood and its imagery was reflective of America's pre occupation with Hollywood. This trend was noted in 1938 by Sheldon Cheney who observed "It would be absurd to maintain that art claims the attention of the mass of American people as do such major interests as...Hollywood romance...[and the] comics." [See Sheldon Cheney, Art in the United States, in America Now: An Inquiry into Civilization in the United States, ed. Harold E. Stearns (New York: Scribner's & Sons, 1938): 82.] Kline was also known to have thought of himself as a Hollywood actor. Not only did he bare an uncanny resemblance to the British actor Ronald Colman, but he also possessed many qualities of the Hollywood actor: "a bravado, the ability to attract women, and the poise to hold an audience." Kline's friend Fielding Dawson recalled an episode in which, "Suddenly I saw him-his face was theatrical; he looked like Ronald Colman. I cried. 'Franz ! You look like-Ronald Colman!" [Fielding Dawson, An Emotional Memoir of Franz Kline (New York: Pantheon Books. 1967): 19.]

11 For example, in such works as Down at Jimmy Kelly's, 1936 (Norfolk,Virginia: The Chrysler Museum) and Minsky's Chorus,1935 (Private Collection) Marsh successfully captured the physical and energetic action of burlesque shows at some of New York's most illustrious nightclubs. In other works, such as Twenty Cent Movie, 1936 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art) and Paramount Pictures, 1934 (Private Co11ection), the allure of Hollywood is descriptively shown in the advertisements that plaster the entrances of the movie house, and by the female figures who convey the glamorous image of the Hollywood starlet.

12 John Gordon, Franz Kline: 1910-1962 (New York: The Whitney Museum of Art, 1968): 9. Alfred Boime suggested that the voluptuous dancers, burlesque queens, and vocalist appearing in the Bleeker Street Tavern Murals Aspring directly from the theatrical scenes of Reginald Marsh. [Boime, Franz Kline: 9.] For further comparisons between Marsh and Kline see Boime, Franz Kline: 8-9.

13 Dressler, Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon: 19.

14 Alexander, Strip-Tease: 107. The actual burlesque performance began with a solo singing number introduced by a female chorus singing a song that would be recognizable to the audience. The songs were usually current ones and they were meant to be sexually explicit and to be delivered in a very blunt manner. [Dressler, Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon: 20] "After...the chorus goes backstage a bit...a singing woman will come forward...sing[ing] in an untrained, off-key voice, a song to which no one listens, the attention being riveted on her body and its movements. She may wriggle or she may not; this is just the curtain raiser." [Ibid., 65]

15 See Cohen, Reginald Marsh's New York: 13.

16 See John Kobal. ed., Movie-Star Portraits of the Forties. (New York: Dover Publications, 1977): 119.

17 While Kline personally had far-reaching musical tastes, he was most partial to the work of Bunk Johnson, an early pioneer of the jazz style whose music was enjoying a renewed interest by the early forties. [For more information about Jazz in New York see Barry Ulanov, A History of Jazz in America (New York: Da Capo Press. 1972): 148ff.] Irving Sandler, a chronicler of the artistic life in Greenwich Village, also took note of the contemporary jazz scene in the city. According to Sandler, "jazz was attractive because it was open and energetic; the improvisation of the creative individual rather than the interpretive group, and because it was an urban music, reflecting the tempo, tension, and energy of the city, particularly New York." [Irving Sandler, New York School: The Painters of the Fifties (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970): 24.

18 Dressler, Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon: 65-66.

19 Review, Arts (Jan. 61): 50.

20 According to Frank O'Hara, "Kline loved paradoxes and theatrics: a great mime, he was fond of parodying, often wordlessly, always amiably, friends, artists, collectors, [as well as] museum officials." [Frank O'Hara, Art Chronicles 1954-1966 (New York: George Braziller, 1975): 42.] Sidelined by a football injury in 1930, Kline took up drawing and became interested in the cartoons and illustration arts. According to Boime, Kline's interest in cartooning had its roots in American culture and represents a critical aspect of his stylistic growth. [Boime, Franz Kline: 5.] Due to the popular appeal of cartoons in the late teens and early twenties, the cartoon artist received a great deal of public recognition. A good cartoonist's work appeared in several newspapers and magazines that were mass-distributed across America, bringing fame and notoriety to the artist. Kline's model cartoonist was John Held, Jr. who became very popular during the Depression for his depictions of the good and easy life of the passing twenties. [For more information on Kline's interest in cartooning, see Boime, Franz Kline: 2-5.]

21 Dressler, Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon: 6.

22 For a black and white illustration, see Gaugh, Vital Gesture: 38 (No. 29: oil on board, 45" x 45", Private Collection)

23 Dressler, "Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon": 78.

24 Alexander, Strip-Tease: 6.

25 For a black and white illustration see Gaugh, Vital Gesture: 38 (No. 30: oil on board, 46" x 46", Private Collection). The scenic backdrop can also be viewed as a theatrical stage set serving as a reminder of Kline's earlier theatrical associations. In 1939, Kline was hired by Cleon Throckmorton, a scenic design company in New York that made theatrical props and equipment.

26 For black and white illustration see Gaugh, Vital Gesture: 37 (No. 27: oil on board, 46" x 462', Private Collection).

27 Dressler, Burlesque as a Cultural Phenomenon: 74.

28 Ibid., 78.

29 Alexander, Strip-Tease: 7.

30 This identification is an important one to make in terms of previous interpretations that perceive the imagery of the murals as having overtones of German Expressionism. [The connection between Expressionism and Kline's work is first noted in Review, Arts (1961): 10.] While Masked Ball could be compared to Emil Nolde's work Dancers, 1920, in terms of the figural depictions and the palette, the ideas of Kline's panel can be more closely linked to burlesque motifs, rather than to the philosophy of Expressionism. Furthermore, in terms of the present Kline literature, it would be difficult to identify any possible connections that Kline might have had with the German Expressionist movement.

31 Such an example would be the Masquerade Costume Ball and Dance of 1937, a notable event sponsored by the Federation of Works Progress Administrators (W.P.A.), Supervisors Council of New York to benefit its emergency fund for artists. Advertised as "a gala evening of gaiety and intrigue in a real carnival spirit-ingenious, comic and daring," such evenings would have drawn crowds from the creative and artistic worlds (Advertisement from the author's own collection).

32 Prior to their marriage, Elizabeth Kline was a dancer and it was probably through her that Kline became familiar with pictures of the great Russian dancer Nijinsky as the clown Petrouchka, an image that he became intrigued with. [See photograph reproduced in Gaugh, Vital Gesture: 67.] Not only did Kline paint several portraits of Nijinsky in this famous role, but he also incorporated similar formal structure in his own self-portraits. Kline's personal attachment towards Nijinsky and his personal infatuation with this mythic dancer have been discussed and analyzed by contemporary colleagues and scholars, including Elaine de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, who recognized and compared Kline's feelings of loneliness and alienation to those depicted by Nijinsky in the role of Petrouchka. [See Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline Memorial Exhibition: 13; and Tribute by Robert Motherwell, TMs, Artist File: Franz Kline, Collection of Museum of Modern Art Library, New York). Gaugh also suggested that Kline's feelings of loneliness were related to his role as an artist. "In spite of his gregarious, carousing, conversation-spinning nature, he was convinced that all artist's are lonely." [Gaugh, "Man and Myths": 62.] Finally, according to his friends, Kline loved to dance. One friend, Charlotte Brooks, recalled that "he had lots of arms when he danced, and that he was a born performer." [Ibid., 65.]

33 As Clement Greenberg observed, the Bleeker Street panels "show the artist already possessed the ambition and energy that were to explode into [his] dramatic...abstractions a decade later." Review Arts (1961): 50.

34 Ibid.

35 Bill Berkson, "Kline's True Colors," Art in America 74, no.10 (October. 1986): 143.

36 Gordon, Franz Kline: 1910-1962:12-13.

37 According to Kline "The final test of painting, theirs or mine is does the painter's emotion come across?" [Selden Rodman, "An Important Abstractionist," Cosmopolitan (February 1959): 67.]

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