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{{Short description|Artist's community in Saratoga Springs, New York}}
{{Short description|Artists' community in Saratoga Springs, New York}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2012}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2012}}
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{{Coord|43.06848|-73.75813|display=title}}
{{Infobox organization
{{Infobox organization
|name = Yaddo
| name = Yaddo
|image = The Mansion at Yaddo (ca. 1905) (cropped).jpg
| image = The Mansion at Yaddo (ca. 1905) (cropped).jpg
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| size = 250px
|image_border =
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| caption = Yaddo, circa 1905
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|size = 250px
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| coordinates = {{Coord|43.06848|-73.75813|display=inline,title}}
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|caption = Yaddo, circa 1905
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| formation = 1926
|map =
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| type = [[Artist colony]]
|msize =
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| purpose = To nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment
|mcaption =
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| headquarters = [[Saratoga Springs, New York]]
|abbreviation =
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| region_served = United States
|motto =
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| website = {{URL|http://yaddo.org/}}
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|formation = 1926
}}
|extinction =
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'''Yaddo''' is an [[artists' community]] located on a {{convert|400|acre|ha|adj=on}} estate in [[Saratoga Springs, New York]]. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."<ref name = "History">{{Citation | url = http://yaddo.org/yaddo/history.shtml | title = Yaddo | contribution = History | access-date = September 20, 2011 | archive-date = August 14, 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100814081739/http://yaddo.org/yaddo/history.shtml | url-status = dead }}.</ref> On March&nbsp;11, 2013 it was designated a [[National Historic Landmark]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/americas-great-outdoors-secretary-salazar-director-jarvis-designate-13-new-national-historic-landmarks.cfm|title=New Sites Recognize More Complete Story of America, including Significant Latino, African American and Indian Sites|date=March 11, 2013 |publisher=US Department of the interior|access-date=13 March 2013}}</ref>
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|type = [[Artist colony]]
|status =
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|purpose = To nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment
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|headquarters = [[Saratoga Springs, New York]]
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|region_served = United States
|membership =
|leader_title =
|leader_name =
|main_organ =
|affiliations =
|num_staff =
|num_volunteers =
|budget =
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|website = {{URL|http://yaddo.org/}}
|remarks =}}
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'''Yaddo''' is an [[artists' community]] located on a {{convert|400|acre|ha|adj=on}} estate in [[Saratoga Springs, New York]]. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."<ref name = "History">{{Citation | url = http://yaddo.org/yaddo/history.shtml | title = Yaddo | contribution = History}}.</ref> On March&nbsp;11, 2013 it was designated a [[National Historic Landmark]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/americas-great-outdoors-secretary-salazar-director-jarvis-designate-13-new-national-historic-landmarks.cfm|title=New Sites Recognize More Complete Story of America, including Significant Latino, African American and Indian Sites|publisher=US Department of the interior|access-date=13 March 2013}}</ref>


It offers residencies to artists working in choreography, film, literature, musical composition, painting, performance art, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video. Collectively, artists who have worked at Yaddo have won 66 [[Pulitzer Prizes]], 27 [[MacArthur Fellowships]], 61 [[National Book Awards]], 24 [[National Book Critics Circle Award]]s, 108 [[Rome Prize]]s, 49 [[Whiting Writers' Award]]s, a Nobel Prize ([[Saul Bellow]], who won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1976), at least one [[Man Booker Prize]] ([[Alan Hollinghurst]], 2004) and countless other honors.<ref name = "History" /> Yaddo is included in the [[Union Avenue Historic District (Saratoga Springs, New York)|Union Avenue Historic District]].
It offers residencies to artists working in choreography, film, literature, musical composition, painting, performance art, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video. Collectively, artists who have worked at Yaddo have won 82 [[Pulitzer Prizes]], 34 [[MacArthur Fellowships]], 70 [[National Book Awards]], 24 [[National Book Critics Circle Award]]s, 108 [[Rome Prize]]s, 49 [[Whiting Writers' Award]]s, a Nobel Prize ([[Saul Bellow]], who won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1976), at least one [[Man Booker Prize]] ([[Alan Hollinghurst]], 2004) and countless other honors.<ref name = "History" /> Yaddo is included in the [[Union Avenue Historic District (Saratoga Springs, New York)|Union Avenue Historic District]].


==History==
==History==
The estate was purchased in 1881 by the financier [[Spencer Trask]] and his wife, the writer [[Katrina Trask]]. The first mansion on the property burned down in 1893, and the Trasks then built the current house. Yaddo is a [[neologism]] invented by one of the Trask children and was meant to rhyme with "shadow".<ref name="YaddoSubstance">{{cite news |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760139,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090727030500/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760139,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= July 27, 2009 |title= Yaddo and Substance |work= [[Time (magazine)|Time]] | date= September 5, 1938 | quote= Creating at Yaddo last week, at mid-season of the colony's twelfth year <nowiki>[</nowiki>1938<nowiki>]</nowiki>, was a typical group of writers and artists who have given substance to Katrina's vision. But whether or not they fit her romantic conception was an open question. By contrast with aristocratic Katrina and the elegant surroundings she provided, most of the season's 27 guests stood out in striking left-wing contrast: Poet [[Kenneth Fearing]] ''(Angel Arms, Poems),'' Critic [[Newton Arvin]] ''(Hawthorne),'' Novelists [[Joseph Vogel (writer)|Joseph Vogel]] ''(At Madame Bonnard's),'' [[Leonard Ehrlich]] ''(God's Angry Man),'' [[Henry Roth]] ''(Call It Sleep),'' [[Daniel Fuchs]] ''(Low Company).'' <br /> "One of the show places of the U.S., Yaddo is a {{convert|500|acre|km2|adj=on}} estate with pine groves, vast lawns, artificial lakes with ducks, famous rose gardens, and white marble fountains. The name Yaddo was a baby pronunciation given by the Trask children (all four of whom died in childhood) to The Shadows, a famous [[Public house#Inns|inn]] formerly on the site of the Trask estate, where the Trasks had spent their summers. It was one of the dozen places where [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]] was supposed to have written ''[[The Raven]]'', and Katrina said it inspired her own poetry. }}</ref>
The estate was purchased in 1881 by the financier [[Spencer Trask]] and his wife, the writer [[Katrina Trask]]. The first mansion on the property burned down in 1891<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 9 March 1891 — The NYS Historic Newspapers |url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=tbd18910309-01.1.6&srpos=9&e=------189-en-20--1--txt-txIN-yaddo+fire----1891----- |access-date=2024-10-22 |website=nyshistoricnewspapers.org}}</ref>, and the Trasks then built the current house. Yaddo is a [[neologism]] invented by one of the Trask children and was meant to rhyme with "shadow".<ref name="YaddoSubstance">{{cite magazine |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760139,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090727030500/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760139,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= July 27, 2009 |title= Yaddo and Substance |magazine= [[Time (magazine)|Time]] | date= September 5, 1938 | quote= Creating at Yaddo last week, at mid-season of the colony's twelfth year <nowiki>[</nowiki>1938<nowiki>]</nowiki>, was a typical group of writers and artists who have given substance to Katrina's vision. But whether or not they fit her romantic conception was an open question. By contrast with aristocratic Katrina and the elegant surroundings she provided, most of the season's 27 guests stood out in striking left-wing contrast: Poet [[Kenneth Fearing]] ''(Angel Arms, Poems),'' Critic [[Newton Arvin]] ''(Hawthorne),'' Novelists [[Joseph Vogel (writer)|Joseph Vogel]] ''(At Madame Bonnard's),'' [[Leonard Ehrlich]] ''(God's Angry Man),'' [[Henry Roth]] ''(Call It Sleep),'' [[Daniel Fuchs]] ''(Low Company).'' <br /> "One of the show places of the U.S., Yaddo is a {{convert|500|acre|km2|adj=on}} estate with pine groves, vast lawns, artificial lakes with ducks, famous rose gardens, and white marble fountains. The name Yaddo was a baby pronunciation given by the Trask children (all four of whom died in childhood) to The Shadows, a famous [[Public house#Inns|inn]] formerly on the site of the Trask estate, where the Trasks had spent their summers. It was one of the dozen places where [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]] was supposed to have written ''[[The Raven]]'', and Katrina said it inspired her own poetry. }}</ref>


===Artists' colony===
===Artists' colony===
[[File:Partridge, Christalan 1900, Yaddo.jpg|thumb|left|''Christalan'' (1900), memorial to the Trasks' four children.]]
In 1900, after the premature deaths of the Trasks' four children,<ref name= "YaddoSubstance"/> Spencer Trask decided to turn the estate into an artists' retreat as a gift to his wife. He did this with the financial assistance of [[philanthropist]] [[George Foster Peabody]]. The first artists arrived in 1926. The success of Yaddo encouraged Spencer and Katrina later to donate land for a working women's retreat center as well, known as [[Wiawaka Holiday House]], at the request of Mary Wiltsie Fuller.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.wiawaka.org/history.html | title = History | publisher = Wiawaka | access-date = June 9, 2011}}.</ref> At least in its early years, Yaddo was funded by profits from the [[Bowling Green Offices Building]] in Manhattan, in which Spencer Trask was extensively involved.<ref name="Ware 2009 p. 231">{{cite book|last=Ware|first=Louise|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kv5_xwySG9AC&pg=PA231|title=George Foster Peabody: Banker, Philanthropist, Publicist|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-8203-3456-1|page=231|language=en|access-date=February 7, 2020}}</ref>
In 1900, after the premature deaths of the Trasks' four children,<ref name= "YaddoSubstance"/> Spencer Trask decided to turn the estate into an artists' retreat as a gift to his wife. He did this with the financial assistance of [[philanthropist]] [[George Foster Peabody]]. The first artists arrived in 1926. The success of Yaddo encouraged Spencer and Katrina later to donate land for a working women's retreat center as well, known as [[Wiawaka Holiday House]], at the request of Mary Wiltsie Fuller.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.wiawaka.org/history.html | title = History | publisher = Wiawaka | access-date = June 9, 2011}}.</ref> At least in its early years, Yaddo was funded by profits from the [[Bowling Green Offices Building]] in Manhattan, in which Spencer Trask was extensively involved.<ref name="Ware 2009 p. 231">{{cite book|last=Ware|first=Louise|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kv5_xwySG9AC&pg=PA231|title=George Foster Peabody: Banker, Philanthropist, Publicist|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-8203-3456-1|page=231|language=en|access-date=February 7, 2020}}</ref>
[[File:Lake_Yaddo,_Saratoga_Springs,_N.Y._(3990063337).jpg|alt=A calm lake with refelctions in the water, to the right is Stone Tower studio behind trees|thumb|Postcard of a lake at Yaddo with the Stone Tower studio, a former chapel.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Grenier |first=Emily |title=The Stone Tower at Yaddo |url=http://upstatehistorical.org/items/show/83 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231217010855/http://upstatehistorical.org/items/show/83 |archive-date=December 17, 2023 |access-date=February 20, 2024 |website=UpstateHistorical}}</ref>]]

In 1949 during the [[McCarthy Era]], a news story accurately accused writer [[Agnes Smedley]] of spying for the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>Ruth Price, ''The Lives of Agnes Smedley'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5-9.</ref> Smedley had traveled with [[Mao Zedong]] to report on the Chinese Communist Revolution and, beginning in 1943, had spent five years at Yaddo. Poet [[Robert Lowell]] pushed the Board of Directors to oust Yaddo's director, Elizabeth Ames, who was being questioned by the [[FBI]]. Ames was eventually exonerated of all charges but learned from the investigation that her assistant Mary Townsend was an FBI informant.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://exhibitions.nypl.org/exhibits/yaddo/contention/3 | title = The Lowell Affair: Yaddo's Red Scare | publisher = NYPL}}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=178893 | title = Deeply and mysteriously implicated | first = Carla | last = Blumenkranz | publisher = Poetry Foundation}}.</ref> Ames remained director until her retirement in 1969, having overseen the Yaddo community from its creation in 1924.<ref>"Elizabeth Ames, Creator of Yaddo, Upstate Cultural Haven, Dies at 92," ''New York Times'', March 30, 1977.</ref> Ames was succeeded by Newman E. Waite who served as president from 1969 until 1977 when Curtis Harnack assumed the position.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://archives.nypl.org/mss/4795 | title = Guide to the Yaddo records| publisher = NYPL}}.</ref>
In 1949 during the [[McCarthy Era]], a news story accurately accused writer [[Agnes Smedley]] of spying for the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>Ruth Price, ''The Lives of Agnes Smedley'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5-9.</ref> Smedley had traveled with [[Mao Zedong]] to report on the Chinese Communist Revolution and, beginning in 1943, had spent five years at Yaddo. Poet [[Robert Lowell]] pushed the Board of Directors to oust Yaddo's director, Elizabeth Ames, who was being questioned by the [[FBI]]. Ames was eventually exonerated of all charges but learned from the investigation that her assistant Mary Townsend was an FBI informant.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://exhibitions.nypl.org/exhibits/yaddo/contention/3 | title = The Lowell Affair: Yaddo's Red Scare | publisher = NYPL}}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=178893 | title = Deeply and mysteriously implicated | first = Carla | last = Blumenkranz | date = May 23, 2023 | publisher = Poetry Foundation}}.</ref> Ames remained director until her retirement in 1969, having overseen the Yaddo community from its creation in 1924.<ref>"Elizabeth Ames, Creator of Yaddo, Upstate Cultural Haven, Dies at 92," ''New York Times'', March 30, 1977.</ref> Ames was succeeded by Newman E. Waite who served as president from 1969 until 1977 when Curtis Harnack assumed the position.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://archives.nypl.org/mss/4795 | title = Guide to the Yaddo records| publisher = NYPL}}.</ref>


Literary critic and eventual Yaddo board member [[Louis Kronenberger]] wrote in his memoir that to call Yaddo "a mixture of some of the most attractive, enjoyable, generous-minded people and of others who were weird, megalomaniac, intransigent, pugnacious is only to say that it has housed and nourished most of the finest talents in the arts of the past forty-odd years—the immensely fruitful years of Elizabeth Ames's directorship."<ref>Louis Kronenberger, ''No Whippings, No Gold Watches'' (Boston: Little Brown, 1970), 269.</ref>
Literary critic and eventual Yaddo board member [[Louis Kronenberger]] wrote in his memoir that to call Yaddo "a mixture of some of the most attractive, enjoyable, generous-minded people and of others who were weird, megalomaniac, intransigent, pugnacious is only to say that it has housed and nourished most of the finest talents in the arts of the past forty-odd years—the immensely fruitful years of Elizabeth Ames's directorship."<ref>Louis Kronenberger, ''No Whippings, No Gold Watches'' (Boston: Little Brown, 1970), 269.</ref>


=== Recent years ===
=== Recent years ===
In May 2005, vandals, using [[paintball]] guns, damaged two of the Four Seasons statues, the Poet's Bench, a fountain, and pathways with blue paint.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kinney|first = Jim|newspaper=The Saratogian|date=May 18, 2005|access-date = January 1, 2011|title=Vandals Strike Yaddo Gardens|url=http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2005/05/18/todays_stories/14544796.txt}}</ref> Repairs cost $1,400.<ref>{{cite news|last = Kinney|first=Jim|title=Yaddo Vandals' Damage Undone|date = May 21, 2006|access-date = January 1, 2011|url=http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2005/05/21/todays_stories/14567030.txt|newspaper=The Saratogian}}</ref> In 2018, Yaddo elected photographer [[Peter Kayafas]] and novelist Janice Y.K. Lee as Co-Chairs of its Board of Directors.<ref>{{cite web |title=Yaddo board names new co-chairs |url=https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Yaddo-board-names-new-co-chairs-13218793.php |website=Times Union |access-date=13 June 2020}}</ref>
In May 2005, vandals, using [[paintball]] guns, damaged two of the Four Seasons statues, the Poet's Bench, a fountain, and pathways with blue paint.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kinney|first = Jim|newspaper=The Saratogian|date=May 18, 2005|access-date = January 1, 2011|title=Vandals Strike Yaddo Gardens|url=http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2005/05/18/todays_stories/14544796.txt}}</ref> Repairs cost $1,400.<ref>{{cite news|last = Kinney|first=Jim|title=Yaddo Vandals' Damage Undone|date = May 21, 2006|access-date = January 1, 2011|url=http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2005/05/21/todays_stories/14567030.txt|newspaper=The Saratogian}}</ref> In 2018, Yaddo elected photographer [[Peter Kayafas]] and novelist Janice Y.K. Lee as co-chairs of its board of directors.<ref>{{cite web |title=Yaddo board names new co-chairs |url=https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Yaddo-board-names-new-co-chairs-13218793.php |website=Times Union |date=September 10, 2018 |access-date=13 June 2020}}</ref>


Yaddo has received large contributions from [[Spencer Trask & Company]] and [[Kevin Kimberlin]], the firm's current chairman.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/1998/12/14/daily21.html|date = December 17, 1998|access-date = January 1, 2011|title=$1M gift received by Yaddo|newspaper=The Business Review|location=Albany, New York}}</ref> Novelist [[Patricia Highsmith]] bequeathed her estate, valued at $3 million, to the community.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Barron|first1=James|last2=Martin|first2=Douglas|title=Public Lives; Here and There|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/18/nyregion/public-lives-here-and-there.html?src=pm|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 18, 1998|access-date = December 31, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Willcox|first1=Kathleen|title=Patricia Highsmith, Yaddo and America|url=http://www.saratogaliving.com/featured/patricia-highsmith-yaddo-and-america|work=Saratoga Living|date=June 1, 2016|access-date=March 24, 2017}}</ref>
Yaddo has received large contributions from [[Spencer Trask & Company]] and [[Kevin Kimberlin]], the firm's current chairman.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/1998/12/14/daily21.html|date = December 17, 1998|access-date = January 1, 2011|title=$1M gift received by Yaddo|newspaper=The Business Review|location=Albany, New York}}</ref> Novelist [[Patricia Highsmith]] bequeathed her estate, valued at $3 million, to the community.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Barron|first1=James|last2=Martin|first2=Douglas|title=Public Lives; Here and There|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/18/nyregion/public-lives-here-and-there.html?src=pm|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 18, 1998|access-date = December 31, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Willcox|first1=Kathleen|title=Patricia Highsmith, Yaddo and America|url=http://www.saratogaliving.com/featured/patricia-highsmith-yaddo-and-america|work=Saratoga Living|date=June 1, 2016|access-date=March 24, 2017|archive-date=March 25, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170325023853/http://www.saratogaliving.com/featured/patricia-highsmith-yaddo-and-america|url-status=dead}}</ref>


== Facilities and gardens ==
== Facilities and gardens ==
[[File:YaddoPergola.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[Pergola]] in Yaddo's gardens, photographed c. 1900–20]]
[[File:YaddoPergola.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[Pergola]] in Yaddo's gardens, photographed c. 1900–20]]
Yaddo's gardens are modeled after the classical Italian gardens the Trasks had visited in Europe.<ref>[https://www.yaddo.org/yaddo-gardens/about/ Yaddo Gardens website].</ref> The Four Seasons statues were acquired and installed in the garden in 1909.<ref name="dailygazette.com">[https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/01/01/at-yaddo-statues-truly-are-for-all-seasons "At Yaddo, statues truly are for all seasons,"] ''Daily Gazette'' [[Schenectady, New York]], January 21, 2017.</ref> There are many statues and sculptures located within the estate, including a sundial that bears the inscription, "Hours fly, Flowers die, New days, New ways, Pass by, Love stays."<ref>[http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/vandyke1.html Poetry of [[Henry van Dyke]]]. The poem was written specifically for the Yaddo Garden.</ref> While visitors are not admitted to the main mansion or artists' residences, they may visit the gardens.<ref name="dailygazette.com"/>
Yaddo's gardens are modeled after the classical Italian gardens the Trasks had visited in Europe.<ref>[https://www.yaddo.org/yaddo-gardens/about/ Yaddo Gardens website].</ref> The Four Seasons statues were acquired and installed in the garden in 1909.<ref name="dailygazette.com">[https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/01/01/at-yaddo-statues-truly-are-for-all-seasons "At Yaddo, statues truly are for all seasons,"] ''Daily Gazette'' [[Schenectady, New York]], January 21, 2017.</ref> There are many statues and sculptures located within the estate, including a sundial that bears the inscription, "Hours fly, Flowers die, New days, New ways, Pass by, Love stays."<ref>[http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/vandyke1.html Poetry of Henry van Dyke]. The poem was written specifically for the Yaddo Garden.</ref> While visitors are not admitted to the main mansion or artists' residences, they may visit the gardens.<ref name="dailygazette.com"/>


==Alumni artists-in-residence==
==Alumni artists-in-residence==
Yaddo has hosted more than 6,000 artists including:<ref name= "YaddoLists">{{cite web |url= http://yaddo.org/yaddo/artistslists.shtml | title = Guests – Lists of Artists | publisher = Yaddo}}</ref>
Yaddo has hosted more than 6,000 artists including:<ref name= "YaddoLists">{{cite web |url= http://yaddo.org/yaddo/artistslists.shtml |title= Guests – Lists of Artists |publisher= Yaddo |access-date= January 28, 2007 |archive-date= May 20, 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150520050934/http://yaddo.org/yaddo/artistslists.shtml |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref name= "NewYaddoLists">{{cite web |url= https://www.yaddo.org/artists/artist-guests/ |title= Artist Guests |publisher=Yaddo |access-date= March 28, 2023}}</ref>
{{Div col|colwidth=16em}}
{{Div col|colwidth=16em}}
* [[Ayad Akhtar]]
* [[Hannah Arendt]]
* [[Hannah Arendt]]
* [[Michael Ashkin]]
* [[Michael Ashkin]]
* [[Newton Arvin]]
* [[Newton Arvin]]
* [[Milton Avery]]
* [[Milton Avery]]
* [[Annie Baker]]
* [[James Baldwin (writer)|James Baldwin]]
* [[James Baldwin]]
* [[Louise Belcourt]]
* [[Louise Belcourt]]
* [[Saul Bellow]]
* [[Leonard Bernstein]]
* [[Leonard Bernstein]]
* [[Elizabeth Bishop]]
* [[Elizabeth Bishop]]
* [[James L. Brooks]]
* [[Sharon Butler]]
* [[Sharon Butler]]
* [[Truman Capote]]
* [[Truman Capote]]
* [[Henri Cartier-Bresson]]
* [[Henri Cartier-Bresson]]
* [[Raymond Carver]]
* [[Jordan Casteel]]
* [[Jordan Casteel]]
* [[Rebecca Chace]]
* [[Rebecca Chace]]
* [[John Cheever]]
* [[John Cheever]]
* [[Lisa Cholodenko]]
* [[Ta-Nehisi Coates]]
* [[Aaron Copland]]
* [[Aaron Copland]]
* [[Jennifer Croft]]
* [[Roger Crossgrove]]
* [[Roger Crossgrove]]
* [[Beauford Delaney]]
* [[Beauford Delaney]]
* [[Samuel R. Delany]]
* [[Arthur Deshaies]]
* [[Arthur Deshaies]]
* [[Blane De St. Croix]]
* [[Sari Dienes]]
* [[Sari Dienes]]
* [[John Dilg]]
* [[John Dilg]]
Line 80: Line 75:
* [[Jonathan Elliott]]
* [[Jonathan Elliott]]
* [[Kenneth Fearing]]
* [[Kenneth Fearing]]
* [[Gladys Fornell]]<ref name="yoa">{{cite web |title=Our Artists |url=https://yaddo.org/our-artists/ |publisher=Corporation of Yaddo |access-date=8 July 2023}}</ref>
* [[Jonathan Franzen]]
* [[Jonathan Franzen]]
* [[Daniel Fuchs]]
* [[Daniel Fuchs]]
* [[William Gass]]
* [[William Gass]]
* [[Steve Giovinco]]
* [[Steve Giovinco]]
* [[Keli Goff]]
* [[Philip Guston]]
* [[Philip Guston]]
* [[Daron Hagen]]
* [[Daron Hagen]]
* [[Michael Harrison (musician)|Michael Harrison]]
* [[Michael Harrison (musician)|Michael Harrison]]
* [[Ruth Heller]]
* [[Ruth Heller]]
* [[Sabine Heinlein]]
* [[Patricia Highsmith]]
* [[Patricia Highsmith]]
* [[Chester Himes]]
* [[Chester Himes]]
* [[Marilyn Gayle Hoff]]
* [[Langston Hughes]]
* [[Langston Hughes]]
* [[Ted Hughes]]
* [[Ted Hughes]]
* [[Alfred Kazin]]
* [[Alfred Kazin]]
* [[X. J. Kennedy]]
* [[Jeanne Jaffe]]
* [[Jeanne Jaffe]]
* [[Tamara Jenkins]]
* [[Miranda July]]
* [[Ulysses Kay]]
* [[Ulysses Kay]]
* [[Porochista Khakpour]]
* [[Wlodzimierz Ksiazek]]
* [[Wlodzimierz Ksiazek]]
* [[Louis Kronenberger]]
* [[Louis Kronenberger]]
* [[Stanley Kunitz]]
* [[Stanley Kunitz]]
* [[Penny Lane (filmmaker)|Penny Lane]]
* [[James Lapine]]
* [[Jacob Lawrence]]
* [[Jacob Lawrence]]
* [[Young Jean Lee]]
* [[Alan Lelchuk]]
* [[Alan Lelchuk]]
* [[Robert Lowell]]
* [[Robert Lowell]]
* [[Grace Lumpkin]]
* [[Alison Lurie]]
* [[Carmen Maria Machado]]
* [[Rosemary Mahoney]]
* [[Carson McCullers]]
* [[Carson McCullers]]
* [[Melissa Meyer]]
* [[Melissa Meyer]]
* [[Robert Nozick]]
* [[Flannery O'Connor]]
* [[Flannery O'Connor]]
* [[Dorothy Parker]]
* [[Dorothy Parker]]
Line 110: Line 121:
* [[Mario Puzo]]
* [[Mario Puzo]]
* [[Carl Rakosi]]
* [[Carl Rakosi]]
* [[Tom Raworth]]
* [[Dee Rees]]
* [[Jason Reitman]]
* [[Esther Rolick]]
* [[Esther Rolick]]
* [[Ned Rorem]]
* [[Ned Rorem]]
Line 116: Line 130:
* [[Carl Schmitt (artist)|Carl Schmitt]]
* [[Carl Schmitt (artist)|Carl Schmitt]]
* [[Delmore Schwartz]]
* [[Delmore Schwartz]]
* [[Ann Loomis Silsbee]]
* [[Michael Simms (publisher)|Michael Simms]]
* [[Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones]]
* [[Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones]]
* [[Clyfford Still]]
* [[Clyfford Still]]
* [[Stephanie Strickland]]
* [[Shaina Taub]]
* [[Michael Tilson Thomas]]
* [[Virgil Thomson]]
* [[Virgil Thomson]]
* [[Colm Tóibín]]
* [[Colm Tóibín]]
Line 125: Line 144:
* [[David Foster Wallace]]
* [[David Foster Wallace]]
* [[Eudora Welty]]
* [[Eudora Welty]]
* [[Carmen Maria Machado]]
* [[Chloé Zhao]]
{{Div col end}}
{{Div col end}}


Line 137: Line 156:
Yaddo is mentioned repeatedly throughout the [[Theresa Rebeck]] play ''[[Seminar (play)|Seminar]]''.
Yaddo is mentioned repeatedly throughout the [[Theresa Rebeck]] play ''[[Seminar (play)|Seminar]]''.


In the 2018 Netflix comedy-drama ''[[Private Life (2018 film)|Private Life]]'', aspiring writer Sadie (played by [[Kayli Carter]]) gets the opportunity to spend a month at Yaddo to focus on refining her writing skills. It is also repeatedly mentioned and referenced throughout the movie, e.g. by a coffee mug showing the Yaddo name on it. A few scenes of the movie are set at Yaddo‘s location as well.
In the 2018 Netflix comedy-drama ''[[Private Life (2018 film)|Private Life]]'', aspiring writer Sadie (played by [[Kayli Carter]]) gets the opportunity to spend a month at Yaddo to focus on refining her writing skills. It is also repeatedly mentioned and referenced throughout the movie, e.g. by a coffee mug showing the Yaddo name on it. A few scenes of the movie are set at Yaddo's location as well.

Mentioned in the [[Showtime_(TV_network)|Showtime]] series ''[[The_Affair_(TV_series)|The Affair]]'' season 2, episode 11 where Noah Solloway's agent offers to set him up at Yaddo to write his second novel.


==See also==
==See also==
*[[List of National Historic Landmarks in New York]]
*[[List of National Historic Landmarks in New York]]
*[[National Register of Historic Places listings in Saratoga County, New York]]
*[[National Register of Historic Places listings in Saratoga County, New York]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}


== References ==
== References ==
Line 168: Line 186:
[[Category:National Historic Landmarks in New York (state)]]
[[Category:National Historic Landmarks in New York (state)]]
[[Category:National Register of Historic Places in Saratoga County, New York]]
[[Category:National Register of Historic Places in Saratoga County, New York]]
[[Category:Yaddo alumni| ]]

Latest revision as of 10:39, 22 October 2024

Yaddo
Formation1926
TypeArtist colony
PurposeTo nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment
HeadquartersSaratoga Springs, New York
Coordinates43°04′07″N 73°45′29″W / 43.06848°N 73.75813°W / 43.06848; -73.75813
Region served
United States
Websiteyaddo.org

Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400-acre (160 ha) estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."[1] On March 11, 2013 it was designated a National Historic Landmark.[2]

It offers residencies to artists working in choreography, film, literature, musical composition, painting, performance art, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video. Collectively, artists who have worked at Yaddo have won 82 Pulitzer Prizes, 34 MacArthur Fellowships, 70 National Book Awards, 24 National Book Critics Circle Awards, 108 Rome Prizes, 49 Whiting Writers' Awards, a Nobel Prize (Saul Bellow, who won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976), at least one Man Booker Prize (Alan Hollinghurst, 2004) and countless other honors.[1] Yaddo is included in the Union Avenue Historic District.

History

[edit]

The estate was purchased in 1881 by the financier Spencer Trask and his wife, the writer Katrina Trask. The first mansion on the property burned down in 1891[3], and the Trasks then built the current house. Yaddo is a neologism invented by one of the Trask children and was meant to rhyme with "shadow".[4]

Artists' colony

[edit]
Christalan (1900), memorial to the Trasks' four children.

In 1900, after the premature deaths of the Trasks' four children,[4] Spencer Trask decided to turn the estate into an artists' retreat as a gift to his wife. He did this with the financial assistance of philanthropist George Foster Peabody. The first artists arrived in 1926. The success of Yaddo encouraged Spencer and Katrina later to donate land for a working women's retreat center as well, known as Wiawaka Holiday House, at the request of Mary Wiltsie Fuller.[5] At least in its early years, Yaddo was funded by profits from the Bowling Green Offices Building in Manhattan, in which Spencer Trask was extensively involved.[6]

A calm lake with refelctions in the water, to the right is Stone Tower studio behind trees
Postcard of a lake at Yaddo with the Stone Tower studio, a former chapel.[7]

In 1949 during the McCarthy Era, a news story accurately accused writer Agnes Smedley of spying for the Soviet Union.[8] Smedley had traveled with Mao Zedong to report on the Chinese Communist Revolution and, beginning in 1943, had spent five years at Yaddo. Poet Robert Lowell pushed the Board of Directors to oust Yaddo's director, Elizabeth Ames, who was being questioned by the FBI. Ames was eventually exonerated of all charges but learned from the investigation that her assistant Mary Townsend was an FBI informant.[9][10] Ames remained director until her retirement in 1969, having overseen the Yaddo community from its creation in 1924.[11] Ames was succeeded by Newman E. Waite who served as president from 1969 until 1977 when Curtis Harnack assumed the position.[12]

Literary critic and eventual Yaddo board member Louis Kronenberger wrote in his memoir that to call Yaddo "a mixture of some of the most attractive, enjoyable, generous-minded people and of others who were weird, megalomaniac, intransigent, pugnacious is only to say that it has housed and nourished most of the finest talents in the arts of the past forty-odd years—the immensely fruitful years of Elizabeth Ames's directorship."[13]

Recent years

[edit]

In May 2005, vandals, using paintball guns, damaged two of the Four Seasons statues, the Poet's Bench, a fountain, and pathways with blue paint.[14] Repairs cost $1,400.[15] In 2018, Yaddo elected photographer Peter Kayafas and novelist Janice Y.K. Lee as co-chairs of its board of directors.[16]

Yaddo has received large contributions from Spencer Trask & Company and Kevin Kimberlin, the firm's current chairman.[17] Novelist Patricia Highsmith bequeathed her estate, valued at $3 million, to the community.[18][19]

Facilities and gardens

[edit]
Pergola in Yaddo's gardens, photographed c. 1900–20

Yaddo's gardens are modeled after the classical Italian gardens the Trasks had visited in Europe.[20] The Four Seasons statues were acquired and installed in the garden in 1909.[21] There are many statues and sculptures located within the estate, including a sundial that bears the inscription, "Hours fly, Flowers die, New days, New ways, Pass by, Love stays."[22] While visitors are not admitted to the main mansion or artists' residences, they may visit the gardens.[21]

Alumni artists-in-residence

[edit]

Yaddo has hosted more than 6,000 artists including:[23][24]

[edit]

Jonathan Ames' book Wake Up Sir! (2004) is partially set at Yaddo.

Dagger of the Mind (1941), a novel by 1930s Yaddo resident Kenneth Fearing, takes place in Demarest Hall, an art colony modeled after Yaddo.[26]

In You season 1, episode 8: "You Got Me Babe", Blythe helps Beck focus on writing and break through writer's block by disconnecting Beck from her cellphone and the Internet, and setting up Beck's apartment to make her "own Yaddo".[27]

Yaddo is mentioned repeatedly throughout the Theresa Rebeck play Seminar.

In the 2018 Netflix comedy-drama Private Life, aspiring writer Sadie (played by Kayli Carter) gets the opportunity to spend a month at Yaddo to focus on refining her writing skills. It is also repeatedly mentioned and referenced throughout the movie, e.g. by a coffee mug showing the Yaddo name on it. A few scenes of the movie are set at Yaddo's location as well.

Mentioned in the Showtime series The Affair season 2, episode 11 where Noah Solloway's agent offers to set him up at Yaddo to write his second novel.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "History", Yaddo, archived from the original on August 14, 2010, retrieved September 20, 2011.
  2. ^ "New Sites Recognize More Complete Story of America, including Significant Latino, African American and Indian Sites". US Department of the interior. March 11, 2013. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
  3. ^ "The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 9 March 1891 — The NYS Historic Newspapers". nyshistoricnewspapers.org. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
  4. ^ a b "Yaddo and Substance". Time. September 5, 1938. Archived from the original on July 27, 2009. Creating at Yaddo last week, at mid-season of the colony's twelfth year [1938], was a typical group of writers and artists who have given substance to Katrina's vision. But whether or not they fit her romantic conception was an open question. By contrast with aristocratic Katrina and the elegant surroundings she provided, most of the season's 27 guests stood out in striking left-wing contrast: Poet Kenneth Fearing (Angel Arms, Poems), Critic Newton Arvin (Hawthorne), Novelists Joseph Vogel (At Madame Bonnard's), Leonard Ehrlich (God's Angry Man), Henry Roth (Call It Sleep), Daniel Fuchs (Low Company).
    "One of the show places of the U.S., Yaddo is a 500-acre (2.0 km2) estate with pine groves, vast lawns, artificial lakes with ducks, famous rose gardens, and white marble fountains. The name Yaddo was a baby pronunciation given by the Trask children (all four of whom died in childhood) to The Shadows, a famous inn formerly on the site of the Trask estate, where the Trasks had spent their summers. It was one of the dozen places where Poe was supposed to have written The Raven, and Katrina said it inspired her own poetry.
  5. ^ History, Wiawaka, retrieved June 9, 2011.
  6. ^ Ware, Louise (2009). George Foster Peabody: Banker, Philanthropist, Publicist. University of Georgia Press. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-8203-3456-1. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  7. ^ Grenier, Emily. "The Stone Tower at Yaddo". UpstateHistorical. Archived from the original on December 17, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
  8. ^ Ruth Price, The Lives of Agnes Smedley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5-9.
  9. ^ The Lowell Affair: Yaddo's Red Scare, NYPL.
  10. ^ Blumenkranz, Carla (May 23, 2023), Deeply and mysteriously implicated, Poetry Foundation.
  11. ^ "Elizabeth Ames, Creator of Yaddo, Upstate Cultural Haven, Dies at 92," New York Times, March 30, 1977.
  12. ^ Guide to the Yaddo records, NYPL.
  13. ^ Louis Kronenberger, No Whippings, No Gold Watches (Boston: Little Brown, 1970), 269.
  14. ^ Kinney, Jim (May 18, 2005). "Vandals Strike Yaddo Gardens". The Saratogian. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
  15. ^ Kinney, Jim (May 21, 2006). "Yaddo Vandals' Damage Undone". The Saratogian. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
  16. ^ "Yaddo board names new co-chairs". Times Union. September 10, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
  17. ^ "$1M gift received by Yaddo". The Business Review. Albany, New York. December 17, 1998. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
  18. ^ Barron, James; Martin, Douglas (February 18, 1998). "Public Lives; Here and There". The New York Times. Retrieved December 31, 2010.
  19. ^ Willcox, Kathleen (June 1, 2016). "Patricia Highsmith, Yaddo and America". Saratoga Living. Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2017.
  20. ^ Yaddo Gardens website.
  21. ^ a b "At Yaddo, statues truly are for all seasons," Daily Gazette Schenectady, New York, January 21, 2017.
  22. ^ Poetry of Henry van Dyke. The poem was written specifically for the Yaddo Garden.
  23. ^ "Guests – Lists of Artists". Yaddo. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved January 28, 2007.
  24. ^ "Artist Guests". Yaddo. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  25. ^ "Our Artists". Corporation of Yaddo. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  26. ^ Fearing, Kenneth (2004). The Collected Poems of Kenneth Fearing. Indiana: Indiana Press University. p. XVIII. ISBN 0943373255.
  27. ^ "YOU (2018) s01e08 Episode Script: You Got Me Babe". Springfield! Springfield!.

Further reading

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[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yaddo.
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