A web site devoted to Ben Hecht Biography & Works

Above right, Chicago cityscape painting by Ramon Shiva. Above left, Herman Rosse's caricature of Ben Hecht. Below, Chicago skyline photo highlighting the new 1921 Wrigley Building, subject of a Hecht storiy about Da Da artist George Grosz

ART AND ARCHITECTURE ON 1001 AFTERNOONS IN CHICAGO:
ESSAYS AND TALL TALES OF ARTISTS AND THE CITYSCAPE OF THE 1920s.
Ben Hecht (1894- 1964) and Florice Whyte Kovan. Washington, DC, Snickersnee Press, 2003. ISBN 0966770919. Edition limited to 200. 35.00. BUY THE BOOK.

Let Ben Hecht's leads take you alternately down paths of 1920s literary thought or to his vintage tomfoolery in his lost Chicago stories about art, architecture, and artist associates in Jazz Age America of the 1920s.

"There are days when the city seems a climax of magnificences. One struts along eying the architectural complications, the barrage of windows, the incomprehensible traffic, and exclaims, 'Marvelous! Colossal!" Ben Hecht, "Urbimania'"

The stories were originally written for the Chicago Daily News and Hecht's own arts bi-weekly, the Chicago Literary Times. Hard cover features reproduction of an abstract acrylic painting on Japanese washi paper by artist Sheila Crider.

Captioned pictures include ten Gallery pages for George Grosz, Stanislav Szukalski, Herman Rosse, Berlin Dada and the Chicago non-Jury artists, the refusees who turned their backs on the AIC to run their own group exhibits: George Josimovitz, Rudolph Weisenborn, Carl Hoeckner, Frances Strain and Helen Westheller, two Chicago women artists, Charles Biesel and Fred Biesel, Ramon Shiva and Emil Arman (one of this group did the cityscape painting seen in our scan). Artists and architects given the full-story treatment by Hecht include Jerome Blum, Nicholas Roerich, Herman Rosse. Herman Sachs, Dadaists George Grosz, Johannes Baader, Wallace Smith, Frank Peyraud and in a roman a clef, Frank Lloyd Wright. Buildings and institutions with their own stories include the Chicago Temple skyscraper, the Art Institute of Chicago, Tree Studios, South Water Street Market and the Wrigley Building. Film stills show the connection between Hecht's Chicago experiences with art and artist associates and his or their later film aesthetic.

Reviews: George Fetherling, Vancouver Sun, August 10. Chicago Tribune, WGN radio, Rick Kogan, August 18. Librarian, bibliophile and book reviewer Petri Liukkonen in the Finnish periodical Käpysato, October 2002.
Index to names and places in the book

For collections on art and cultural history, Chicago history, the 1920s, urbanism, literary journalism and early Modernism in America. Volume II in the Rediscovering Ben Hecht book series.

Art and Architecture on 1001 Afternoons in Chicago

He obtained work as a writer for the Chicago Journal, falling in with the Bohemian sets fostered by Floyd Dell, Harriet Monroe and Theodore Dreiser. An associate of Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg and Max Bodenheim, Hecht was the youngest and most daring member of the Chicago Literary Renaissance. By his early 20s he wrote regularly for Margaret Anderson's Little Review and HL Mencken's Smart Set, while advancing to celebrity status at the Chicago Daily News. The film writing career for which he became best known began in the mid-teens with uncredited work for Anita Loos in Chicago. His momentum as a pioneer writer of one-act plays in the little theater was stemmed by the death of his young collaborator, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, namesake of today's Chicago theaters. A year in post-war Berlin for the Daily News in 1919 involved Hecht with the Berlin Dadaists, among them George Grosz and Johannes von Baader.

Upon his return a loose rein by editors freed him to write over 400 short pieces on urban life in his own column, 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, from which the stories in this book are taken. The sexual frankness of his first novel, Erik Dorn, brought Hecht national notoriety. His even more explicit Fantazius Mallare triggered in a Federal obscenity suit against him and illustrator Wallace Smith. It also cost him his job. Undaunted, he wrote more books, Gargoyles, The Kingdom of Evil and a spectacular volume of Afternoons stories illustrated by Herman Rosse. His first three-act play, the Egoist, a vehicle for Leo Dietrichstein, played the Shubert in 1922.

The following year Hecht's arts tabloid, The Chicago Literary Times, startled the nation's literati with art by George Grosz, Wallace Smith, Stanislav Szukalski, Alfred Kublin and Herman Rosse while caustic criticism splattered from the pens of Hecht and associate editor Max Bodenheim. The bi-weekly celebrated Chicago's avant garde No-Jury artists with good natured anecdotes, while slamming the arts establishment mercilessly. After a bitter divorce, Hecht took his reputation and skill to his native New York, where he frequented the Algonquin Round Table and drafted numerous plays. When his Front Page hit Broadway in 1928,

Art & Architeccture on 1001 Afternoons in Chicago - Index

1001 Afternoons in Chicago (Hecht)
1001 Afternoons in New York (Hecht)
18th Century French
50 Books That Are Books (Hecht)
Addams, Jane
Aesopean
Africa
African American
Alba Hotel
Alexandria
Algonquin Round Table
America
American
American architecture
American Terra Cotta Society
Americanomania
Americans
Amerika
Amusement building
Anderson, Margaret
Anderson, Sherwood
Angarola, Anthony
Antoinette Perry Award
Arch de Triomphe
Armin, Emil
Armstrong, Marie
Art Deco
Art Institute (of Chicago)
Artists and Sin
Arts Club of Chicago
Asia
At the Sign of Reine
Athenian fa?ade
Athens
Austin (suburb)
Baader, Johannes von
Babel
Babylon
Bacine
Bacon, Peggy
Balaban and Katz
Beauty
Beethoven Ninth
Bellows, George
Ben Hecht Show
Ben Hecht Story & News (Kovan)
Ben Hecht/Gene Fowler
Ben Hecht/Max Bodenheim
Bennett, Joan
Berk, Harlan J. Collection, Chicago
Berlin
Berlin Da Da
Berliner Dadaisten
Biesel, Charles
Biesel, Fred
Black-belt Shadows
Blackstone
Blackstone (hotel)
Blum, Jerome
Blum, Jerry
Bodenheim, Max
Bohemian
Book of Da Da
Boston
Boule Mich
Brandenburger Tor
Bridges, Beau
Broadway
Broun
Brummer, Mr. (Joseph)
Bulldog Drummond
Bullock?s Wilshire Department Store
Burnham, Daniel
Bushman, FX
Butcher, Fannie
Byzantium
Cabals
Caddo
Cadmus
California
Capturing Sunlight
Carolinas
Carson Pirie Scott
Cat That Jumped out of the Story (Hecht)
Caylor, Rose
Chaplin, Charlie
Chardin, Teilhard
Chartres, Cathedral of
Chicago
Chicago Academy
Chicago architecture
Chicago art school
Chicago artist(s)
Chicago Athletic Club
Chicago Beach (hotel)
Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago Daily News
Chicago Journal
Chicago Literary Renaissance
Chicago Literary Renaissance
Chicago Literary Times
Chicago Musical College
Chicago No-Jury Artists
Chicago Plan
Chicago (river)
Chicago Temple (skyscraper)
Chicago Theatre
Chicago, Bohemian
Chicago, city of
Chicago, market
Chicagoans
Child of the Century
China
Chinese
Chinese
Christ
Christian Endeavor (league)
Christianity
City Beautiful
City of Chicago
Clark street bridge
Cleopatra
Cleopatra
Cliff Dwellers
Club Da Da
Colorado
Columbian Exposition
Coming of Age in Samoa
Con Carne Joe?s
Coney Island
Congo
Corinth
Cors Ardens
Covici
Covici
Coyne, Dan
Creative Art Students? League
Cubist Ball
Da Da
DaDa (story)
Dadaesque
Dadaism
Dadaists
Dada-merika
Daily News, Chicago
Daimonides
Dante-faced
Darrow, Clarence
Davidson, Jo
Dayton Art institute
Dayton, Ohio
Deitrichstein, Leo
Dell, Floyd
Delphi Galleries
Des Moines
DiCaprio, Leonardo
Dietrich, Marlene
Dionysus
DoDo
Dodo von Baader
DoDo, Professor
Dohman, Dr. Karl
Dohmann, Dr. Karl
Dracula
Dreams of Wisdom (Roerich)
Dreamer, The (Armin)
Dreiser, Theodore
Dreiser, Theordore
Dresdener branch
du Sable, Jean Baptiste
Duke University
Duluth
Early English
Edwardian
Egoist,The (Hecht)
Egypt
Egyptian(s)
Einstein, Albert
El trains (see "L" Trains)
Elk(s)
Elliot, Bert
Emperor Jones, The
Enchanted Exiles (Hecht)
Englewood
Erik Dorn
Ethiope
Etruscan
Europe
European
Everyone Shimmies Now
Faherty, Michael
Faithful Lorelei (Hecht)
Falk, Peter
Fall of Montezuma
Fantazius Mallare
Father Time
Federal buildings
Fine Arts Building
Firn, Edgar
Florida
Four Building Movement
Fowler, Gene
France
France, Anatole
Frederick the Great (sttatue)
French
Freudograph
Friederich Strasse
From My Window (Palmer)
Future Fish (Hecht)
Gaily, Gaily (film still)
Gambrinus Wein Stube
Gargantuan
Gargoyles
Gauguin
Georgetown University Library
German
German Expressionism
German playwright
Germany
Germany, revolution 1919
Gershwin, George
Getty Library
Gilbert, Marvin
God
God?s country
Goldbeck, Walter
Goldberg, Rube
Goodman, Kenneth
Goodman, Mr.
Gopher Prairie
GP Putnam?s Sons
Graham, Anderson, Probst and White
Grand Cardinal of Caricature
Grant Park
Great McGoo
Greece
Greek
Greek vs. Greek
Greeks
Grosz
Grosz, George
Grosz, Herr
Grosz, Musterbook I
Grosz-Mappe
Guggenheim
Haitian
Hallelujah I'm a Bum
Hansen, Edgar
Hansen, Mr.
Harper (avenue}
Hecht
Hecht, Joseph
Hecht/Bodenheim
Hecht/Fowler
Hechtean
Hechts (Ben and Marie)
High Inca
High Inca of the Imperial Inner Gnomes
Himalayan Mountains
Hitchcock
Hitler?s Last Cause
Hoch das Dadaismus
Holabird and Roche
Hollander
Hollis Taggart Gallery
Hollywood
Hotel Esplanade
Hughes, Howard
Hull House
Hutchison, Mr. (Charles)
I Got the Blues (Hecht)
I Love You (Grosz)
Ibsen, Henrick
ICC

Iknaton
Illinois
Illinois Central
Illinois Historical Art Project
Imperial Inca Pants
Imperial Inner Gnomes
In Behalf of Art (Hecht)
Inca Pants
Industrialism
Inner Beliefs
Inner Secret
Iowa
Irish
Italian
Italy
Jackson (park)
Janitor Joe and the Higher Criticism (Hecht)
Janitor Joe
Java
Jerry
Jew(s)
Joe Blow
Jonson, Raymond
Journey into Color
Karasz, Ilonka
King of Jazz
Kramm, Max
Ku Klux Klan
L trains
La Jolla
Laguna Art Museum
Lake Michigan
LaMarr, Hedy
Language of the Birds (Roerich)
Lauer?s Caf? (Berlin)
Layton School of Art
Leslie, Miss (Amy)
Lewis, Sinclair
Library of Congress

Milwaukee Arts Monthly
Minter, Mary Miles
Mississippi
Model cities
Modernism
Modernist
Mona Lisa
Mongolia
Monroe, Harriet
Moore, William
Morgan, Charles L
Moro Castle (Whistler0
Munich
Murders in the Rue Morgue (Rosse)
Museum of Modern Art (NYC)
Museum of the Moving Image
Musterbookhaus (Chicago)
My Last Park Bench (Hecht)
National Gallery of Art
National Unity League
Nature
Nazi Germany
Neuman?s art gallery (Berlin)
New Chicago
New City Movement
New Holy Ghost (Hecht)
New York
New York Dada
Newberry Library
Ninth Symphony (Beethoven)
Nicea
Nobel Laureate
No-Jury artists (Chicago)
No-Jury show
non-Indian
Nonsenseorship
North Shore
Northwestern (railroad)
Norton, John
Norway
Notes by a Bogus Classicist
Nothing Sacred
Nyack
O?Neills
O?Toole, Clarence
Oakland, Cal.
Ober Da Da
On a Day Like This
Opinions of M. Jerome Coinard
Order of the Da Da
Oscar
Pacific
Palace at Versailles
Palm Beach, Florida
Palmer, Pauline
Paramount
Paris
Paris
Paris of the West
Pax Cultura
Payton, Dave
Peace through Culture
Peking Gate
Peoples Gas Building (Chicago)
Perry, Antoinette
Persia
Peyraud, Frank Charles
Peyton, Dave (Payton)
Phoenicians
Picasso
Platitude
Plato
Poland
Polish wedding cake
Polk (RR station)
Pompeii
Premature Intelligence
President of the New City Movement
Prince, Sue Ann
Professor Dodo
Professor Dodo von Baader
Professor Roerich
Progressive
Prussian Dadaisten
Racine
Randolph (street)
Rapp and Rapp
Rascoe, Mr. Burton
Ravinia
Rehearsal at the Pas de Loup
Relativity, the Special Theory
Rembrandt
Rerikh, Nikolai
Resident building
Retail building
Rhapsody in Blue
Robert Henry Adams Fine Art
Rodin
Roerich Museum
Roerich Pact
Roerich, His Life and Creations
Roerich, Nicholas
Roerich, Svetoslav
Roger?s Park
Rogers Park
Roman
Romaninian
Romans
Rome
Rookery Building
Rosse, Herman
Roth, Lillian
Rubber (Tobis film)
Rube Goldberg Machine
Russia
Russians
Rutledge, Grady
Sable, Jean Baptiste
Sachs, Herman
Sadistic
Sahara
Sahara (desert)
San Francisco
Sandburg, Carl
Sanity in Art
Sargent (John Singer)
Savage
Schneider
Schuberts
Scoundrel, The (film)
Second city
Seine
Selling the Celluloid Serpent
Selznick, David
Sennett, Mack
Sergeant Kusick?s Waterloo
Shadowland (magazine)
Shipe, Timothy
Shiva, Ramon
Smart Set
Smith, Wallace
Smithsonian Archive of American Art
Soak the Rich (film)
South seas
South State (street)
South Water (street)
South Water Street Market
Southwestern University School of Law
Souvenir of Chicago
Spain
Spirit of Transportation mural
Stanford university
State (street)
statuary
Stevens, Ashton
Still Life
Strain, Frances
Study in Still Life (Boris Ansifeld)
Study in Still Life (Jerome Blum)
Sullivan, Louis
Sultan of Marzipan
Summer Afternoon (Frank Peyraud)
Swan, Lucille
Swede(s)
Swedish-American
Swernofsky, Sarah
Szukalski, Stanislav
Szukalski Museum
Taft, Lorado
Tahiti
Tahitian
Tahitian chiefs
Tahitian Girl with Flowers (Jerome Blum)
Take a Chance (film)
Tales of Manhattan (film(
Ta-Samo
Ta-Samo, Chief
Teilhard
The Emperor Jones
The Great Magoo
The Swan (play)
Thebes
Thiergarten (Berlin)
Tibet
To Bert Williams (Obituary)
Tobis
Tony Award
Tony Award medal
Topchevsky
Transylvania
Tree stoodlums
Tree Studio
Twentieth Century
Ulysses in Night Town
Underworld (Hecht)
Union League (club)
Union Station (Los Angeles)
United States
Universal (studios)
Unprejudiced Comparative
Unter Dada
Upper Law of the Inner Dada
Urbimania
Velasquez
Vienna
Villa, Pancho
VO Harmon
Wagnerian
Warsaw
Washington Street
Waxman, Franz
Wedekind, Frank
Weill, Kurt
Weisenborn, Rudolph
Where the Blues Sound
Whistler
Whiteman, Paul
Wildean
Wilmettish sang-froid
Wisconsin Wisconsin Center for
Film and Theater Research
Wizard of Oz
Wolfradt, Klinkhardt
Woodlawn Avenue
Woolworth (tower)
World War I
WPA
Wright, Frank Lloyd
Wrigley Building
Wrigley clock
Wrigley Tower
Yellow Mask
Zettler, Emil
Ziegfeld Follies

We express thanks to the Newberry Library for permission to publish certain images online; for reference assistance, the Getty Reference Department, the Smithsonian Archive of American Art, Roberta Geier at the National Gallery, the Illinois Historical Art Project, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Tim Shipe at the International Da Da Archives, Terry Geesken and Mary Corliss at MoMA, the Roerich Museum in New York, the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago, and to Robert Henry Adams Fine Art in Chicago. Our appreciation also to Bruce Martin of the Library of Congress for the provision of a study facility for this project. Compilation and text copyright Snickersnee Press 2000, Washington DC. All rights reserved.