Jo Davidson

Jo Davidson’s terra cotta bust of Greene is on long-term view in the East Room of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library, in a vitrine to the right of the grand fireplace. All other portraits of Greene in the Morgan’s collection are drawings and photographs, which may be irrevocably damaged or altered by extended exposure to light and are therefore not on long-term display.

Thus far, research efforts have not revealed any archives that illuminate the history of this sculpture or Belle Greene's relationship to Jo Davidson. She met him, perhaps for the first time, in early 1913 with Edwin Dodge; the subject of conversation turned to William Rothenstein, and Davidson told Greene "he is by no means the fool he acts" (BG to BB, 2/11/13; 226). In 1921 she recalled an "all-night party" with Davidson and in the fall of 1928 she ran into him in Paris.

BG to BB, 4/10/21 (479): "First let me tell you that I howled in despair when you compared me to Joe Davison. I did not see him here this time, but he ‘grabbed’ me on my last day in Paris, and for a second, I was thoroughly frightened for he looked exactly like a playful gorilla – with only his nose and mouth free from bushy hair. I have a vague remembrance of going on an all-night party with him many years ago in my wild past – before he married the present french wife – and that he was just as eager, as fresh, wild and exuberant at 6 a.m. as he had been at 6 p.m."