By THIRSTY
At the height
of his career, when Scofield Thayer was 37 years old, he was diagnosed with
schizophrenia. His analyst Sigmund Freud could not help and Thayer retreated
from public life, living another fifty years in social isolation. His legacy,
however, was obscured because of the stigma surrounding his illness.
 |
| Scofield Thayer (circa 1920s) |
A new documentary
film, currently in production, entitled Stroke of Genius, Scofield Thayer –
The Man Who Made America Modern,
endeavors to explore the intersection between creative genius and
madness as it tells the story of Thayer and his life. And, to further foster
awareness about mental illness, the producers are partnering with Fountain
House in New York City to launch a public awareness campaign to educate people
about serious mental illness and to support an arts program established in
Thayer’s honor. A portion of the proceeds from the film will underwrite the
newly-created Scofield Thayer Art Scholarships for Fountain House
artists.
Although there
are many people working on this film, we reached out to Caroline Camougis,
James Dempsey and Kenneth Dudek to tell us more about Scofield Thayer and this important
project.
Caroline Camougis, is a seasoned
documentary filmmaker and the Executive Producer and Producer of Stroke of Genius, Scofield Thayer. She was
an Associate Producer on the film, The
Yes Men Fix the World, named Best Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival,
and an Executive Producer on the award-winning film, The American Ruling Class, which set a record for DVD sales in the
educational market. An expert in the nonprofit sector, Ms. Camougis is also the
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Delphi Partners, a leader in philanthropic
advisory services.
James Dempsey
is an educator, author and award-winning journalist. He is the author
of the
definitive biography on Scofield Thayer entitled The Tortured Life of
Scofield Thayer and the Consulting Producer on Stroke of Genius,
Scofield Thayer.
Kenneth J. Dudek is
President of Fountain House. Since 1948, this New York City-based organization,
recipient of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, has empowered people with
serious mental illness to live and thrive in society.
STAY THIRSTY: Who was Scofield Thayer and why are you producing a
documentary about him?
CAROLINE
CAMOUGIS: Scofield Thayer
(1889-1982), a wealthy, eccentric arts patron, is one of the most extraordinary
– and yet unknown – figures of the 20th
century. What did he do? In the 1920s, he brilliantly
edited The Dial, an arts and literary magazine that brought the best
writers to the forefront before they
went on to receive national and international recognition. These writers
included literary giants such as T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and E.E. Cummings. Nine
Dial writers went on to receive Nobel Prizes and another 26 would
receive Pulitzer Prizes – no other magazine can lay claim to publishing
original work from such a pantheon of “greats.”
 |
| Caroline Camougis |
Thayer also
introduced the work of the most exciting visual artists of the day, such as
Picasso, Matisse and Chagall, who were virtually unknown at the time. He
clearly had an eye for talent. In short, he established the cultural
agenda both here and abroad for generations and laid the groundwork for one of
the most important cultural institutions in the world – the Museum of Modern
Art. And he did this in just six years against tremendous odds, including
fighting serious mental illness. Scofield Thayer has been a footnote in the
history of the transformation of culture in America for almost a century. In
this movie – the first about him – we’ll finally tell his story.
 |
| The Dial (January 1920) |
Along the way,
Thayer built a 600-piece collection of modern art – now at New York’s
Metropolitan Museum of Art. He assembled most of his collection in just a few
years – from 1921-1923 while he was based in Vienna as a patient of Sigmund
Freud. He was one of the first major collectors of Klimt and Schiele. As a
child, I fell in love with one of the works in Thayer’s collection, Henri
Matisse’s The Goldfish Bowl (1921-1922).
When I learned
that The Met Breuer was organizing an exhibit with a selection of Thayer’s
works (July - October 2018), the timing clicked for me, especially since the
artists featured in the exhibit were first introduced to the U.S. through the
pages of Thayer’s magazine.
STAY THIRSTY: How did your experience writing The Tortured Life of
Scofield Thayer compare
with your experience working on a documentary film about his life?
JAMES DEMPSEY: Writing the biography was a very solitary experience. I
spent
about ten years visiting various archives and libraries to do the
research for thembiography. For a long time, I didn’t even have a publisher. I
remember being inordinately happy when I finally met another scholar who had
actually heard of Thayer and The Dial,
which just goes to show how forgotten he was. But there were a few who knew
what a huge influence he had been in using his magazine to create an esthetic
roadmap for literature and the arts in the twentieth century.
 |
| James Dempsey |
Working on the
movie, on the other hand, is very much a team
effort. So you don’t get to have your own way so much, but you find that others bring new ideas and energy and enthusiasm to the project. I feel we are really giving Thayer his due at last, late though it is. It’s very exciting.
effort. So you don’t get to have your own way so much, but you find that others bring new ideas and energy and enthusiasm to the project. I feel we are really giving Thayer his due at last, late though it is. It’s very exciting.
STAY THIRSTY: What was the process
that Fountain House went through that led to its involvement with this film?
What are the goals you hope to achieve by being part of this project and how
does awareness of the life of Scofield Thayer resonate with your mission?
KENNETH DUDEK: Since Fountain House
began in 1948, our programs have
always focused on the most serious forms of
mental illness including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical
depression. Scofield Thayer was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 37, and
lived the majority of his life after that in social isolation. When the
producers approached Fountain House as a potential partner for the film, we saw
this as an opportunity to raise awareness for the issue of serious mental
illness, and to shine a light on the contributions that many people with
Thayer’s diagnosis have been able to make, when surrounded by a community of
mutual support.
 |
| Kenneth Dudek |
Links: