592 Commercial St. --Creative fires burned everywhere in 1916 during the “Great Provincetown Summer,” as it was called by the painter Marsden Hartley (1877-1943). But 592 Commercial was a furnace. Hartley himself was living here as a guest of the journalist and activist John Reed (1887-1920), who had recently returned from covering the European conflagration. Reed was accompanied by his lover and future wife, the journalist Louise Bryant (1885-1936), who would also take Eugene O’Neill, from across the street, as a lover that summer. Added to this stewpot was Hippolyte Havel (1871-1950), the household chef — or “kitchen anarchist,” as Reed called him, after he’d branded Reed a “parlor socialist.” Among the many others coming and going from the house was Hartley’s friend, the painter Charles Demuth (1883-1935). Just one such summer would have been history enough for any house, but No. 592 is further distinguished as the home from 1951 to 1996 of the Manso family. Leo Manso (1914-1993), was an eminent painter, collagist and teacher who came to Provincetown’s attention during the influential Forum 49 series at 200 Commercial Street. In 1952, Manso ran a New York University-affiliated art workshop here. He was also a cofounder of Gallery 256, at 256 Commercial Street; of the Provincetown Workshop, 492 Commercial; and of the Long Point Gallery, which took over the workshop’s space. His wife, Blanche (Rosenberg) Manso (1917-1996), was an expert collector of ancient Asian art [?] who ran a store here called Arts of the Past in the late 1960s. Their son, the author Peter Manso (b 1941), wrote Brando: The Biography, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, in this house. (courtesy of david w. dunlap, building provincetown)
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 20:06:41 +0000
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