Additional Information on Crowley Portraits by Stella Marks

In November 1915, Stella Marks and her husband Monty set up home at Bryant Park Studios, 80 West 40th Street, New York (also known as 'The Beaux-Arts Building').

In December 1915, Stella started two portrait miniatures of Aleister Crowley, the famous occultist. A preliminary drawing is in her sketch book dated 1915. However the miniatures were likely completed in early 1916. It is probable that one was given to Crowley, which is now lost, and the other kept by Stella for exhibition. There is evidence of at least two exhibitions of the work: in 1916 at the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters and again in the February 1926 Exhibition at The New Gallery, Melbourne. [source: catalogues]. I also have a reference from an undated press cutting some years later that it was to be exhibited at the Royal Academy. However, I have not been able to find a Summer Exhibition catalogue that verifies it was exhibited there.

Stella kept a black and white print of the version which is lost in her portfolio book and another black and white print was in Crowley’s diaries.

How Stella came to paint Crowley’s portrait is interesting. She was at a social event at Washington Square Studio, New York. It was given by her friend, Maud Allan, and the writer and publisher, Frank Harris. Aleister Crowley was at the party and Stella was struck by his compelling face. So she asked if she could paint him. Crowley agreed on condition he could “wear what he chose”. When he arrived for his first sitting, not knowing who he was, she was somewhat surprised at the X° O.T.O. regalia he wore. [source: undated press cutting]. Stella also wrote in 1977 for a television interview: “I asked him to sit perhaps because I never once saw him smile. But during the sitting something I said made him smile slightly.”

Coincidentally, at the time Aleister Crowley happened to be a neighbour at Bryant Park Studios.

Aleister Crowley (miniatures x 2 versions). Painted in New York. A rough drawing for the miniatures is in Stella’s sketch book dated 1915. It is likely they where completed at the end of 1915 or in very early 1916. Note the different backgrounds and cropping of the two version. Crowley was a famous occultist and poet. Founder of the religious philosophy of Thelema. He is wearing the X° regalia of O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis). Stella insisted on being accompanied while painting him. Exhibited in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts November to December 1916 14th Annual Philadelphia Water Color Exhibition and 15th Annual Exhibition of Miniatures. Noted in January 1917 American Magazine of Art (page 121). Shown in Stella's February 1926 Exhibition at The New Gallery, Melbourne. Commented on in The Argus 17 February 1926, which reported that Stella's work has no "hint of niggling or uncertainty". "The seated figure....arranged in the official robes..... has a sinister as well as artistic interest." [source: press cuttings, catalogues, sketch book]