Chronology of Loy’s Life

Compiled by Suzanne W. Churchill, Linda A. Kinnahan, and Susan Rosenbaum

This chronological list emphasizes Loy’s migrations through time and space.

1882 Mina Gertrude Lowy born in London

1897 Enrolls in St. John’s Wood Art School in London

1900 Travels to Munich and enrolls in Society of Female Artists’ School

1901-2 Attends art school in London, taking classes with August John.

1903 Travels to Paris and enrolls at Académie Colarossi, where she meets Stephen Haweis; she gets pregnant, and they marry out of necessity.

1904 Oda Janet Haweis born in Paris; Loy exhibits 6 watercolors at Salon d’Automne under name Mina Loy.

1905 Oda dies of meningitis. In mourning, Loy paints “The Wooden Madonna,” gifted later to Mabel Dodge (now lost).

1906 Affair with doctor Henry Joel Le Savoureaux; elected member of Salon d’Automne.

1907 Moves to Florence, Villino Ombrellino in Arcetri area; Joella Sinara Haweis born, July 7, in Bagni di Lucca.

1908 Moves with family to rented apartment on Costa di San Giorgio, in the Oltrarno section of Florence (address unknown).

1909 John Stephen Giles Musgrove Haweis born, February 1. Loy adopts Christian Science. After Giles’ birth the toddlers “spent two months in the mountains followed by two months at Forte dei Marmi” (Burke 117). Possibly Vallambrosa or Carrera mountains in May and June, with Forte dei Marmi in July and August.

1910 With Haweis, buys home at #54 Costa di San Giorgio. Meets Mabel Dodge.

1911 Meets Gertrude Stein.

1912 One-woman show at Carfax Gallery in London.

1913 In January, Loys suffers from possible influenza and anxiety over collapse of marriage; in summer, Haweis cares for her in Forte dei Marmi on western coast of Italy (summer of convalescence); later in year Haweis leaves for Australia. Meets Papini, Marinetti, and other Futurists in Florence. Frances Simpson Stevens rents a studio from Loy, and they become friends, engaging with Florence’s Futurist artists and writers. Gordon Craig moves next door on Costa San Giorgio. In November, Loy and Stevens attend the first major showing of Futurist paintings in Florence, at the Saletta Gonnelli. The show is review in Lacerba. In December, Loy attends a Futurist serata (peformance) at the Teatro Verdi in Florence.

1914 Jan. 15 issue of Lacerba includes an article on the Futurists and their meeting place, the Giubbe Rosse Café, and mentions Loy and Stevens. Loy paints a portrait of Giovanni Papini, Futurist leader, and exhibits works at the First Free Futurist International Exhibition in Rome, at the Galleria Sprovieri in February and March. Affairs with Marinetti and Papini. Debuts “Aphorisms on Futurism” in Camera Work. Vacations in Vallombrosa with Dodge, Carl Van Vechten, family, and others as war begins in late summer (July & August). Marinetti visits in Vallombrosa. Van Vechten publishes “Italian Pictures” in Trend in November, introducing Loy as a “Futurist.” Loy returns to Florence in the fall, living temporarily at #27 Via dei Bardi while her house is rented; Papini lives down the street. She drafts “Feminist Manifesto” in the fall and sends it to Mabel Dodge in New York.

1915 Relocates to #52 Costa San Giorgio in Florence in the spring, until she can move back into her home at #54.  In May, drafts “Love Songs” and “The Effectual Marriage” while at the seaside town of Forte Dei Marmi with her children. “Love Songs” appears in first issue of Others in July. In July, she composes “Giovanni Franchi,” a satire of Futurism, which is published in Rogue 2.1 in October 1916.

1916 Sails to New York and meets Duchamp and Williams; acts in Lima Beans.; takes part in Arensberg and Others circles in New York, introduced by Frances Simpson Stevens who now lives in NYC.

1917 New York Sun feature on “modern woman”; meets Arthur Cravan; divorces Haweis; Songs to Joannes in Others; work on Blind Man and Rongwrong.

1918 Loy and Cravan travel to Mexico to avoid draft, get married January 1918. Loy travels to Valparaiso Chile and on to Buenos Aires in Fall 2018.

1919 Returns to Surrey London in March; Jemima Fabienne Cravan Lloyd born in April; travels to Geneva to meet with Cravan’s and then Florence to see Giles and Joella.

1920 Returns to New York in March. Meets Djuna Barnes.

1921 Haweis returns to Florence and takes Giles to Caribbean. In Summer 1921 Loy goes to Florence and visits Paris that summer and again in November 1921.

1922 Loy travels to Vienna in the spring, meets Freud, and moves to Berlin.

1923 returns to Paris; Lunar Baedecker published by Contact; Giles dies in Bermuda.

1925 Peggy Guggenheim Vail organizes exhibits of Loy’s Jade Blossoms in America (cubist still life picture-collages). They were exhibited and sold at Wanamaker Department store’s Belmaison gallery, Macy’s Gallery, and Cargoes Gallery

1926 Loy opens lampshade shop at 52 rue de Colisée, Paris in September.

1927 Joella marries Julian Levy.

1928 Edgar Levy loans Mina Loy the money to buy the lampshade shop from Peggy Guggenheim

1929 Loy puts lampshade shop up for sale in the fall

1930 Loy sells lampshade shop in March.

1931 Levy opens gallery in New York in January at 602 Madison Avenue; Loy becomes advisor and purchasing agent.

1933 Levy exhibits Loy’s paintings in NY gallery in Jan-Feb; Loy meets Richard Oelze

1935 Loy sends Fabienne to New York to live with Joella and Julien in December.

1936 Loy moves to New York.

1940 Living on Lexington Avenue, near 58th Street, in Midtown East, NYC.

1941 Moves to East 13th Street.

1942 Loy appears in Charles Henri Ford’s View and helps Breton publish Arthur Cravan’s previously unpublished Notes in VVV (no. 1 June 1942; no. 203 March 1943), and publishes new poems in Accent, New Directions, Partisan Review and Between Worlds (Burke 401-2; Januzzi, Bibliography 524-526).

1943 Develops close friendship and correspondence with Joseph Cornell.

1945  Loy again publishes in Charles Henri Ford’s View.

1946 Loy becomes American citizen.

1948 Moves to 2nd Street, bordering the Village and the Bowery.

1949 Loy moves a few blocks to 5 Staunton Avenue on the Lower East Side. Loy visits Cornell’s Aviary exhibit at the Egan Gallery (Dec 7 1949- Jan 7 1950)

1950 Loy finishes her essay “Phenomenon in American Art” and sends it to Cornell in November.

1953 Loy moves to Aspen, CO.

1958 Lunar Baedeker and Time Tables published by Jargon Press.

1959 Loy’s “constructions” exhibited at Bodley Gallery in New York.

1966 Loy dies in Aspen.

1982 Roger L. Conover publishes The Last Lunar Baedeker.

Sources

• Carolyn Burke. Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
• “Mina Loy Chronology.” The Salt Companion to Mina Loy. Eds. Rachel Potter and Suzanne Hobson. London: Salt Publishing, 2010. 12-15.
• “Time-Table.” Mina Loy. The Last Lunar Baedeker. Ed. Roger L. Conover. Highlands, NC: The Jargon Society, 1982. lxiii-lxxix.