Mina Loy
Mina Loy was an influential poet and artist born Mina Gertrude Lowy in London on December 27, 1882. She was the daughter of a Jewish tailor and a conservative Protestant, which provided her with a diverse cultural background. Loy studied art in Munich and England before marrying Stephen Haweis, with whom she moved to Paris and became involved in the vibrant artistic community of the time, including interactions with Gertrude Stein. Despite personal tragedies, such as the loss of her daughter, Loy remained dedicated to her craft, gaining recognition for her experimental poetry influenced by the Italian Futurist movement.
Her work, characterized by bold and innovative techniques, faced mixed critical reception but was appreciated by notable Modernists like William Carlos Williams and Marcel Duchamp. In 1916, she relocated to New York, where she explored new artistic avenues, including lamp-making and sculpture. Loy's life took a tumultuous turn with the mysterious disappearance of her husband, Arthur Cravan, after their move to Mexico. After years of artistic evolution, she returned to Paris, where she published her first poetry collection, and later spent time in Aspen, Colorado. Loy's contributions to the Modernist movement have gained increasing recognition, with her poetry and art continuing to inspire new generations of scholars and artists. She passed away in 1966, leaving a legacy marked by her innovative spirit and profound impact on 20th-century literature and art.
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Mina Loy
- Born: December 27, 1882
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: September 25, 1966
- Place of death: Aspen, Colorado
Biography
Mina Loy was born Mina Gertrude Lowy in London on December 27, 1882. She was the eldest daughter of Sigmund Lowy, a tailor who was Jewish, and Julia Bryant Lowy, a conservative Protestant. In 1899, Loy went to Munich, Germany, to study art. She continued her studies in England in 1901 and 1902. During this period, she met and married Stephen Haweis and changed her name to Loy. The couple moved to Paris, where they painted and became members of writer Gertrude Stein’s salon.
In 1904, Loy gave birth to a daughter who died the following year. In spite of personal tragedy, Loy continued to produce exceptional art and was invited to participate in the Salon d’Autonme in Paris in 1905. She and Haweis moved to Florence, Italy in 1906, and by 1913, the couple had separated. Loy became intimately involved with the Futurist movement in Italy and probably had affairs with Futurist writers Filippo Marinetti and Giovanni Papini.
The work of the Futurists clearly influenced her poetry, now being published in journals such as Camera Work and Trend. Four of her poems from the “Love Songs” cycle were published in 1915 the inaugural issue of Others: A Magazine of the New Verse. Her verse was highly experimental and graphic, and critics, including poet Amy Lowell and writer Conrad Aiken, wrote scathing reviews of her poetry. However, other important Modernists, such as poet William Carlos Williams and artist Marcel Duchamp, embraced Loy’s work.
In 1916, Loy moved to New York, where she began creating beautiful lampshades. She was closely associated with the poets who published in Others. While in New York, she met and fell in love with Arthur Cravan, a poet, boxer, and Dadaist. The couple moved to Mexico, where they married in 1918. Loy, pregnant with their first child, booked passage on a ship to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Cravan promised to meet her. He disappeared, however, and was never seen again. After searching for him around the world, Loy eventually returned to Paris, where her first poetry collection, Lunar Baedecker, was published.
In 1936, she returned to New York, where she continued to write and create art. She increasingly spent time making sculptures from things that she found on the streets or in garbage cans, and sculpting was her primary occupation for nearly twenty years. In 1953, she moved to Aspen, Colorado, where her daughters and grandchildren lived. She had grown increasingly distracted and reclusive while in New York.
In 1958, a second book of poetry, Lunar Baedeker and Time Tables: Selected Poems was published, and in 1959, she received the Copley Foundation Award for Achievement in Art. Loy died in Colorado in 1966; her last works, The Last Lunar Baedeker: The Poems of Mina Loy and The Lost Lunar Baedeker, were published posthumously.
As a poet, Loy was an immensely talented and bold innovator. Her role in the Modernist movement, while overlooked for many years, has become more central to scholars’ understanding of the period. The number of critical studies and biographies of Loy produced in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century suggests that Loy’s work will continued to be valued.