Ira Mallory Remsen

In 1921, Remsen moved into a campsite at the tree-bound Forest Theater in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. In May 1922, he held sketching and exhibition studios at the nearby Carmel Highlands.[5]

He married his second wife, Helen "Yodee" Armstrong Yoder on September 25, 1922 in Topeka, Kansas. She was a movie actress and society editor of the Topeka newspaper.[12] She had a supporting role in the 1919 silent movie A Midnight Romance starring Anita Stewart.[13] They moved into a cottage in downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea. She later became a sales representative for the Carmel Land Company.[5]

A child actor in the play Inchling.

Remsen wrote a three-act children's fantasy play called Inchling, that was a story of an inch worm and its struggle for wings, which captured the fantasies of young children. It was directed by Blanche Tolmie at the Forest Theater and played from August 19 through 20, 1922. Walter Flanders played the character Inchling. Composer Thomas Vincent Cator wrote the composition operetta for the play.[14][15][16] Remsen designed the Inchling sets, the costumes and the lights. He loved working with the children and they loved him.[17]

Inchling in the regular use of the word is not a play, but rather a fantasy. It is constructed out of a series of delightful little woodland scenes. It is something different from the conventional children's play, in which grown-ups usually play the leading parts. The scenery and customs, all designed by the author, are worthy of special mention.

— Belle DeGraft, editor of the Monterey Daily Cypress[18]

Carmel's master builder M. J. Murphy's daughters Kathleen and Rosalie had parts in the play along with other Carmel children.[15]

On August 3, 1928, Remsen's play Inchling was presented at the Forest Theater for the second time under the direction of Garnet Holm.[19] The play was rejected by New York producers after Remsen submitted the play for a theatrical release. The rejection threw him into a depression. He talked about George Sterling's death as a "glorious finish".[1][13]

In 1922, Remsen helped Jo Mora build the model of the Sphinx for Edward G. Kuster's production of the play Caesar and Cleopatra.[20]

In October 1922, Remsen wrote and produced a marionette play The Rented Farm. He then staged it in 1923 in Los Angeles under the title The Rented Ranch, which was produced again in Carmel in the fall of 1938.[5][21]

In December 1922, Remsen produced a Christmas play, the Shepherd's Bridge, at the Carmel Arts and Crafts Hall in Carmel-by-the-Sea.[5] Remsen became the director of the Community Playhouse of Santa Barbara in 1923. In April 1924, he produced a historical play, King Solomon, while at the Community Playhouse.[5]

Set designers for the play Mr. Bunt at the Forest Theater (1924), left-to-right Talbert Josselyn, Winsor Josselyn, Brice Monahan, Philip Wilson, Rem Remsen.

On his return to Carmel in 1924, Remsen produced the four-act play Mr. Bunt at the Forest Theater from July 3 through 5th. It won the $100 (equivalent to $1,708 in 2022) award for the best original play submitted in the annual play contest held by the Forest Theater Society. The play was adapted for the outdoor amphitheater. The play had a fairy bridge, Gyem, the woodsprite, and included fairies, circus girls, Charles King Van Riper as the clown, and John Northern Hilliard as Danny.[22]

Mr. Bunt was planned and written in his studio on Dolores Street.[23] The manuscript for the play was titled Mr. Bunt, Concerning the Invisible Playmates of Our Childhood, and was dedicated to his wife Yodee.[24]

The performance of Mr. Bunt had mixed reviews.[5] The Theatre Arts Monthly said:

Remsen devoted his spare time to art. He taught classes on theater arts at the Carmel Summer School of Art sponsored by the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club at its eleventh season in July 1924. He taught portrait and figure work from a live model, still life, and color arrangements.[5][6][23]

In August 1925, Remsen went with painters Ray Strong, Ferdinand Burgdorff, and Frank Van Sloun for a two-month sketching trip to Grand Canyon and Flagstaff, Arizona. There he met printmaker Ernest Haskell and the landscape painter Jimmy Swinnerton.

Ferdinand Burgdorff and Ira Remsen, the artists, have gone to Flagstaff after a month spent vegetating at the Grand Canyon and gathering up scenery on canvas. Mrs. Remsen paid them a short visit while they were at the canyon. She was horrified at the atrocious change the wild country had made in her eastwhile tame husband. His usually quite respectable face was sprouting a fierce growth of brush. He looked ferocious. His appearance would have done credit to a berserker at its worst. It was two days before the family dog quit growling at Ira and made friends again.

— Ray Strong[26]

In December 1925, Remsen wrote and staged the play The Gingerbread Man, at the Carmel Arts and Crafts Hall. The Carmel Pine Cone said: "Rem's play was very effective and quite in keeping with the spirit of the season. Our Carmel children certainly had a fine Christmas party."[27] Remsen went again to Arizona in September 1926 to paint historic pueblos with Stanley Wood.[5]

For the 1925 Carmel Follies, he played the part of a negro and two years later in 1927, he took the title role of Uncle Tom at the Golden Bough production of Uncle Tom's Cabin.[28]

Remsen and his wife, Yodee, were divorced in April 1926 because of his "moodiness".[1]

In the December 1926 issue of Game and Gossip magazine, it was reported that Remsen painted the portrait of dancer Hildreth Taylor, which was on display at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.[5]

Portrait of Dr. Ira Remsen, painted by Ira Remsen Mallory in 1926.

The Marquis Itō, sketched by Remsen in 1901.

Remsen's life-size portrait of his father, Dr. Ira Remsen, was exhibited at the Hotel Del Monte Art Gallery from June through November 1926. The Carmel Pine Cone said "the canvas shows to an advantage the unusual prowess of Remsen in portrait painting." A second painting was presented to Johns Hopkins University on the anniversary of its founding.[5] He also did the drawings of Marquis Itō of Japan when he was on shipboard, and of sculptor and painter Frederick MacMonnies when he was in Paris in 1901.[29]

Portrait of Robinson Jeffers by Rem Remsen of Carmel, June 1926.

In 1926, Remsen painted two full-length oil canvas portraits, one of poet Robinson Jeffers at Carmel Point with the Carmel River in the background, and the other of Jeffer's wife Una.[13] In June 1926 the painting of Robinson Jeffers was displayed in the Los Angeles Times and The Carmel Cymbal.[30] In April 1946, the portrait was on display at the Carmel Art Association and then went as a gift to the Robinson Jeffers collection at the Occidental College library.[31] In 1994, it was reproduced on the cover of Robinson Jeffers Newsletter (Winter 1994), and hangs in the Jeffers Room at the Mary Norton Clapp Library at Occidental College.[32]

Remsen regularly attended the San Francisco Bohemian Club's summer camp at the Bohemian Grove along the Russian River where he helped produce plays for the "Jinks". He was the editor and founder of The Daily Grove News, which was published three weeks every summer for club members. It was posted daily on a bulletin board in the grove. It was filled with cartoons, poems, and jokes about the celebrities of the club.[33]

His works appeared at the Annual Exhibition at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco in 1926 and 1927. He displayed four works, the portraits of his father, Robinson Jeffers, Tao, a woman in black reclining on a red couch; and a large colorful oil on canvas painting entitled Pop Emest.[5] In 1928, Pop Emest got praise for his painting at the Bohemian Club. The San Francisco Chronicle chose it to say: "The colorful picture of Pos Ernst by Rem Remsen is attracting much attention. It's fresh, cool greens are particularly pleasing."[34]

In July 1927, Sally's on Ocean Avenue staged a solo show of his watercolors, Indian portraits, and dwellings.[5] In September 1926, Daisy Brown of the Carmel Pine Cone said:

In July 1926, Remsen was interviewed by Daisy Brown of the Carmel Pine Cone who said Remsen "is destined to be acclaimed nationally and probably universally as a great artist within the next few years".[5]

Remsen's father died at Carmel's Pine Inn on March 4, 1927 and his ashes were sent to Johns Hopkins University.[35][36]

In June 1927, he was one of the writers in the story What's It All About?, sponsored by the Carmel Cymbal magazine. Writer, actor, and director Perry Newberry said this about his contribution to the story:

In July 1927, Remsen completed his art studio and residence on Dolores Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The studio was a gathering place for artists and became known for its afternoon teas. It was open to the public on Saturday afternoons.

Rem opened the door, and I was taken into a small room, which I was told will be used as a gallery for the exhibition of his water colors. A number of his desert water colors were hanging on the walls, ... Rem led me up the stairs into the study, a small room lined with books. This room is where Rem does most of his writing, while he does most of his painting in the large workshop. ...Rem is happy in it and his work is showing plainly his state of mind.

— Carmel Pine Cone[5]

On December 24, 1927, Remsen produced a Christmas fantasy The Tinsel Angel, with the three wise men and angels that sang Christmas carols. It was performed at his Dolores Street studio for the village children on Christmas Eve. His hospitality was well received. During Christmas week he sold several hundred copies of the play, illustrated with linoleum cuts by Robert W. Westwood, for $1 (equivalent to $17 in 2022) a copy.[37][38][17]

In February 1928, Remsen displayed two paintings, Cathedral Rock and Hopi House-First Mesa-Arizona, at the First State-wide Annual in Santa Cruz, California. During the spirng 1928, his watercolor Seagulls and Fishermen and several oils were exhibited at the Del Monte Hotel Gallery.[5][39]