Teresa Cerutti

Identity:

Teresa or Theresa Cerutti was a singer and artist. She modelled for Whistler in Paris around 1900, for Portrait of Teresa Cerutti y508 and Head of Teresa Cerutti y509.

She emigrated to America and on 26 May 1910 she married Will Simmons (1884-1949), son of Vesta Schallenberger (1862-1898) and the mural painter Edward Emerson Simmons (1852-1931), who is said to have taken over Whistler's Parisian studio after 1903.

She was then known as Teresa Cerutti-Simmons.

Life:

Ancestry.com records that Teresa Ludovica Cerutti was born in 1884 in Turin, Italy. It is not absolutely certain that this is correct. Furthermore it is not certain that Cerutti was her birth name or that of her first husband.

She is also said to have been born in Piedmont, Italy. She eventually worked in Connecticut, USA; according to ArchiveGrid, 'She was an interpretive dancer as well as a painter, printmaker, and writer.'

The photograph is said to show her performing the dance of Salome in Paris.

AskArt provides the following biographical notes:

'Teresa Cerutti was a dancer who modeled for James Whistler. After an unfortunate first marriage, she married Will Simmons, son of the mural painter Edward Simmons who took over Whistler's Parisian studio after 1903.

Teresa Cerutti belonged to a troupe of dancers from Milan who travelled to Paris to perform a series of pantomimes. She later went to America and was successful as an interpreter of ancient dances.'

She wrote 'Dancing Among the Arts', American magazine of art, Washington DC., v. 18, pp. 479-483, and a memoir, An Intimate View of James McNeill Whistler, of which there is a copy in Glasgow University Library.

Bibliography:

Cerutti, Teresa, An Intimate View of James McNeill Whistler (t. s., n.d.), p. 18; mss pp. 10-12, copy in GUL.

Cerutti-Simmons, Teresa, Behind The Scenes With Louis Kronberg, The American Magazine of Art Vol. 19, No. 4 (April 1928), pp. 194-200 (in https://www.jstor.org)

'BOHEMIAN WEDDING IN PARIS/ William Simmons, American Painter, Marries the Dancer Cerutti', New York Times, 29 May 1910.

'Coburn Spiels Episcopal Actors Guild Memorial', 17 December 1945, in Billboard, New York, 22 December 1945, vol. 57, no. 21, p. 4, online .

Fielding, Mantle, 'Teresa Cerutti-Simmons', in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American painters, sculptors & engravers, New York, 1926.

'Teresa Cerutti-Simmons', AskArt website.

'Cerutti', Ancestry.com.

Boyer, Paul, 'Melle teresa cerutti du théâtre de la scala de milan. la danse de salomé, d'après les tableaux de gustave moreau' [1900]

'Teresa Cerutti-Simmons', Archivegrid.

'Will Simmons', Prabook, .

There is an Artist File on Cerutti in the Brooklyn Museum and a 1905-1930 Scrapbook containing Press Clippings, photographs and programmes New York Public Library.