Mary Trimble Lawrence with Lydia, Anne, and Joseph, 1906

Mary Trimble Lawrence Tonetti with Lydia, Anne, and Joseph 1906

Anne (also Ann and Annette) Elizabeth Tonetti was born on March 15, 1903 at 136 East 40th St in New York, the daughter of Mary Trimble Lawrence and François Tonetti, and therefore my wife’s fourth cousin twice removed. Anne was raised in an artistic household, as both her mother and father were sculptors, and she also lived in the family compound-artists colony at Snedens Landing.

Her mother took Anne to see Isadora Duncan at the Met, and Anne decided to be a dancer. She and her sister Alexandra attended Elisabeth Duncan’s School of the Dance where they associated with Maurice Stern, Pablo Casals, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Gertrude Stein, and of course Isadora. Ann took a leave from Miss Chapin’s School to tour Europe in a dance troop with Isadora and the Isadorables.

Anne Tonetti at 17

Anne at 17

Anne Tonetti dancing by Arnold Genthe

Anne as a dancer

Anne Tonetti in 1920s

Anne Tonetti 1926

Anne as an actress

Ann Tonetti

Anne in Saturday’s Children

She then had a brief career as an actress. She appeared in

Roadside

Between Two Worlds

The Road to Yesterday

Saturday’s Children as “proverbial keeper of a boarding house”

Mrs. Partridge Presents as Madame La Fleur

The Green Hat as Sister Clothilde

Tea for Three

He Who Gets Slapped

Lay Christalinda

Cyrano de Bergerac as the Duenna

Street Scene as “a gossipy scandal monger” with “queenie” the dog.

Roadside

Between Two Worlds

The Constant Sinner with Mae West

In 1929 she took a tour of the Soviet Union and did her Auntie Mame act:Anne Tonetti Russia

The architect Eric Gugler rented a house from Mary Tonetti. It was directly across from the studio on 40th St, and he met Anne. They married in 1931; Judge Benjamin Cardozo performed the ceremony.

Anne Tonetti 1937

Anne Tonetti Gugler 1937

Anne had to deal with a certain amount on financial irresponsibility on the art of her mother Mary and her husband. Mary lost the properties on 40th St to foreclosure Mary at first rented the houses that she owned in Snedens landing for $15-20 a month to artists, She therefore lost about 12,000-15,000 a year and this was in the 1920s and 1930s.  Ann tried to bring financial sanity and pay all the bills. Mary tore up the withholding checks to Social Security. Ann tried to reason with her; Mary responded “Ever since your telegram about my bank account, I have been plunged into deepest gloom.” Fortunately Mary kept the property at Snedens Landing, and after the Depression it steadily increased in value.

Ann Gugler 1978Actresses  Anne Gugler, Katherine Cornell, and Sandy McAllister with Dachsund, 1978 

Palisades Cascade

In 1979 Anne Gugler donated the Cascade on the Snedens Landing property to Palisades Park Commission. She also gave the Metropolitan two bronzes by St. Gaudens:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, Dublin 1848–1907 Cornish, New Hampshire) Mrs. Stanford White (Bessie Springs Smith), 1884, cast 1893 American, Bronze; Diam. 14 1/4 in. (36.2 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Anne Tonetti Gugler, 1981 (1981.55.1) http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/12014

Augustus Saint-Gaudens 
Mrs. Stanford White (Bessie Springs Smith), 1884, cast 1893
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Anne Tonetti Gugler, 1981

Robert Louis Steevenson gift by Gugler

Robert Louis Stevenson

Anne died at Snedens Landing March 22, 1990.

 

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