Stella was a large and fairly pretty painting of a nude woman. She had toured the country without much success and ended up in a St. Louis garret. Her owner, Norman Vaughan, dusted her off and brought her to San Francisco, where she became the hit of the Zone. She hung in a deep frame with cleverly placed lights, so that people argued over whether she was a painting or a living tableau.
The overhead was small. The little theater had no seats, so visitors seldom stayed more than two minutes, and the dimes flowed without stopping. Stella took in over $75,000, and the Exposition allowed no rival. 'Have you seen Stella?' became a popular saying and a stage joke. Todd pointed out that a dozen nudes by great modern painters hung free of charge in the Palace of Fine Arts. He called her success a mystery.
"Have you seen Stella?" was a popular formula, and she was the only feature of the Zone, as far as the writer remembers, that became the subject of a stage gag.
Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), p. 375
At a glance
- Admission ten cents; receipts over $75,000 (Todd).
- Owner Norman Vaughan; the painting had previously been stored in a St. Louis garret.
- Todd cites Stella as the best example of a cheap-to-run show that succeeded.
Afterward
Left with her owner after the fair; the painting's later touring history is told in American Heritage (1983).
Sources
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. XXVIII, p. 152
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. LXVIII, pp. 374-375
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. IV (1921), p. 351 ('Have you seen Stella?')
- American Heritage: 'Did You Once See Stella Plain?' (1983), later history; painter named as Nani