Bookstore Owner Rosetta Reitz Fights a 1949 Obscenity Charge

(Rosetta Reitz in the 1940's)

By Dylan Foley

I was doing some additional research on the life of Rosetta Reitz, the pioneering Village bookstore owner and record producer, who revived the careers and stories of dozens of African-American blues performers. I had interviewed Rosetta in 2005 and she told me this great story of being arrested for obscenity in 1949 for putting a naked mannequin with a drawing of a devil’s head across the torso in the window of her Four Seasons Bookshop, at 21 Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village.

Rosetta died in 2008. I wanted to confirm the details of the obscenity case, so I reached out to Rebecca Reitz, Rosetta’s daughter. Rebecca was incredibly helpful and directed me to her 2018 website on Rosetta Reitz, rosettatribute.weebly.com. The website was a gold mine of information on Rosetta's career as a record producer and owner of Rosetta Records, but also included three articles on the infamous “Devil in the Flesh” incident from the Daily News and the defunct Daily Mirror newspaper. The reporters treated the incident as a camp story. At the time Rosetta was going by her single name, Goldman

“There was a new paperback translation out of Raymond Radiguet’s Devil in the Flesh.We were excited about the book,” Rosetta Reitz told me in my interview with her. “My future husband Robert Reitz found a department store mannequin without a head. He gave it a pointed beard and put it in the window. I opened the door Saturday morning and there was a cop standing in front of the window. When the store closed at 11 p.m., I was arrested for having an indecent window display. My lawyer bailed me out. The newspapers had a field day, running headlines like ‘Curvaceous Bookstore Owner and Devil in the Flesh.’” 

In addition to arresting Rosetta, the police confiscated the mannequin as evidence.

(The "obscene" mannequin.
Image compliments of Rebecca Reitz)

The next day, the Daily News headline blared “Is Nude Devilish? Cops Grab Owner in Village.”

Reporter Charles McHarry quoted an exasperated cop saying to Rosetta, “Look, lady, I’m ignorant, but this ain’t art. The children around shouldn’t see this thing.”

Rosetta’s lawyer requested the magistrate adjourn the case until Monday, when Rosetta and he would produce six art experts to defend her use of the mannequin as art.

“It’s the artist’s representation of the book’s theme,” Rosetta told the Daily News.  “If the police are setting themselves up as censors, they might as well start confiscating stuff in the Museum of Modern Art.”

(Rosetta Goldman battling obscenity charges, 1949

Image compliments of Rebecca Reitz)

The News and the Daily Mirror covered the trial. The news reports published pictures of a young, pretty Rosetta wearing lipstick. The headline for the resulting Daily News article on May 24, 1949 was “Lady-and Devil’s-Head Art Defended as a Pictorial Pun.”

The article noted that there were a “half dozen artists, cartoonists and critics rallying around Rosetta Goldman, 24, of 15 Charles St., charged with a violation of Section 1141-A of the Penal Law in displaying an obscene object.”

“The assistant district attorney was a literary guy. He knew it wasn’t a trashy book, “said Rosetta in our interview. “We had artists as witnesses. The case was dismissed. “

Clement Greenberg, the famous art critic and promoter of the Abstract Expressionists, was quoted by the News. On the stand, he said the juxtaposition of the female mannequin torso and the devil’s head did not disturb him. On cross examination, Greenberg said the devil’s mouth was “a pictoral pun, too--a pun on the woman’s appendix.”

“It turned out the bishop had called the complaint in,” Rosetta told me, “because the display would corrupt the morals of local schoolchildren.”

Sources:

--Interview with Rosetta Reitz, by Dylan Foley, March 2005, at Rosetta's apartment in Chelsea on West 16th Street.
--New York Daily News, May 16, 1949, by Charles McHarry, "Is Nude Devilish? Cops Grab Owner in Village"
--New York Daily Mirror, May 16, 1949, "Charge Statue in Bookshop in Indecent"
--New York Daily News, by Henry Lee, May 24, 1949, "Lady-and-Devil's Head Art Defended as a Pictoral Pun"

Please checkout the Rosetta Reitz website rosettatribute.weebly.com