Cecilia Beaux

Cecilia Beaux Self-portrait, 1894

When we think of the top portrait artists around the turn of the century the names John Singer Sargent or James McNeill Whistler often come to mind, but not that of Cecilia Beaux. Yet on the America n scene at least, she was not just one of the best female artists working at the time, but among a select few first-rate portrait painters of either sex to be found. Her work won awards in New York, Philadelphia, and Paris, she was a full-fledged member of the male-dominated National Academy, and in 1902, she set up her easel in the White House, painting Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and her daughter, Ethel. Her work is, in fact, often compared to that of Sargent but there are also notable influences from Manet and Degas as well. There are Impressionistic elements too, and also a thorough understanding of Japanese art in her tendency to flatten the picture plane and utilize strong, cropped, reductive masses in her portraits.

Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt
and Daughter Ethel,
1902, Cecilia Beaux

Cecilia was born in 1855, the daughter of a French father and an invalid mother. Her mother died during Cecilia's early childhood whereupon her father departed for his homeland, leaving his daughter's upbringing to her maternal grandmother and aunt. The aunt just happened to be the painter, Eliza Lewitt, and a strong role model for her niece. Raised in a matriarchal family, and with their wholehearted blessings, she decided early on to become an artist (a circumstance rare for a woman at that time). By the time she was sixteen, she was studying with the historical/religious painter, Catherine Drinker (whose brother happened to be married to Cecilia's sister). From there she moved on to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts where she studied under Thomas Eakins as well as William Sartain and a Dutch artist, Adolf Van der Whalen. Topping off her education in the best male tradition, she next traveled to Paris where she enrolled in the Academie Julian and studied under academicians, Bouguereau, Fleury, Dagnan-Bouvert, and Courtois. It was a rich pedigree for any artist and a very rare mix for a young woman barely into her thirties.

Man with the Cat (Henry Sturgis Drinker),
1898, Cecilia Beaux

Back in New York, as many artist have done, she got her start painting portraits of friends and family. The Dreamer from 1894 is a typical, richly evocative example of her work from this period in which she goes far in achieving an overall mood, not just a good likeness from her sitter. Her work can be seen maturing in her Ernesta with Nurse, also from 1894, and her portrait of Man with the Cat (Henry Sturgis Drinker) from 1898. Art historians consider these years her peak as she gained popularity, and indeed, some degree of world renown. However with her growing popularity and no doubt increased demands on her time and talents, many consider her later work, while being extraordinarily adept technically, as lacking in insight and gradually more and more superficial. By the 1920s, styles and tastes had changed but hers hadn't. She died in 1942 in relative obscurity at the age of 87, having made her marks as an artist, and passed her brushes on to others of her sex to carry on in her place.

The Academie Julian

In the Studio, 1881, Marie Bashkirtseff. Classes were segregated by gender.

Roldolphe Julian, 1870s

In the more than three years that I've been perusing the lives of famous (and near-famous) artists, I keep encountering one name quite consistently--Paris's Academie Julian. Although the school was rather small by today's standards (in fact, those of the 19th century, as well) it seems to have had an outsized impact on the fine arts of not just the late 1800s but much of the first half of the 20th century too. With one or two exceptions, the instructors were not famous artists. Rodolphe Julian was mostly famous for having founded the school rather than for his painting. Adolphe-William Bouguereau was probably the most famous painter to have taught there and he was merely "moonlighting" from his day job at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he was something of a kingpin instructor. Perhaps even more than the high and mighty Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Academie Julian is remembered not for its instructors but for its instruction, and the seemingly endless list of major figures in art history from that period who passed through its doors.

Bouguereau's Atlier (class), 1891, Jefferson David Chalfant. Drawing the nude human figure was the cornerstone of the Academie Julian curriculum.

Passage de Panoramas, home of the
Academie Julian from 1868 to 1959.

Those doors were on the Passage des Panoramas, the first covered shopping mall in Paris, located in an artsy area about three blocks north of the Louvre and a block or two east of the Paris Opera House. When Roldolphe opened his storefront operation "in the mall" he didn't start out to compete with the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In fact, he intended his atlier to be a private "prep school" for art students seeking to pass the rigorous entrance exam for France's premier artist training school. His chief competition was the Académie Colarossi, on the Île de la Cité (near Notre Dame Cathedral), opened by the Italian Sculptor Filippo Colarossi in the 1870s. Both schools accepted women. The Ecole des Beaux Arts manifestly did not until around 1898. Though the classes were separated by gender, the instruction, using nude models, was identical. Students of both sexes began by drawing from plaster casts. Judging by paintings done by students such as Marie Bashkirtseff (top) in 1881, facilities were somewhat cramped and congested. One of her "friends" drew a caricature of her at her easel (below, right). College kids in those days were apparenly not much different from today. Jeffereson David Chalfant's Bouguereau's Atlier (above)from 1891, seems more relaxed and orderly.

Marie Bashkirtseff at her easel.
Ladies' fashions during the late
1800s were not well suited
for working all day at an easel.

It could well be argued that the inclusion of female art students, unable to obtain academic art training elsewhere, made the Academie Julian more than just a prep school. Certainly a number of male artists (many of them Americans) saw it that way. It was undoubtedly cheaper, less formal, and far less regimented than it's official counterpart across the Seine from the Louvre. Yet the art instruction at the Academie Julian was at least on a par with that of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and some might say even better. There was official recognition of this fact when, in the 1880s, Academie Julian students were made eligible to compete for the Ecole's prestigeous Prix de Rome (an all-expenses-paid year to study art in Rome).

The list of famous artists who attended classes at the Academie Julian is enough to make your eyes glaze over, (but, to name just a few) they include Grant Wood,, Jean Arp, Cecilia Beaux, Henri Matisse, Kahlil Gibran, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dubuffet, Thomas Hart Benton, John Singer Sargent, Diego Rivera, Emile Bernard, and Charles Demuth (and those are just some of the ones I've written about).



The Acamemie Julian today.

Study of a Male Nude in Julian's Atlier,
1902-03, Alfred Munnings. Apparently a
slender physique was not considered
essential for male models.

Much like successful private art schools today, during the next few decades, until his death in 1907, Rodolphe Julian expanded his educational enterprise, branching out to as many as five locations all over Paris. Art students still attend classes at the Academie Julian (above), located not far from where it was first founded. Today, however, and since 1959, the school has become a part of ESAG (École Supérieure d'Arts Graphiques) Penninghem, founded by painter/ceramist Guillaume Met de Penninghen and the decorator Jacques d’Andon in 1953. This school has branches in major cities around the world, though they tend to emphasize graphic design more than traditional fine arts.

An Academie Julian brochure from 1903
--lots of staring at the model but not much art happening.

 

Theodore Robinson



The Old Bridge, 1890, Theodore Robinson

Photo of Claude Monet by
Theodore Robinson, 1890

When people talk about a nation's imports and exports, they're usually talking about economics, and for most people, it's instant MEGO (my eyes glaze over). However, there's an element of art involved in imports and exports, and generally, it has little to do with economics. Starting early in the 19th-century, France had as one of it's major export products, art training, centered mostly in Paris around its famed Ecole des Beaux Arts. Paris was, in effect, the art capital of the world, both in producing art and in offering the highest level of art training available anywhere in the world. No artist could consider his training complete unless he'd spent time honing his skills under the tutelage of a French master. However, as the century wore on a somewhat strange phenomena evolved. Artists went to Paris to study at the Ecole, or two or three other major academies offering similar training, but without the prestigious name. They went to Paris to study under Gerome, or Carolus-Durand only to end up studying with Claude Monet at Giverny, some 45 miles down the Seine.

Père Trognon and His Daughter at the Bridge, 1891, Theodore Robinson

Theodore Robinson Self-Portrait, 1884-87

Theodore Robinson was among the first (perhaps the first) American painter to make this trek downriver. He arrived at Giverny almost before Monet. Monet first came to the quaint little village in 1883. Robinson landed on his doorstep in 1884. Monet hadn't even acquired his property there at the time. In the coming years, Robinson was just one of many, including Willard Metcalf (another early arrival) Theodore Earl Butler, (who was married at Giverny and whose Wedding March Robinson painted) Childe Hassam, Julian Alden Weir, John Twachtman, Cecilia Beaux, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Lilla Cabot Perry, the latter names, along with several others, being late arrivals. Giverny was never an "art school" as such with Monet (above, left) as its headmaster but rather more of an art colony with Monet as its headliner.

La Débacle, 1892, Theodore Robinson (I've no idea how the title applies.)

The Cow Girl, 1888,
Theodore Robinson

Some of the later arrivals at Giverny, during the 1890s up through the early 1900s, came already well versed in Impressionism, eager only to study with "the master," sometimes for fairly short periods of time, long enough to say they "knew" or were "best friends" with Monet, while others stayed longer or came and went repeatedly. Robinson stayed eight years; and in his case, he and Monet were, indeed, good friends. Unlike some of the late arrivals, when Monet first welcomed Robinson to Giverny, the American painter was no Impressionist, though his loose brushwork, readily lent itself to the new style. Robinson's early work was quite Realist, not unlike his The Old Bridge (top) from 1890, or his World's Columbian Exposition (below), from 1894, though both paintings date from well after Robinson had switch to Impressionism. Apparently he was quite adept at returning to his earlier style. His The Cow Girl (left) from 1888 and his The Debacle (above), from 1892, are more in keeping with his work bearing the influence and atmosphere of Monet and Giverny.

Worlds Columbian Exposition, 1894, Theodore Robinson



Theodore Robinson at work ca. 1872,
with Canadian painter William Blair Bruce

Theodore Robinson was born in 1852. He began life in a small town located in Northern Vermont, until his family moved to Evansville, Wisconsin, probably sometime in the 1860s. He began studying art in Chicago for a time before moving on to New York to the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. He first hit Paris and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1876 where he was thoroughly indoctrinated in the academic Realism firmly ensconce there at the time. He displayed at the Salon the following year. After brief trips to Bologna and Venice, Robinson returned to the U.S. in 1879. If he encountered the struggling early Impressionists during stay, they apparently made little impression upon the young artist.

Nantucket, 1882, Theodore Robinson, one of his pre-Impressionist works.

In a Daisy Field, Theodore Robinson

For the next five years Robinson was a typical American painter--mostly genre and landscapes. His Nantucket (above), dating from 1882, is typical of his work around this time, as is his In a Daisy Field (right). Then, in 1884, perhaps disillusioned with the "same old, same old" of American painting during the Gilded Age, as Mark Twain called it, Robinson headed back to Paris; and this time, discovering Monet and Giverny, he stayed for eight years, absorbing the best Impressionism had to offer, straight from the source. Although it's uncertain when the two met, of all the American painters who later flocked to Giverny, none were closer to Monet than Robinson. They lived next door to one another and its quite obvious Robinson benefited most from their friendship; though Monet is said to have sought Robinson's advice nearly as often as the reverse. Despite the twelve-year difference in their age, there's was apparently something of a mutual admiration society.

Stepping Stones, 1893, Theodore Robinson, his authentic French Impressionism at its best.

The Forge (or An Apprentice
Blacksmith), Theodore Robinson

Robinson returned to America in 1892 to take up a teaching position at the Brooklyn Art School, and conduct summer workshops in the Catskills of Northern New York. He brought with him what had become one of France's most important exports--Impressionism. The style was not an overnight success in this country. It hadn't been in France either. However here, there was less than two-hundred years of artistic tradition weighing in. In France, there were several centuries of hardnosed resistance to anything new. In France, art was still controlled and defined by the state through the Academie des Beaux-Arts and their yearly salons, though this power was starting to wane somewhat as the century drew to a close. Back in the U.S., the number of "authentic" Impressionists, who, like Robinson, had actually studied the new style in France, were far outstripped by those who had taken up the style second-hand. This is where Robinson and his summer workshops came in. Yet, when not teaching Impressionism, Robinson often fell back on his more traditional roots in genre as seen in The Forge (or An Apprentice Blacksmith) (left) or his On the Tow Path, a Halt, (below) from 1893. Theodore Robinson died quite young in 1896 following an acute asthma attack. He was forty-three years old.

On the Tow Path, a Halt, 1893, Theodore Robinson--genre Impressionism.

Nantucket Girl, Theodore Robinson--something for the girls.

 

Importing Impression

From time to time in reading various art-related articles a name pops up that is totally foreign to me.  I ask myself, "Why haven't I heard of this artist before?"  Usually it's because of the individual's obscurity. Sometimes, the reason is much more inexplicable. Recently the name Childe Hassam showed up on a list of the most expensive paintings ever sold at auction by American artists. The first four on the list, as one might expect, were instantly recognizable.  Hassam, number five, was not.  His floral still-life was listed at something over six million dollars if memory serves me right. Any painter whoes work is capable of bringing that kind of price at auction I want to know about.   
 

Washington Arch,
1893, Childe Hassam

  
Childe Hassam was born in 1859 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He began his career drawing and cutting woodblocks for commercial illustrations. He attended Boston Art club and the Lowell Institute. By the 1880s he had his own studio in Boston. His palette was somber, his vignettes of city anecdotal and loaded with interesting details.  During the late 1880s he toured Europe for three years, bringing back the prevailing Impressionist style to this country. His painting Washington Arch, 1893 looks like how Pissarro might have painted Washington Square Park. There are tiny brushstrokes and light, bright, flickering colors full of gaiety and lighthearted city life at a time when living in cities was still a pleasant, fun-filled experience. Later in life, his work took on a more expressionistic tone as seen in Church at Old Lyme from 1905, perhaps as a result of exposure to the work of Van Gogh and Gauguin.   


Church at Old Lyme, 1905,
Childe Hassam

   
However, lest you think Hassam was one of the first to bring Impressionism to this country, the fact of the matter is he was only one of several. Paris and Munich were must-see landmarks for the American painter on a Grand Tour of Europe, as the old tradition was known in the late 1800s. It was sort of a capstone encounter for every educated gentleman and painters were no exception. American art is decidedly richer for it. Among the earliest to import Impressionism to these shores was Julian Alden Weir who returned again and again to Paris, studying under masters as diverse as Gerome and Monet. Theodore Robinson followed a similar course, painting with Monet in Giverny. So did Ohio Artist John Twachtman and Cecilia Beaux. Though there were others, this handful was the most responsible for the importation and distribution of that heady French Impressionist vintage art collectors pay so dearly to imbibe today.  

Walter Emerson Baum

Art teacher, Alyce Grunt, and Superintendent, Joseph Bruni,
are seen moving out of storage Walter Baum's oil painting
titled Late Afternoon, 1930.

Anyone who dreams of finding a valuable artwork hiding in plain sight at a garage sale or flea market, the rediscovery by a school district in the western suburbs of Philadelphia of a long-forgotten winter scene painting could give them hope. In the midst of the Great Depression, a well-known Bucks County impressionist took a collection of his paintings to schools, gave talks, and sometimes sold them his works. In the early 1930s, a school group used money raised at a bridge party in the Lansdowne High School gym to buy a winter landscape to present to the school. The oil painting, by Walter Emerson Baum, hung in the building's front hallway, for several years. Unfortunately, the name of the artist and the painting's origin were eventually forgotten. In 2011, the painting was rediscovered in storage at the school, now named Penn Wood High School. The economically troubled William Penn School District decided to sell the 40 X 50-inch painting, hoping to bring in at least $20,000.

 

The same scene, painted two years apart from two slightly
different angles. There's no indication as to which came first.

In the late 1940s, the American impressionist painter, Walter Emerson Baum, a lifelong resident of Sellersville, Pennsylvania, helped create the Bucks County Traveling Art Gallery. He started out with 17 paintings of his own and 53 from other artists. Today the group has more than 350 pieces. The program, now called, "Art on the Move" takes paintings to area schools for display and art outreach programs. All his life, Baum was quite passionate about developing art appreciation among the younger generation. He wanted to make art accessible to all. Bucks County's Quakertown Community School District owns eight Baum paintings around which they've formed a permanent exhibit at their high school. Other school districts have used their Baum paintings in fundraising efforts reaping several thousand dollars. The Philadelphia School District has eighteen Baum oil paintings and six watercolors in a collection of more than 1,200 artworks. The district debated whether to sell some or all of the collection, which it valued at between $5 million and $30 million; but unlike the William Penn District, they decided in 2007 to keep theirs.

 

I love snow scenes, and apparently, Walter Emerson Baum did too.

The heroine in the case of the William Penn School District Baum painting was Penn Wood High School art teacher, Alyce Grunt. She was the one who noticed that the painting hanging over the door of the school office looked like one of Baum's works she'd seen at a college art exhibit. A stepladder and a little investigation soon found Baum's signature on the bottom of the painting (along with that of several former Penn Wood students). The painting was removed from the school and taken for appraisal. Further research turned up two articles about the painting in the archives of the high school newspaper.

Painter, illustrator, writer, critic, and art educator.

Apparently, in May of 1933, Baum displayed 28 paintings at the school. According to the student newspaper he came back several times to explain his work. The exhibit also traveled to other area schools followed by the fundraising bridge party a few months later. In rediscovering the painting, the school district's superintendent reasoned that they would be unable to properly care for the painting and that it would be better to put it in the hands of someone who valued and understood it. The hope was that the proceeds from the sale of the painting would be used to promote arts education in the district, rather than going into the budget's general fund. Unfortunately, I could find no further information on the actual sale of the painting (or even if it occurred).

 

Winter in the days before snow plows and four-wheel-drive SUVs.

Walter Baum was born in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, in 1884, one of the few Pennsylvania impressionist artists actually born in Bucks County. Starting in 1904, Baum studied with William B. T. Trego. Baum attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1905 and 1906, where he studied under Hugh H. Breckenridge, William Merritt Chase, and Cecilia Beaux. With the responsibilities of a wife and four children, Baum took odd jobs to support his family. He worked in the family's barbershop, and as a photographer for The Poultry Item, a magazine which focused on chickens, ducks and geese. In 1921, Baum became editor of the local newspaper, the Sellersville Herald, for which he continued to write columns on art until 1942. As he and his paintings became better known, Baum taught art classes at his home and at the local high school. His art classes eventually became the core of the Baum School of Art in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which he founded in 1926. Today the school boasts a faculty of 30 instructors and over 3,300 students.

 

Country Gentleman proved to be a steady source of income for
Walter Baum during much of the 1930s.

Like his contemporaries N.C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, who painted covers for The Saturday Evening Post for many years, Baum also worked as an illustrator. His first cover appeared on Curtis Publishing Company's Country Gentleman magazine in February, 1931 (above). During the 1930s, Baum also helped establish the Allentown Art Gallery, and in 1949, the Bucks County Traveling Art Gallery, a program whose goal was to expose school children of Bucks County to the artwork of the New Hope School and the Pennsylvania Impressionist movement. (The Penn Wood School District painting came as a result of this effort.) Baum died in July, 1956 at the age of seventy-two.

 

Red Sleigh - Bucks County, 1935, Walter Emerson Baum

 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1924, Walter Emerson Baum



Baum also painted covers for Curtis
Publishing's Country Gentlewoman,
this one from October, 1936.