Harry Leslie Hoffman was born 16 March 1874 at Cressona, Pennsylvania. He was long associated with the Old Lyme Colony at Storrs, Connecticut, and had the reputation as one of the best known American Impressionists. Hoffman studied at the Art Students League, New York City, Yale Art School, and Academie Julien, Paris. In 1902 he visited Old Lyme and for the rest of his life was associated with the Connecticut art colony. In the 1920s Hoffman accompanied the Smithsonian Institution’s naturalist, William Beebe (1877-1962) to British Guiana, Galapagos Islands, and Bermuda, to document the flora and fauna of those regions. During that time he perfected a method of painting undersea vistas. Using a bucket with a glass bottom, he was able to view the aquatic life of coral reefs and shallow tidal pools. Hoffman wed the painter, Beatrice Pope, and they had an active collaboration throughout their lives. He worked in a variety of media, including watercolors, oils, and clay sculpture, and found success throughout his life. In 1915 he won a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, and was awarded prizes in Connecticut for his painting and sculpture. In addition to his long painting career, Hoffman was a writer, actor, and musician. He was active in the historic preservation of the Florence Griswold House, the intellectual center of the Old Lyme Colony, as a museum. Hoffman died at Old Lyme, Connecticut, 6 March 1966.

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, but raised in New Orleans, Helen Turner began painting around 1880, when the New Orleans Art Union was formed. In 1895 she moved to New York City and enrolled at the Art Students League. She also studied at the Design School for Women at Cooper Union, and privately with William Merritt Chase. From 1902 through 1919 Turner taught life and costume drawing at the Y.W.C.A., and exhibited impressionistic landscapes and figurative works in the local museums and galleries. In 1906 she made her first appearance at the National Academy of Design. From that point through the 1920s the list of exhibitions in which she participated grew to include most of the major juried museum annuals across the country, and her work was avidly collected (Rabbage, p. 5). During this period of success, Turner maintained two studios, one in the city, and the other at Cragsmoor, New York, a summer art colony in the Shawangunk Mountains. There she built a modest house, “Takusan,” and surrounded it with gardens. The sunlit scenes she painted at Cragsmoor are considered her best work. Turner’s paintings of women in floral environments coincide with her move to Cragsmoor in 1906. Gardening was a serious pastime among the summer residents, and the artist developed a passion for it. Turner’s garden climbed in rock-bordered terraces behind the porch of the house she built in 1910. She filled the beds with masses of peonies and delphiniums and phlox, which together formed a brilliant blur in the backgrounds of many of her outdoor scenes (Hill, p. 133). The intimate style and leisurely pace of life in Cragsmoor can be sensed in paintings like Song of Summer. The sunlight filtered through the leafy green foliage and the contemplative mood of the musician breathe tranquility, and draws the viewer into the velvety warmth of a mid-summer day. NRS

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

Herman Herzog was trained in the Dusseldorf, Germany school of painting. Having reached a certain notoriety in Europe before coming to America, Herzog can be seen as one of those artists who reverses the normal process of expatriation in our culture, becoming a missionary rather than a refugee. Herzog’s visits to Florida between 1885 and 1910, trips made by train to see his son John in Gainesville, resulted in some of his most profound achievements as a painter. Like Martin Johnson Heade he brought a slightly retarded style to the swamps and flatlands of north Florida, imbued with the lingering light of international romantic luminism and altogether appropriate for the exotic locales he so loved to record. Several of his contemporaries, notably George Herbert McCord, developed certain formulaic approaches to landscape art in Florida, particularly the use of certain ongoing naturalistic devices which assume a semiotic importance. In Herzog’s art this is most detectable in certain recurring bird and animal motifs. Herzog frequently used herons, both in flight and at rest, and deer, to portray those moments of freedom and spontaneity in nature which so enliven the artist’s work. 

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

Painter, etcher, and art teacher, Hobson Pittman was born in Tarboro, North Carolina. In 1918 he moved to Philadelphia to study art, and from 1920 to 1931 he was active in the Woodstock art colony at Utica, New York. He subsequently joined the faculty of Friends Central Country Day School in Overbrook, Pennsylvania, where he taught until 1957. In 1946 the magazine publisher Henry R. Luce commissioned Pittman to travel to Charleston, South Carolina, to create a series of pastels of homes, gardens, and churches for the 14 April 1947 issue of "Life" Magazine.

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

 

Few artists have honed a greater awareness for the uniqueness of Charleston or the beauty and reality of the Carolina Lowcountry from Georgetown to Savannah than Horace Talmage Day. Born in Amoy, China, of a missionary family, he spent his first 18 years there and was educated at the Shanghai American School. He moved to New York in 1927 and studied for five years at the Art Students League. He then won Tiffany Foundation Fellowships and spent two years as artist-in-residence at Lillian D. Walk’s Henry Street Settlement. Horace Day’s love affair with the Old South began in 1936 when he arrived in Augusta, GA to become the first director of the Herbert Institute of Art. During that period, he began to paint in the Carolina Lowcountry, a region which provided material for the rest of his life. He recorded the area’s character with rare sensitivity. "I see beauty in Charleston in places where many people would never dream of discovering it," he once said. In 1941 Day joined the art department of Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA, where he taught for twenty-five years, eventually co-chairing the department. During World War II, he was given leave to serve in the army, where he continued to paint. Works from this period were exhibited after the war at the Whitney Museum in New York and at the National Gallery in London. After the war, Day returned to Mary Baldwin where he remained until his retirement in 1967. Horace Talmage Day’s half-century love affair with the South is expressed in a great volume of timeless renderings of the natural beauty and singularity of the state from the Piedmont to the Lowcountry, particularly of the latter. This "long apprenticeship" with South Carolina resulted in art – like that of Alice Huger Smith, Alfred Hutty, Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, Elizabeth White, James F. Cooper – which does much to explain the region’s universal appeal.

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

Born in Arlington, New Jersey in 1887, Houghton Cranford Smith studied at New York’s Art Students League and the Academie Julien, Paris. He later taught painting and continued his studies in South America, the Caribbean Islands and at the University of Kansas. In 1933 he first visited South Carolina, his wife’s home, and began to paint landscape scenes there. Smith died in New York City in 1983.

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

 

 Howard Chandler Christy is recognized as one of America’s most accomplished illustrators of the early twentieth century. He was particularly known for the "Christy Girl," a new idealized standard of modern beauty he established in his depictions of women.

Christy was born in Ohio and showed exceptional artistic talent at an early age. Determined to pursue a career in art, he moved to New York City in 1890 and studied with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League and privately at the Tenth Street Studio. Christy entered the National Academy of Design in 1893 and was singled out for skillful draftsmanship. He also displayed great facility as a painter, but decided to pursue a career in illustration, influenced by noted illustrators Edwin Austin Abbey and Howard Pyle. Christy quickly excelled in his chosen field, and his work was featured in the most prominent periodicals of the day, as well as in books. He also served as a sketch artist during the Spanish American War; his drawings were widely published back home.

Dashing virtuosity and a lush application of pigment in muted tonalities characterizes Christy’s work in oil, as illustrated by Live Oak, New Orleans and other landscapes from the 1920s. This period also marked the artist’s declining interest in illustration as he began concentrating on portraiture and landscape subjects that reflect the painterly example of his mentor, Chase. In the 1930s, Christy’s production had a more decorative orientation and included screens, panels, and murals, particularly of sylph-like nudes in woodland settings. From the late 1930s until his death, he produced a number of ambitious paintings devoted to historical and religious themes, despite declining health and eyesight.

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

 A Virginian by birth, Hugh Henry Breckenridge became a fixture in the vibrant late nineteenth century art community in Philadelphia, earning renown as both a painter and beloved teacher. A precocious artist from an early age, Breckenridge enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1887, launching an association that would endure for fifty years. A subsequent scholarship funded the artist’s first foreign study in Paris, where he received instruction from Adolphe-William Bouguereau, Louis Ferrier, and Jacques Doucet at the Academie Julian in 1892. While abroad, Breckenridge traveled extensively throughout Europe and was influenced by the work of master impressionists. A second European tour in 1909 awakened Breckenridge to the avant garde European trends of that period, including fauvism and, later, cubism.

Back in America, Breckenridge became an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1894, a post he held for decades. With his colleague Thomas Anshutz, he later established the Darby School of Painting in nearby Darby and eventually opened his own school in Gloucester, Massachussetts. Breckenridge maintained a waterfront studio in the seaside town, its coastline and landscape the frequent subjects for his canvas. Breckenridge also executed lucrative portrait commissions.

Breckenridge’s oeuvre reflects stylistic versatility, an abiding fascination with color, and signature brushwork, whether displayed in the impressionistic landscapes of his early and late career, or in the more modernist abstract works of his mid-life. He exhibited widely, garnering prizes, critical acclaim, and commercial success, and was a member of the most prestigious American art organizations; in 1913, he was named as associate of the National Academy of Design. In addition, Breckenridge enjoyed close associations with other leading artists of the day, including Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase, Arthur B. Carles, Walter Schofield, and John Marin, among others.

For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.

 

     Born in Paris, France on April 27, 1844. Tavernier began art studies at age 16 in his native city under Felix Barrias at Ecole des Beaux Arts. By age 20 he had exhibited at the prestigious Paris Salon and received local recognition.

After serving as an artist-war correspondent during the Franco-Prussian War, he lived in England for a year. He worked as an illustrator for the London Graphic before sailing for New York in 1872. With artist Paul Frenzeny, he crossed the U.S. in 1873 as employees of Harper’s Weekly. Traveling by horseback, the two Frenchmen made drawings of the western frontier along the way.

After arriving in San Francisco in 1875, Tavernier became an active member of the San Francisco Art Association and Bohemian Club. Following a sketching trip to nearby Monterey, he built a studio there which became a mecca for visiting artists. Soon others joined him and an art colony of "Bohemians" was formed. Although his work brought top prices he was constantly in debt due to his profligate life style. After an altercation with local citizenry forced his return to San Francisco in 1879, he shared a studio with Julian Rix and Joseph Strong.

Deeply in debt and hounded by creditors, his desire to paint volcanoes in Hawaii led him to the Islands in 1884. His works were popular there and he became court painter to King Kalakaua. He produced about 100 depictions of volcanoes in oil and pastel. Local law insisted upon payment of all bills before leaving the Islands and, unable to do so, he remained there and drank himself to death. Tavernier died in Honolulu at his studio on Hotel Street at age 45 on May 18, 1889. A granite grave marker was sent to Hawaii by his friends at the Bohemian Club and is easily seen over the cemetery wall.

Member: SFAA; Palette Club; Bohemian Club.

Exhibited: Paris Salon, 1864-70; Philadelphia Centennial, 1876; Mechanics’ Inst. Fair (SF), 1877 (medal); Calif. State Fair, 1880-82; New Orleans World’s Fair, 1885; Calif. Midwinter Expo, 1894.

In: CHS; Oakland Museum; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley); De Young Museum; Denver Public Library; Honolulu Academy of Arts; Gilcrease Inst.; Harrison Library (Carmel); Kansas State Historical Society; Monterey Peninsula Museum; Wichita Public Library; Yosemite Nat’l Park Museum; Bohemian Club; Olympic Club (SF); Volcano Nat’l Park (Hawaii); Shasta State Historical Monument; Beaverbrook Art Gallery (New Brunswick, Canada); Society of Calif. Pioneers.

Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"

Printmaker, etcher, painter, and craftsman, William Seltzer Rice was born on June 23, 1873 in Manheim, PA where his family had a carriage-painting business. Rice began drawing at an early age and had art lessons from itinerant artists. At age 20 he enrolled at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia and took classes from Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute.

He worked as a staff artist for the Philadelphia Times until 1900 when, at the age of twenty-seven, he accepted the position as Supervisor of Art in the Stockton Public Schools. He remained in that position for ten years and then became head of the art departments at Alameda High School, Fremont High School (1919-30), Oakland’s Castlemont High School (1930-40), and UC Extension (1932-43). While teaching, he earned a B.F.A. degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts and taught summer classes at that school.

Rice produced a number of watercolors of scenic spots in California from 1901. Wood block and linoleum prints soon became his forte.

At the Panama Pacific Exposition he was exposed to Japanese prints, which impressed him deeply and changed the course of his future work. In 1918, the first major exhibition of his color woodcuts hung at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. He retired from teaching in the public schools in the 1940s but continued accepting invitations to teach and exhibit for the next 15 years.

He died at his Oakland home on Aug. 27, 1963.

He was author of Block Prints: How to Make Them and Block Printing in the School and wrote articles on naturalist subjects for Sunset magazine.

Member: SFAA; Calif. Society of PM; Calif. Society of Etchers; Prairie Printmakers; Oakland Art League; Pacific AA; Bay Region AA; Northwest Printmakers.

Exhibited: Penn. Museum of Industrial Art, 1904 (prize); Calif. Society of Etchers from 1912; PPIE, 1915; SFAA, 1916, 1925; Santa Cruz Art League, 1934; GGIE, SF,1939; Library of Congress, 1943; Philadelphia Print Club, 1943.

In: CCAC; NMAA; Boston Public Library; Library of Congress; NY Public Library; CSL; Oakland Museum; Worcester (MA) Museum.

Source: AskArt