William Adolphe Bouguereau, (1825-1905)

William Adolphe Bouguereau was born on November 30, 1825 in La Rochelle and died August 19,1905 in the same village. Unpretentious and modest, he became one the most decorated artists of the nineteenth century. Bouguereau received medals from the Salons and the Universal Expositions, and successive ranks in the Legion of Honor. He was the leading member of the Institute of France and president of the Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers.
 Bouguereau’s reputation as a painter of mythologies does injustice to the painter of tender mothers and children, and to the genre painter of young girls. Most of the genre paintings were executed at his at his birthplace, La Rochelle, garden adjoining his studio.
 In 1896, at the age of 71, he married American student, Elizabeth Gardner. Her painting’s showed the strong influence of her master. They continued to maintain a workshop and residence at Rue Notre-Dame-des Champs, #75.
 Bouguereau’s paintings were attuned to the sensibilities of his public and he never deviated from the basic tenets of his Academic training. He was one of the artists who dominated the Salons of the Third Republic and the Academies. He became the last champion of a dying tradition.
 Bouguereau became immensely popular in the United States, which is witnessed by the representation on numerous examples of his work in important public and private collections.

Museums:
Amsterdam
Bordeaux, France
Montreal, Canada
Mulhouse, London
Louvre, Paris
Boston Museum
Metropolitan, N.Y.
National Gallery, Wash., D.C.

John W. Alexander was born in 1856 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. During his artistic career he was a dedicated member of both the Munich and Vienna Secession, associated with Art Noveau style. Alexander worked as an illustrator for Harper’s weekly from 1873-76, before moving to Munich with a small group of Americans. He studied for three months at the Munich Royal Academy and traveled Europe meeting other artists such as Whistler. Alexander moved to Paris in 1889 for three years where he began to work with the Symbolists as well as painting portraits of literary greats like Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Although murals made up a large portion of Alexander’s career, he also worked with oils. His subjects in oil painting were usually figurative pieces showing a single female in a dramatic gown against a contrasting background. In 1895 Alexander was commissioned by the Library of Congress to paint 48 mural panels at the Carnegie Institute for which he would receive $175,000, the largest sum ever paid to date for a mural. Unfortunately, he died in 1915 before being able to complete this work.

Thomas Pollack Anschutz, born in 1851, was a portrait, figurative and landscape painter. He studied at the National Academy of Design and went on to become the chief painting teacher at the Pennsylvania Institute of Fine Arts by 1886. Anschutz important influence was projected more through his students than in his own work. He was generally not acknowledged until the 20th century. Anschutz’s oil paintings often depicted a female in a contemplative posture. His most famous work, “Iron Workers at Noontime” (1882) clearly anticipates Realism, where working class men are shown in their everyday life. In addition to oils, Anschutz also produced watercolor pieces that show an interest in light and color, often done on travel. He died in 1912 after a long and prosperous career as a professor and working artist.

A descendant of French Huguenots and ancestors of the American Revolution, George Copeland Ault was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1891. When he was eight, Ault’s family moved to London, England, where his father opened a printing company and thus introduced American printing techniques and American inks to Britain. Interested in art, Ault undertook a comprehensive study of drawing and painting at a variety of London’s creative institutions, including University College, the Slade School, London University, and St. John’s Wood Art School. He supplemented this formal training with visits to art museums in London and Paris where he could copy the work of recognized masters. In 1911, at the age of twenty, Ault returned to the States. He moved around New York and New Jersey until 1937, when he finally settled in the rural community of Woodstock, New York. He remained there until his accidental death by drowning in 1948.

Throughout his life, Ault devoted himself to artistic production in oil, watercolor, and drawing. Preferring familiar subjects from the local landscape, Ault’s work firmly roots itself in the American scene. However, his Cubist-Realist technique of portraying the natural world according to the underlying geometry of its forms shows an influence of European Modernism.

Ault’s early pictures were first exhibited at St. John’s Wood Art School in 1908. The first American showing of his mature work occurred in New York in 1920, where the artist’s individual approach earned positive attention. This trend continued, and the following year, he was honored by the Society of Independent Artists, who selected his work A New York Skyline for their show entitled “Our Choice of Independents.” In his review of the exhibition, critic C. Lewis Hind commented that participating artists “promised that there was a future of American art away from the stereotype of the moribund academic productions of the day.”1

Provincetown Waterfront depicts familiar elements from Ault’s life in the summer community of Massachusetts. But rather than merely replicating an observation of houses along the shore, this watercolor reduces the scene to its primary elements, presenting only “the simple forms of which it was composed [and] leaving out all unessential detail.”2

1 Quoted in a two-page typed information sheet given to the Frick Library by Milch Gallery on November 30, 1967, p. 1.
2 George C. Ault, quoted in a one-page information sheet, A Retrospective Exhibition: George C. Ault, Charlotte, N.C., The Mint Museum of Art, October 15 – November 15, 1950.

Milton Avery was born in Altmar, New York on March 7, 1885. In 1898, his family moved to the village of Wilson Station, CT.

In 1915, after the deaths of his father, two brothers, and brother-in-law, Avery was thrust into the role of provider for a family of eleven. In order to paint during the day and support his family, he worked as a file clerk on the night shift at the Travelers Insurance Company from 1917 to 1922. In 1918, Avery transferred to the School of the Art Society of Hartford for their daytime program of formal instruction. In 1919, Avery won two top awards from the school: best painting in portrait class and best drawing in life class.

During the twenties Avery attended art school and summered in the art colony of Gloucester, MA. By the summer of 1924, he was offered free studio space and living accommodations in a rooming house where he met illustrator Sally Michael, whom he married in 1926 and with whom he had a daughter, March.

1930 saw Avery blossom as an artist, with bucolic themes dominating his work. Duncan Phillips acquired”White Riders” for his collection at this time. During his long career, Avery exhibited with Dudensing, Rosenberg, and Durand-Ruel. His first one-man exhibition was at the Phillips Memorial Gallery in 1945. By the mid-1940’s, Avery had reached his mature style, making paintings which seemed built out of blocks of color, with greatly reduced compositional elements. His paintings were balanced between shapes and color.

Avery exhibited extensively throughout his career, and painted almost until his death in 1965.

Henry Bacon, born in 1839, was a figure painter of the expatriate genre. He was one of the first Americans to be admitted to a Paris school, Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There he was schooled in the conservative French tradition of the late 19th century. Bacon enlisted in the Civil War and served as a field artist for “Leslie’s Weekly”. After the war, he perfected his techniques in watercolor using oblique angles and cropping effects. He popularized the perspective scenes on decks of passenger ships, which he observed during his frequent travels. Bacon was highly acclaimed for his watercolors. By 1895 he began to experiment with pure washes without opaque body color in figures. Henry Bacon died in 1912 in Cairo, Egypt.

James Bard was born in 1815 in Chelsea, NYC with a twin brother John. He was a self-taught marine artist with a keen interest in steamboats and small sailing vessels. James and John worked closely together, producing their first painting at the age of twelve and consequently forming a partnership in 1831. Together they recorded many of the important ships passing through the Long Island Sound and Hudson River, NYC. The accurate observances in these paintings are still quite important to historians of navigation. Their collaborative paintings, over 350 in all, were most often signed J. & J. Bard. In 1850 James’ brother John abandon the partnership for unknown reasons. However, James continued painting quite successfully due to the increase in shipbuilding throughout the 1850s. Various forms of signature and address appear in the lower right corner of Bard’s paintings as an invitation to prospective buyers to visit his studio. James Bard completed over 4,000 paintings, the last dated 1890 just seven years before his death. The National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C. exhibited Bard’s retrospective in 1987.

Walter Baum was born in 1884 and had a long and diverse career as a painter, museum director, teacher and critic. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and apprenticed under Thomas Anschultz. Baum chose a more academic route in his art while other American artists were celebrating more artistic freedom. He produced more than 2,000 works in oil, tempera, watercolor and pastel. His artwork is generally divided into two distinct groups; landscapes of Delaware River Valley, illustrating woodlands, creeks and the countryside, and cityscapes of surrounding towns with detailed architecture, intense pure color and objects outlined in bright black. In addition to painting, Baum co-founded and supported the Lehigh Art Alliance in the 1930s. He also served as Director at the Allentown Museum of Art and headed the Baum School of Art. He wrote over 500 reviews for the “Philadelphia Evening Bulletin” and continued to exhibit work at the PAFA annually from 1914-1954. Baum received the Sesnan Gold award from PAFA in 1925. He is often considered the “Father of Art in Lehigh Valley”.

Reynolds Beal, the older brother of Gifford Beal, was born in 1867. He is known as one of the early American Impressionists. Beal studied at Cornell in 1885-89 with a focus in naval architecture. His more formal art training came from studying under William Merritt Chase in 1896. Circus themes were Beal’s first endeavor from 1910-20. Although his naval training provided him with accurate and detailed knowledge of ships he took more interest in exploring the wind-controlled relationship between air and water. Yachting was also a hobby of Beal’s, resulting in paintings of maritime scenes from Rockport to the Hudson and also the Caribbean. Beal worked in Bermuda in 1922 and 1939-40. Beal had his first solo exhibition at the Clauson Gallery, NYC, in 1905. He went on to become a founding member of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917. His palette was bright and lively and he traveled with other American Impressionist such as Ernest Lawson and Childe Hassam. He was truly able to capture seasonal qualities and air movement throughout his artistic career.

Gifford Beal was a well educated, upper class painter born in 1879. He studied with William Merritt Chase in NYC, took courses at Shinnecock Summer School from 1891-1900 and graduated from Princeton in 1900. He received his first award in 1903 with continued acclaim and financial success throughout his career. Beal was a member of several national boards and committees in the arts as well as the President of the Art Students League from 1914-1929.
Beal was could not be confined to one subject or genre because he preferred to develop his own personal taste with a broad combination of elements. He painted watercolors in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Bermuda and even West Africa. He also painted scenes along the New England coast as well as circuses, another favorite. The Century Club of San Francisco held a retrospective show in 1950, just six years before his death.