Category: Art Blog

George Edward Handel Lucas

My story today about an artist is a sad one. It is a tale of rags to riches and back to rags. My featured artist is George Edward Handel Lucas who because of artistic ability at a very young age was labelled by some as an artistic genius.

E G Handel Lucas self portrait painted on is 26th birthday (1887)

It all began at No.87 Church Street in Croydon on May 4th 1861 when George Edward Handel Lucas was born. He was the fifth child. His father, Edwin Newton Lucas, was a tailor and men’s outfitter by trade and had his shop on London Road. In 1875 the shop closed and his father ran his business from home. His father’s love of classical music, especially the works of George Frederick Handel led to his son’s middle name. This love of music led to his father’s second job, as for two evenings a week, he gave singing lessons at is house, in order to boost his income.

Autumn and Winter by EG Handel Lucas (1879)

Despite his business and his music tuition the large family found it difficult to make ends meet. In 1868, Handel Lucas was enrolled at Whitgift Middle School, which at that time provided education from the age of seven to fourteen for sons of the poor of the parish. Handel Lucas loved drawing and painting from an early age and at the age of fourteen he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists. He was the youngest person to have ever achieved that. Lucas left full-time schooling at the age of fourteen. He set himself up in a studio in a lean-to at his family’s Church Street home and could now finally concentrate on his art.

A Bird’s Nest and Flowers on a Mossy Bank by EG Handel Lucas (1879)

Handel Lucas’ favoured art genre was floral painting and still life. He would spend hours on his depiction of the minutiae of the flowers. Slowly his work became known and from the money he accumulated from their sale he would fund his artistic training. Lucas studied life drawing in the evenings at Heatherley School of Fine Art and for a short time studied at the St John’s Wood Art School.

Roses from the Vicerage (1877)

In 1877, eighteen-year-old Lucas completed his painting entitled Roses from the Vicarage and he submitted it to the Royal Academy annual exhibition where it was sold on the opening day. The price realised was £30 which is the equivalent of £4500 in today’s money. Three years later, in December 1880, a reviewer wrote, in relation to the work that Lucas had exhibited at the Royal Academy:

“…I am not surprised to find that the critics are praising the works of that young artist, Mr. E. G. H. Lucas. I was certain when his `Roses’ was in the Royal Academy three years ago… that time was only needed for him to come to the front…”

Smarting from a Hard Hit by EG Handel Lucas

Lucas’ artistic output was small due to the time it took him to complete a painting.  His attention to detail was such that his completed works rarely took less than six months to complete and in many cases, very much longer.  He exhibited his work regularly from 1879 to 1891 at the Royal Academy annual exhibitions and often his work was positioned “on the line”, a rare privilege for an “outsider”. His work received many complimentary reviews in the press with one art critic stating:

“…Mr Handel Lucas… possesses in a more marked degree than any still life painter I have met with, that genius which a great writer has informed us is an infinite capacity for taking pains..”

“While the Cat’s Away the Mice will Play” by EG Handel Lucas (1881)

Soon he and his artwork became well known.   Although his still life floral works took him so long to complete they sold well, he decided to concentrate on figurative painting.  Although this was an idea which would increase his output he also knew there was still a demand for his floral paintings and such commissions brought in the money and were far more popular in comparison to his figurative works.  It was all about supply and demand.

In 1895, Lucas married Clare Mary Stunell and they went on to have two daughters, Elsie Cecil Lucas born in 1899 and Marie Newton Lucas in 1900.  These new additions added pressure on the family finances and the time he spent looking after his wife and children resulted on his output being as little as only two or three major paintings a year, and this in turn meant that their family income fell.

The artwork of Lucas with all its great attention to detail was adored by English art lovers in the last decade of the 1800s but at the beginning of the twentieth century the genre began to fall out of favour with the British public’s interest switching to Impressionism. Sales of Lucas’ work dwindled.

The Pears Annual

One light at the end of the tunnel for Lucas at this time was that the Pears Soap Company wanted to buy some of his paintings which they sought to incorporate in their well-liked annuals. Eventually they bought three of his paintings.

The Cause of Many Troubles by EG Handel Lucas (1903)

His painting entitled The Cause of Many Troubles was bought by Pears in 1903 and was published in 1906. It depicts such things as playing cards, dice, a tombola, a picture of a racehorse and a flagon of beer. All items reminded us of gambling and the imbibing of alcohol and the perils of such pastimes. A further reminder of what these “hobbies” could lead to was the pistol affixed to the wall, which some mired in gambling debts, believed was the only way out. The Pears Soap Company paid Lucas £106 for the painting (around £15,000 in today’s money). It was an extraordinary amount.

Some of Life’s Pleasures by EG Handel Lucas (c.1908)

The second painting the Pears Soap Company bought from Lucas was one entitled Of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven and they paid him another substantial amount, £150 and yet it was never used in their publications. The third of Lucas’ works they bought was his painting, Some of Life’s Pleasures and it could well have been the antidote for his The Cause of Many Troubles painting for this was all about harmless and fulfilling pastimes such as painting, reading and playing a musical instrument. This painting appeared in the Pears Annual in 1909. The company bought it for £81 a considerably lesser amount that the previous two purchases had achieved. Lucas had no recourse but to accept this lower amount as he was desperate to clear his debts.

View from Pompeii over the Gulf of Naples to Capri. by EG Handel Lucas (1888)

Lucas became desperate with worry with regards his mounting debts and lack of sales. In 1908, it just became too much for him and he suffered a nervous breakdown. To reduce costs the family left Croydon and moved to Brighton. It was here that Lucas and two local photographers set up a new photographic project and started a company called The Handeltype Syndicate Company and Lucas filed a patent for their new photographic process. Sadly for Lucas, after twelve months, their company failed and the three men, together with friends and family who had financially backed them, lost all their money.

Foes in the Guise of Friends by EG Handel Lucas (1913)

Another of Lucas’ paintings which advocated temperance and warned of the perils of drinking was his 1913 painting entitled Foes in the Guise of Friends. The painting’s title says it all. It was this painting that had not been completed and was unsold and had been used as a bargaining tool by Lucas with his landlady who had been demanding money for the rent. He had no money, the landlady didnt want the painting and the family were evicted.

Haymaking by EG Handel Lucas

Finally, Lucas found work in the south London district of Streatham where he and his family went to live. His friend asked him to design Christmas cards for his Christmas card business. Lucas never lost his love of photography and a printing process called Handelchrome which he invented. It involved transferring a photograph onto glass and painting it from behind and he intended to use this technique as an aid for his portrait work. Sadly, this invention like many of Lucas’ ideas came to nought and he struggled to match his income and his expenditure.

Two Vases of Flowers by EG Handel Lucas

In the 1920s Lucas completed a number of paintings but he was unable to achieve prices for them that he had done thirty years earlier.

The Stolen Nest by EG Handel Lucas (1927)

He did however have one success when he was commissioned to provide a number of paintings which were then used as illustrations for the Brooke Bond Tea calendar, one of which was entitled The Stolen Nest which was published in the 1929 calendar. It is set on the banks of the River Wandle, a right-bank tributary of the River Thames in south London.

Portrait of Jesse Ward by EG Lucas (1927)

One of his best portraits was of the founder of The Croydon Advertiser, Jesse Ward.

In 1936, Lucas received the devastating news that his wife had been knocked down and injured in a road traffic accident. He suffered a fatal heart attack and died on April 4th 1936, aged 74.


I will end this blog about Edward George Handel Lucas with the words of an art critic in the 1890s when he described Lucas’ art as:

“…When the present and succeeding generations have passed away, this little gem of the painter’s art will survive to prove that one man in Croydon, at least, knew how to paint, and could unite patent toil with Heaven Born genius…”

The majority of information for this blog came from an article written by David Morgan for the Inside Croydon website in December 2023.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Nichiren. Part 1.

In March 2023 I took you on a Japanese journey The Tokaido Road Trip and today I want you to join me on another such voyage of discovery through a series of ten Japanese woodblock prints in ink and color on paper made by Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, one of the last the great Masters of ukiyo-e.  Kuniyoshi was born on 1 January 1st 1798, the son of a silk-dyer, Yanagiya Kichiyemon. It is thought that he helped in his father’s business as a pattern designer, and those days helped to influence him some with regards to his rich colour usage and textile patterns in his prints

Self-portrait of Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the shunga album Chinpen shinkeibai, (1839)

The ukiyo-e movement came to prominence in Japan between the 17th and 19th century. It was a form of art and one of the first times in Japanese history when art ended the adherence of social class and developed into an art form that appealed to the lowborn, who had money, as well as the rich aristocrats.

The Ghost of Asakura Togo, Woodblock Print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

The subjects most found in these woodblock prints were travel, beautiful prostitutes, and kabuki actors, the 19th century Japanese equivalent of movie stars. Many of his popular prints were often not really something that the aristocracy would want to display in their residences, but such depictions as in his print, The Ghost of Asakura Togo, were just the thing that appealed to everyday Japanese urbanites who were searching for some excitement in their lives.

The Story of Nichiren

The portrait of Nichiren Daishonin was painted in the 14th-15th Century, and is kept at Nichiren Shu’s Head Temple, Kuon-ji.

This is the story of Nichiren Dashonin, a Japanese Buddhist priest and philosopher who lived in the thirteenth century and it was his controversial teachings which form the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, a branch of Mahayana Buddhism. Nichiren was born on February 16th 1222 and died on October 13th 1282. Nichiren, also known as Koso, was a Buddhist priest who had various miracles attributed to him and who founded the Nichiren sect of Buddhism, of which Utagawa Kuniyoshi was an adherent.

It was his controversial declaration that only the Lotus Sutra, which is regarded as one of the world’s great religious scriptures and most influential texts contained the highest truth of Buddhist teachings suited for the Third Age of Buddhism. He maintained that the sovereign of Japan and its people should support only this form of Buddhism and eradicate all others. Nichiren on three occasions remonstrated with the government, underlining his wish to guide people with ‘the Lotus Sutra’. However, on each occasion his pleas were rejected.

For twenty years between 1233 and 1253 Nichiren engaged in an intensive study of all of the ten schools of Buddhism which were prevalent in Japan at that time as well as the Chinese classics and secular literature. During these years, he became convinced of the pre-eminence of the Lotus Sutra and in 1253 returned to the temple where he first studied to present his findings. Here Nichiren introduced his teachings supporting a complete return to the Lotus Sutra as based on its original Tendai interpretations arguing that the people and their leaders who followed this form of Buddhism would experience peace and prosperity whereas rulers who supported inferior religious teachings invited disorder and disaster into their realms. However, his teachings angered Kamakura Shogunate and he experienced severe persecution and was exiled.

In 1831, Utagawa Kuniyoshi received a commission to produce a set of prints in remembrance of the 550-year anniversary of the death of Nichiren. The set was known as the Sketches of the Life of the Great Priest or Concise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren.

Tōjō Komatsubara, Eleventh day of Eleventh month, 1264 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Tōjō Kagenobu, a steward of Tōjō Village in the Nagasa District of Awa Province in Japan was a passionate believer in Nembutsu, a fundamental devotional practice in the Pure Land school of Buddhism, which Nichiren had criticised ten years earlier. Tōjō Kagenobu was so infuriated by Nichiren’s severe criticism of the Pure Land (Jōdo) school that he attempted to have Nichiren seized. For this reason, he had harboured hatred for Nichiren and watched vigilantly for an opportunity to kill him. On November 11th, 1264, while Nichiren was travelling to Komatsubara, the home of his disciple, Kudo Yoshitaka. It was following his return to Awa, the year after he was pardoned from his exile to Itō on the Izu Peninsula. Tojo Kagenobu saw his chance to eliminate Nichiren. He and hundreds of his warriors, including horsemen and swordsmen, ambushed Nichiren at Komatsubara in the Awa Province in November 1264. In the depiction we see Nichiren holding up his mala (rosary), with its sparkling crystals which confused his attackers. Nikkyo, his student and disciple, is seen in the background, crouching. During the bitter fighting, two of his followers were killed and although Nichiren received a sword cut upon his forehead and a broken left hand, he managed to escape. The incident became known by the Nichiren Budhists as the “Komatsubara Persecution“. Tojo Kagenobu, who had led the attack is said to have gone mad and died within three days of this incident.

Nichiren Prays for Rain at the Promontory of Ryozangasaki in Kamakura in 1271

Japan experienced a major drought in the summer of 1271. The government asked Ninshō, a Japanese Shingon Risshu priest and the founder of the Gokuraku-ji, a Budhist temple in Kamakura, to conduct rain rituals. Nichiren, then only a lowly monk, disparaged Ninshō’s supporters, venturing that even he would follow Ninshō if he made it rain in a week. Nichiren was proved right as it did not rain, and he took advantage of the challenge to take on new followers for himself. In the woodblock print we see Nichiren as he prays for rain and is immediately rewarded with a downpour. This event takes place in Kamakura in 1271. The print itself is viewed as the second-greatest design in this famous series. Before us we have a dramatic depiction – the drama in the the heavy downpour, the drama in the waves and drama in Nichiren’s acolytes as they look on, astounded by the miracle they have witnessed. The umbrella at the top of the scene extends into the upper margin and is often trimmed.

Nichiren Saved from Execution at Takinoguchi in Sagami Province 

Nichiren’s incessant attacks on the other Buddhist schools led to Hōjō Tokimune, the de facto ruler of Japan, exiling Nichiren to Sado Island under the supervision of Hōjō Nobutoki, the constable of Sado in 1261. However, this threatened exile did not stop Nichiren continuing his attacks on the other factions of Buddhism. The original plan was that Nichiren was to be escorted to Echi, to the residence of Homma Shigetsura, Hōjō Nobutoki’s deputy; from there he was to be taken directly to Sado Island. But Hei no Saemon, a government official and affirmed enemy of Nichiren decided to have him executed as he was being escorted to Homma’s residence. An attempt was made to behead Nichiren at Tatsunokuchi, but it was unsuccessful. Legend has it that as the executioner’s sword was about to come down on Nichiren’s neck, it broke in half. Various other supernatural happenings were alleged to have occurred to prevent and thwart his death. In this third print of the series Nichiren is seen in prayer, kneeling beside a pine tree which is growing close to the ocean. His executioner stands behind him. It depicts him about to be executed when the rays from the sun destroy the executioner’s sword, averting his death. Nichiren’s exile was later carried out as it had been originally planned.

The Star of Wisdom Descends on the Thirteenth Night of the Ninth Month

The fourth print of the portfolio is entitled The Star of Wisdom Descends on the Thirteenth Night of the Ninth Month and depicts Nichiren holding his rosary, standing before an old plum tree, in which appears a shining apparition of the Buddha. Behind him are two officials and a group of armed men. The scene is illuminated by the full moon which bathes the entire vista. Raymond A Bidwell the collector of oriental art and porcelain, wrote an article in 1930 for Artibus Asiae, a semi-annual publication of original scholarly articles, entitled Kuniyoshi III in which he likened Kuniyoshi’s depiction with that of Christian art:

“…the same spirituality and relationship of man to God as was expressed by the Italian primitives in their pictures of God appearing to the saints… Nichiren and the rough soldiers who have him in custody see in adoration and consternation a vision of The Buddha standing in the branches of a leafless plum tree on a clear moonlight night. The intense beauty of the evening sky and moon against the lace like branches of the aged and gnarled plum tree, make you feel that God must manifest himself directly…”

Bidwell’s conclusion was that Kuniyoshi transcended the Italian painters in his successful approach. Raymond A. Bidwell would later go on to donate the largest collection of Kuniyoshi prints in the U.S. to the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.

…….to be continued.

Most of the information for this site came from various Wikipedia pages.

Fredrik Kruseman

During a period of very low temperatures and snowy conditions, it might seem appropriate to focus on art depicting sunshine, blue skies, and warm azure-coloured seas. However, today’s blog will start with featuring beautiful depictions of snow and ice and explore how people who experienced these conditions seemed to find enjoyment in them. Many such depictions are conjured up by nineteenth century Dutch artists and today’s blog is all about Fredrik Marinus Kruseman the Dutch painter who specialized in Romantic-style landscapes, and winter scenes, which made up about two thirds of his oeuvre.

Fredrik Kruseman was born in the Netherlands city of Haarlem on July 12th, 1816. He was the fourth son of Jacoba Mooij and her husband Benjamin Philip Kruseman, a Lutheran hat-maker. Fredrik had two older brothers, Hendrik and Jakob and a younger brother Benjamin. He also had two cousins who became famous painters. Cornelis Kruseman a painter of historical and biblical subjects who later became Director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Amsterdam and Jan Adam Kruseman, a historical painter and portraitist.

A Winter’s Scene with Skaters on a Frozen Waterway by Fredrik Kruser (1858)

Fredrik was tutored by many of the great Dutch landscape artists of the nineteenth century school. In 1833, aged seventeen, he was apprenticed to Jan Reekers who taught him the skills required to draw from nature and the intricacies of perspective. Between 1832 and 1833 he also attended classes at the Vocational City Drawing School in Haarlem and studied painting with Nicholas Roosenboom, who had a studio near where Fredrik lived. It was in September 1833 that Fredrik Kruseman first exhibited his landscape work. It was at the Exhibition for Living Masters in The Hague. In 1835, Fredrik moved to the Gooi, an area around Hilversum, in the centre of the Netherlands. Here he took advanced studies with Jan van Ravenswaay. He also studied briefly with the landscape painter, Barend Cornelis Koekkoek.

During his twenties and thirties, Kruseman travelled widely throughout Northern Europe before finally setting up home in Brussels in 1841. He returned to the Netherlands and lived, between 1852 and 1856, on the outskirts of Haarlem. After that four-year sojourn he returned to the Belgian capital where he remained for the rest of his life.

Winter Landscape with Skaters and Wood Gatherers at a Ruin by Fredrik Kruseman

Kruseman’s 1845 painting entitled Winter Landscape with Skaters and Wood Gatherers at a Ruin depicts a frozen canal with skaters, walkers on a path along the shore, a picturesque castle and strange bare trees. Men scavenge for wood for their home fires. Life is hard at this time of year.

A Winter Landscape with Skaters on a Frozen River by Fredrik Kruseman (1862)

Kruseman’s painting entitled A Winter Landscape with Skaters on a Frozen River is a beautiful depiction and is a Romantic observance and veneration of nature. The sky dominates the paintingfxf. Before us we have a frozen waterway on which are a number of skaters bordered by snow-covered banks. On the right bank there is a refreshment table. We can also pick out a fallen skater in the left of the foreground and a young couple with their dog crossing the centre of the frozen river close to a wide crack in the ice. In the left middle-ground we can just make out a sailing boat frozen to the riverbank. The colours Kruseman has used are cool blue-grey tonality over the black mirror-like surface of the ice.

Wintry River Landscape with Windmill by Fredrik Kruseman (1844)

Although Kruseman is best known for his Romantic wintry landscape paintings he completed many other landscape works.

Monk Meditating near a Ruin by Moonlight by Fredrik Kruseman (1862)

One notable romantic piece is his 1862 painting titled Monk Meditating near a Ruin by Moonlight. The ruin of the title is the abbey in Villers-la-Ville near Brussels, which used to be one of the most significant Cistercian abbeys in Europe and close to where the painter lived for a while. In the right foreground of this nocturnal scene, we see a monk meditating near the overgrown ruin. The abbey was founded in 1146 and was a former Cistercian Abbey located in the very heart of Walloon Brabant.

Village Street on a Sunny Day by Fredrik Kruseman (ca. 1835)

Landscape with two Farmers by Fredrik Kruseman

In the foreground of this atmospheric work, we see two peasants talking to each other. One holds on to his ox, while the other is accompanied by his dog. The background consists of a wide landscape with a few hills. Once again the sky plays a dominant part of the painting.

Tranquil Landscape with Women Washing by a Stream with Cattle and Sheep by Fredrik Kruseman

 A River Landscape with Cows and Sheep by Fredrik Kruseman

In his winter scenes of frozen rivers, Fredrik Kruseman cleverly produced jet-black mirror surface of the ice and the marks left by skaters. Some of his most famous depictions were set in the fading light of early evening and combined the wintry scene with a background glow of a setting sun or a bright light emanating from the interior of a cottage or house.

Fredrik Marinus Kruseman worked well into the late 1870s and died in St Gilles, a suburb of Brussels, on May 25th 1882.

Max Liebermann. Part 2.

Self portrait by Max Liebermann (1934)

Max Liebermann was Jewish, not a strict Orthodox Jew, but more of a secular Jew who regarded himself through assimilationist eyes. Maybe because of this he avoided painting religious subjects with the exception of a painting he completed in 1879 entitled The 12-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple With the Scholars.

Der zwölfjährige Jesus im Tempel (The Twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple) by Max Liebermann (1879)

The painting depicts twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, having been at the Festival of Passover in Jerusalem with his parents, but unbeknown to them, he had stayed behind in the city when they had set off to return home. The story continues as per the biblical tale (Luke 2:43-48):

“…After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you…”

The setting for this painting is derived from Max’s visit to the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam in 1876 when he made architectural sketches of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam. The curved staircase, which he later depicted as a spiral staircase in the painting, is a reference to the 16th-century Levantine Synagogue in Venice. The paned window on the upper edge of the painting also echoes the windows of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam.

Liebermann originally depicted Jesus, not as a holy figure, but as a dark-haired boy with Semitic features and mannerisms, arguing the doctrine with his elders. The painting was first exhibited at the First International Art Show in Munich in 1879, at a time when antisemitic activism and propaganda was just starting to break out in Germany. The artwork caused a major outcry with critics terming the depiction blasphemous. The art critic for the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, Friedrich Pecht, asserted that Liebermann had painted “the ugliest, know-it-all Jewish boy imaginable,” and went on to state that the artist had shown the Jewish elders as “a rabble of the filthiest haggling Jews.” More criticism rained down from upon high with the Crown Prince of Bavaria declaring that he was scandalised, and the Bavarian State Parliament even spent time debating the painting and Pecht’s comments. One Catholic MPs criticised the fact that it had been admitted into a State establishment knowing that the country had inhabitants who were overwhelmingly devout Christians. One deputy pronounced that Liebermann, being a Jew, should have known better than to paint such a scene and that the painting was reviled as “a stench in the nostrils of decent people” It seemed that Lieberman’s mistake was simply that as Liebermann was a Jew, he had depicted an overtly Jewish Jesus.

Preliminary Sketch

And yet in the painting we cannot understand the violent criticism of the detractors regarding Liebermann’s Jesus who is depicted as a long-haired, slightly effeminate, blond boy. However, this was not the original depiction as this is because Liebermann, in response to unrelenting criticism, repainted the figure before it was included in a Paris exhibition in 1884. Art historians know this as a sketch of the untouched 1879 version has been preserved, in which it can be seen that Liebermann had originally depicted a barefoot boy with short, unkempt dark hair and a stereotypical Jewish profile. Liebermann changed the young Jesus’s appearance with the figure once described as an “urchin” now appears as a serious, intelligent, perhaps slightly deferential child. However, the changes, did not change the mood of the German critics and the work was not exhibited again in Germany until the Berlin Secession exhibition of 1907.

Sewing School by Max Liebermann (1876)

In 1875 Liebermann left Paris and spent three months in Zandvoort in Holland. It was in this Dutch town that Max acquired a brighter and more less planned style by copying paintings by one of his favourite artists, Frans Hals. Max developed a practice of setting aside time between the idea for a motif coming to him and the implementation of the larger finished painting. When he returned to Paris in the autumn of 1875 he moved into a more spacious studio and began to convert his Dutch sketches into full sized works. He returned to the Netherlands in the summer of 1876 where he remained for several months. During this stay he met the etcher William Unger, who brought him into contact with Jozef Israëls and the Hague School. One example of this change of painting style was Liebermann’s work entitled Sewing School which he completed in 1876. The sewing school depicted in this painting was in an orphanage in Amsterdam. Liebermann had started his career as a realist painter, but by the time of this work, he was already establishing himself as an Impressionist-style painter.

Schusterwerkstatt (Cobbler’s Workshop) by Max Liebermann (1881)

During his visit to the Netherlands in the summer of 1880, Liebermann travelled to the small village of Dongen in North Brabant, in the southern Netherlands. It was here that he made a number of studies that would be used when completing the work in his studio. One example of this was his depiction of a cobbler in his workshop. At the workshop, he created studies that he later used for his 1881 painting Schusterwerkstatt, (Cobbler’s Workshop).

Altmännerhaus (Old Men’s Home) in Amsterdam by Max Liebermann (1881)

Having completed the Cobbler’s Workshop painting he travelled to Amsterdam on his way to returning to Munich. It was whilst in Amsterdam that he came across the Catholic Altmännerhaus (Old Men’s Home). He happened to glance into the garden of the establishment and saw a large group of older gentlemen dressed in black sitting on benches in the dappled sunlight. According to Erich Hancke’s 1914 book, Max Liebermann. Sein Leben und seine Werke:

“…He [Liebermann] had visited a friend at the Rembrandt Hotel, and when he looked out of the corridor window descending the stairs, his gaze fell down into a garden where many old men dressed in black were standing and sitting in a corridor bathed in sunlight […]. He later used a drastic analogy to characterize that moment: ‘It was as if someone were walking on a level path and suddenly stepped on a spiral spring that shot him up…”

Study for Old Men’s Home in Amsterdamby Max Liebermann (1881)

Liebermann immediately began to paint the scene and concentrated on the effect of light which was being filtered through a canopy of leaves and this dappled effect became known as “Liebermann’s sunspots” and would be seen in Liebermann’s later Impressionist depictions. He made two on-site portrait-format studies of the scene, one in oil and one in pastel, after which Liebermann painted the final picture in his Munich studio later that year. The painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon and received an honourable mention. Furthermore, Léon Maître, a well-known collector of Impressionism, acquired several of Liebermann’s paintings.

 Recreation Time in the Amsterdam Orphanage by Max Liebermann (1884)

Life in Paris was taking its toll on Liebermann. He needed to sell his artwork to prove to himself and his parents that he had not wasted his life. This continual pressure caused Lieberman to fall into periods of deep depression and his painting output declined, furthermore, the works he put into the Paris Salon were not getting the recognition he believed he had deserved. There was also still the anti-Prussian sentiment amongst the French and this did not help him sell his work. In all, he realised that the Netherlands or Germany were much more acceptable places to work and live. He left Paris and spent a couple of months in Venice before returning to Munich in 1878. It was here that he was able to enhance his status as an important progressive artist. Munich had everything Liebermann required – the artistic culture and patrons who supported him. He spent hours visiting the city’s museums and art galleries and creating everlasting and important friendships. He eventually left Munich and relocated to Berlin, his birthplace, in 1884, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Martha Marckwald by Anders Zorn (1896)

In that same year, 1884, that Max moved to Berlin he married Martha Marckwald, the fourth child of the German Jewish couple Ottilie and Heinrich Benjamin Marckwald, who ran a wool store in Berlin. When Martha’s father died in 1870, Max’s father Louis became the thirteen-year-old Martha’s guardian. The Marckwald and Liebermann families became even closer when Max’s elder brother Georg Liebermann married Martha’s elder sister Elsbeth. On September 14th 1884, thirty-seven-year-old Max Liebermann married twenty-six-year-old Martha. It was a marriage that would last more than fifty years until Max died in 1935. In August 1885 Max and Martha’s only child, Käthe, was born and in 1892.

Max’s mother died on August 12th 1892, aged 70 and his father died two years later on April 29th 1894, aged 75. Although the death of his parents was a sad time for Max, he was finally released from their unrelenting words of warning as to the perilous status of an artist. Max moved into his family’s Berlin home in Pariser Platz where he lived out the remainder of his life.

Liebermann Villa at Wannsee

In 1909, overwhelmed by the noisy life in the German city, the Liebermann family bought a plot of land in the Alsen summer villa colony on the northern shore of the Kleiner and western shore of the Großer Wannsee at Wannsee, some twenty kms south-west of Berlin, close to Potsdam. It was here that they built themselves a summer home, somewhere to retire to during the hot summer months when city life became very oppressive. The Villa was designed by the architect Paul Otto Baumgarten, the garden by Liebermann in collaboration with the then-director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Alfred Lichtwark.

Martha Liebermann in the garden at Wannsee

Their summer home was situated amidst the magnificent villas of this impressive Berlin colony, embedded in a park, and represented a unique cultural landscape of the time of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic.

The Villa at Wannsee by Max Liebermann (1930)

Flowering Shrubs by the Gardner’s Cottage by Max Liebermann (1928)

The Flower Terrace at Wannsee by Max Liebermann (1915)

During the following years, Liebermann had designed a beautiful garden at the Villa Wannsee. He was so proud of the finishing results that the garden became the subject of many of Liebermann’s painting.

The Artist in His Studio by Max Liebermann (1932)

During the latter decade of the nineteenth century Liebermann continued living and painting in Berlin and would spend his summers at Wannsee or the Netherlands. Liebermann, like many of his contemporary Berlin artists, were dissatisfied with how they were being treated by the Association of Berlin Artists and the restrictions on contemporary art imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, so sixty-five of them seceded as a demonstration against the standards set by the Association and the government endorsed art. This break-away became known as the Berlin Secession and its aim was to form a “free association for the organization of artistic exhibitions”. In 1898, Liebermann became the President of the Berlin Secession, which was simply a group of artists that was formed as an alternative to the conservative arts establishment.

Two Riders on the Beach by Max Liebermann (1901)

The Berlin Secession championed new forms of modern art and were not be tied down to and be dominated by the old-fashioned academic art favoured by the Berlin Academy. These break-away groups from the art establishments were not new occurrences as the same happened with the Munich Secession in 1892 and the Vienna Secession in 1897. The initial breakaway took place in Paris in 1890 when the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts along with its exhibition arm, the Salon au Champs-de-Mars, was formed as a modern alternative to the official Société des Artistes Français and its exhibition arm, the Salon de Champs-Élysées. These break-away groups all wanted the same thing – the rejection of the official arts governing bodies due to their aversion of avant-garde art such as Impressionism, forms of Post-Impressionist painting and Naturalism, as well as their obstructive exhibition policies, which were inclined to support time-honoured painters and sculptors over their younger, more modernist contemporaries.

Marthe Liebermann with her grand-daughter Maria by Max Liebermann (1922)

In 1920, Liebermann became president of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, which was the highpoint of his career and signified how the Academy had changed over since the time of the Berlin Secession.

Portrait of President Paul von Hindenburg by Max Liebermann (1927)

Being a Jew, Liebermann had got used to the anti-Semitism in his homeland but by the early 30s with the rise and coming to power of the National Socialists it had noticeably worsened. In a way, it was a good thing that Liebermann died quietly in his sleep at the family home on February 8th 1935 aged 87 as he avoided bearing witness to the atrocities which followed. In 1938, his daughter Käthe her husband Kurt Riezler and their twenty-one-year-old daughter Maria were forced to flee the country and go to America.

The Graves of Max and Martha Liebermann at the Senerfelderplatz Jewish Cemetery, Berlin

They tried to persuade Max’s widow, Martha, to also emigrate but she refused to leave the land where her husband was buried. Martha Liebermann remained in Berlin, ultimately committing suicide in 1943 to escape her impending deportation to a concentration camp.

Most of the information for this blog came from the excellent website Liebermann Villa am Wannsee which goes into detail about his life and works.

I also consulted the informative website on all things art: The Art Story

Information regarding the painting, A Twelve-Year-Old Jewish Boy, came from the website: Art and Faith Matter/s

The Fourteenth Street School. Part 1.

When talking about American Urban Realism in art one thinks of The Ashcan School, which was an artistic movement in America during the late 19th and early 20th century. The name given to the group originated from a criticism written in the graphically pioneering American magazine of socialist politics, The Masses, in March 1916 by the cartoonist Art Young, who asserted that there were too many “pictures of ashcans and girls hitching up their skirts on Horatio Street.” The artists associated with this school of painting that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, especially in the city’s poorer neighbourhoods, were Robert Henri, George Luks, William James Glackens, Everett Shinn, George Bellows and John Sloan.

Today I want to look at another group of American realist painters who were also based in New York city and who also focused on everyday life in the city. For them it was all about the bustling area which centred around 14th Street and around Union Square in Lower Manhattan during the Depression era. During the 1920s and the 1930s, these artists continued the tradition established by the Ashcan School. They became known as the Fourteenth Street School of Artists. This group of painters were inspired by the legacy of the Ashcan School artists who depicted urban life and this new group established studios in the Fourteenth Street area and were inspired by the crowds that would daily swamp the nearby streets.

Reginald Marsh

Reginald Marsh sketching on 14th Street, New York, 1941.

The first of the artists of the Fourteenth Street School I am looking at is Reginald Marsh. He was born on March 14th, 1898, in an apartment in Paris above the Café du Dome. He was the second son born to American parents who were both artists. His father was Frederick Dana Marsh, who attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he worked with artists preparing murals for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. He went to Paris where in 1895 he married Alice Randall, a fellow Chicago art student and miniature painter. Whilst living in Paris, the couple had two sons, James in 1896 and Reginald two years later. Reginald’s father was one of the earliest American painters to depict modern industrialisation in America. The family lived affluently due to Reginald’s paternal grandfather. James Marsh, who had made a fortune in the Chicago meat packing business.

Self Portrait by Reginald Marsh (1927)

Reginald Marsh’s family moved to America in 1900 and relocated to Nutley, New Jersey where they set up a studio/home at No. 16 The Enclosure, a street that had been established as an artists’ colony some decades earlier by the American painter Frank Fowler, who had once owned their house. This resulted in Reginald being immersed in the world of art and painters who nurtured his love of painting and sketching. It was not just that art could be a good outlet for the teenager but it helped him to socialise with others and as he was a somewhat introverted and often tongue-tied boy, and so this was a bonus.

Four Women by Reginald Marsh (1947)

In 1914, the family moved to New Rochelle, in New York State. The family went on to buy an estate in Woodstock, New York, where they spent most of their summers. Reginald Marsh attended various schools including the Riverview Military Academy in Poughkeepsie and the Lawrenceville Preparatory School in New Jersey. After graduating from high school he enrolled at the Yale School of Art, the art school of Yale University, where he made a name for himself as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Art School’s humour magazine, The Yale Record

Figures on the Beach by Reginald Marsh (1921)

After graduating from Yale in 1920, Marsh re-located to New York, where, in 1922, he enrolled for a short period at the Art Students League. It was while studying art at this establishment that he gained a great deal of experience in painting and drawing from his skilled tutors, especially Kenneth Hayes Miller, an American painter and printmaker. Whilst at the Art Student League he became friends with fellow artist, Betty Burroughs. Their relationship grew and twelve months later, the couple married and as Betty’s father, Bryson Burroughs, was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art he was able to introduce his son-in-law to important figures in the art world. Reginald Marsh was now the family’s breadwinner, and so he began painting seriously.

Burlesque by Reginald Marsh

Gaiety Burlesque by Reginald Marsh (1930)

Once Marsh had graduated from Yale School of Art he moved to New York in his search for employment as a freelance illustrator. His first opportunity came when the New York Daily News commissioned him to produce depictions of vaudeville and burlesque performers. Burlesque and vaudeville shows were at the height of their popularity and Marsh’s depictions of burlesque dancers, chorus girls and strippers. Although some people often criticised them for their raunchiness and vulgarity, others were delighted by the comedy and satire emanating from his portrayals. In Edward Laning’s 1973 book, The Sketchbooks of Reginald Marsh, he described burlesque as:

“… the theater of the common man; it expressed the humor, and fantasies of the poor, the old, and the ill-favored…”

Wonderland Circus, Sideshow Coney Island by Reginald Marsh (1930)

Coney Island by Reginald Marsh (1933)

Mrsh’s job as a staff artist for the New York Daily News gave him the opportunity to explore the underbelly of society: He would wander the streets of Lower Manhattan, and gain inspiration from the burlesque shows along Bowery Street, the storefront windows and advertisements, and the beaches of Coney Island. Marsh also captured the throngs of theatre goers at these shows or outside the theatres and side-shows.

Ten Cents a Dance by Reginald Marsh

 Zeke Youngblood’s Dance Marathon by Reginald Marsh (1932)

And there was the ever-popular but brutal Dance Marathons !

The New Deal was formulated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration which came up with ideas on how to alleviate the suffering of those who had neither jobs nor any money to support themselves. For the artistic community, Roosevelt came up with a number of schemes such as the Public Works of Art Project, the Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture and the Treasury Relief Art Project. The Federal Art Project (FAP), which was created in 1935 as part of the Work Progress Administration (WPA), was one which directly funded visual artists and provided posters for other agencies like the Social Security Administration and the National Park Service. The William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building in Washington DC, which is a complex of several historic buildings, one of which was originally called the New Post Office, was completed in 1934. It housed the headquarters of the Post Office Department. The Clinton Federal Building was one of the initial locations that integrated various New Deal artworks that were originally commissioned and displayed in federally constructed buildings by the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1936, Reginald Marsh completed two murals for the interior of the building.

Sorting the Mail by Reginald Marsh (1936)   This mural was for the Ariel Rios Federal Building, Washington, D.C.

In preparation for his mural, Sorting the Mail, Marsh completed a number of preliminary sketches of the railway mail service which was located under the old Penn Station in New York, as well as the New York post office department building. He observed the new and modern technology, talked to the postal workers and watched them unloading and sorting the mail. Marsh’s depiction conveys the feverish dynamism of the workers. We see swarthy-skinned muscular men lifting and lugging large bags of mail. The various skin tones of the men allude to it being a diverse workforce of differing nationalities

Unloading the Mail by Reginald Marsh (1936)

Marsh’s other mural Unloading the Mail was also completed in 1936. The depiction in this mural was all about the international movement of mail from country to country. Marsh visited the Cunard liner RMS Berengaria which had docked in New York harbour. The Cunard line vessel, as well as carrying passengers across the Atlantic, brought mail to America from Europe and further afield. He made many sketches of the ship itself but the mural depicts the activities that occurred in the harbour boat which was used to bring the mail from the liner ashore for distribution. To the left we can catch a glimpse of the Manhattan shoreline whilst to the right we can see the officers of the liner handing the sacks of mail to the crew of the harbour tender. At the bottom left of the painting we can see a man, seated, tallying the sacks of mail that had been offloaded from the liner.

The Bowery by Reginald Marsh (1930)

By 1930, Reginald Marsh’s career was well established and thanks to inheriting some money from his late grandfather was comfortably well-off. Despite his wealth Marsh began to focus his work on depicting those who were less fortunate. It was his poignant depictions of the poverty suffered by the lower classes during the Great Depression that featured in many of his works, such as his 1930 work entitled The Bowery. In this painting Marsh has depicted the plight of the people hit hard by being out of work and in some cases, homeless. The scene before us has been created using a brown palette. We see large groups of men, who had suffered financially due to the financial crash, loitering along Bowery Street underneath many neon signs advertising cheap hotel accommodation. Above and to the right we catch a glimpse of the Third Avenue overhead railway.

Why Not Use The L by Reginald Marsh (1930)

A fascinating painting with and equally fascinating title is Reginald Marsh’s 1930 work, Why Not Use the “L”. The “L”—or “el”, is an elevated train that rose above the city streets. The western end started at Eight Avenue and 14th Street, ran through Union Square to the opposite end of the line at Rockaway Parkway, Brooklyn. The painting depicts three people in the railway carriage during the Depression. The woman to the right looks out apprehensively whilst the man seems exhausted. A second women to the left seems oblivious to her surroundings as she reads the newspaper. There are a number of advertising posters attached to the wall of the carriage. Reginald Marsh had accurately copied the adverts into his sketch books and added them to his final work.

One such advert extols the joys of Buckwheat Pancakes while another asserts that this form of transport is the best, using the title of this painting:


“…The subway is fast—certainly! But the open Air Elevated gets you there quickly, too—and with more comfort. Why not use the “L”?…”

Bread Line – No One has Starved by Reginald Marsh (1932)

For my last offering of a Reginald Marsh work I am looking at his very poignant etching entitled Bread Line–No One Has Starved. He completed this in 1932, at the height of the Great American Depression. It depicts a line of destitute men as they stand waiting in resignation for some sort of public assistance. The men are crowded into the black and white depiction and there is little to differentiate them. It is a depiction that represents poverty in general rather than an individual’s poverty. Marsh favoured depictions of the poor and down-and-out people and dismissed depicting the affluent saying that well-bred people were no fun to paint.

The Bread Line – the stark reality. Bowery men in bread line at Fleischman’s Restaurant, N.Y.C. – Thursday 2nd January 1908

By 1932, the unemployment figure in America had risen to unparalleled levels and President Herbert Hoover was forced to admit to a congressional committee that no one, not even the federal government, really knew how many people were unemployed. Nevertheless, President Hoover, who at the time was seeking re-election, insisted that the underlying conditions of the American economy were sound and that no one has starved, and this phrase was incorporated into the title of Marsh’s p[ainting.

Reginald Marsh at work (1954)

In the 1940s Reginald, Marsh became an important teacher at the Art Students League of New York, whilst carrying on his work as a magazine illustrator for well-known magazines such as Life, Fortune, and Esquire. Sadly for Marsh his style of art became less appreciated and this affected him. Shortly before his death, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Graphic Arts by the American Academy and the National Institute for Arts and Letters. His disillusionment at the lack of appreciation of his art at that time became apparent when he received the award and said that I am not a man of this century.

Reginald Marsh died from a heart attack in Dorset, Vermont, on July 3rd, 1954, aged 56.

As usual, a great deal of information came from various Wikipedia sites but most came from the excellent sites below:

ART CONTRARIAN
incollect
ART HISTORY
QUEST ROYAL FINE ARTS
INSIDE THE APPLE

Gertrude Horsford Fiske

Gertrude Horsford Fiske

The artist I am looking at today is the nineteenth century American painter Gertrude Horsford Fiske who was famous for painting people, still life, and landscapes. Gertrude Fiske was born into an established New England family that can trace their family history way back to the Governor of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford an English Puritan Separatist originally from the West Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England who moved to Leiden in Holland in order to escape persecution from King James I of England, and then emigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. Gertrude, born in 1879, was one of six children born into a wealthy Boston family, her father being an eminent lawyer. She was educated in Boston’s best schools but during her teenage years she showed little interest in art as much of her free time was taken up with horse riding and golf. She proved herself to be an extremely skilled professional golfer.

Woman in White by Gertrude Fiske

It was not until she was twenty-five years old that she took an interest in art and began to look at the possibility that her future could be as a professional artist. In 1904 she enrolled on a seven-year course at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (now the art school of Tufts University), where her tutors included Edmund C. Tarbell, an American Impressionist painter, Frank Weston Benson, known for his Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolours and etchings and Philip Leslie Hale, an American Impressionist artist, writer and teacher.

Charles Herbert Woodbury by John Singer Sargent (1921)


During the summers, she attended Charles Herbert Woodbury’s art classes in Ogunquit, Maine. Ogunquit was originally populated by The Abenaki indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States and in their language the name of the town means “beautiful place by the sea”. In the early years of the twentieth century, it had become a popular destination for artists who wanted to capture the landscape’s natural elegance.

Ogunquit Beach by Gertrude Fiske (1914)

Ogunquit Beach by Gertrude Fiske

Soon, a community of artists formed the Ogunquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting which was founded by Charles Woodbury. Woodbury was a great influence on Gertrude Fiske’s informative years and he encouraged her and her fellow students to “paint in verbs, not in nouns.” By this, he meant that his students should enter into the life of the things they painted. He wanted to inspire them to fresh, “active” seeing and expressive creativity and told them that in seascapes they did not draw what they saw of the wave – you draw what it does. The phrase implied that painting is perceptual and that realism is evidence of the felt and the seen and not just of what’s visible.

Bettina by Gertrude Fiske (1925)

Because of the family’s wealth, Fiske had the financial freedom to pursue her painting career and after she completed her time at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1912, she spent time in France, continually sketching as she travelled. Her artistic style was a blend of the light-filled, classical, portrait style she had mastered under Edmund C. Tarbell with the freer, inventive, and colour-rich landscapes she had learnt during her summers spent at the Ogunquit school.

Nude in Interior by Gertrude Fiske (c.1922)

Gertrude Fiske painted a number of works featuring nudes. Her painting entitled Nude in Interior was completed around 1922. The subject of this work, the nude female, is shown posing for the artist, the image of whom we see in the background, reflected in a mirror. Gertrude often used this inclusion as a means to put over to the viewers the importance of the painter.

Bird of Paradise, Sleeping Nude by Gertrude Fiske (c.1916)

Another controversial nude work was her 1916 painting entitled Bird of Paradise, Sleeping Nude which received mixed reviews. It was praised for its honesty but more conservative critics said it was a scandalous depiction. Before us we see a foreshortened figure of a naked woman who appears supremely relaxed and unaware of us, the viewers. It is simply an honest depiction of a real woman.

Zinnias by Gertrude Fiske (c.1920)

Gertrude returned to America but tragedy struck her family with the deaths of a sister, brother and mother around the time that the First World War was raging in Europe. Fiske then had to care for her aging father. However, despite the tragic losses and her new role as a carer she continued to be a prolific and much-admired painter. She kept a studio in Boston as well as at her family’s longtime home, Stadhaugh, in the town of Weston, fifteen miles west of Boston. It was at Stadhaugh that she worked in her studio which was located on the top floor of a converted barn. It had a picturesque setting overlooking woods and this vista served as the backdrop for several of her works.

By the Pond by Gertrude Fiske (c.1916)

In 1914, she, along with prominent painters of the day, including Edmund Tarbell, William Paxton and Frank Benson, helped create the Guild of Boston Artists. Its mission was to promote both emerging and established artists who lived in the region. The Guild developed a reputation for excellence in quality and presentation. Later, in 1917, Gertrude was part of setting up the Boston Society of Etchers and in 1918 Fiske became a member of the National Association of Women Artists.

Strollers by Gertrude Fiske (c.1926)

After the end of the First World War, America staged a rapidly growing industrial way of life and along with waves of immigration in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, elements of a new national consciousness arose in the United States. It was considered to be part of the colonial revival, which found expression in architecture, decorative arts, paintings, and all types of material life which represented an effort to regain a sense of an earlier time in America. Boston was in the forefront of colonial revivalism, and it was the Boston School of Painting, led by Edmund C. Tarbell, that is closely identified with the movement. Gertrude Fiske, who had spent seven years there as a full-time student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was trained in this artistic dream of the future.

Wells, Maine by Gertrude Fiske


However Fiske was an independently minded and instead of blindly following social convention and the strong direction proposed by the Boston school with its more genteel mannerisms, she ploughed her own furrow and in her landscape depictions instead of removing signs of industry and technology from her work, she made a conscious decision to include them. A good example of this can be seen in her painting entitled Wells, Maine, in which she has retained depictions of a line of utility poles, with a secondary electrical line running across the painting. Her composition with utility poles set against the background of a seascape demonstrates the artist’s interest in juxtaposing signs of modernity with scenes more traditionally considered beautiful.

Portsmouth Burying Ground by Gertrude Fiske (c.1925)

Another example of Fiske’s urban landscape work is one she completed around 1932 entitled Portsmouth Burying Ground which depicts Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s oldest cemetery, known as the Point of Graves, which is situated on the banks of the Piscataqua River in the south end of town. This small historic cemetery dating to the 17th century was the final resting place for many of Portsmouth’s prominent residents. It is the oldest known surviving cemetery in Portsmouth, and one of the oldest in the state, which has about 125 gravestones. Whereas many landscape painters would have spent time amidst the beauty of the countryside Gertrude has chosen this discordant, working waterfront to position her easel to take in the surrounding land. Fiske confounded viewers of this work when she depicted the bright red gasometers and the Sheafe warehouse as a backdrop to the ancient burial ground.

Portrait of William by Gertrude Fiske (1930)

One of her best-known figurative works was one Gertrude completed in 1930 entitled Portrait of William which she exhibited at both the Boston Art Club’s Annual Winter Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting and at the National Academy of Design’s 105th Annual Exhibition. It is part figurative and part an interior depiction which was a popular concept favoured by many of the early Boston School teachers and yet she put her own mark on the composition by her use of colours, such as the juxtaposition of the green of the fabric on the pillows with the dotted Swiss cotton of the woman’s purple dress. She also adopts an unusual placement of figures and objects in the work.

The Carpenter by Gertrude Fiske (1922)

Gertrude Fiske was appointed as the first woman ever to the Massachusetts State Art Commission in January 1930. She was also the the founder of the Concord Art Association. In an article in January 1930’s Boston Globe it was written that she had always had a strong artistic individuality of her own, and there is a note of personal distinction in all of her work—a virile note.

Fiske died in 1961 in Weston, Massachusetts aged 82.

Jean-Jacques Henner

In my previous blog regarding the Dutch painter Thérèse Schwartze I mentioned that one of her early art tutors was Jean-Jacques Henner, the French painter famed for his portraiture.  Today I am going to focus on his life and his many artworks.

Jean-Jacques Henner

Henner was born on March 5th 1829 at the Alsatian town of Bernwiller.  Henner came from a family of Alsatian farmers who had settled in Bernwiller in the Haut-Rhin. He was the youngest of six siblings of George Guillaume Polycarpe Henner and Madeleine Henner (née Wadel).  He had two older sisters, Maria Anne and Madeleine and three older brothers, Séraphin, Grégoire and Ignace. He grew up in this farming community, but despite their modest financial situation, his parents sent him to the College of Altkirch where he studied drawing. His teacher was Charles Goutzwiller who noticed his rapid progress and encouraged him to move to Strasbourg and study at the studio of Gabriel-Christophe Guérin. His artistic studies continued when he enroled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris as a pupil of Michel-Martin Drolling,  a neoclassic French painter noted especially as a history painter and portraitist. In 1851 he was tutored by another French artist, François-Édouard Picot, famed for his mythological, religious and historical paintings.   

Adam and Eve find the Body of Abel by Jean-Jacques Henner (1858)

In 1848, he entered the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and in 1858 after two failed attempts he won the coveted Grand Prix de Rome award, which was a French scholarship for arts students.  His submission was his painting entitled Adam and Eve find the Body of Abel.  The prize for the winner was a bursary that allowed them to stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, for three to five years at the expense of the state. The painting can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay.

Mountains on the Outskirts of Rome by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1861)

During his five-year stay in Rome, he was guided by Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin, a French Neoclassical painter.  Like many artists, Henner was captivated by Italy and spent many hours in museums reproducing the works of the painters that he respected. He also had plenty of time during his five-year stay to travel around the country, visiting Florence, Venice and Naples in which time he completed a number of small landscape paintings.  His works at that time showed his appreciation of past masters and it was Titian and Correggio who influenced him the most. In 1864 Henner returned to Paris and brought back copies of works by masters and a number of luminous landscapes.

Rome from the terrace of the Villa Medici by Jean-Jacques Henner (1860)

During those five years in Rome Henner painted this work at the Villa Medici where he stayed between 1859 and 1864. This is not simply a view of the Eternal City as observed from the villa. Once he had painted the garden, Henner then populated the terrace with groups of what he believed were “typical” characters, which he had often seen in real life and are simply identifiable by their clothes, monks, peasants, and elegant ladies. All are depicted in front of the classical panorama of the city, in which one can see the silhouette of Saint Peter’s Basilica in the background.

Masure dans la campagne de Rome (Dilapiated House in the Countryside of Rome) by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1863)

La Chaste Suzanne by Jean-Jacques Henner (1864)

Henner had his painting Bather Asleep exhibited at the Salon in 1863 and at the following year’s Salon his painting La Chaste Suzanne was exhibited. The Biblical episode depicting Suzanne bathing was a popular one for painters and it was above all an opportunity for various artists to paint a beautiful nude. Jean-Jacques Henner sent back his version to the French Academy which he completed whilst in his last year of his residence at the Villa Medici in Rome. For Henner, this was a compulsory exercise, supposed to demonstrate the student’s progress and their skill in execution, and for the Academy to see if their prize winner was advancing artistically.

Sacred Love and Profane Love by Titian (1514)

Henner almost certainly took his inspiration from respected examples left by the great masters’ depiction of nudes which he had seen whilst in the Italian capital. It is thought that Henner was influenced Titian’s 1514 painting entitled Sacred Love and Profane Love which was at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Henner’s work was not well-received and was harshly criticised for the heaviness and lack of graciousness in the model’s body. It was also criticised for the artificiality of the subject which although being put forward as a history/biblical painting offered little more than a depiction of a bather. However the propensity of ridding any narrative self-justification in painting the nude, and so giving it as a subject in itself, was becoming more common in the work of many contemporary artists, such as Courbet.

Séraphin Henner (brother) by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1881)

Grégoir Henner (brother) by Jean-Jacques Henner (1889)

While a student in Paris Henner was particularly interested in portraiture, and during his frequent visits home to Alsace he would complete many portraits of his family as well as local dignitaries and scenes of Alsatian peasant life.

Eugénie and Jules Henner by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1865)

Eugénie and Jules were two of the three children of his brother, Séraphin and his wife, Madeleine. Henner was very close to his nephew and niece and he paid for violin lessons for Jules and piano lessons for Eugenie when they were little. Henner had no children of his own, and on his death, he bequeathed them all that he possessed. Here, Eugénie and Jules are depicted together in their childhood.

Paul Henner by Jean-Jacques Henner (before 1867)

A rather sad portrait. Paul Henner was the third child of Séraphin and Madeleine Henner. He was born in 1860, but sadly died seven years later.

Byblis by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1870)

In 1864 Henner returned to France and exhibited with great success at the Paris Salon between 1865 and 1903. During his early days back in France his works were of quasi-mythological subjects, such as his 1867 work entitled Byblis, which was exhibited at the 1867 Salon.

Jean-Jacques Henner in his Paris studio at 11 place Pigalle

Jean-Jacques Henner lived in rue La Bruyère and his studio was at 11 place Pigalle, where he lived from 1867.

L’Alsace. Elle Attend (Alsace, She Waits) by Jean-Jacques Henner (1871)

Jean-Jacques Henner’s birthplace was the region of Alsace and this north-east area of France borders Germany. With the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Alsace and northern Lorraine were annexed to the new German Empire. At the conclusion of the First World War, the defeat of Germany, and the Treaty of Versailles, Alsace once again came under French control. In 1940, during the Second World War Alsace–Lorraine was occupied by Germany during the Second World War. Although it was never formally annexed, Alsace–Lorraine was incorporated into the Greater German Reich. With the defeat of Germany in 1945 Alsace returned to French rule. Henner’s 1871 painting entitled L’Alsace. Elle Attend had political overtones. It depicts a young Alsatian woman in mourning and is a political comment on the German annexation of the province after the Franco-Prussian War. The patriotic image was very popular and achieved a wide circulation when it was engraved by Léopold Flameng.
L’Alsace. Elle Attend meaning Alsace, she awaits, was commissioned on the initiative of Eugénie Kestner, a member of the Thann industrial family from Alsace. On completion it was given Léon Gambetta, a French lawyer and republican politician, who was one of the fiercest opponents of the relinquishment of the Alsace-Lorraine region to the new German Empire following the war of 1870. Following the defeat of France by the Prussian armies a sense of fervent and heightened patriotism followed. Henner’s painting quickly became looked upon as a symbol of Alsace’s suffering, a pain shared by the painter who was very attached to the region of his birth. The painting depicts a young Alsatian woman in mourning, unassuming but gracious.

Donna sul divano nero (Woman on Black Divan) by Jean-Jacques Henner (1869)

At that time, Henner had assumed a naturalistic style which can be seen in his painting entitled Woman on a Black Divan, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1869 and now is housed at the Mulhouse, Musée des Beaux-Arts. A smaller version of this painting also included a rosette in the red, white and blue colours of France, pinned onto the traditional black Alsatian bow, gives the painting its patriotic significance without being pompous or anecdotal.

Magdalene in the Desert by Jean-Jacques Henner (1874)

After 1870 Henner’s entire work became a deliberation on the theme of death in various appearances. There were the depictions of Mary Magdalene in what became known as the Magdalene Series, such as Magdalene in the Desert, which was exhibited at the 1874 Salon, and Magdalene Weeping, which he completed in 1885.

Die Magadalena by Jean-Jacques Henner (Exhibited at the 1878 Salon)

La Magdaleine by Jean-Jacques Henner

Henner complted many more Magdalene paintings.

The Dead Christ by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1884)

Jesus at the Tomb by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1879)

There was also a number of works in Henner’s Dead Christ series with paintings such as Jesus at the Tomb, which was exhibited at the 1879 Salon and is now part of the Musée d’Orsay collection and the painting entitled Dead Christ which was exhibited at the 1884 Salon and now hangs at the Musée Beaux-Arts in Lille.

Portrait of Madame Laura Leroux by Jean-Jacques Henner

Jean-Jacques Henner will best be remembered for his portraiture which would provide him with financial stability. During his lifetime he completed many portraits of his family and famous people like his Portrait of Madame Laura Leroux. Laura Leroux-Revault was a French artist and painter. Her first teacher was her father, the painter Louis Hector Leroux and she later trained at the Académie Julian art school in Paris. She also trained under Jules Lefebvre and in Jean-Jacques Henner’s studio. The two artists were friends of her father.

Portrait of Jean-Gaspard-Félix Laché Ravaisson-Mollien by Jean-Jacques Henner (1889)

Another famous person to be immortalised by Henner was Jean-Gaspard-Félix Laché Ravaisson-Mollien, a French philosopher, said to be France’s most influential philosopher in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The Reader by Jean-Jacques Henner

La comtesse Kessler by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1886)

Henner’s love of portraying nudes in historical or mythological settings was not his only love. He had a passion for the colour red and of portraying women with red hair !

Woman in Red by Jean-Jacques Henner

Les Naïades by Jean-Jacques Henner (1861). Painted for the Soyers’ dining room, 43 rue de Fauborg Saint-Honoré. Paris.

Alsatian Girl by Jean-Jacques Henner

L’Ecoliere by Jean-Jacques Henner

Over the years Henner tutored many aspiring painters. Between 1874 and 1889 he taught at what was termed “the studio of the ladies”, which he organized with Carolus-Duran, during the time when women were not allowed entry to the École des Beaux-Arts. Some of these students also served as his models such as Dorothy Tennant, Suzanne Valadon and Laura Leroux-Revault, daughter of his close friend Hector Leroux; Henner’s full-length portrait of Laura Leroux (shown earlier) is now at the Musée d’Orsay having been shown at the Paris Salon of 1898 and purchased by the French State.

Jean-Jacques Henner (Photograph by Nadar c.1900)

Jean-Jacques Henner died in Paris on July 23rd 1905 aged 76.

Thérèse Schwartze

Thérèse Schwartze – self portrait (1917)

Therese Schwartze was a Dutch 20th century painter.  Such was a hugely talented portrait artist that was one of only a few females who had been honoured by receiving an invitation to contribute her self-portrait to the hall of painters at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  This genius of portraiture completed around a thousand works during her forty-year career, which means that she completed more than twenty paintings a year. Because many of her portraits were created to be treasured by family members, most of her work has remained in private collections.  About one hundred and fifteen of her paintings are in public collections in the Netherlands, and twelve are part of foreign public collections, which leaves the locations of nearly four hundred paintings still unknown. She became a millionaire in the process. Schwartze also established an international reputation, with countless exhibitions and commissions throughout Europe and the United States. 

Self Portrait by Johan Georg Schwartze

Thérèse was born on December 20th 1852 in Amsterdam.  She was the daughter of Johan Georg Schwartze and Maria Elisabeth Therese Herrmann.  She was one of five children and had four sisters including Georgine, a sculptor, Clara Theresia, a painter and one brother, George Washington Schwartze, also a painter. 

Portrait of Thérèse aged 16 by her father, Johan Georg Schwartze (1869)

Her father was a well-respected portrait painter and it was he who provided Thérèse with her first artistic training.   In 1869 her father completed a portrait of his daughter, Thérèse.

Three girls of the orphanage in Amsterdam by Thérèse Schwartze (1885)

At that time, there was the perception that teaching girls and young ladies to paint was seen simply as a part of a cultured upbringing rather than a profession for earning money which was viewed as the role of the man. But for Johann Schwartze he couldn’t care less about such conventions. He trained his daughter in painting and drawing from a very young age and intended that Thérèse would become his worthy successor. She started her professional career at the age of sixteen, working in her father’s studio which she eventually took over when she was twenty-one after his death in 1874. Schwartze wrote to her father in a birthday letter, writing:

“…I will apply myself more to everything, so as, with God’s blessing, to be able to earn my living by painting…”

Because the art academies were not yet open to girls, her father sent her to Munich for expensive private lessons for a year under Gabriel Max and Franz von Lenbach who was regarded as the leading German portraitist of his era. In 1879 she moved to Paris and continued her artistic studies under Jean-Jacques Henner, the Alsace-born portrait artist.

The Vasari Corridor at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Thérèse Schwartze’s portraits are truly remarkable and she was one of the few women painters, who had been honoured by an invitation to contribute her self-portrait to the Hall of Painters, the Vasari Corridor, at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Uffizi collection is one of the most complete in all Europe, first started by Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici in the 17th century.  The passageway was designed and built in 1564 by Giorgio Vasari to allow Cosimo de’ Medici and other Florentine elite to walk safely through the city, from the seat of power in Palazzo Vecchio to their private residence, Palazzo Pitti.   The passageway used to contain over a thousand paintings, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, including the largest and very important collection of self-portraits by some of the most famous masters of painting from the 16th to the 20th century, including Filippo Lippi, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Delacroix and Ensor.   While the Medici family bought the first paintings, after the collection started, the family started receiving the paintings as donations from the painters themselves. This has continued over the centuries and there were more paintings in the collection that did not have space to be exposed.  Things have now changed as from 1973 to 2016, some of the self-portraits which had been hung in the Vasari Corridor, were, however only visible during restricted and occasional visits because of the confined space, which, also lacked air conditioning and adequate lighting.  Most of the self portraits have been moved to other rooms at the Uffizi.

Self-portrait with Palette by Thérèse Scwartze (1888)

Only a handful of female portrait painters were active professionally in the 19th century, one of whom was Schwartze, who was nicknamed the ‘Queen of Dutch Painting’.  In the self portrait she contributed to the Uffizi entitled Self-portrait with Palette, she depicts herself staring out at us with a haunted look, paintbrush in one hand with the other looped through a paint-laden palette. The background of this canvas is bare, and our eyes are drawn to the painter’s tools: eyes, brush, pigments, and a rag at the ready. The painting was exhibited at the 1888 Paris Salon before being given to the Uffizi gallery in Florence.

Sir Joshua Reynolds self portrait (c.1748)

Thérèse’s depiction of herself in her self-portrait could well have been inspired by Sir Joshua Reynold’s self-portrait which shows him similarly with his hand raised shielding his eyes from the bright light.

Young Italian Woman, with ‘Puck’ the Dog by Thérèse Schwartze, c. 1885)

Whilst living and studying in Paris, Thérèse completed her painting, Young Italian Woman, with ‘Puck’ the Dog.  The model she used for this painting was known as Fortunata.  She was one of the many professional Italian models working in Paris in the late 19th century. Schwartze started this painting in 1884 and exhibited it a year later in Amsterdam, having added the dog in the meanwhile.

According the 2021 biography by Cora Hollema and Pieternel Kouwenhoven entitled Thérèse Schwartze: painting for a living. Thérèse’s career took off at a time when a new, wealthy Dutch class wanted to flaunt its status and what better way to achieve this than with a flattering portrait. Her biographer wrote:

“She was in demand because she produced a new elegant, un-Dutch, extravagant, flattering style of portraiture which was in demand by the upcoming ‘new money…….. The new entrepreneurs and industrialists in the second half of the 19th century…”

Portrait of Aleida Gijsberta van Ogtrop-Hanlo with her five children by Thérèse Schwartze (1906).

Schwartze was one of the leading society painters in the Netherlands around 1900. Her clientele came from the nobility and the bourgeois elite in Amsterdam and The Hague. Members of the royal family also sat for her.   A good example of her excellent portraiture is her 1906 group portrait of Aleida Gijsberta van Ogtrop-Hanlo with her five children.  In this work, Aleida van Ogtrop-Hanlo is surrounded by, from left to right: Adriënne (Zus), Pieter (Piet), Maria (Misel), Eugènie (Toetie) and Adèle (Kees). The youngest and sixth child, Joanna (Jennie) was not yet born.  Her husband was a wealthy stockbroker and founder of Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw. The portrait of his wife and children has a dreamy quality, with rich clothing and poetic colours. It gives an excellent impression of the self-image of the Dutch upper classes at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Stylistically Thérèse Schwartze followed in the footsteps of the famous eighteenth-century English portrait painter, Thomas Gainsborough. 

 Portrait of the six Boissevain daughters by Thérèse Schwartze (1916)

An equally great group portrait by Thérèse Schwartze was her Boissevinfamily portrait but this a more decorous depiction.  It is entitled Portrait of the Six Boissevain Daughters and she completed it in 1916. According to Schwartze’s biography by art historian, Cora Hollema, this difference in style was not due to a development of the artist, but more to do with the wishes of her client. Mr. & Mrs. Boissevain, who were wealthy members of the Amsterdam upper class had ten children, six daughters and four sons. They were aware of the portrait of Aleida and her children by Thérèse but believed it to be far too modern.   So, when they commissioned Thérèse to paint the portrait in 1916 they asked her to produce a more time-honoured portrait of their daughters. Thérèse was now the breadwinner of the family and so sensibly adapted her style according to her client’s demands bearing in mind the adage: The client was king.

Thérèse Schwartze in her studio, Prinsengracht 1021, Amsterdam, 1903.

Thérèse’s great success as an artist became a point of reference for the young Dutch women painters who founded the Amsterdamse Joffers, a group of women artists who met weekly in Amsterdam at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. These “ladies of Amsterdam” met weekly, often at the Schwartze home, to update the glorious Dutch tradition of painting based on French Impressionist innovations.  They supported each other in their professional careers. Most of them were students of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten and belonged to the movement of the Amsterdam Impressionists.

Woman wearing a hat (Portrait of Theresia Ansingh (Sorella)), by Thérèse Schwartze (after 1906).

Besides Schwartze’s commissioned portraits, which made her very wealthy, she still had time to complete portraits of her friends and relatives which were not commissioned and were often given as gifts.  A fine example in this regard is the portrait of Schwartze’s niece, Theresia Ansingh, who later became a member of the Amsterdam school of female painters known as The Joffers, many of them were inspired by Schwartze’s professional success. 

Maria Catharina Ursula (Mia) Cuypers by Thérèse Schwartze (1886)

One of my favourite portraits by Schwartze was her fascinating portrait of one of her friends, which is an amalgam of formal and informal portraiture and is entitled Portrait of Mia Cuypers.  She was a daughter of the architect Pierre Cuypers, who designed such famous buildings as the Rijksmuseum and Amsterdam’s Central Station. In 1883, she fell in love, to the dismay of her family and the astonishment of “high society,” with the Chinese-British merchant Frederick Taen-Err Toung from Berlin, who was in Amsterdam selling his Oriental merchandise at the International Colonial Exposition. Mia managed to overcome the social uproar and married Toung in 1886.  Being a close acquaintance of the Cuypers family, Thérèse was commissioned by the groom-to-be to make this wedding portrait, which is said to have only taken her one and a half days to complete.  There are Chinese characters in the upper left corner, which are not clear in my attached photo, which mean “rice field,” “longevity”/”delighted,” and “coming together.”

Portrait of Queen Emma by Thérèsa Schwartze (ca. 1881)

Soon after, she received a commission for a portrait of Queen Emma and the little princess Wilhelmina, who was born in 1880. In the single portrait of the young queen, she is dressed in dark colours against a neutral background, all is dark except her face. In this painting, one can already see the fine art of portraiture and the depicting of differing textures that Thérèse fully mastered. The fur stole, the lace cap on her head, as well as the brocade of the queen’s robe.

Portrait of Princess Juliana by Thérèsa Schwartze (1910)

Thérèse’s worked with the royal family of the Netherlands through a period of thirty-five years and in all they gave her six commissions that contributed greatly towards her fame and wealth. Most royal portraits were of Queen Wilhelmina.

Portrait of Queen Wilhelmina by Thérèse Schwartze (1910)

The royal court had a habit of paying a little more than the average client, which meant that 1910 was a particularly profitable year for Thérèse.  She painted so many members of the royal family that she was almost deemed a member of their household.

Portrait of Anton van Duyl by Thérèse Schwartze

In 1906, Thérèse Schwartze married the editor-in-chief of the Algemeen Handelsblad, Anton van Duyl. Twelve years after they married, Thérèse’s husband died on July 22nd 1918.  It was double blow for Thérèse as she herself had been very ill at the time and five months later, on December 23rd 1918, three days after her sixty-seventh birthday, she died in Amsterdam.  

Grave of Thérèse Schwartze at the Nieuwe Ooster cemetery, Amsterdam.

She was buried at Zorgvlied cemetery in Amsterdam but was later reburied at the Nieuwe Ooster cemetery in Amsterdam, where her sister created a memorial to her, modelled after her death mask, which is now a rijksmonument.

Maria Slavona

Maria Slavona was born Marie Dorette Caroline Schorer on March 14th 1865 in the north German town of Lübeck.  She was the daughter of the pharmacist Theodor Schorer and his wife Ottilie, (née Steger).  Her father owned the Löwenapotheke on the corner of Königstraße, and Johannisstraße in the town, which is now known as Dr.-Julius-Leber-Straße.  She was the youngest of five children and had two brothers and two sisters.  As a child, she was brought up in a happy household in the old patrician house in Johannisstraße. Her parents’ home was a great meeting place for writers, artists and intellectuals. For Maria life at home was a liberal and cultural experience and, at an early age, she soon developed an intense interest in drawing and painting. Her parents encouraged her love of all things artistic and they hopde that one day she would become a painter and her mother and father supported this future road for her. 

Red Gardener’s House with Gardener (Early Spring, Kahlhorst near Lübeck) by Maria Slavona

In 1882, when she was seventeen years of age, Maria went to Berlin to study art.  This was an unorthodox move as accordance with the social conventions of the time, it was unseemly for a young, unmarried woman to leave her parents’ home and pursue an education, in her case. studying painting.  Her move to Berlin caused a scandal in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck.  However, since women in Germany were denied access to art academies, Maria Slavona attended the Eichler private painting school in Berlin and the Deutsches Gewerbe-Museum zu Berlin, (Royal Museum of Decorative Arts) which at the time had a teaching institute.  In 1887, aged twenty-two, she moved to the painting school of the Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen (Association of Women Artists and Friends of Art) in Berlin. It was an informal and free atmosphere, and the women here were allowed to conduct nude studies on living models.  A year later she enrolled at the painting school of the Münchner Künstlerinnenverein (Munich Association of Women Artists).

Self portrait by Maria Slavona (1887)

Her self-portrait, created in Berlin in 1887, shows the face of a 22-year-old, extremely pretty young woman, framed by tangled curls. With her head turned to the left, she fixes her gaze firmly on the viewer. Settling in this Bavarian city was fortuitous as the city of Munich had been, since 1850 onwards, deemed the most important centre for artistic creation and painting.  At this time, her most important patron and mentor was Ludwig Herterich, a German painter and art teacher, who in 1898 was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, where he taught many young artists including Maria Slavona.   He introduced Maria to French Impressionism. A painting style that would be influential for her later paintings.

In the Munich Ladies’ Academy: Käthe Kollwitz seated between Maria Slavona (front right) and Rosa Pfäffinger (lying in front right)

Maria loved her time in Munich and made many friends including a fellow aspiring young painter, Käthe Kollwitz, who was also studying art in Munich. During a return home to Lübeck, she met some Scandinavian artists, one of whom was Vilhelm Petersen and, as they became closer friends, they both decided to take assumed names for their artworks. He chose Willy Gretor and she became Maria Slavona. Along with friends Maria and Vilhelm visited Paris in 1890.  She recalled her arrival in the French capital:

“…In 1890, I came to Paris. This is where a new world opened up to me. The first visits to the Louvre almost numbed and overwhelmed me. But I was disappointed by the schools I saw, I didn’t like them. I decided to work alone and seek advice and judgment only in the circle of a few young like-minded friends, almost all Danes and Norwegians…”

Sommermorgen am Starnberger See by Maria Slavona

That same year, Maria gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Lilly, but her relationship with the father of the child, Petersen, was over.  She had at first looked upon him as a charismatic and educated man but he turned out to be a dubious art dealer, womanizer and bon vivant.  Worse still when their daughter Lilly was born Petersen had deserted Maria and she was left to bring up her daughter alone.

Alte Blumenfrau by Maria Slavona (1893)

In 1893, at her first exhibition at the Salon de Champ-de-Mars an annual event organized by the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.  Maria Slavona submitted her work, Alte Blumenfrau (Old Flower Woman). At this exhibition, ironically she identified herself under the male pseudonym “Carl-Maria Plavona”.  The painting depicts an old woman standing in frontal view, holding a large basket of white and yellow flowers in front of her body in her worn-out hands. Placed in front of a simple, ochre-coloured wall, the dark, poor clothing of the woman forms a strong contrast to the light background. The wrinkled face, framed by a headscarf, shows emotionless features. The tired eyes look firmly at the viewer.

St Jurgen-Gang in Lubeck by Maria Slavona (1902)

Maria Slavona who, around 1898 had met the Swiss art connoisseur and collector Otto Ackermann. Their friendship grew over the next two years and in 1900 they married. Maria’s daughter Lilly took the name Ackerman and later she became an actress under the name Lilly Ackermann. Otto Ackermann was a valuable asset in the introduction of French art into Germany in the early 20th Century.  Otto and Maria set up home in Paris and it soon became a central meeting place for Parisian bohemianism. Visiting artists such as Münch, Liebermann, Leistikow, along with literary giants and art lovers would often frequent their home and be made most welcome.  Maria, who had spent sixteen years in the French capital, had led a happy and artistically productive life. During this period, she had completed many paintings depicting landscapes, portraits, still life and interiors.

View from Studio Window by Maria Slavona (1899)

One of her favourite subjects was the view from the window of their home.  All of her work over those years established her reputation as a talented painter.

Houses on Montmartre, around 1900 by Maria Slavona

Häuser am Montmartre by Maria Slavona

In 1906 Maria and her family left Paris and returned to her old hometown of Lübeck.  During her stay in Lübeck she completed many paintings depicting the town and the surrounding areas.

 Villa entrance in Lübeck by Maria Slavona

Spring Thaw near Lubeck by Maria Slavona (1913)

Unfortunately, the bourgeois, art-hostile atmosphere that pervaded the old Hanseatic city had a negative effect on her husband’s art trade business and sadly this gave them no alternative but leave Lübeck in 1909, and move to Berlin.  It was in the German city of Berlin that she was once again artistically active and from 1913 she became a member of the Berlin Secession.  This was one of the last art Movements of 19th century German art.  It was a breakaway group of artists, who in 1898 ‘seceded’ from the city’s arts establishment, led by the eminent painter Max Liebermann.  It was a reaction to the Association of Berlin Artists, and the restrictions on contemporary art imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II.  Sixty-five artists “seceded,” demonstrating against the standards of academic or government-endorsed art.  The group established an independent exhibition society, in order to champion new forms of modern art – rather than continue to churn out the old-fashioned academic art favoured by the art establishment.

Bouquet of field flowers by Maria Slavona (c.1900)

Following the end of the First World War Maria’s health began to deteriorate.  Added to that with a decrease in the sale of her paintings, the financial circumstances of the family took a substantial dip.  To try and rectify both her health and cut back on their financial outgoings the family moved to the countryside village of Munsing in Upper Bavaria.  From that time on, Maria mainly created floral still life works. 

Self portrait by Maria Slavona (1910)

Maria Slavona died in Berlin on May 10th 1931 aged 66.  Unfortunately, a large part of her work was lost during the Second World War, and also, for many years, her remaining works were branded by the Nazi government as Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) in 1933 and it was mainly ignored outside of her hometown Lübeck. Slavona is now known and famous as a representative of German Impressionism. Although she was unable to build on the artistic successes of her Paris years in Berlin, she was one of the best-known painters of her time, along with Dora Hitz and Käthe Kollwitz.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of her death in 1981, the Hanseatic City of Lübeck honoured its once famous and forgotten citizen with a large exhibition in the St. Anne Museum.

Walker Art Gallery revisited.

The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool has one of the most significant and famous collection of artworks in the UK, which includes European Renaissance paintings, masterpieces by Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner and Stubbs, Pre-Raphaelite artworks by Rossetti and Millais, Impressionist works by Monet and Degas and contemporary works by Hockney, Wylie and the winners of the John Moores Painting Prize.   I have covered many of the Pre-Raphaelite works exibited here in previous blogs and following a visit I made to the gallery last week I have chosen a few more paintings which impressed me.

Lady in Black Furs by Pilade Bertieri (1912)

The first painting, I am showcasing is Lady in Black Furs, a work by the Italian painter Pilade Bertieri, which he completed around 1912.  Bertieri was born in Turin and exhibited in major cities in Italy, in New York and notably Manchester and Liverpool as well as Paris at the Salon from 1907 to 1931.  The painting depicts Bertieri’s wife Genevieve Wilson, the daughter of a wealthy New York socialite.  It was during a voyage in 1905 from Italy and America that they met and a year later they got married.  Bertieri said that he was first attracted to Genevieve when he saw seated on a deckchair.  For him, her graceful composure was just too much to resist and this depiction is a reconstruction of his first view of her but this time in a more fashionable chair.  The fact that she is wearing the very same furs, shoes and velvet and satin dress as she did aboard the ship in 1912 evokes memories for him of that first meeting.  At the time of the painting Genevieve was pregnant with their first child.

Fantine by Margaret Bernardine Hall (1886)

Margaret Bernadine Hall completed her painting entitled Fantine in 1886 and it depicts the character Fantine who was featured in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables.  Fantine was dismissed from her job because of her illegitimate child and was forced into the life of a sex worker in order for her and her daughter to survive.  In the depiction we see Fantine protectively watching over her sleeping daughter.

Margaret Bernadine Hall was an English painter, born in 1863 in Wavertree, Liverpool.  Her father was Bernard Hall, a merchant, local politician and philanthropist, who was elected Mayor of Liverpool in 1879. Her mother was Margaret Calrow from Preston, who was Bernard Hall’s second wife. Margaret was their second child, and their oldest daughter.  In 1882 the family moved to London but at the end of that year nineteen-year-old Margaret went to live and study in Paris. Between 1888 and 1894 she travelled extensively to countries including Japan, China, Australia, North America, and North Africa, returning to live in the French capital in 1894. She moved back to England in 1907, where she died three years later.

River Scene with a Ferry Boat by Salomon van Riysdael (1650)

One of my favourite landscape painters is Salomon van Ruysdael and in his painting entitled River Scene with a Ferry Boat we see the kind of work he produced for the art-loving public. At this time, artists had mostly depicted religious subjects in their paintings and the Catholic Church used to be most artists’ best client, as they ordered altarpieces and other artworks to decorate churches and sacred places, but this came to an end with the Reformation as many Protestants refused to allow the presence of religious paintings or sculptures in churches.  This led to a great crisis for artists in Northwestern European countries as artists had only a few ways left to make money: painting portraits and illustrating books but there was also a revival of landscape paintings.  As well as the ever popular genre scenes, people began to buy landscape paintings to decorate their homes. Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael, Salomon’s nephew, is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting became highly popular. Jacob was best known for his atmospheric river scenes based upon the countryside around the city of Haarlem where he lived. He was also a merchant who dealt in the blue dye that was used in Haarlem’s famous cloth bleaching factories.

The Walker Art Gallery houses Salomon’s painting entitled River Scene with a Ferry Boat and we see a ferry crossing the river laden with people, livestock and even a small cart.  These ferries were an essential feature of the watery Dutch countryside, and a popular subject with landscape painters such as the Ruysdael family. This work is typical of much 17th-century Dutch landscape painting: naturalistic in its clear light and cloudy, rain-washed sky, but at the same time carefully organised to achieve a balanced composition. This work despite looking as though it was painted en plein air was not painted outdoors.  It is an idealised depiction and probably does not represent any particular place but is an amalgam of various details and features from a number of different places juxtaposed to form this vista.  Close to the riverbank we see a smaller boat with busy pulling in a fishing net. On the bank is a barn in which workers are salting fish and putting them into barrels. On top of the barn is a large dovecot. In a way the painting is a ‘foodscape’ as well as a landscape, highlighting what nature has to offer.  The Dutch patrons liked this kind of narrative painting.

The Fortune Teller by Jan Steen (1663)

One of the greatest Dutch genre painters was Jan Steen. In Holland he ranks next to Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals in popularity.  He is best known for his humorous genre scenes, warm hearted and animated works in which he treats life as a vast comedy of manners.  Steen was born in Leiden and is said to have studied with Adriaen van Ostade in Haarlem and Jan van Goyen (who became his father-in-law) in The Hague. He worked in various towns – Leiden, The Hague, Delft, Warmond, and Haarlem and in 1672 he opened a tavern in Leiden.  In his painting The Fortune Teller we see a young woman sitting by her spinning wheel having her fortune told.  One interpretation of this depiction is that she is a sex worker, the old, black hooded lady is the brothel keeper and the soldiers in the background are her clients.  Fortune-telling was strongly associated with deceit, and therefore frowned upon in the seventeenth century.

The Epte in Giverny by Claude Monet (1864)

Modiste Decorating a Hat by Edgar Degas. (c.1895)

My next two offerings, The Epte in Giverny, by Monet and Modiste Decorating a Hat by Degas, are new arrivals at the gallery thanks to the beloved taxman. They have been acquired by National Museums Liverpool through the Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme which allows people, who have Inheritance tax bills to pay, to transfer important works of art and heritage objects into public ownership which are then allocated to museums, archives or libraries for people to enjoy.  Both the Monet and Degas artworks come from the collection of Mary Elliot-Blake and have been owned by the Montagu family by descent. Due to the family’s connection to Liverpool, the paintings were allocated to the Walker Art Gallery.

Monet completed the painting, The Epte in Giverny, in 1884, and it depicts the fast-flowing Epte river, which rises in Seine-Maritime in the Pays de Bray, near Forges-les-Eaux and empties into the Seine not far from Giverny where the artist painted his famous water lily series.

The second work is by Degas’ entitled Modiste Decorating a Hat and depicts a milliner adjusting a hat in a shop window.

Farm in Sussex by Duncan Grant (1934)

The 1934 painting, entitled Farm in Sussex, is a depiction of Charleston Farm at Firle in Sussex is by the artist Duncan Grant. The picture was painted in his studio over a period of several years. The first thing that strikes you about the depiction is the unusually bright colours he has used and this is due to Duncan Grant’s great interest in Fauvism, which was popular between 1905 and 1910. The Fauves (the Beasts) used bright, clashing colours and fierce brushstrokes to express feelings and emotions.  In 1909, Grant met Henri Matisse, who was a leading light of this group.

He also saw more of the groups work in Roger Fry’s Post-Impressionist exhibition in London in November 1910, Fry had organised the exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists at the Grafton Galleries, London. This exhibition was the first to prominently feature Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse, and Van Gogh in England and brought their art to the public.

Duncan Grant lived at Charleston Farm from 1916 with Vanessa Bell (neé Woolf), who was an artist and the sister of Virginia Woolf. They had met through the Bloomsbury Set, a London-based group of artists and writers who met regularly to discuss their work and ideas about modernism and art. Charleston Farm became a meeting place for the Bloomsbury Set outside of London.  The pair had moved to the countryside from London following the outbreak of World War I so that Grant could avoid conscription by working as a farm labourer. The couple each had their own studio at the farmhouse and decorated the entire building, including walls, fireplaces, door panels and furniture, with their paintings, fabrics and ceramics. They kept the house after the war and used it as a summer home. The painting highlights the bright colours that characterise Grant’s work. The painting was completed in 1934, the same year that Roger Fry died. Fry had been a close friend of both Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell and was a regular visitor to Charleston. The painting reflects Grant’s affection for the Farm and the people he associated with it

The Murder by Cezanne (c.1870)

The Murder is one of Cézanne’s early paintings which he completed around 1870.  It is a dark and highly melodramatic work which ably communicates the brutality of the act. In the depiction we see the murderer raising his hand and is about to give the final strike while his female conspirator forcefully holds down the rounded heavy-set body of the female victim whilst the fatal blow is struck.  Little can be made out of the figures; just the outline head and arms of the victim whose facial expression is contorted with pain.  The faces of her two assailants are blurred.  Cezanne was not interested with the identities of the murderers but the scene simply depicts the heinous act of anonymous violence.  The scene is made more frightening by the bleak surroundings and the dark sky overhead.  Close to the figures is a riverbank and we can deduce that the body of the dead woman will eventually be dumped into the dark waters.

Publicity Poster for Zola’s novel

The Murder was painted at a time when Cézanne was still influenced by the Old Masters such as Eugene Delacroix and Francisco Goya, and Diego Velazquez.  So after painting so many colourful landscapes why would he depict a brutal murder?  It is thought that Cezanne’s choice of depicting this brutal subject may have been inspired by Emile Zola’s novel Thérése Racquin which had been published in 1867, in which the heroine murders her husband. It was Zola’s third novel, though the first to earn wide fame. The novel’s adultery and murder were considered scandalous and famously described as “putrid” in a review in the newspaper Le Figaro. The painting’s subject could also be inspired by illustrations in the popular press.

A Street in Britanny by Stanhope Forbes (1881)

My final painting is A Street in Brittany by Stanhope Alexander Forbes which he completed in 1881.  It is a depiction of figures in a narrow street: women in white headgear known as coiffes and blue petticoats.  They are grouped around their cottages, some are seated on their knitting blue jerseys for their fishermen husbands.

Stanhope Forbes was born in Dublin, the son of Juliette de Guise Forbes, a French woman, and William Forbes, an English railway manager, who was later transferred to London. He was educated at Dulwich College, and he studied art under John Sparkes at Lambeth College of Art, who later taught at South Kensington School of Art. Forbes then studied at the private atelier of Léon Bonnat in Clichy, Paris from 1880 to 1882.  It was in the French capital that Forbes met up with fellow artist, Henry Herbert La Thangue, who had also attended Dulwich College, Lambeth School of Art and the Royal Academy.

In 1881 Forbes and La Thangue went to Cancale, a village in Brittany, at the western end of the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, fifteen kilometers east of Saint-Malo. It was here that Forbes began to paint en plein air and produced this painting. 

His biographer, Mrs. Lionel Birch in her 1906 book Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S. recalled the setting of this work:

“..One of the first results of the visit to Cancale was a composition of figures in a narrow street: women in white coiffes and blue petticoats, grouped round their cottages and seated on their doorsteps engaged in their everlasting occupation of knitting blue jerseys for their fisher husbands…”

The biographer continues:

“…It was a very simple motif, but painted with great care and conscientiousness, and with a close and searching attention to those truths of lighting and that clear out-of-door aspect which the painter sought to betray. It was interesting, too, as the first attempt Stanhope Forbes had made in what might be termed figure composition, if, indeed, a picture in which there is so little of arrangement in the grouping of the figures can be termed a composition. But it was, at any rate, a great step from simple portraiture, and its success — for it brought the young painter a very signal one — had the most marked influence in determining his future. Exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1881, it attracted favourable attention, and when, later on, it was sent to Liverpool, the Committee of the Walker Art Gallery decided to purchase it for their permanent collection…”

Forbes left France and returned to London and exhibited the works he had made in Brittany at the 1883 Royal Academy and Royal Hibernian Academy shows.  In 1884 he moved to Newlyn in Cornwall, and soon became a leading figure in the growing colony of artists.

I hope this blog will tempt you to visit the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. You will not be disappointed.