- Okay, I'm gonna get started. Thank you for joining us today for our book launch, "Tastemakers,
Collectors, and Patrons: Collecting American Art in
the Long Nineteenth Century" edited by Linda S. Ferber
and Margaret R. Laster. What you see for you is the
lineup for today's event. I'm just going to give you
brief housekeeping details, Zoom housekeeping details as they are. If you have questions for the panelists or the editors, please
use the Q and A function. At the end of the panel discussion,
we have 15 minutes, hopefully
for the audience Q and A and I will be running that at the end. But for now, I'm going to
turn it over to Linda Ferber for her introductory remarks. Thanks. - Good afternoon, and I
join in Samantha's welcome. This is a moment that
we've all waited for, for seems like a very long time, and we are very glad that you're here. I have the pleasure of
thanking the funders who have made this possible today and the fine volume that we're
here to speak about today. Joanne W
itty and Eugene Keilin Fund at the New York Community Trust,
the Billy Rose Foundation, Mary Ann and Reed Greenwood. And this is the team that
has made this possible by financial support. The Frick has been wonderfully
supportive of this project through trials and tribulations, as have the authors
with included, of course the lockdown during COVID, but particularly I wanna thank
Ian Wardropper, Stephen Bury, Anastasia Levadas, Louisa Wood Ruby, and my partners in crime on the book Samantha Deutc
h and my co-volume editor, Margaret Laster. And of course the authors,
four of whom are five of whom are, are here with us today. And others whom I hope
are among the audience. Nothing next, Samantha, this is the final volume
in the distinguished series published as a partnership between The Frick Collection
Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America and Pennsylvania State University press. And you see the covers here and we're particularly,
we are particularly happy that our book is th
e
final of the six volumes, but preceding it is Edward
Sullivan's terrific volume. "The Americas Revealed" so
that at the end of the day, while the, you know, the core of this, this corpus of volumes
is old master painting, which is the sweet spot
of course of the Frick. The Americas are
represented north and south by what are really, in a
way, particularly I think for the "Americas Revealed"
pioneering volumes in studying the phenomenon of collecting the arts of Colonial and Latin America. Okay
, may I have the
next please, Samantha? I wanna return to the cover and you always select of course, particularly resonant image
for the cover of a volume. And we have been, we have
not been exceptions to that. Could I have the painting? This is of course Asher
B. Durand's iconic work, "Kindred Spirits", a painting of 1849, nicely positioned almost
in the middle of the span of this very long span
of this, of our inquiry. And it epitomizes for me, and I hope as you unpack
this book for you, it re
ally epitomizes the complex world of American collecting. This is a period before the Civil War, but it's an early infrastructure that's really pictorialized here. What we see is, of course the
site is the Catskill clove, but the creative environment
in which this instant icon was created by Asher B.
Durand was New York City. And it does usually take a village, but more often a city to
support the infrastructure of collecting which is highly complex. Many of the players are represented here, whi
ch makes this a
marvelously resonant work. Of course, the artist
Thomas Cole is memorialized in this painting, which was the catalyst for which unfortunately was
his premature death in 1848. He stands with William Cullen Bryant, who is honored here
for his eulogy of Cole, but also for the fact that
he was a critical tastemaker. He was the publisher by then. He was a poet, but he was the publisher of the "New York Evening Post," one of the major champions in the press and criticism of the Hudson
River School, of the American School in general. Our patron here unseen is Jonathan Sturges an important collector who actually commissioned
this work from Asher B. Durand for William Cullen Bryant
because of his eulogy of Cole. And then the artist
himself, Asher B. Durand, whose initials are carved
in the tree in the lower, in the lower left is the artist who created the instant icon. So it's about collecting,
it's about the infrastructure of collecting and for me it's
also about legacy, which,
which I think launches the stories that are told in this volume, all of which have in some
way to do with issues of legacy in many different dimensions. So with that, I turn this
over to Margaret Laster, who will walk us through the
essays of a number of the of her own chapter and
those of the authors who could not be with us today, Margaret? - Oh, hello everybody. Can you hear me? I hope. I am delighted to be here
with you for the launch of "Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons." And I too wou
ld like
to express my gratitude to all who supported this publication, especially Samantha Deutch, the series editor and Linda
Ferber, my co-volume editor, as well as I wish to
thank all the authors. "Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons" explores the dynamic landscape
of American art collecting in the United States from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries what we have coined
"the long 19th century." Essays examine early patrons,
collectors and museum founders the impact of sectionali
sm, the Civil War and reform on American collecting and the innovative and
entrepreneurial spirit of artists, collectors, and dealers
at the turn of the century and beyond. Each section foregrounds different issues, underscoring the complexity
of the historical, cultural, and political environments
in which collections of American art were formed. And as a whole, the volume
traces the evolving taste and market for American
art in the United States. My role today is to
present a brief overview, a
snapshot of the publication focusing on the essays whose authors are not presenting today. When self-made merchant, Luman Reed died inteststate in
1836, the intact survival of his entire collection,
including his five parts series, "The Course of Empire," the central image of which you see here, was cast into doubt. If a collector's legacy can be
assessed in, at least in part by the eventual disposition
of what he or she collected, then Reed's untimely death
without a will left unresolved, whet
her his art holdings
would be kept together or dispersed. Not only were the individual
works of art themselves itinerant for periods of time, but the collection as a
whole faced the dire prospect of disillusion on more than one occasion. That Cole series still stands as one unit neither divided among disparate owners, nor lost to us entirely and remains with the
rest of Reed's holdings, today comprising one of the
oldest public collections of American art formed from
a single private repository
in the city of New York, if not the nation is itself a remarkable story. It is the end product of luck
and interlocking directorates among relatives,
collectors, artist friends and associates who aligned
and preserved the collection. Notably among this group
and granted agency, in my essay in the, for her
role in the preservation of his holdings is Reed's
wife, Mary Barker Reed. Her role in keeping the collection
together in the immediate aftermath of her husband's
death, I would argue, set the
stage for the founding
of the New York Gallery of the Fine Arts, a quasi-public gallery, the first in the city, as well
as a monument to Reed himself that housed the collection
starting in 1844. The New York Gallery would
ultimately prove unsustainable, an unsustainable effort to
create a public collection of American art, but it
would serve as an instrument to realize Reed's goal we believe of keeping his collection whole. An objective eventually made
permanent through deposit in 1858 securely
in the public sphere, at the New York Historical Society, the oldest museum in New York. And here is the real
find at the WAC sealed transfer document. We now move new ground,
a series of paintings from the 1860s that constituted a revisionist approach to
landscape and still life, grounded in the politics of the day. A belief that idealized
landscape representation that presented America as a new Eden disguised the corruption at the heart of the nation's democratic experiment. As author Sophie L
ynford reveals, the artist formed the
association for the Advancement of truth in art were
together with architects, scientists, and critics, and
saw themselves as reformers, frustrated with the Civil War as were the dedicated community of patrons also part of this association, who collected and commissioned their work and possess a steadfast belief
in John Ruskin's theories on the ethical relationship
between art, labor, and society. And central among their goals was for the abolition of slaver
y. And here we have a still life
painting by John William Hill and an image of the owner, the collector Gordon Lester Ford, a major Brooklyn abolitionist. Next we have Sarah Cash's essay, encouraging American genius, which recounts the collecting
career of D.C. Washington D.C. financier, philanthropist,
and southern sympathizer, William Wilson Corcoran,
who would cement his legacy with an eponymous gallery, the nation's first
purpose-built art museum to house his growing
collection of American a
nd European art. Construction on the museum had
halted during the Civil War when Corcoran decamped to Europe due to his political allegiances. And the US government
appropriated the building for the duration of the war until 1869 when Corcoran
liquidated his financial ties to the south and resumed
construction on his museum across diagonally across
from the White House. And here is the first museum building, which opened in 1874 to great fanfare. One paper noted it was a
benefaction to the whole
country, a gallery of fine arts to rival
the most famous collections in the world. However, in 2014, after
140 years in existence, the Corcoran Gallery and
school remains no longer, the collection was redistributed and much of it is now housed
at the National Gallery. Headlining the beginning of
our final section part three, we see that the Untermyer
Gardens Conservancy is still housed in Yonkers, New York. And Samuel Untermyer's
reputation as a New York attorney who left an undeniable mark
on
the early 20th century economic, political
and legislative affairs in the United States remains intact. However, the art collection
that Untermyer shown here with his wife, Minnie compiled, was never part of this
legacy, nor did he collect for posterity. Following his European counterparts, Untermyer saw provenance
as a form of cultural and premature and purchased American and European paintings from auctions of well-vetted collections. Nonetheless, as Barbara Gallati states, apart from the 1940
catalog accompanying, that accompanied the auction
of portions of his estate, there was little to hint at
the extent of his passion for collecting art other
than his having purchased the American ex-patriot's,
James McNeill Whistler's 1892 "Nocturne in Black and
Gold, The Falling Rocket" directly from the artist. The early decades of the 20th
century experienced a revival and demand for colonial portraiture, including presidential subjects. As we see in the private business office of gilded age
old master
collector Henry Clay Frick, as an art dealer remarked in 1928, the growing estimation of
Washington has reached a point that seems to make it necessary
for every man of large means to have a Stuart Washington
as a household decoration. Indeed Frick's, Stuart Washington is on the back cover of this volume. In his chapter, Caveat Emptor, Richard Saunders brings to
light the nefarious side of this trade in colonial portraiture, resulting in deceptive colonial
and federal style portraits
passing through the
hands of various dealers to dozens of unsuspecting institutions and private collectors
during these decades. Among the bad actors was Thomas B. Clarke, who had earlier profited
from the sale of works by such artists as Winslow
Homer and George Inness. In the penultimate essay of
this book, Eileen Fort Charts, the career of William Preston Harrison, the Chicago born
transplant to Los Angeles, and his efforts to cultivate
a taste for the 19th and 20th century American
painting
in his adopted hometown for the then fledgling Los Angeles Museum or LACMA, an institution he supported and wanted to help elevate
to a world class status. As a collector, Harrison tended to avoid commercial dealers
preferring to deal directly with artists, and he had a strong sense of historical purpose. And with the lack of a canon to rely on, he frequently consulted fellow artists and most especially the
New Yorker Childe Hassam, of whose works he was a major patron and Hassam became the clo
sest that he had of an artist advisor. And here we see just a few
works in the collection. We have a Tanner on the left and a work by Childe
Hassam done in California on the right, notice the local cypresses. Coming to the end, our theme Tastemakers, Collectors and Patrons includes
organizations or tastemakers. The book contains three
such tastemakers dedicated to promoting American art
and elevating American taste. The American Pre-Raphaelites
from Sophie Lynford's essay, the American Art Union
before the Civil War, which we will be introduced to when, in Kimberly Orcutt's
chapter and a century later as Julie McGinnis Flanagan details, we have another such effort,
more technologically advanced and formed on the site of
what was one of the city's greatest transportation
hubs in its financial and artistic center,
Grand Central Terminal, called the Grand Central Galleries. It attracted savvy locals and commuters who were traveling on
the long distance trains that arrived and departed
fro
m the terminal daily. The Grand Central Art
Galleries were designed to promote the career of
living American artists, including Tanner,
Cecilia Beaux, John Sloan and Isamu Noguchi and
to create new collectors and collections. And we see here on the top floor gallery that the light almost appears
to be filtering through to the main concourse. Note as well, the proximity
to the rail tracks. The galleries were able to
use the rail system network to promote and exhibit
the work of these artists trav
eling across towns
and cities further afield to such venues as galleries,
movie houses, and even hotels. as we see here in this peer
installation photograph in Atlanta. As our author illuminates,
the traveling exhibitions that toured the country formed a core part of the Grand Central art
gallery stated mission, the enlightenment of an American, of a larger American art
collecting community, and served as the quote,
long overlooked sparks that ignited the passions of
would be collectors, booster
s, soon to be museum founders and growing cultural leaders
across the United States. And you can really see here in this map, what a robust infrastructure this was that required you the collect,
you know, that the way that it, the galleries just
expanded across the map mid to the Midwest,
down south to the north, even via ship as far west as Hawaii than a US territory and not a state. And Samantha Deutch, the Frick's Digital Art History Lead collaborated with the author
using their data combined
with files by Jeremy Atack on a historical geographic information systems
database of US railroads for this publication, combining
the two to create our map, illuminating the known locations of Grand central art galleries, national art exhibition campaigns between 1923 and 1939 within the context of the historical railroad lines. So I wanted to thank you all and we will now go back to
the beginning of our book with our first panelist, Lance Humphreys. - Thank you Margaret. I'm glad to be back
h
ere at the Frick again if only digitally to discuss
Robert Gilmore Jr again. Gilmore was one of the really
most important cultural figures in the United
States in the 19th century and before the Civil War, certainly a major American art collector as well as just art collector in general. And some of you may be saying,
well, if he's so important, well why have I never heard of him? And I would say there are three things. He's very early in the history
of collecting this country. He began collecti
ng the 1790s. He's in Baltimore, Maryland, which is an unlikely place
according to the narrative that we largely hear about art,
which is New York and Boston and Philadelphia, et cetera. And he also, his collection
was dispersed when he died, which makes it very
difficult to kind of grapple with his accomplishments and to be able to kind of
just sense the magnitude of what he had been able to
pull off during his lifetime. In over 50 years of collecting, Gilmore acquired works by over 50 work, 50
artists working here
in the United States as early as 1794 with his
work by Robert Field to 1844 with his bust of Henry
Clay by Joel Tanner Hart. He, as I mentioned, he acquired
works by over 50 artists, which is really an incredible achievement. Many people couldn't name 50 artists who worked in this period. And the art that he acquired was many of, many of the artists were
those who we now think of as kind of founding various schools of painting in the United
States, including Thomas Doughty
and Thomas Cole and landscape
painting, William Sidney Mount with genre painting, Raphaelle
Peale in still life painting. And then in the world of sculpture, he was a early patron
of Horatio Greenough, our first kind of native
born artists or sculptor with artistic training. These, excuse me, these American works, joined hundreds of old
masters in his collection, Gilmore felt it was very
important to have old masters here for our artists to learn from. We had very few museums,
if you know, barel
y any in the, in 1800 or 1820
when he's really beginning to collect. And he was very lucky to
have acquired a number of very handsome paintings,
especially by Dutch and Old Master, Dutch and
Flemish old masters that, and only a handful of them
can be identified today. But just this group I'm
showing you kind of gives you a sense of the quality of his paintings, which many recognized as
being the finest here, you know, perhaps in
the 1830 or 40 period. But this art collection was
only part of his
collection and he had a number of other collections. And in all of these areas of collecting, he was thought to be one
of the earliest collectors in the pipe of collecting
in the world of minerals, manuscripts like this letter
by Queen Elizabeth the first, very, very rare to be
here in the United States. Old and modern coinage,
ancient and modern coinage and illuminated manuscripts
as well as Greek pottery. He was probably the
first American collector to have a Greek pot exhibited
from their co
llection. And in all of these collecting
areas including art, Gilmore had a very kind
of scientific approach to the way he thought about these things. He wasn't a scientist, although
he was an amateur scientist, especially in the world of mineralogy, and was highly admired for
the work he contributed in that field. And the main thing that he
really thought about was how these things could be classified. How is this mineral different
than another mineral? And what makes it unique? What are its un
ique characteristics? And then how can these unique objects kind of be clumped in
larger areas of interest that they have similar characteristics while they're different at the same time. And this is something
that Gilmore thought about with paintings in particular. How is an American painting
unique versus a Dutch painting? But then how are they similar? And this shaped his entire
collecting interests really over his lifetime. Today, I'd like to spend most of my time talking about one specific
moment in Gilmore's career as a collector and patron,
which is his dialogue with Thomas Cole in the late 1820s when he was commissioning
some early paintings by Cole, including a painting that he hoped to depict a scene from
"The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper. In this conversation, excuse me, this is taking place in the late 1820s. Gilmore hoped that Cole
would paint a landscape to include this scene and this elicited from him
in a very long dialogue that went on through
many le
tters actually, that he would wanted real American scenes. And he actually underlined
the word real American scenes just like this in the original letter. Well, this may me wonder like, well does Gilmore want
real American everything by all of the collect the
artists that he's patronizing and what does that look like? But it led to some complications
in my understanding of Gilmore because I, with
that lens for that I had for a little while, I could
not understand, for instance, why he had want t
o acquire this
work by Robert Walter Weir, a New York artist in the
early 1830s depicting Rebecca, which is based on a novel by
Sir Walter Scott, "Ivanhoe" who obviously Sir Walter
Scott is Scottish. And then why Gilmore would
want Greenough to commission to create for him this work
Medora, which is based on a tale by Lord Byron, who is British. These just did not make
sense to me for a long time until I looked at his
other collecting interest and tried to, I pulled together threads that were co
ming together to
me about what happened in 1826. And "The Last of the Mohicans"
was published in 1826, and Gilmore is having this dialogue with Cole in the late 1826 but August. And to us, 1826 is not
a very important date. We don't think of it as something
big and a huge celebration or memorial, but it was
the first major milestone in the history of the United States as far as documenting our history and that we had survived a half century. And that this American
experience, American experience
, excuse me, American
experience, experiment, had worked and was working. We had peaceful transfers of power, our government was functioning, the arts were beginning to flourish, and all of these things
were happening and gelling. And this is something
that Gilmore wanted to and others wanted to
celebrate and commemorate. And one thing that I
learned from other aspects of his collecting is
specifically in this period, he's learning that many of
those who had manuscripts related to the revolution
ary
worthies, you know, those who signed the
Declaration of Independence, that their heirs had lost or forgotten or their papers had been lost. And therefore we were losing this record of what the founding of our
country was all about and there. And so how are we gonna
preserve this for the future so that an accurate story
can be told about the history of the, you know, rise
of the United States as a new democracy. Well, this played out in
his art collecting as well, and in 1825 he commissioned
from Gilbert Stuart, Stuart's last portrait
of George Washington. Stuart had painted hundreds of them, but Gilmore acquired this one in 1825. And importantly in his collection, it replaced a copy that
Gilmore had had after Stuart, really for about a quarter of a century. But in 1825, and as we head into 1826, Gilmore wants a painting
by the actual artist for whom George Washington sat. Who did, you know, Gilbert
Stuart actually saw George Washington and therefore this piece is more authentic. In
1825, he also turned to John Trumbull at really at the time he
is talking to Thomas Cole about whether he had any
of his miniature heads of worthies of the revolution for sale, these little portraits. So they're very finely detailed and many of them are very dynamic were the studies that
Trumbull would later use for his full length,
his full size canvases, as well as the works he
commissioned for the Rotunda, those very heroic works in the capitol. But these are the original studies and they're
painted closer to the time. And so Gilmore felt that these were, these were more authentic,
these were more real. This is what these were, these
here one from South Carolina and one from Maryland, what
they actually looked like and how they, you know,
expressed themselves visually in their portraiture. So he did acquire these two pieces. And then in 1826, Gilmore
was commissioning this heroic statue of George Washington for the top of Baltimore's
Washington monument. The monument in Baltimore i
s the first one to honor George Washington and also to celebrate the idea of American national independence. As we know from when we restored it, there was a copy of the
Declaration of Independence in the Cornerstone. So this monument is all about
the founding of this country, and here is just yet another
thing that Gilmore is doing that has to do with American nationhood and the arts commemorating
and celebrating it. So when he says to Cole in 1826, and this is really in August of 1826, that he
wants a real American scene for this depiction of this. It was a quasi historical novel. He's saying to Cole that
he wants this scenery in this painting to be uniquely
identifiable as American. He doesn't want it to
look like the Swiss Alps or the coast of Scotland or
the Mediterranean or something. He wants it to be something
that people can turn to and that this image is going
to undeniably represent what American scenery looks like for this quasi historical novel. And this was so important
t
o him that when he, when he puts this work on exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1828, I believe he sent these
descriptions to be included in the catalog. It was described as a
composition of real scenes. The, and then he goes on to
describe where the mountain is and where the lake is and where the island is
that these are, he believes, and maybe he was in conversation with Cole about the depictions, but it is the correct
mountain that he mentions that this is undeniably a
picture of a re
al American, at least landscape put
together from pieces of the American scenery. So this is just one aspect
in the life of Gilmore, a very charged one I think
about defining American art. It's this, he's, he probably
should have on his tombstone that guy who wanted real American scenes because it's been quoted so many times over the past half century. But when you delve into it and you understand what
he, what he was looking for and what it meant to him,
it's not some picture postcard he is loo
king for. It's really about authenticity
in depicting the history and kind of future of our country. So lots more to talk about
in my chapter especially and then also in the other
chapters in the book. And at this point I will turn it over to our next panelist, Kimberly Orcutt. - Okay, thank you. Thank you Samantha and
Margaret and Linda especially. And in my brief time today, I'm going to say a few words
about the American Art Union and the hope that you will be intrigued enough to read further
. And I'll talk a bit about
the unique circumstances surrounding this project and how they led to some
unexpected conclusions. I'm grateful for the opportunity to participate in this project because it helped propel my
work toward a digital art history project with 19th
century art worldwide and a fuller account in a
book titled "The American Art Union Utopia and Skepticism
in the Antebellum Era" coming out in July. So please excuse the shameless plug. The American Art Union
began in New York in
1838 and in its heyday a decade later, it boasted nearly 19,000
members from almost every state. For an annual fee of $5, subscribers received a monthly art journal and an engraving after a painting by a notable American artist. And here you see some
selections from 1850. Moreover, subscribers names
were entered in a drawing for hundreds of original
paintings and sculptures by living American artists. A few examples here, and
these works were displayed from April through January at the Art Unio
n's immensely
popular free gallery on lower Broadway. According to the organization's records, more than 5,000 works were exhibited there and over 230,000 people visited each year. The annual drawing for
artworks each December was a major social event in New York, attracting crowds of thousands
of hopefuls who might, with the luck of the
draw become collectors. Unfortunately, this experiment
in art world democracy was short-lived. A sudden, and at the time
surprising drop in membership in 1851,
galvanized long
simmering resentments from certain quarters at
the organization's power and influence. Accusations of mismanagement
led to a court case whose surprising decision brought about the American art union's demise. The American art union's
bold and idealistic plan, of course prompts the
question, why did it fail? And so my essay traces the
American Art Union's demise back to causes rooted in the nature of the enterprise itself. It's 14-year course spanned
a period of immense growth and
great idealism around utopian schemes and bold social experiments. The American Art Union
was one such experiment. It was an attempt to build an
art world from the ground up and to create and control the
many forces that shaped it, including art criticism,
canon building, exhibitions, education, and collecting. The art union's leadership hoped that its collective purchasing power fueled by subscriber
fees would free artists from dependence on a few wealthy men by broadening the base of patrons
beyond the well to do of the East coast, to include the rising middle
class of the entire country. However, its activities
often produced unintended consequences, results
that were the opposite of what the leadership intended and that attracted as
much blame as praise. The institution was undone, not so much by dramatic outward events as by the invisible incentives
and mundane practicalities that shape systems, motivate behavior and ultimately move
worlds, art and otherwise. As a for instance, t
he
art union's leadership had to select original
paintings for purchase, which of course caused
resentment and questions about their qualifications. Just one of those questions is here. The distribution of artworks by lot fell under scrutiny as an illegal lottery and the art union exacerbated that problem when they purchased
Thomas Cole's monumental for painting series, The
Voyage of Life for Distribution and touted it at a valuation of $6,000 as you would for a big prize in a lottery. The Art U
nion bulletin was created as an educational publication, but after a few years it
became a polemical defense of its actions and a venue
for accusing its enemies. So just a few more works distributed. The art union's dramatic collapse began when its membership dropped
from a high of nearly $19,000 to about 11,600 in 1851. And art union managers
attributed this decline to delays in hearing
from our union agents, soliciting memberships across the country and a general economic downturn. But other p
ressing issues
were not acknowledged, such as the proliferation
of competing art unions, bad press, and the question
of whether the art union's distribution constituted
an illegal lottery. All were spurred by parties who took issue with the art union's
control over patronage and subject manner, as well as
art criticism and commentary. The organization became
the particular target of a sensationalist New York Herald, its editor on the left, which charged them with conducting an illegal
lottery, m
ismanagement and exploitation and using art union funds for oyster and champagne suppers. And also to fund a new
daily abolition journal called the "New York Times,"
whose editor Henry J. Raymond on the right was on the art
union's management committee. And of course all these
charges were disproven, but they set a series of events in motion that could not be reversed. In 1852, the Art Union took legal action against the "New York Herald" for libel. And after several months
of legal proceedings,
the New York Supreme Court decided that their system did indeed
constitute an illegal lottery. The organization sold
its artworks at auction and ceased operations soon after. And this is one of the works
that was sold at auction. The art union's aims were forward looking, to encourage middle class patronage and create a marketplace
for American works of art where merit was rewarded and artists had a wide range
of possible buyers or owners who would then have to
compete for the works of the very
best artists. But the experiment in patronage went awry. And ironically, the
American Art Union created what it was trying to avoid. Their collective venture
spawned a super patron that had an outsized
impact on the art market and generated the unanticipated incentives that develop in an artificial system. However, during its short
but spectacular life, the art union had substantial successes and in just one the annual
distribution sent masterworks of American art across the nation. Here you se
e Durand's Dover Plains, which was awarded to S.W.
Allen of Mobile, Alabama, now at the Smithsonian
American Art Museum. So by providing a groundwork
for visual literacy through images and information, connecting distant art
enthusiasts and a shared endeavor and offering the possibility
of owning an original work by an esteemed artist, the American Art Union
opened the eyes of the nation and created potential
collectors around the country. And for me, studying
the American Art Union was both a s
ingular opportunity
and a unique challenge because of the character
of its records held by the New York Historical Society. The foremost challenge
is the sheer magnitude of the records, which
total 109 bound volumes, including treasurer's accounts, a register of artwork
submitted for purchase, press clippings, and thousands of letters to and from artists. Fortunately, the advent of
digital tools offers new ways to organize and understand
this large body of data and they reveal a nuanced
and some
times surprising view of the art union's activities and impact. For instance, the data allowed me to work with 19th century art worldwide
to create an interactive map that shows the impressive
cross country scope of the art union's activities. And the bubbles show the
size of the membership in all these various parts
and a searchable database so that scholars can look up
artists, titles, prices paid and other information. Also, the organization
had a surprising impact on the subjects that artist
s produced and here you see a
distribution by subject matter. The green is landscapes in spite of constantly
encouraging history painting, they purchased many, many more landscapes than any other subject and they even impacted
the size of paintings and the timing that people made paintings. So I hope that you'll find
the essay in our book today interesting and that you'll
be inspired to learn more. So thank you. And now I'm going to hand
off to Betsy Kornhauser. - Well, good afternoon everyone.
I was so happy to be part
of this wonderful project and I have to say the book is beautiful, thank you to all who made it possible. I'll be speaking about two
great Hartford, Connecticut collectors whose lives run
across the 19th century and I'm really focusing
on their fascination and interest in landscape
art even though they, they collected more broadly. Daniel Wadsworth, who
you see on the right, was an amateur artist
with aristocratic roots of the federal elite and
Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Col
t on the left was an industrialist who took over from her
deceased husband, Samuel Colt, to run the Colt arms factory after his early demise
during the Civil War. And they represent the broad spectrum of patronage in 19th century America. But it is fascinating that
they thrived in Hartford, Connecticut, which was a smaller city. They really benefited and this is sort of at
the heart of my essay from friend, really friendships with leading landscape painters
of the time Thomas Cole and Frederick
Church respectively, who really helped them
to form very successful and important collections. They also both benefited
from international travel, so they were aware of European, artistic traditions and Wadsworth artistic and aesthetic achievements
in the early republic would inspire those of Elizabeth Colt, who played an important
role during the Civil War. Wadsworth was heir to a
mercantile and banking fortune, but he chose to devote his life to establishing a cultural
heritage for the New Rep
ublic by pursuing his own personal
interest in landscape art and recent American history. And he would famously
meet Thomas Cole in 1826, introduced to Cole by his older mentor and friend of the family, John Trumbull, the great Connecticut artist. This would begin a long,
lifelong friendship and with Wadsworth serving as an older, some somewhat of a mentor. And I think the comparison
with Gilmore and Wadsworth and their approaches to Cole
is a fascinating one actually. Wadsworth would begin
comm
issioning a whole series of early landscapes in the
late 1820s from Thomas Cole really helping him to launch his career, particularly works of American wilderness. And then Wadsworth famously
built his country estate on the top of a wilderness mountain outside of Hartford called Monte Video. And Cole would visit him
many times at this location and he truly appreciated the
aesthetic vision of Wadsworth. And here you see in this great painting, he embraces a novel panoramic
sweep of the landscape,
which was the intent of
Wadsworth's high perch. And so you can see how
a sort of back and forth between the two men, I think
Wadsworth helped to advance Cole's career and vice versa. So Wadsworth would spend
his life, you know, making a very large collection, which he housed at Monte Video. And toward the end of his life, he and his wife began to think of a plan for their great collection. And in advance of that, Wadsworth began to think about
opening a public art museum in Hartford. And just b
efore that happened, he acquired many important works, including this great late work by Cole, "Mount Etna from Taormina,"
very grand scale canvas of the one of Cole's favorite themes, the rise and decline
of great civilizations in the face of nature. And so you can see that these
landscapes were intended to elevate and provide more
lessons for the American public. So Wadsworth succeeded
very quickly in forming and building this great
Neogothic style museum, which you see on the left. And Wadswo
rth is walking
there in front of it as an older gentleman on Main Street where he housed the fine arts collections, which were largely dominated by landscape, but included great history paintings of the American Revolution
by John Trumbull and others, and then flanked by a natural
history museum and a library. And another great
contribution Wadsworth made before his death in 1848, the
same year as Cole's death, interestingly, was to introduce
the young emerging artists, Frederick Church, who was
a member of an affluent Hartford family and friends with
Wadsworth, to Thomas Cole, who took him on in his
studio for two years. And that was a very important moment in the evolution of of landscape art. So we leave the first
half of the 19th century and move to the second half with a young Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt from another prominent Hartford family. She was a friend of the Wadsworth's and certainly took great advantage of visiting the Wadsworth
Atheneum as a young woman. She would famous
ly marry
Samuel Colt in 1856, which transformed her life. The couple built an a large mansion called Armsmear, which sat just
above the great Colt factory on the Connecticut River, which
was an amazing manufacturing site for the United States. And by this point, Samuel Colt
had become an internationally renowned arms maker, but he would die in
untimely death in 1862. And rather than retreating to Armsmear to her domestic world, Elizabeth,
who was a firm supporter of the union and an
abolitionist
, took on the running of the arms manufacturing supplying arms to the Union Army exclusively during the course of the Civil War. And it was at a Civil
war event that Church and Elizabeth really came together to plan her private picture gallery. Elizabeth participated in the
famous metropolitan sanitary fair where she hosted the Hartford table and sold tea cakes that she made herself and sold out her Colt arms
supply on the first day according to the New York Times. Church was deeply involved
in
the picture gallery where he helped to install this,
which you see on the right, this very patriotic
installation that harked back to the founding of the United States and was intended to fuel patriotism to push through and win the Civil War. You see Emanuel Leutze's
great "Washington Crossing the Delaware" on the North Wall, flanked by Church's famous by that point, "Heart of the Andes." And to the left, Albert Bierstadt's, "Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak" And it was at the, here you
see these
two great pictures. And the hang really was
successful in fueling patriotism. In fact, Church's "Heart of the Andes" in its original window frame was over hung with three portraits
of presidents borrowed from the New York Historical Society. So this really launched the
inspiration in Elizabeth's mind, she was, she was really fearless in the face of male dominated worlds, whether it was industry or the art world, and decided she would create
her own private picture gallery, Armsmear. And Church w
as with her
every step of the way. He introduced her to leading artists in the 10th Street studio. She commissioned works
from Albert Bierstadt from Sanford Gifford. And then the great
commission of the gallery was Church's "Vale of
St. Thomas, Jamaica," which I'll show you in a minute. But you can see how successful
her private gallery was and the success in large part was owed to Church's involvement. His great "Vale of St. Thomas, Jamaica" and its original Church designed frame was a very per
sonal undertaking. I've written extensively about this, but I wanted to make the
point that it kind of reflected their shared
commitment to the union cause and to the abolitionist movement in that painted on the island of Jamaica just before a major
insurrection on that island. The theme of the painting
is the legacy of slavery. And so I wanna end with this great work to just show how important the works were that these two great
collectors commissioned of the artists that they were so close to.
And you know, I really think
it's one of the fascinating aspects of these Hartford
collectors that they, they weren't just patron artists,
they were deeply involved with each other and fueled
each other's careers and collecting habits. And some of the events that happened between these four people
really led to the success of the formation of a
landscape tradition in America in the 19th century. So I'm gonna end here and
pass it on to Lynne Ambrosini. - Today I'm representing, oh, I wanna thank
Linda
Ferber, Margaret Laster, Samantha Deutch, and
everyone else involved in the production of what is
in the end, a beautiful book. Today I'm representing the
west as Easterners called Ohio in the, excuse me, I'm just
going to, move something. Great. I had to move something
around on my screen so I can see my notes. Thanks for your patience. Today I'm representing the
West as Easterners called Ohio in 1860. The city of Cincinnati circled on the map, held a strategic position
on the Ohio River
, linked to Lake Erie by canal and to the south by the Mississippi River. It was the western
capital of trade industry and culture from about 1830 to about 1880 when it yielded to Chicago. Cincinnati sat on the Mason Dixon line that divided free and slave states so opinions there were sharply divided on the important issues
of slavery and abolition. The Cincinnati and Nicholas Longworth was known throughout the
country at mid-century for his legendary wealth. A small, wiry, eccentric
man who dre
ssed shabbily, Longworth was shrewd,
well-informed and opinionated. Alright, so sorry. He had two advocations,
horticulture and art patronage. He made the first commercially
viable American wines, which dominated the pre-civil war market. And among his 14 artistic proteges were the sculptor Hiram Powers and the African American
painter Robert S. Duncanson. In studying Longworth, I have relied most heavily on
old biographical dictionaries, period newspapers and his own candid and often biting cor
respondence. I've also drawn on the
accounts of his patronage that Denny Young, Abby Schwartz
and Paul Breitenbach wrote in the 1980s and 90s. However, I've reached some conclusions that differ substantially
from earlier writers. First, my assessment of the importance of Longworth's art collection
parts company with theirs. Second, I've learned that we've been wrong about Longworth's motives
for supporting Duncanson. Contrary to past assumptions, his aid for the African
American artist did not s
tem from an abolitionist stance. Born in genteel poverty in New Jersey, Longworth settled by 1804 in
the small city of Cincinnati. There he practiced law, but soon found his golden
goose in the western land boom. He bought and sold countless
regional properties over a period in which that
land was doubling in value every three to five years. Tale circulated across the country about his extraordinarily
generous philanthropy, but also about his
cutthroat legal tactics. One acquaintance called
him
a problem and a riddle. In 1830, Longworth purchased
a federal period house, now part of the Taft Museum of Art. It was big enough to house the huge canvas that he bought at a New
York auction in 1828, Benjamin West's "Ophelia." This was really the
only first rate picture that Longworth ever owned
as far as we know for sure. In fact, looking into his collection, I argued that he had a real impact, not as a connoisseur collector, but as an old fashioned
patron, a benefactor. Beginning in the late
20s,
Longworth offered support to some 14 artists, only one refused it and angrily, James Henry Beard. I explore why the condition,
the offer was conditional. And I also interpret this painting, Beard's Ohio Land Speculator
as a veiled criticism of the best known Ohio Land Speculator, Nicholas Longworth himself. For 30 years, Longworth helped
sustain the marble sculpture Hiram powers. First in Cincinnati,
then in Washington D.C. and finally in Florence, Italy. In gratitude, Powers carved and se
nt this bust to his patron. Longworth supplied Powers with funds only one or two commissions
and abundant advice, mostly concerning pricing,
marketing and politics. The philanthropist's second sculptural protege Shobal Clevenger died tragically after only three years in Florence. Longworth governing motive was boosterism. A deep commitment to spurring
the success of Cincinnati with which he identified. For example, he assisted
John Wild in the hope that his lithographs would persuade people to m
ove to the city. I learned this and other interesting facts from the patron's revealing letters which express both his purposes
and his confident belief that he knew best. For example, he wrote to the
young artist Thomas B. Reed, who had just controverted
Longworth plans for him. "Sir, I am close to you $50, though not in accordance
with my own judgment. You are on a visionary experiment and disappointment will attend you. I have lost all hope of your
ever becoming a painter." Among the other ar
tists
that Longworth assisted, were William Henry Powell, for whom he pulled political
strings in Washington. Worthington Whittredge, who painted Vistas found in southern Ohio and Kentucky, Alexander Wyant who did the same. And Lilly Martin Spencer, whom Longworth helped
establish in New York. As a patron, he urged his own views and values on the artists he groomed, an activist approach. About 1850, Longworth
invited Robert Duncanson to decorate the foyer of his home, launching the painter's car
eer. The eight large landscape
murals that he painted each enclosed in a trompe-l'œil frame, simulated a picture gallery. Evidently pleased with the results, Longworth then provided his protege with nine months of travel
and study in Europe. Considering both Duncanson
and Lilly Martin Spencer, it's clear that Longworth demonstrated a precocious tolerance of
difference in both race and gender. But was this because
he was an abolitionist? Initially, I too assumed so. However, certain facts puzzled
me. In his youth, he spent two
years in South Carolina and formed lasting attachments there. Moreover, he had two brothers
who were lifelong owners of plantations, worked
by many enslaved people. How did these facts
square with Longworth's supposed abolitionism. Then I made a discovery,
a long, obscure letter that Longworth sent to a
newspaper in the south in 1860, which unlocked his perspectives for me. In the letter he stated that he approved the continuation of slavery in the South and thoro
ughly opposed abolition. To read some of this text, to learn more about his
anti-abolitionist activities in Cincinnati and to hear why I think he supported Duncanson, I'd
refer you to chapter five of the new book. I'm supposed to not reveal all in my talk by strict instructions. So for now out of time
I'll conclude by repeating that Longworth took on the goal
of cultivating local talent, thus building Cincinnati's prestige, while also burnishing his own reputation. In so doing, he provided
trans
formative largesse to a good sized cohort of
significant American artists. - Thank you so much Lynn. And thank you to Kim, Betsy and Lance for your presentations. And Margaret for going
over the entire book. It was a big, there's
a lot of issues packed into this little guy, so I
hope that you guys read it. As a non Americanist among the group, I did make sort of a collecting or a collecting observation
while we were working on this book over time. And if I could just have
the other panelists joi
n us. I am gonna show some slides
shortly for my observation. And that is that the bibliography of the history of collecting
for the most part, especially in the latter
part of the 19th century, is really focused on collecting
French art and Old Masters. In fact, many of you might
be familiar with this image by Theodore Wust of Samuel Putnam Avery transporting his treasures across the sea. And you look at the crates, you'll see all the different
types of work of art that he's bringing from Europ
e to United States for his clients. However, again, I'm not an Americanist, did you know that the Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" actually was imported from Germany? And it was by a German immigrant? So I didn't know that. And it was sold initially by Goupil, a French gallery operating
in New York and two years after it was sold in 1851 to
an American industrialist, it was then printed by another gallery with roots in Europe, Knoedler & Company in a limited edition print and sold. So
there was a lot of
interest in this picture. You'll see in Linda's introduction, it came out on all these
different exhibitions to raise money for
different sort of causes. So it's really exciting and
it's become the quintessential American history painting,
even though its roots are very different. In fact, it's spawned
interest by other artists who have started conversations showing you Robert
Colescott's painting here, which is at the Lucas
Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. And here's
Jacob
Lawrence's Struggle Series and Robert Colescott again. And then most recently,
Kent Monkman's "Resurgence of the People," which you
could see in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of
Art did a fabulous exhibition kind of contextualizing this
called crossing last year. And you can find that
information on their website. So I hope this does spawn some interest from our collecting people for questions. And I'm gonna turn it
over to Margaret Laster who has
our first
question for our panelist. - Okay, thank you Samantha. And thank you all to all the authors for such insightful
presentations as were your, they were terrific as were the
wonderful essays you wrote. This is a very broad question, and some of you have
answered this already, but maybe you can think of
another answer or expand on it. We were wondering if it all of you or any of you can share with us if there's a particular facet
of your findings or research that was most surprising as
it
pertained to your topic or to your understanding
of the broader history of collecting American art and or if there's any point that you discussed in your presentations that you wanted even to
elaborate on further. - I mean, I'll just quickly
say that I think I stated it, but I didn't really
have time to go into it. But I feel like the, you know, the relationship between
Wadsworth and Cole and Elizabeth Colt and
Church was, you know, it was kind of an American
artist patron example where it's not
sort of
hierarchy telling, you know, the artists what they, it's,
it was a shared experience and it, you know, because of
Cole and Church's storyline in Hartford, the Wadsworth
Atheneum became a huge success. And I, because I ran out
of time, I should have said that Elizabeth Cole bequested
her entire collection to the Wadsworth Atheneum,
certainly encouraged by Church, who retained very close
connections in Hartford, his hometown. And she left it in her own name, which was, she was the first
w
oman to do that and bit and gave money to build a
museum wing for her collection. But I feel like, although
when I think about Gilmore, so Lance might have some thoughts. Gilmore was a more, I think,
traditional patron maybe. But it just, it's kind of fascinating when I explored the
letters and the friendship and how some of the greatest landscapes by Cole and Church were
influenced by Wadsworth and Colt. - That's so interesting. - Well, I have have to
counter that immediately. - Okay. - Because
that is one topic that, I mean, I feel like Gilmore as a
collector has been portrayed often for the past, especially back
in the James Thomas Flexner era of like being the un-American patron because he was demanding. And I think we just heard
from Lynn that clearly her collector was very demanding. And I mean you can be supporting and demanding at the same time. And I think we've been
led to believe kind of what Elizabeth said, that
American collections though, they should just be like
pals and
talk to each other and have a cup of coffee or
a glass of wine or something. And I mean, Gilmore is certainly
from an older generation, he's similar in age to Wadsworth. But I think that that duality of like, what is an American patron, I think we need to know more about them because there's so few that we
have a lot of dialogue from. I mean, having dialogue
between the patrons, between the patron,
collector is that's so rare. And so obviously there is
great letters with Wadsworth and Cole and
Gilmore and Cole and that you can kind of look
at them as different now. I mean Gilmore always was very demanding, but he always said, but I
leave it to your best judgment. So at the end of the day,
he kind of turned it back to it was supposed to be a
little educational for him, sorry, of what he was talking about. And I think he felt that
was part of his duty as someone who had some knowledge, had a collecting that he should, he should help form, he
should help form and shape. So anyway, that's
kind of, I'm on the screen between
the two of these folks and it's kind of a middle ground between what they both said. - Well, picking up on that, I, when, you know, most of our knowledge
of patrons and patronage has to do with individual collectors, dealing with individual
artists with whatever letters we can find. And the art union sort of makes
that a public conversation that gets turned up to
11 and really quickly because people start
asking questions, you know, what right, what knowledge
do you bring to the table that allows you to make these
judgments with a great deal of money, of which I've
contributed my part? And yeah, it raises these
questions of authority and of expertise that are really, that are really fascinating, that are only bringing
to light conversations that were probably happening
very quietly behind the scenes until that point. - I'll just jump in if I may. I specifically, of
course it was surprising to find the letter, which I didn't. And then I have a general
remark too, but I didn't recognize the letter as being from Nicholas Longworth. I found it early in my research and it was signed, "You know who" and it was this very
interesting sort of sardonic, mordent voice that I
started thinking about who in Cincinnati could have. It reminded me of Ambrose
Bierce or Mark Twain. And I started thinking,
what author from Cincinnati could have written this letter? And I thought of, you know, I ran through all the authors
I knew of who were writing, and I, nob
ody came to mind. And I put it aside and I thought, well, if I can't figure out who
wrote it, how can I trust it? You know? And then later I read a lot of
Nicholas Longworth's letters at the New York Historic, at the Cincinnati Historical Society, and suddenly I recognized the voice. It was him, and it was unmistakably him. And then the word, the
signature, "You know who" makes perfect sense. So that was the big surprise for me. But I also wanted to say more generally that the facet of my findin
gs that I think has the broadest application for all of us in the field is the incredible resource provided by the, all the newly
digitized newspapers. All the archives of
newspapers across the country, linked or not linked, available sometimes just through the local public library that's archiving and digitizing
their own collections. This is an unbelievable trove
of things that have been, you know, nobody's laid
eyes on for over a 100 years in some cases. So I just wanted to say, for
me, that
was a revelation that has affected all
my subsequent research. - I think, I'm just gonna
chime in real quick. I see people are asking about where they can purchase
the book in the chat and in the questions, I'm
going to put in a discount code for Penn State Press
in the chat momentarily that you can use for 40%
off for joining us today. And then I'll turn it back to Margaret and Linda to continue our wonderful panel. - Linda, do you have any questions? - Well, I have many questions. A good, a go
od book and a good conference always raises lots more
questions than answers. But this has been very stimulating because we, you know, we created the book, all of us worked in solitude during the preparation of the book, more solitude than usual, given lockdown and other challenges. And then the book was shaped, you know, Margaret and I had the benefit,
immense benefit for me, probably the most transformative, the, I provided the introduction, which is always a thankless
task, but it was a chall
enge. And I'm glad that we, you
know, we came up with something with, you know, with a lot of help that I think is a good
introduction to the book and stands alone as a kind of mini history of collecting in the United States based on these particular sources. But I was amazed at the, and I've talked about this with
Samantha and with Margaret, the number of threads. I mean, we wanted to go,
we were very ambitious. We wanted to get from the
East coast to the West coast. We wanted to carry this sto
ry. We wanted to go to the south, and we wanted to go to the Midwest. And we wanted this story
of collecting to move, to move beyond the focus, which is logical and understandable on
the Northeastern coast, you know, the cities along
the Northeastern coast of the United States. And we were thrilled to be
able to find art historians, you know, doing research
in particular areas who had, you know, who
were willing to take on the issue of collecting. And it was very exciting
working with Lynn, for
example, because we kind of shared
her pilgrimage toward this, which isn't a sense of a revelation about, you know, understanding
the attitude of someone who had been assumed,
like Longworth, you know, to have his largesse, his interest focused on a basis of abolitionists commitment. And then of course it was, you know, the American Pre-Raphaelites are, have been staring at us all for years, and they're still very strange. I mean, having been involved
in work on the American Pre-Raphaelites for
a very long time, I think we sort of got them out now with the essay here in
this volume on the patrons. And, but then again, the
focus on the Civil War, you know, the mixture
of the demonstration, working on this book and working
with the authors, the span, the geographical span, the
time span of the huge impact that the moment has. Is it before the war? Is it the run up to the war? Is it the revolution? Is it after the war? Is it what we call the gilded age? Is it the battle between representa
tion and abstraction in the 20th century? I mean, but it's kind of,
it's not the same cycle, but it's animated by
these, by these frictions. And that was a fascinating aspect. - Yeah, I mean, Linda,
you're really, you know, bringing all this to life
again, we're reliving it. That's wonderful. But I think we have
some audience questions. - Sure, we have 12 audience questions, and I'm just start with
the first one that I see, and then I'll go back through
in the order that they came. Thank you for
an excellent presentation. Ms. Ambrosini, the painting
that says its location is Middlesex County is
that the original location? There is a Middlesex County. Thank you, looking forward
to getting the book. - Was that the Thomas Sully portrait? I'm not sure. The Middlesex County. I'm trying to just
remember my presentation. a locations, I mean, it was years ago now that we worked on all of these things, - Isn't it the Longworth
daughters at a Longworth site? - Oh, yeah, that's it. Thank you. It'
s the Longfellow daughters. - Longfellow Daughters. Sorry, getting my Longworth, yes. - I do not know if that
was the original location. It came from Longworth's own
collection in Massachusetts. That's all I can tell you. And it's still at the Longfellow house, so I assume that was
its original location. - Great, thank you. Lance, there was one attendee who wanted to see if you could share
your first slide again. Is that possible? - Yes.
- And while you do that, I'll just go ahead and
ask anothe
r question so we can try to get
through some of these. This is from Scott Docfarn. He says, how do you see the relationship between collectors and artists today? It appears to be more about value and investment rather than about the story and skill of the artist or anybody. - I mean, I could say, I mean today there's so many layers between
the buyer and the artist. You know, there's a dealer,
there's an art consultant, there's, you know, the art fair. I mean, I feel like there, you know, I'm sur
e there are certainly
exceptions to that rule, but very often art collectors today are buying for investment. So it's just a very different world and the level of money is so different. I, there was a letter
from Cole to Wadsworth when he sold Mount Etna
to Wadsworth begging him to pay him more than the, I think it was $300 that
Wadsworth offered him. So it's like the worlds have
transformed dramatically. And the, you know, the
marketplace of dealer, advisor, art fair gets in the way I think, of
a very strong relationships
between artists and patrons. - Betsy, I think, I think
you've caught onto something really interesting there, because the art union functioned
as sort of an intermediary and they do create that kind of issue where art is under constant
threat of becoming a commodity. And there were certainly
instances of people getting, having a painting distributed to them, and then turning around
and writing the art union and saying, well, would
you buy this back from me? You know?
And that's where the
lottery question becomes a very serious concern. And the art union, they're so wonderful. They always write, they
would, in all these instances, they would write back and talk about how important the painting is
and how great the artist is. And of course turn down,
you know, this request to buy it back, but trying
to instill this idea that we're not here to
create a cash prize for you. So I think that the concern is. - They even titles of paintings, I know the famous George
Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Designing the Missouri, Bingham's title was Fur Trader
with his half breed son. And the American Art Union
would not accept that title. So they were altering, you
know, the artist intent. - Yeah and there become
these criteria that start to shape the market that
they start to talk to artists saying, well, could you send
us something more pleasant or something smaller so that
it will fit in someone's home and not this enormous thing you would need to build a gallery in
order to accommodate. It's fascinating how this
starts to shape things. - Yeah, that is, it is
very interesting, yeah. - I have another question. This is from Alan Wallach. - So Samantha, what am I supposed to do with my first slide here, sorry? - Oh, you can stop sharing now. - Oh, okay.
- Thank you so much. I'll return to Alan Wallach's question. He says, "Could any of the
authors speak to the question of explicit motives for
patronage and collecting and motives that were implicit that has no
t been articulated? Some examples desire for status, accumulation of cultural capital to use Bordeaux's formulation
and reputation laundering." There's more in the book, Alan. - I mean, Alan has written
brilliantly about this topic, and I certainly relied heavily on his work in investigating Cole and Wadsworth. And we, you know, in our
10 minute presentations, we can only like encourage
you to read our essays, but you're absolutely right, there was very, for Wadsworth, he wanted to celebrate
his
family's history. And you know, the role they
played in the Revolutionary War, he wanted it preserved
for future generations. And then he saw landscape
art as a morally uplifting subject for American
citizens to, you know, the US landscape and its unique qualities. But that's just a tiny, and I, and you have written about
this, as I said earlier. - I would say to Alan,
this is Linda Ferber that you, well, I think we'll find Barbara Gallati's essay on Untermyer, of particular interest
because he
's, he collected without particularly being
interested in a legacy. I mean, his legacy was jurisprudence. He collected because he
wanted to surround himself with the kind of visual symbols of wealth that many of the people he
was going after in court, you know, enjoyed. It was gilded age. And so it's fascinating. And the collection was sold and his name is not
part of the provenance, known provenance of the Whistler. And, you know, and Barbara
speculates a little bit without giving things away t
hat, you
know, some of the interest in that at least might have been that it was involved in a
very, very famous lawsuit, the Ruskin Whistler trial. So that's the one to me of all of these that cuts against assumptions and there's nothing
wrong with assumptions. I mean, there were many motives, but that's a particularly
fascinating essay to me. - And I also just wanted a
quick shout out to Alan Wallach, who appears throughout
our volume as a critic or as art historian
whose work we so value. And
in my essay, I really
only spoke very, you know, very briefly about the
Luman Reed collection, but I used his writings in
just in kind of analyzing the New York Gallery of the Fine Arts, which is where Reed's Collection went before it went to the New
York Historical Society and the difficulties they
had sustaining themselves in pre-Civil War, New York cultures. So we, you know, we frequently, when we were working on our
bibliography in the notes, we said, well, there's Alan Wallach again. So I
think, he'll, I hope Alan, you'll be, you'll be pleased. Thank you. - Samantha, I thought
you were gonna ask me that the, whoever asked to
see that, my first slide that, well, if Gilmore's this big patron of American art why is his
portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. That's what I thought the
question was gonna be there, but I would like to speak to
that very briefly because, and it speaks a little bit to what Alan is hinting his question. I mean, Gilmore, he had these
connections, as you know, fro
m previous Frick
talks that I have done. I mean, he had European connections with the Barrings in London
with his father's business. He was his, they were not from
the revolutionary generation, Betsy, like the Wadsworth. And they were new to America
in the 1770s and 80s. But having made these
international connections and having that kind of wealth, he certainly wanted to
arrive home with a portrait, his portrait and his wife's portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence
to kind of demonstrate that he is pa
rt of this
international culture, that he is not just here in America and has never gone to Europe. And that portrait was certainly a symbol of what that being in
this international sphere meant to him. And also it was to serve as
a model for American artists. I mean, there's, I think
there's four American artists I can document that
actually saw that painting. And they wanted to go to
his house specifically to see this portrait
by Sir Thomas Lawrence 'cause he was one of the famous painter of t
he early 19th century in Europe. So anyway, that's a,
I thought that's where they were gonna go with
that, but that's what, that's, I think it's kind
of an interesting part of his career. - No, that was great. And I'm acutely aware of the time. We're just now past the half hour at 1:31. So I think this is a great place to end. And I'm sorry if we didn't
get to all the questions. Please read the book and have a great day. Great afternoon. Thank you, thank you to all the panelists. - Thank you.
-
Thank you, bye. - [Margaret] Thank you
everyone, thank you. - [Lance] Thank you to Frick.
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