A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art
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This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in The Corcoran Gallery of Art Volume 2 Painters born from 1850 to 1910 This page intentionally left blank A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in The Corcoran Gallery of Art Volume 2 Painters born from 1850 to 1910 by Dorothy W. Phillips Curator of Collections The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.G. 1973 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number N 850. A 617 Designed by Graham Johnson/Lund Humphries Printed in Great Britain by Lund Humphries Contents Foreword by Roy Slade, Director vi Introduction by Hermann Warner Williams, Jr., Director Emeritus vii Acknowledgments ix Notes on the Catalogue x Catalogue i Index of titles and artists 199 This page intentionally left blank Foreword As Director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, I am pleased that Volume II of the Catalogue of the American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which has been in preparation for some five years, has come to fruition in my tenure. The second volume deals with the paintings of artists born between 1850 and 1910. The documented catalogue of the Corcoran's American paintings carries forward the project, initiated by former Director Hermann Warner Williams, Jr., of providing a series of defini• tive publications of the Gallery's considerable collection of American art. The Gallery intends to continue with other volumes devoted to contemporary American painting, sculpture, drawings, watercolors and prints. In recent years the growing interest in and concern for American paint• ing has become apparent. As the Director Emeritus writes in his introduction, "American art has become respectable." The international recognition of modern American art since World War II and its contribution to world culture has lead to a realization of the importance of 18th and 19th century work. Naturally, the Corcoran collection, one of the most comprehensive of this period, becomes increasingly relevant nationally. This year the Gallery, with the aid of a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, is reinstalling its collection. Paintings will be arranged chronologically, beginning with the early work of the Colonial period through to the paintings of the present. The second volume of the catalogue will be an important asset in the study of the collection. With the Bicentennial of 1976 there will be even more emphasis placed on the past 200 years of American history. Through its permanent collection of American painting, the Corcoran hopes to play an even greater role in the presentation and recognition of American art. The Corcoran Gallery will continue to concern itself with the art of today. The Gallery has a proud tradition of showing innovative and avant-garde art. It will continue to do so, particularly supporting the ever emerging art of the Washington area. Through fulfillment of its responsibilities to the community and the country, the Corcoran will be able to further the wishes of William Wilson Corcoran who founded the Gallery "in order to promote and encourage the American genius." The present catalogue was researched, compiled and edited by the Curator of the Collections, Dorothy W. Phillips, with ability, experience and conscientious zeal. Mr. Corcoran would take pride in this factual evidence of the growth of the collection which he established over a century ago. Roy Slade Director vii This page intentionally left blank Introduction Since its inception almost ten years ago, I have been deeply committed to the project of publishing a series of catalogues of the permanent collection of the Gallery and so I was especially delighted to be asked to write this introdution to the second in the series. One of the satisfactions it affords me is the opportunity to touch on the formation of the collection, a segment of which is catalogued in these pages. The collec• tion, as a whole, represents the efforts of a small group of men who guided its growth over many years. One can determine from the accession numbers, which are a part of each catalogue entry, the year in which a painting was acquired, for this is the first number cited. Thus one can identify canvases which entered the collection as part of the original gift of William Wilson Corcoran (1869), and during the Directorships of William MacLeod (1873 to 1889), F. Sinclair Barbarin (1889 to 1900), Frederick B. McGuire (1900 to 1915), C. Powell Minnigerode (1915 to 1947), myself (1947 to 1968), James Harithas (1968 to 1969), and Walter Hopps (1969 to 1972). While admittedly the collection, like all living collections, is still in a formative stage and numerous painters' works remain to be added as opportunity and funds permit, it nevertheless stands as an impressive assemblage which in this volume documents the dominant trends of American painting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as illustrated by fine examples of the majority of the great creative leaders active during the period. This second volume of The Catalogue of American Paintings follows the format of the first published in 1966, except that the references cited have been made more complete and eight color plates have been added. The present catalogue, originally intended to include all American artists born after 1849 represented in the collection, has been carried only through artists born in the year 1909. This decision, based primarily on space limitations, means that a third volume will be necessary to complete the catalogue of paintings. In addition to completing the catalogue of works by artists born after 1909, the next volume will include an appendix devoted to the eighteenth and nineteenth century works which entered the collection after 1966 and which therefore were not listed in Volumes I and II. They include important canvases by painters some of whom were heretofore absent or inadequately rep• resented, men such as Joseph Blackburn, Robert S. Duncanson, William Dunlap, Christian Gullager, John Hesselius, William Morris Hunt, Homer Dodge Martin, Charles Willson Peale, James Peale, Ammi Phillips, Theodore Robinson, and John Trumbull to mention but a few of the better known painters. This volume, as its predecessor, is due to the dedication and painstaking scholarship of Dorothy Phillips, who has devoted such time as could be spared from other duties to its preparation during the past several years. Without her intimate knowledge of the collection, and her ability as a careful and thorough researcher, the catalogue would never have ix become a reality. From time to time and in varying degrees other members of the staff have made their contributions, but the respons• ibility and the accomplishment rest with Mrs. Phillips. Credit for other assistance is given in the Acknowledgments which follow on page xi. The catalogue is published primarily as a working tool - a reservoir of the raw material for research. It is one contribution the Gallery makes towards the furtherance of the study of American painting as a serious and vital aspect of art history. Finally, during the last few decades, after years of neglect and condescension within academic circles, American art has become respectable. To illustrate the change in attitude which has occurred in the hallowed halls of academia, forty years ago when I was an undergraduate at Harvard, no courses in American art were offered and the only names of American artists which a student heard mentioned were Copley, Stuart and Allston. That has changed. Now colleges throughout the country have at last come to admit that American painters have produced a body of work which is worthy of scholarly research and of publication as master and doctoral theses. The need for such compilations as the present catalogue is apparent to all scholars active in the field of American studies to whom the dearth of reliable sources of reference to available material has been a cause for constant frustration. For it is a regrettable fact that scholarly catalogues of the holdings of American art in the collections of public institutions are all too seldom available in print. If this catalogue serves to aid in the systematic study and appreciation of the lasting contributions of our painters, and to encourage a new generation of artists and scholars to build on the past, it will have accomplished its primary purpose. Hermann Warner Williams, Jr. Director Emeritus x Acknowledgments A great many individuals and institutions have assisted in the research problems that have arisen in the preparation of a catalogue of this scope. It is impossible to mention each individually, but we take particular pleasure in recording our indebtedness to the staffs of the Frick Art Reference Library, the District of Columbia Public Library, the Library of the National Gallery of Art, and the Library of the National Collec• tion of Fine Arts. We wish also to express our gratitude to the staffs of museums and to dealers in American art across the country who have responded to our requests for material in their files. To the many volunteers enlisted from the Women's Committee of the Corcoran and other friends of the Gallery, and to the college interns serving apprentice• ships, we owe special thanks for assistance in compiling biographical information. Mrs. Paul Underwood and Mr. Marchal Landgren should be cited for their untiring help with particular research problems, as well as the members of the Gallery Staff who have assisted with numerous details, especially Miss Ellen D. Catledge and Mrs. Elise Hamilton. The photographs were taken by Victor Amato, Staff Photographer. The design and production supervision of the catalogue has been ably carried out by Mr. Graham Johnson of Lund Humphries, London. We wish to thank also Mr. Michael Beaufort-Jones, the printer's representative in the United States, and Mr.