K B ! ! E MISSION ! R OM W, , ! or u m 2 m 1 0 m: mm 3 , 9 5 h J OSE PH P E NN E LL R ! RA O R A! HO R TCHE , ILL ST T , T B ! ! R E DE R ICK KE RP E L ‘ ! D IC K K RE E R EPPEL a: co . AST TH STR EE T NEW! OR E 3 9 , K ' 1 907 R EP mNTE D B ! P E R M ISSION ! R OM , , ” THE O ! TLO OK o r S E PT E M B E R 2 m 1 0 3 , 9 5 J O SE P H P E N N E LL E C HE R ILL! S RA O R A! H R T , T T , T O B ! ! R E D E R IC K K E P P E L ! RE D E RIC K K E PPEL 8: C O . E AST TH ST R E E T N E W! O R 4 3 9 , K I 90 7 J O SE P H P E NN E LL TC HER ILL! STR ATO R A! THOR E , , , B ! E K P E ! R ED R IC K E P L. M O NG producers of fine pictures of vari ous kinds it is the able and original illus trator who m ost quickly wins recognition and fame , and of all artists it is he who is the m ost necessary and m ost beneficial to civilization . Li terature is certainly the m ost enormous power f r m o good that we know , but any books and peri odi cals would be maimed and incomplete if unaided by an i llustrator of the right sort . For example , what a loss it would have been if that ’ r familiar little masterpiece , Lewis Ca roll s ” Alice in Wonderland , had been originally printed and published without the admi rable il lustrations o f Sir John Ten niel ! nfortunately , this happy unity between n author and artist is one too general , and many n ece s contemporary illustrations , although not s aril ! r om y bad as pictures , are nevertheless f l u l the purpose , as Ham et says , and act a ly fight against and weaken the text wh ich they attempt to elucidate and em phasize . Next after the illustrator it is probably the really able original etcher to whom fame comes quickly ; and after him , in a descending scale , come the portrait pain ter , then the painter of i other subjects , and , last of all in order of qu ck promotion , the sculptor . His statue or group f cannot easily be multiplied , is di ficult to move fo r from pl ace to place , and these reasons must long remain comparatively unknown , while , on the contrary , the picture of the illustrator is ex amine d by thousands o f people in thousands of f di ferent places from the very day of its birth . Of the many famous painters who thus won early recognition by means of e tching or illustrating , or through both , I may mention Whistler , Sir John Everett Millais (late Presi o f dent the Royal Academy , London) , the Fren chmen Meissonier and Charles Jacque , and one of our famous Philadelphians , Edwin A . R A. Abbey , . In com pany with these emi nent names we may place the name of Mr . Pennell . If, unlike the others , he is not yet ub famous as a painter , it is solely because the p lis hers and the public have not hitherto allowed him the time necessary for the making of oil - paintings , water colors , and pastels ; but he has produced a fe w beautiful pictures in these he mediums , although has not yet exhibited them . Moreover , he is still a young m an . 4 — Joseph Pennell like Whistler , Abbey , and other famous artists of American birth—has won name and fame i n Europe before American recognition came to him . He comes of good old ! uaker stock , and was born at Philadelphia o f ul 1 86 0 . o f on the fourth J y , He is the son the late Larki n Pennell , who was an eminent member of the Society of Friends , and whose first American ancestor came to our shores in company with William Penn when the latter made his second voyage from England to the province of Pennsylvania . — I think that pi ctorial art l ike m usic , ri ch dress , and certai n other artistic but worldly vanities—was disallowed by the sternly con s cie ntio us first followers of George Fox ; but , be that as i t may , Joseph Pennell from h is early boyhood was resolved to becom e an artist , and ! ” that indomitable backbone which distin ! . guis hes him as a man must have made di ffi cult things easy to h im as a boy . His training began at the Philadelphia Indus trial Art School , and was continued and com pleted at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts . Th is was during the years when that admirable man , the late James L . Claghorn , was its President . Mr . Claghorn belonged to the very best type of American citizenship ; 9 one of those essentially ! big and forceful — men presiden t of this , chairman of that , trustee of the other public institution , but withal thoroughly democratic and quite devoid - of all pretense or self importance . Thi s was the man who fi rst made me acquainted with the work of Joseph Pennell , who was not then twenty years old , and I well remember the ’ Cla ho rn s glow of pride on Mr . g handsome face as he showed me certain etchings repre senting street scenes in Philadelphia , and his remark , Thi s is original work by one of our own boys ; n ow what do you s ay to tha t ! These first essays of the ’ prentice hand were little more than the prophecy of what the master hand was to do later , and yet they were full of good augury . Some of the essential qualities were al ready manifest— such as the unerri ng eye for the picturesque , and also that instinct for good d rawing which we may com ! pare to the delicate natural ear for music which renders it almost impossible for its happy pos s es s o r o f un to sing a note out t e . In both cases competen t instructors can— and indeed must develop and educate the gift which is inborn i n f a true artist ; but i f this gi t is not there , the teachers can never create it . In the vi tal quality of appropriateness as t o At L b a V . y nch urg , irgini ’ contrasted with irrelevancy , Mr . Pennell s illus tra tio ns are certainly unsurpassed and it would be as diffi cult to find among them a picture which does not materially aid the text as it fi would be to nd one which , in itself, is not a f ar a ckno wl veritable work o t. But besides his edged power as a draughtsman for illustration , his technical knowledge of reproductive pro cesses gives him a distinct advantage over m ost e of his confr res , so that his drawing is pretty ” sure to ! prin t w ell in the page of a mag azine or a book , because he knows so well how to m ake his picture wi th th at particular end in view . Another rare endowment is his peculiar faculty for giving to each one of hi s pictures its own true local aspect , so that there is no mistaking an American for an English scene or a Spanish for an Italian view . Very few artists possess this facul ty o f discarding their own particular national point of view and of absorbing the changed — character o f di fferent foreign countries n o tw o O of which are ali ke . The pposite condition is strongly fel t i n the case of the portrai ts o f Americans whom we know , and which are painted here by visiting foreign artists o f co ns id crable reputation ; such pictures may display all the brilliant cleverness of the m odern French I 3 school , and may even be good as likenesses , yet ” flwe are sure to suff er from the ! Frenchy avor which th e foreign artist has unconsciously superadded . But all this while we are leaving Joseph Pennell as a promising young art student in peaceful Philadelphia , whereas his fame was to ' be won a thousand leagues from his native city . We must follow him to Europe , whither he 1 8 8 went in the year 4 ; but , if we let him go inco m there alone , this chronicle would be so plete as to be quite worthless . Another good Philadelphian must go with him , so inseparable fo r the last twenty years is the work of the two , although the one never does the particular work of the other . I well remember hearing that man of genius , Henry Ward Beecher, say i n a sermon , When God gives a m an a good wife , that man will thereafter have little need to pray to his Creator ” fo r other blessings . We all know of the beautiful union between Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth ; but this historic intellectual partnership was not m ore com plete than that between Joseph an d Elizabeth Robins Pennell .