sign in sign up
<<
Home , Cincinnati Art Museum, Frank Duveneck, Henry Mosler, Joseph DeCamp, Karl von Piloty, Munich School

Queen City Heritage

Bust of Marquis de Lafayette by Frederick Eckstein, 1825. Art Museum, The Edwin and Virginia Irwin Memorial. (Figure 1) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany in the Nineteenth Century

John Wilson 1788; the German Johan Heckewelder wrote the first account of Cincinnati and the surrounding area in 1792. By 1840, 30 percent of the city's population At the civic and emotional center of the was German-speaking, prompting city officials to city of Cincinnati stands a graceful, monumental publish ordinances in both German and English, and bronze allegorical figure of water. Water showers prompting the usual social discrimination. Germans from the palms of her hands at the end of her out- settled into various neighborhoods, the most celebrat- stretched arms. Residents know the figure well; the ed of which was "Over-the-Rhine," so-named because plaza on which it sits, Fountain Square, has drawn the immigrants jocularly referred to the Miami-Erie Cincinnatians for over a century to celebrate sporting Canal that ran east-west north of downtown before and military victories, and continues to draw contro- curving south to the River as "The Rhine." To versy as disparate groups of all political persuasions get to the neighborhood from downtown, one had to exercise their right of freedom of speech under the go "over" the Rhine. First Amendment to the Constitution. During the While German artists were among the city's Oktoberfest-an homage not only to earliest to work in Cincinnati, the first of note was Cincinnati's lost heritage as a brewing center but also Frederick Eckstein, one of a family of artists, and who to its sister city link with -as crowds listen to had trained at the Academy in Berlin under Johann bands and celebrate the end of the stifling Cincinnati Gottfried Schadow.1 Eckstein arrived in Cincinnati humidity, a glimpse of the fountain reinforces the late in 1823 from where he had lived feeling that there are few places in North America since 1794 and where with Charles Willson Peale he that bring German life and culture so clearly to mind. helped to establish the Pennsylvania Academy of the The , The Genius of Water, Fine Arts. Teaching at the school belonging to his dedicated in 1871 and known in Cincinnati as the sisters-in-law, Eckstein instantly became the most Tyler Davidson Fountain (after the brother-in-law notable artist in the city. Eckstein had exquisite tim- and partner of the donor, Henry Probasco) is the work ing, making a life mask of Andrew Jackson during the of August Von Kreling (1819-1876). Its presence in general's visit to Cincinnati in 1825, which was Cincinnati is emblematic of the almost unquestion- exhibited at the visit of the Revolutionary War hero able focus on Germany by Cincinnatians for artistic the Marquis de Lafayette that May. Eckstein mod- matters in the nineteenth century. Occasionally, eled a bust of Lafayette as well, despite the fact that , France, or Great Britain would draw artists the marquis was only in Cincinnati for a day. from the city for their training, but Germany, in par- Eckstein evidently made sketches and notes from ticular Diisseldorf and Munich, attracted Cincinnati's which to model a bust (Fig. i), noted as "a good like- artists for the quality of their art schools and the ness"2 and he may well have fashioned it not to sell, resources of the collections. but to show off the abilities of the artist as no other Cincinnati's German heritage and large casts have survived and the original remained with German-speaking districts had much to do with the the family until 1957, when the Cincinnati Art attraction of schools. Germans had been Museum acquired it. a part of Cincinnati almost since its founding in Traditionally trained in Europe, Eckstein

John Wilson earned master has recently published and doctoral degrees from American Art in the Procter & the Courtauld Institute of Art, Gamble Collection: The University of London. Historic Cincinnati Collection. Formerly curator of and sculpture at the , he Queen City Heritage

Summer Pastorale (View of Kallenfels) by Thomas W. Whittredge, 1853. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Daniel P. Erwin Fund. (Figure 2) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany 5 undoubtedly aspired to bring similar training to summer 1852 or the dramatic landscape near Cincinnati, a city already with pretensions as a center Kallenfels in the Nahe Valley. Frequently Whittredge of learning. He lobbied for the establishment of a mixed sites in the same painting for artistic effect, European-style academy of art not only to train and his scenes ranged from somewhat romanticized artists, but to exhibit their work, casts, and the work vistas of the towering rocks, such as his Summer of foreign artists living and dead, and to provide lec- Pastorale, View of Kallenfels (1853, Indianapolis tures on a wide variety of art-related subjects. Museum of Art, Fig. 2) painted for E. J. Mathews of Formally established in 1827, The Academy of Fine Cincinnati,8 to his View of Kallenfels (Cincinnati Art Arts was dead the next year when popular sentiment Museum, Fig. 3) of July 1856, which emphasized not favored a more practical academy, which later became only the rocky mound of Steinkallenfels as it casts a the Ohio Mechanics Institute.1 Yet Eckstein's influ- shadow on the village, but also the bleak hills beyond ence should not be underestimated. He was the first the wooded copses. This picture also contains what master of , the 's most appears to be a funeral procession as it makes its way important neo-classical sculptor, and of Shobal to a walled cemetery. Clevenger, a sculptor of considerable promise who Whittredge also used the Nahe Valley died young. His efforts influenced most artists work- landscape as a setting for other works, such as The ing in Cincinnati at the time, and he is known, not Pilgrims of Saint Roch (private collection, California), unjustifiably, as the father of Cincinnati Art. a painting of such significance to the artist that he The first artist of any consequence to recalled it as one of his major works half-a-century leave the Cincinnati area and study abroad was later in his autobiography.9 This painting is set at Thomas . Already an estab- Rochusberg, above Bingen, where the Nahe meets the lished artist in Cincinnati, Whittredge left in 1849 Rhine.10 The banners held by the figures heading with a $1,000 letter of credit and several commissions down the hill suggests that the painting may illus- for in hand. Though his autobiography trate the return of pilgrims after the procession and claims he originally intended simply to travel in Mass, part of the annual festival of St. Roch, held the Europe, without taking any formal lessons, first Sunday after the August 15 feast of the Whittredge could not have been unaware of the signif- Assumption. The painting emphasizes the high open icance of Diisseldorf when he left the United States.5 plains, which lends even more solace to the grove of In Diisseldorf he worked with , rented trees and the shrine where the pilgrims rest. Lessing a garret from Andreas Achenbach while avoiding for- painted similar views of the Nahe Valley, which also mal lessons, and later studied with Carl Friedrich made their way, undoubtedly via Whittredge, to Lessing and Johann Schirmer. Whittredge quickly Cincinnati, and which likewise take on a more absorbed the Diisseldorf manner and most of the work romantic and mysterious air, such as the Landscape he sent back to Cincinnati reflected the current work (1862, Cincinnati Art Museum), painted two years of Lessing and later Schirmer.6 after Whittredge had returned to the United States. Whittredge traveled much while living When the influence of the Barbizon in Diisseldorf. He later recalled, "I frequently went to school reached Dusseldorf, Whittredge's work the Hague, Dresden, Berlin and Antwerp with an changed accordingly. Anthony Janson has noted that occasional short visit to to see the pictures, but Johann Schirmer began to work in a Barbizon manner for the most part I kept my studio in the old town. with a particularly German sensibility, and My summers were spent in Westphalia, in the Hartz Whittredge's paintings fell into line with Schirmer's [sic] Mountains or in the more immediate neighbor- method.11 Two of the works that Whittredge sent hood of Diisseldorf."7 Much of the work Whittredge back to Cincinnati are distinctly in this style: The sent back to Cincinnati contained motifs from these Mill, 1852, and Landscape in Westphalia, 1853 (both travels, especially trips to the Harz Mountains in late in the Cincinnati Art Museum).12 Whittredge painted Queen City Heritage

View of Kallenfels by Thomas W. Whittredge, 1856. Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of Mary Hanna. (Figure 3) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany

The Mill by Thomas W. Whittredge, 1852. Cincinnati Art Museum, Bequest of Reuben Springer. (Figure 4) Queen City Heritage The Mill (Fig. 4) for Reuben Springer, one of acquaintance" and he introduced Whittredge "into Cincinnati's greatest patrons of the arts, and he paint- society of fast, extravagant people."20 He and ed Landscape in Westphalia (Fig. 5) for George Ward Whittredge soon traveled to Dusseldorf where they Nichols, instrumental in founding what became the both joined Leutze in preparing Washington Crossing Art Academy of Cincinnati. Both paintings feature the Delaware. Practically nothing is known of towering oak trees as central motifs, and Whittredge McConkey's training in Europe; he is said to have appears to have been somewhat celebrated in been in Florence in 185121 but was back in Cincinnati Dusseldorf for paintings of this sort. Friedrich in 1852 when he was elected to the Literary Club. He Wilhelm Von Schadow, president of the Dusseldorf died three years later. Academy, praised him, "You who paint nothing so Only five paintings by McConkey are 13 well as our Westphalian oaks!" Janson relates known, an oval self-portrait (completed by James Whittredge's travels to Dessau to see the famous oaks Henry Beard in 1855) and a vertical mountain land- and the importance of study of oak trees to Lessing's scape at the Literary Club, Cincinnati; Mohawk 14 training of his students. Territory (1849) in the Shelburne Museum, Vermont; Whittredge's work after he returned to a small landscape exhibited at the American Art the United States continued to recall his Dusseldorf Union in 1846 in the Cincinnati Art Museum, and a training. His Crossing the Ford, Platte River, large Landscape Composition exhibited with that Colorado (1868, reworked 1870, The Century title at the American Art Union in 1852 in a private Association, New York) combines tree portraiture collection in Cincinnati. The latter, 105.1 x 156.8 with Lessing-style romanticized figures, in this case cm., is a Rhineland-inspired scene with a lake, moun- American Indians, with a distant mountainous back- tains, castle, and small figures that might be consid- drop. The painting has been described as "an equilib- ered the sort of romantic landscape one would get by rium between the principles of the Hudson River combining and Lessing around 1830- School aesthetic and the logic of composition, draw- 1850. Until the discovery of further works by ing, and coloring [Whittredge] had assimilated during McConkey he is likely to remain a tantalizing foot- I5 his five years in Dusseldorf." note of American art. The elusive Benjamin McConkey preced- German artists continued to be active in ed Whittredge to Europe, though not to Germany. Cincinnati, but their work was primarily devoted to Born in Maryland about 1821, McConkey was in painting altarpieces. William Lamprecht, born near Cincinnati by 1845 when he exhibited four paintings Wiirzburg in 1838, was the most celebrated of these at the Firemen's Fair.16 He may have come from a artists. Gerdts has suggested that he was active in family of some wealth as Whittredge recalled that Cincinnati in 1853, when he was as young as fifteen McConkey had "a fortune at his command."17 By years old.22 Lamprecht was indeed studying in September 1845 he had signed on as a pupil of Munich from 1859 t0 1^^7, when he was in Thomas Cole "on the same terms as Mr Church. $300 Covington, Kentucky, where he was the principal 18 per annum." McConkey exhibited seven paintings painter of altarpieces for the Verein fur Chhstliche at the American Art Union in 1846 and in August and Kunst formed by Brother Cosmos Wolf (1822-1894), September of that year he traveled with Cole to the himself a Schwabian-born sculptor who had trained Shawangunk Mountains, the Catskills, and the with Johann Petz (1818-1880) in Munich. The Adirondacks in New York. By May of 1847 he was Institute supplied painted altarpieces for churches back in Cincinnati acting as something of an agent for across the Northeast and Upper Midwest, but 19 Cole with the Western Art Union. Lamprecht is perhaps best known for being the first McConkey may have already been to master of the young . Lamprecht Rome and was settled enough in Paris when returned to Munich in 1901 and the date of his death Whittredge arrived in September 1849 to have "a large is unknown. Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany

Landscape by Thomas W. Whittredge, 1853. Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of Maria Longworth Storer and Margaret R. Nichols, Marquise de Chambrun. (Figure 5) IO Queen City Heritage

The Whistling Boy by Frank Duveneck, 1872. Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of the Artist. (Figure 6) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany 11 The influence of the German altar Mosler eventually settled in Paris, but painters, who were as active as any artists save maga- first spent two years in Munich, already the major zine illustrators during the Civil War, may have had center for contemporary art, formally focused on the much to do with the continued focus on Germany for Academy and informally on the rough avant-garde the advanced training of Cincinnati's native artists. of , himself influenced by Thomas Corwin Lindsay (1839-1907), one of French realists. Mosler, already an established artist, Cincinnati's most prolific artists, studied in arrived in Munich simply to take an active role in the Diisseldorf around i860 and his- early work reflects city's art world. It is crucial to understanding Mosler the same Barbizon-inspired landscape training seen in that when he did begin to study formally in Munich, Whittredge's paintings from the early 1850s. he studied not the avant-garde but with Leibl's elders, However, from the mid-1890s his work degenerated (1826-1886) and Alexander Von seriously and stories of him trading paintings for Wagner (1838-1919). Piloty especially influenced drink abound. Mosler, whose work recalled much of the elder artist's Silesian-born (1841-1920), historically accurate but melodramatic narrative and the son of a Berlin lithographer, emigrated to New genre scenes. Once he settled in Paris, Mosler's work York in 1849 and to Cincinnati in 1851/3 when he consisted almost entirely of scenes of the crucial cere- studied with James Henry Beard, a Cincinnati painter monial moments in the lives of Breton peasants: birth known for his portraits, genre scenes and animal and baptism, courtship and marriage, dying and death. paintings. By 1861 Mosler was an artist-correspon- He was the first American artist to have his work dent for Harper's Weekly during the Civil War. In acquired by the French government. Mosler returned 1863, after recovering from an illness, Mosler left to the United States in 1895, settling in New York, Harper's to pursue training in Diisseldorf with the and died in 1920.26 genre painter Albert Kindler (1833-1876) and the his- The most celebrated of Cincinnati's tory painter Heinrich Miicke (1806-1891). He artists to work in Germany was Frank Duveneck. immersed himself in the Academy student life and Born to Westphalian immigrants who had settled in developed friendships with German artists. Covington, his first language was German and his life Surviving from this period are Mosler's centered around the German-speaking communities figure drawings in the Cincinnati Art Museum and of Covington and Cincinnati.27 Duveneck's first for- Children Under a Red Umbrella (1865, Terra Museum, mal training was as an assistant to Lamprecht, travel- Chicago). Mosler's work reflected the naturalism and ing with him to decorate churches in the Northeast. detail-oriented work taught by the Academy and it was Cosmos Wolf proposed to Duveneck's parents that he praised by German critics. Mosler returned to study in Munich to improve his abilities as an altar Cincinnati a celebrated artist and engaged with some painter. The Academy had classes specifically devot- energy in the city's reviving artistic life. He was one of ed to religious painting taught by Johann Von the founders, served on the council, and exhibited in Schraudolph (1808-1879), who probably had been the first exhibition of the Associated Artists of Lamprecht's own teacher.28 After three years of con- Cincinnati in 1867-another futile attempt at a formal sideration, he enrolled at the Academy in Munich in art academy-and later served in some capacity at the January 1870. Instead of registering in one of the new McMicken School of Design, directed by the more traditional classes as Wolf would have expected, Thomas Couture-trained conservative Thomas Duveneck was one of the first group of students Satterwhite Noble (1835-1907).24 Barbara Gilbert has taught by Wilhelm Diez (1839-1907), who taught demonstrated how Mosler's entire career was influ- work more akin to the French realist artist Gustave enced by his training with Diisseldorf genre painters, Courbet. Diez emphasized direct study of old mas- and when he returned to Europe in 1875 for twenty ters, in particular Dutch and Flemish pictures, and an years, his work was celebrated for that reason.25 ever-increasing experimentation of technique. 12 Queen City Heritage Duveneck, who had never experienced any instruc- Arts, ) displays an extreme subtlety of color. tion of this sort from Lamprecht, eagerly absorbed Michael Quick has suggested that this painting might Diez's method. be dated later than the bold "1870" inscribed at upper left because of the great similarity to a work by August Holmberg of 1871. However, other works by Duveneck are richer in color than the Caucasian Soldier. These date from as early as 1871, confirming an account from 1880 by Isidor Krsnjavi of Duveneck boldly breaking with Diez's insistence on "gray-paint- ing" which took place early in Duveneck's time in Munich, shortly after he proved he could work as Diez taught. As Krsnjavi recounted the story: Diez was a bitter enemy of all "sweet colors," for which he could forgive not even the best artists. All his students aimed at a "fine tuning" of their painting, so that the entire school eventually deteriorated into complete grayness. The timid souls could only feel good, and safe from "sweet colors," by painting effects of dimness. The talented American, Duveneck, was the one who decided to stage a decisive revo- lution against this state of affairs. He covered his canvas in pure cinnabar, put some bright white on it, and painted a head in this key. To our current way of thinking it shone dreadfully, naturally making all previous studies seem even grayer than ever. We all ran together to see it. Piloty and Diez both emphasized the Diez was delighted. He made a real cult of head sketch as an important exercise and some of Duveneck and hung up in the studio this epoch- Duveneck's earliest mature works are head sketches,- making head while we all went to buy cinnabar. they likewise remained part of his oeuvre his whole Now we worked on impressive effects,- the gray- career. Judging from the reoccurrence of particular painting was out of date.30 models over the years in student paint- Duveneck advanced to Diez's composi- ings, the classes were obviously taught to paint tion class in October 1871, in which students painted assigned characters.29 The Old Professor (1871, finished works of art. Diez emphasized the painting Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), an image of the apothe- of genre pictures, or realist subjects unlike the ideal cary Clemens Von Sicherer (who posed for other artists mythological and religious subjects traditionally as well), demonstrates that Duveneck's talents for expected. From this environment, and with the back- mastering Diez's instructions were prodigious. ground of Diez's earlier instruction, came Duveneck's Diez's concern with technique meant early masterpieces. The Whistling Boy (1872, that he had less of a concern for color. He emphasized Cincinnati Art Museum, Fig. 6) is a bravura display of modeling, lighting, and brushwork to the extent that brushwork, tenebrous colors that are far from gray, critics noted the cool tones used, describing it as and a gritty urban subject typical of realist sensibili- ''gray." Duveneck mastered this technique early on ties. While the face of the boy is more finely mod- as well; his Caucasian Soldier (1870, Museum of Fine eled, the figure's body is created by a flurry of blocks

Head of a Girl by Frank Duveneck, 1873. Cincinnati Art Museum, Kate Banning Fund Purchase. (Figure 7) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany 13 of paint, seemingly slapped on with both sides of a dered with the same energy seen in the figure of the brush. The face, however, betrays something of a Whistling Boy, is worked up to the same degree as timidity in technique that disappears by 1873. Leibl's Ein Italianer of 1869 (, Wallraf- This alia prima painting was likewise Richartz-Museum).32 typical of the work of Leibl, who was only four years Apart from the bold head sketches older than Duveneck. Leibl's study in France and his (found in the works of all the Leibl-Kreis), devotion to the work of Courbet and the impression- Duveneck's most formidable homage to Leibl is his ist Edouard Manet, made him something of a prophet portrait of Ludwig Lofftz (c. 1873, Cincinnati Art when he returned to Munich. It is unclear how close- Museum, Fig. 8), then a contemporary of Duveneck's ly connected Duveneck was to Leibl or his close fol- in Diez's classes. The portrait is well modeled, lowers, known today as the Leibl-Kreis, but he was strong, rich but restrained in color, and reflects an extremely affected by the German artist's work and understanding of Leibl's methods seen in portraits said later in life that Leibl "had more influence over such as that of Johann Heinrich Pallenberg (1871, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum). A contemporary relates the tale that it was painted "in one sitting, lasting all day and to the point of exhaustion of both painter and sitter."33 While a technical examination bears out the alleged speed of execution, Duveneck was not con- cerned with the slashing brush marks most normally associated with Leibl's alia prima painting, and the day-long sitting enabled the artist to make the work more finished and refined than a more typical alia prima sketch. Duveneck was undoubtedly one of the better painters in the Academy, but he may have embellished his success. Letters to his parents in Covington are the only evidence for the claim that he made 1200 Guilden by painting marketable pictures in the summer of 1872, that the Munich artist offered him a place in his studio, and that he had been awarded a place in the Vienna World Exposition.34 He may have been delaying his return home by pointing out how successful he was, and how much his future depended on his remaining in Munich. By April 1873 letters from his father dis- played a noticeable irritation in the artist's delay in returning home to be a religious painter and on 17 December 1873, Duveneck was welcomed home to Cincinnati at a reception given by Cincinnati's artists. me than any of the other men in Munich, although I Duveneck resumed his career as a reli- never studied with him."31 Duveneck mastered the gious painter over the next two years, but worked in a bold, sketchy side of Leibl's work and many paintings proscribed and unadventurous manner. He returned bear striking resemblances. The Head of a Girl (1873, to Munich in August 1875 after two successful exhi- Cincinnati Art Museum, Fig. 7), with the head ren- bitions of his work in Boston-at the Boston Art Club

Portrait of Professor Ludwig Loefftz by Frank Duveneck, ca. 1873. Cincinnati Art Museum, John J. Emery Endowment. (Figure 8) Queen City Heritage

The Cobbler's Apprentice by Frank Duveneck, 1877. Bequest of Charles Phelps and Anna Sinton Taft, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio. (Figure 9) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany 15 and at the dealer Doll and Richards-which established of undulating rich marks of the brush, the strokes of his reputation in the United States. The success of individual hairs sometimes visible. these two exhibitions must have spurred him to The work of Duveneck's two German reestablish himself in Europe, not only by returning to periods is the result of an absorbent mind taking in a Munich, but also as an independent artist rather than concentrated artistic culture led by two forceful per- as a student. He took on his own students, primarily sonalities, Diez and Leibl. Duveneck had the misfor- Americans (he brought with him from Cincinnati tune to make his most original work-his work in and Henry Farny), and began Germany-in a style that was European in orientation his life-long career as a teacher in the Munich tradi- as well as transitional and limited in its influence. It tion, which took on its greatest significance early in was this work that caused Henry James to observe an the next century in Cincinnati. "unmixed, unredeemed reality," and John Singer Duveneck's work displays both flamboy- Sargent to remark in the early 1890s "after all's said, ant brushwork, particularly in landscapes, portrait Frank Duveneck is the greatest talent of the brush of studies and his rare still-lifes, as well as the somewhat this generation."35 Sargent may well have been more disciplined finished work such as that seen in lamenting the taming of Duveneck's brush after his the portrait of Lofftz. The Turkish Page (1876, years in Italy as well as his virtual disappearance from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), painted the artistic mainstream after the death of his wife in alongside working from the 1888. He returned to Cincinnati in 1890 while con- same model, demonstrates an appreciation for the tinuing to travel and work widely. He concentrated flamboyant and exotic with a more advanced use of on teaching, bringing the instruction of 1870s Munich the rich colors avoided by Diez. Duveneck's two later to Cincinnati from 1890 to his death in 1919. exercises in the Whistling Boy subject, The Cobbler's Duveneck's American students in Apprentice (1877, The Taft Museum, Fig. 9) and He Germany were known collectively as the Duveneck Lives by His Wits (1878, private collection) likewise Boys (although he had classes of women as well). Few are painted with this richness. achieved any celebrity beyond the confines of One notable change in Duveneck's sec- Cincinnati, and none worked in a Munich style in ond Munich period is the emergence of landscape as a their maturity. John Henry Twachtman, one of subject matter. The inspiration was undoubtedly America's most exceptional impressionist painters, summer excursions to Polling, but especially the painted at least one Munich-style head sketch, but it exposure to the work of Frank Currier (1843-1909), an is in his landscapes that one observes the freedom of artist who rivaled Duveneck in the freedom of his Duveneck's influence. Henry Farny, known almost brushwork. Currier had studied at the Royal exclusively today for his images of American Plains Academy in Munich, had settled near Schleissheim in Indians, made a number of trips abroad and traveled 1873 to paint landscapes and became something of a extensively in Europe for several years before joining mentor to the colony of American artists that settled Duveneck in Munich. That he spent some time in in Polling in 1877. Duveneck's landscapes owe much Diisseldorf is known from a drawing of a soldier to Currier's slashing brushwork, seen to greatest inscribed with the city's name.36 Farny studied under effect in his large The Brook, Schleissheim, Diez with Duveneck, returning to Cincinnati in 1873, (c. 1875, Cincinnati Art Museum). Duveneck's work and followed Duveneck back to Munich in 1875.37 is more fluid in its treatment, as in his Beechwoods at His most well-known effort in a Munich style is The Polling (c. 1876, Cincinnati Art Museum), which dis- Silent Guest (1878, Cincinnati Art Museum, Fig. 11), plays a sensitivity to the viscosity of the oil paint and a carefully-drawn, precisely-impasted and certainly less concern for painterly dramatics. A similar treat- "gray" rendering of an old gentleman sitting at a tav- ment is seen in Duveneck's self-portrait (c. 1877, ern table with a glass of beer. Farny's later career as Cincinnati Art Museum, Fig. 10), which is created out an illustrator is anticipated in this work by his careful 16 Queen City Heritage handling of the paint. A number of artists from Ameiika, Amerikanische Maler in Deutschland, Cincinnati, such as Joseph DeCamp, Louis Ritter, and 1813-1913, held at the Deutsches Historisches Theodore Wendel, only made their way to Munich at Museum, Berlin, 27 September to 1 December 1996. the end of Duveneck's stay there, and his impact on The original English manuscript has been slightly their careers is more important from an Italian stand- edited for this publication. point. Indeed, they made their careers in New after returning from Europe. 1. The best account of Frederick Eckstein is still Ophia D. Smith, "Frederick Eckstein, The Father of Cincinnati Art," Munich remained a significant destina- Bulletin of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, 9 tion for Cincinnati art students even after Duveneck (October 1951). See also William Gerdts, Art Across America: left for Italy, and most artists of any consequence who Two Centuries of Regional Painting, IJ 10-1920, 3 volumes, trained in the city spent some years at least working (New York, 1990), volume 2, 179-81. Frederick Franks, who opened a Gallery of Fine Arts in Cincinnati in 1826, has been in Munich if not enrolling for classes at the Royal described as a German (by Robert Vitz, The Queen and the Academy. These artists suffered both from the Arts: Cultural Life in Nineteenth-Century Cincinnati, [Kent, absence of Duveneck's personal energy, and from Ohio, and London, 1989], p. 34; and by Ophia D. Smith, "A studying with artists of lesser daring than Diez or Survey of Cincinnati Artists: 1789-1830," Bulletin of the Cincinnati Historical Society, 25 [January 1967], 9, who claims, Leibl. Louis Henry Meakin's Old Munich Market without attribution, that he trained in Munich and Dresden) Woman (c. 1883, Cincinnati Art Museum) is typical: and a Swede (by Donald Smalley, introduction to Frances boldly composed and tightly cropped, it is a timidly- Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London, 1832, New York, 1949), (xxxiv), and as a "Swedish-born, German- painted image of a working woman, hunched over and trained painter" by Gerdts, op. cit. above, volume 2, 180). under an umbrella. Only the hands and the basket of There is little if any documentation on Franks and it must also fruits and vegetables at lower right are painted with be considered that he is the English artist who painted the any degree of life. Meakin studied in Munich under twenty-two watercolors today in the British Museum, who died in 1844. Franks owned or managed the Western Museum in Nicholas Gysis (1942-1901) and Lofftz (1845-1910, and Cincinnati at some point, but if he was indeed the Frederick whose portrait he drew while in Munich) from 1882 Francs who died in 1844, he was not the Swede who ran the to 1886, as did Edward Potthast (who returned to museum when Frederika Bremmer visited the city in 1850 (cf. Smalley, op. cit. above, xxxiv, and Frederika Bremmer, The Cincinnati in 1885). Both worked later in life in an Homes of the New World: Impressions of America, [New York, impressionist style that owes little to Munich. Joseph 1854]). Henry Sharp and John Hauser both studied in Munich 2. National Republican and Political Register, 24 May 1825. in the 1880s and followed Farny into a career of paint- 3. The best account of the rise and fall of Eckstein's Academy of Fine Arts is in Smith (1951), op. cit. at note 1 above, pp. 272-79. ing Plains Indians, but, as with Meakin and Potthast, 4. For the most complete examination of Whittredge, in partic- vestiges of their Munich training are imperceptible. ular his period in Germany, see Anthony F. Janson, World War I virtually ended the flow of Worthington Whittredge, (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). Cincinnati art students to Germany. Cincinnati 5. John I. H. Baur, ed., The Autobiography of Thomas Worthington Whittredge, (New York, 1969), p. 21-22. streets were renamed or translated to English equiva- 6. Janson, op. cit. at note 4 above, p. 37. lents and the city turned its back on its German her- 7. Baur, op. cit. at note 5 above, p. 26. itage, a situation that remains to this day. However, 8. Janson, op. cit. at note 4 above, p. 41. even a cursory look at Cincinnati's visual art, reflect- 9. Baur, op. cit. at note 5 above, p. 63. 10. I am grateful to Katharina and Gerhard Bott for pointing out ed in the prominent placement of the Tyler Davidson the precise location of Whittredge's scene. Perhaps it had spe- Fountain, offers testimony to an extraordinary influ- cial significance to Whittredge, recalling the confluence of the ence of the city's German heritage. Little Miami and the Ohio Rivers just east of Cincinnati. Even in the 1850s the Little Miami River had long been noted as a picturesque spot for artists. 11. Janson, op. cit. at note 4 above, p. 47. This article was originally written for 12. Janson [op. cit. at note 4 above) erroneously dates the and published (in German translation) in the cata- Landscape in Westphalia (which he calls Landscape with Boy and Cows) to 1852. It is clear from Whittredge's account books logue to the exhibition, ViceVersa: Deutsche Maler in that this painting, formerly known as simply Landscape, is Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany

Self Portrait by Frank Duveneck, ca. 1877. Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of Frank Duveneck. (Figure 10) 18 Queen City Heritage

The Silent Guest by Henry Farny, 1878. Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of General M. F. Force. (Figure 11) Winter 1999 Cincinnati Artists and the Lure of Germany indeed the painting made for George Ward Nichols. It was lent 30. For the Caucasian Soldier dated later than 1870, see Quick, to the Cincinnati Art Museum at its opening in 1886, and final- op. cit. at note 27 above, p. 21. Isidor Krsnjavi, "Der ly given by Nichols's daughter, the Comtesse de Chambrun, Kunstunterricht und der Miinchener Akademie," Zeitschrift fur shortly before her death in 1949, when its significance was for- Bildende Kunst 15 (1880): 113-114, quoted in Quick, op. cit. at gotten. note 27 above, p. 22. 13. Baur, op. cit. at note 5 above, p. 30. 31. Josephine W. Duveneck, Frank Duveneck Painter-Teacher, 14. Janson, op. cit. at note 4 above, p. 47. Whittredge's trip to (San Francisco, 1970), p. 38. Dessau is erroneously cited by Janson as on page 56 of Baur's 32. While Quick, op. cit. at note 27 above, p. 25, believes this edition of the artist's autobiography. For a good generalization painting is unfinished, the similarity to Leibl's work, of the significance of oak trees to German culture, see Simon Duveneck's signature, the date, and the inscription "Munich" Schama, Landscape and Memory. (New York, 1995), pp. 100- suggest that whatever state it was in when Duveneck stopped, 120. he was ready to show it off. 15. Esther T. Thyssen, entry on Crossing the Ford: Platte 33. Quick, op. cit. at note 27 above, p. 24; and Norbert River, Colorado, in American Paradise: The World of the Heermann, Frank Duveneck, (Boston and New York, 1918), p. , exh. cat., (New York, 1987), p. 186. 74. While Duveneck undoubtedly painted with a rapid spon- 16. Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture exhibiting at the taneity, one must also take into consideration his comment, Firemen's Fair. Given by the Ladies, for the Benefit of Fire recorded by Heermann, 12, regarding the painting of the Engine and Hose Co., No. 5, at Washington Hall, from 16 June Woman with a Fan now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1845. McConkey exhibited The Fisherman (No. 12), Landscape "Asked once in reference to the superb painting of her eyes, the (No. 13), Lake Scene (No. 21), and Rockland Lake. New York depth of them, Duveneck said: 'Yes, in those days I had eyes (No. 67). All still belonged to McConkey. McConkey's birth- like a hawk and yet I painted two days on that one eye in the date is unknown but the 1850 Census lists him as age 29. light.'" 17. Baur, op. cit. at note 5 above, p. 21. 34. All letters are in the estate of Frank B. Duveneck and are 18. Cole's account book, Albany Institute of History and Art. quoted by Quick, op. cit. at note 27 above, pp. 25-26. 19. Vitz, op. cit. at note 1 above, p. 29, suggested that 35. Henry James, "On Some Pictures Lately Exhibited," The McConkey was a strong influence on the work of John Galaxy, xx (July 1875): 89-97; quoted by John W. McCoubrey, Frankenstein and . Not enough of ed., American Art, ijoo-1960. Sources and Documents, McConkey's work is known to make any sort of connection. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1965), pp. 166-167. Sargent: 20. McConkey's Roman stay can be deduced from his exhibi- Heermann, op. cit. at note 33 above, p. 1. tion of a painting called Roman Ruins with Figures at the 36. Denny Carter, Henry Farny (New York, 1978), p. 17, Fig. 6; American Art Union in 1849 (No. 28; 40 x 30 in.). The quota- monogrammed lower right, inscribed and dated lower left tions about Paris are from Baur, op. cit. at note 5 above, p. 21. "Dusseldorf [sic] Jan 9th / 1870". 21. Gerdts, op. cit. at note 1 above, volume 2, p. 191. 37. Gerdts, op. cit. at note 1 above, volume 2, p. 200. 22. Gerdts, op. cit. at note 1 above, volume 2, p. 185. 23. The best and most up-to-date account of Mosler is Barbara C. Gilbert, Henry Mosler Rediscovered: A Nineteenth-Century American-Jewish Artist, exh. cat., (Los Angeles, 1995), from which most of this account is borrowed. 24. Gilbert, op. cit. at note 23 above, n. 66, lists an entry for the McMicken School in Mosler's account books. Gerdts, op. cit. at note 1 above, volume 2, p. 197, has suggested that artists gave their services freely in the early years of the School. 25. Gilbert, op. cit. at note 23 above p. 32. 26. La Retour, 1879, received an honorable mention at the 1879 Paris Salon (No. 2196). It is now in the Musee Departemental Breton-Quimper. 27. The best introduction to Duveneck's early years and his career in Europe is Michael Quick, An American Painter Abroad: Frank Duveneck's European Years, exh. cat., (Cincinnati, 1987). 28. Quick, op. cit. at note 27 above, p. 16. 29. Quick, op. cit. at note 27 above, illustrates Duveneck's and two other versions of Head of an Old Man in a Fur Hat, (pp. 18- 19, Figs. 6, 7, and 8); and Duveneck's and another version of both The Caucasian Soldier (p. 20, Figs. 9 and 10) and Head of a Girl (p. 21, Figs, n and 12).