The Slater Museum and Connecticut Artists

The Muse Newsletter of the Slater Memorial Museum Fall 2010

The Slater Museum and Connecticut Artists: Unbreakable Bonds The Norwich Art School and the Slater Memo- Art School held numerous classes in the late rial Museum are intimately linked. Had it not afternoons and evenings to serve “adult” stu- been for the Museum, the art school may never dents who, as it is today, had to work at “day have come into existence. Indeed, it was the re- jobs.” The Slater Memorial building housed source of the collection of plaster cast copies of the art school. Spaces currently deployed as of- the Ancient World’s great sculpture that inspired fices and object storage were studios then. The the Trustees of the Norwich Free Academy to es- Mezzanine was also used as a drawing studio tablish a professional training institution for art- and a large skylight in the roof on the north side ists in 1890. In its earliest years, the Norwich of the building allowed the desired consistent light into the garret painting studio. By 1906, when Ozias and Hannah Dodge cultivated do- nor Charles A. Converse to build the Converse Art Building, the Art School had its own structure to house classes and studios.

After the dedication of the Slater’s Cast Collec- tion in 1888, NFA established the Norwich Art School to “widen the opportunities to profit by” the new facility. Third NFA Head of School, Robert Porter Keep remarked at the opening of the Art School that “The Art School is designed to promote the general advantage of the community. It offers thorough training to residents of Norwich and others and seeks to promote the application of Art to Industry, and with this latter view, the departments of Design and Model- ling in clay have been established and a class in Draughting has been organized.” The Art Robert Porter Keep

(Continued on page 3) A Message from the Director Crash! Bang! Whirr! Squeak! … Scrape, scrape, scrape! That is what I hear daily from about 6:30 a.m. to about 3:00 p.m. just outside the thin (though double pane) glass of my office window and coming directly from the (now uncarpeted) floor overhead. Sometimes … it comes from workers right IN my office! It sounds truly miserable, but this a great example of keeping one’s “eyes on the prize.” The interior invasion into museum galleries of the construction for the Slater’s new accessibility project was not originally anticipated to be so great. However, changes mandated by state and local officials made this necessary, so most galleries are either entirely or partially de-installed. The good news is that this affords museum staff the opportunity to refresh long-standing exhibitions and continue the work of re-interpreting the Slater’s great holdings. I hope you, as I, can envision the happy re-opening with artwork and casts re-installed and glowing!

New York City on Your Own! In conjunction with NFA’s Glad and Sorry Committee, the Slater Museum is pleased to offer roundtrip bus service to New York. The city is delightful in the fall! Start your holiday shopping early, catch a show or visit a museum; the day is yours! Saturday, November 6, 2010 Only $35 per person! 7:00 a.m. - NFA departure. Drop off in New York at Central Park, Battery Park, Times Square and Canal Street (drivers will try to accomodated additional requests). 8:00 p.m. - New York departure from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Arrive at NFA by 10:00 or 10:30. Please make checks payable to NFA and send to Slater Museum.

The Muse is published up to four times yearly for the members of The Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum. The museum is located at 108 Crescent Street, Norwich, CT 06360. It is part of The Norwich Free Academy, 305 Broadway, Norwich, CT 06360. Museum main telephone number: (860) 887-2506. Visit us on the web at www.slatermuseum.org. Museum Director – Vivian F. Zoë Newsletter editor – Geoff Serra Contributing authors: Vivian Zoë, Leigh Smead and Patricia Flahive Photographers: Leigh Smead, Vivian Zoë

The president of the Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum: Patricia Flahive

The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees: Steven L. Bokoff ’72, Chair Jeremy D. Booty ‘74 Richard DesRoches * Abby I. Dolliver ‘71 Lee-Ann Gomes ‘82, Treasurer Thomas M. Griffin ‘70, Secretary Thomas Hammond ‘75 Theodore N. Phillips ’74 Robert A. Staley ’68 Dr. Mark E. Tramontozzi ’76 David A. Whitehead ’78, Vice Chair *Museum collections committee

The Norwich Free Academy does not discriminate in its educational programs, services or employment on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, color, handicapping condition, age, marital status or sexual orientation. This is in accordance with Title VI, Title VII, Title IX and other civil rights or discrimination issues; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991. 2 (Continued from page 1) From its inception, the Art School’s faculty has comprised professional artists whose expertise and knowledge of art have enriched their class- room teaching. For well over a century, artists throughout Connecticut have been affiliated with both the art school and the museum and the museum is fortunate to have in its collection works by early and former directors and faculty of the art school. With its re-opening, the museum will feature a new permanent exhibition of work by 20th century Connecticut artists. A number of those to be represented in this will be former di- A drawing class in the Slater Museum’s rectors or faculty of the Norwich Art School. Cast Gallery c. 1900 School was supported by William A. Slater and The first “Directress” of the Norwich Art School other benefactors. Slater clearly saw the deep was Irene Weir (1862-1944), niece of both paint- connection between his greatest gift to the Acad- ers J. Alden Weir and John F. Weir. She studied emy and the Art School, where the principal with J.H. Twachtman and her uncles as well as method of pedagogy was “Drawing from the An- with her grandfather, Robert Walter Weir. tique”, the term used for the process of using the casts as subject matter for “life drawing.” This Robert Walter Weir (June 18, 1803 - May 1, 1889) method was, and still is today, used extensively was best known as an educator and historical in University settings like that of the Pennsylva- painter. Considered an artist of the Hudson River nia Academy of Fine Art and Yale and Harvard School, he was elected to the National Academy Colleges. Indeed, the Slater’s collection is used of Design 1829. Weir served as an instructor at by NFA art students as well as those from area the United States Military Academy, West Point, colleges and universities including Lyme Acad- New York and among his better known works emy of Fine Art. are The Embarkation of the Pilgrims (in the ro- tunda of the United States Capitol at Washington, In addition, several memoires of the art school, D.C.); Landing of Hendrik Hudson; Evening of written by former faculty mention the ever-pres- the Crucifixion; ent (and still taught today) textile design; some- Columbus be- thing William Slater would have found important fore the Council to his family’s businesses in textile manufacture. of Salamanca; Our Lord on the A prospectus of the Norwich Art School from Mount of Olives; 1895 – 1896 suggests how the school was in- Virgil and Dante tended to implement its curriculum in that “… crossing the Styx. the studios of the school are in the Memorial The Entrance To building, five rooms being occupied by the vari- A Wood (1836), ous departments. The studios of the day classes, watercolor and on the upper floors, communicate directly with graphite on pa- the Museum, the varied collections of which are per, is owned by accessible daily and are constantly studied and the Metropolitan used by the students.” Museum of Art, New York. Robert Walter Weir 3 John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926) was a painter 1942 at the age of 80. The Slater Museum owns and sculptor, became a Member of the National one work by Irene Weir, a watercolor entitled Academy of Design in 1866, and was the first Coast of Maine. director of the School of Fine Arts at Yale Uni- versity (1869-1913). Julian Alden Weir (1852- The initial faculty included Alice Van Vechten 1919), studied under his father and at the École Brown, who taught “Antique” and life drawing, des Beaux Arts and under Jean-Léon Gérôme in Henry Watson Kent, Curator of the Slater Memo- Paris. He became a distinguished portrait, figure rial Museum who taught art history, Edith Wood- and landscape painter and was one of the found- man, who taught modeling and design, and Isa- ers of the Society of American Artists 1877. J. iah W. Olcott who taught drafting. In 1891 Irene Alden Weir was a member of the Cos Cob Art Weir left her directorship position to spend more Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut and one of time painting. “The Ten,” a loosely-allied group of American artists dissatisfied with professional art organi- Norwich Art School Director from 1891 until zations, who banded together in 1898 to exhibit 1897, Alice Van Vechten Brown studied painting their works as a stylistically-unified group. Julian at the Art Students’ League in New York from Weir became a member of the National Academy 1881 to 1885 under William Merritt Chase and of Design in 1886. Abbott Thayer. The daughter of a Darmouth College faculty member who became president Miss Weir assumed the role of director of the of Hamilton College, Miss Brown was born in Norwich Art School in 1890 before she had com- Hanover, New Hampshire. Originally planning pleted her own training. She remained in the po- to be a studio artist, a family health issue changed sition only one year, but may have continued to her focus to art history and art education. She teach here. According to an un-attributed obitu- was assistant director of the Norwich Art School ary, she received her bachelor of fine arts degree in 1891 under Miss Weir and was remembered from Yale University in 1906 and from 1923 to in a history (1938?) of the Art School attributed 1927 was a student at the École des Beaux Arts to Charlotte Fuller Eastman as working to culti- Americaine at Fountainbleau. Also early in her vate fraternity among the earliest students. Miss career, she wrote The Greek Painters' Art, (1905) Brown used the which in addition to interpreting the original fig- Cast Collection ures from which many of the casts in the Slater's to teach not only collection were taken, is a "Grand Tour" style drawing but see- travelogue memoir typical of the late 19th and ing: the ability early 20th centuries. Irene Weir established the to train the eye School of Design and Liberal Arts in New York to observe shape, City in 1917. Her position as director of this form, light and school appears to have overlapped her studies in shadow. Paris. She also served as director of the Fine Arts Department of the School of Ethical Culture in In 1897 Brown New York. Miss Weir resided for many years at took a position at the Women’s University Club in New York City Wellesley College where her painting, Garden of Hesperides hung. to re-organize the She painted a portrait of Madame Marie Curie art department, for New York’s Memorial Hospital and for the with a particular new chapel of the West Side Prison, she painted focus on the art Coast of Maine, by Irene Weir a mural entitled Mother and Babe with Jesus in (1862-1944), watercolor, n.d. history courses.

(Continued on page 6) 4 Cast Conservation Progress

Early this year, the David T. Langrock Foundation awarded the Slater Museum a grant of $ 10,000 to make much-need- ed conservation work on the Slater’s copy of the Pergamon Frieze possible. Even before the NFA board’s decision to move ahead with the accessibility project, this was a priority project. Many years ago, but well after the casts were as- sembled, a display case was installed on the top of the Frieze’s cornice, running the entire length of it. The case was very well-built, of heavy, early pine and includes five large plate glass doors. The case was then loaded with hundreds of won- derful artifacts – many themselves quite heavy – such as sil- ver, ivory, beaded bags and jewelry.

Over the years, evidence that the cornice was beginning to separate from the Cast Gallery’s interior columns and lean forward began to emerge. Naturally, the concern is both for the safety of visitors and the protection and restoration of the New cracks are evident in the Frieze’s piece itself. Couple all of this with the inevitable vibration cornice from the construction to begin in April, and the issue becomes urgent!

Thanks to the grant from the Langrock Foundation, Slater’s Cast Conservator, Robert Shure, working with NFA Facilities staff member Dave Girardin and Friends of Slater member ad volunteer Barry Wilson, the massive piece has been examined, inspected, braced and reinforced with turn buckles to stabilize the cornice. Mercifully, the cast has l been deemed safe, and it is planned that the display case will be re-installed when the construction work is complete. We are immensely grateful to the David T. Langrock Foundation for this and past grants to the Slater Museum and thank Bob, Dave and Barry.

Pergamon Frieze turnbuckle center (left), the team works to add supports to the Frieze (right).

5 Construction Update

Throughout the summer, there has been a whir of activity every day, six days each week in the cavern between the Slater, Converse, Norton and Alumni Gym buildings. Truly remarkable progress has created the distinct outline and concrete walls of the basement of the new building. Steel vertical and horizontal beams are in place. The side of Norton Gym to become an interior wall in the new Atrium has been veneered with manufactured stone and windows have been uncovered on the north side of the museum allowing light into exhibition spaces

In addition to long-blocked light, some walls have been demolished and new walls have been in- troduced into the Gualtieri Gallery and on the North side of the Mezzanine. The latter will make it possible to install an expanded version of the very popular exhibition Crocker’s Norwich: The Long Nineteenth Century and to further the work begun on the Norwich Galleries. The former will allow two new exhibitions: African Art from the collections of Paul Zimmerman and Lewis and Betty Atherton; and Connections: 20th Century Connecticut Artists.

As with any project of this magnitude, there have been delays. The complexity of keeping students safe and classes going on without disruption has been less of an issue than those related to materials delivery and discoveries of “repair” opportunities that cannot wait for later attention. All on cam- pus have been remark- ably positive about the anticipated result.

View of the construction project from the Slater Museum offices

(Continued from page 4) In this effort, she successfully adapted and in- earliest museum studies courses (1911) in the troduced methods she had developed in Nor- Nation and the first course (1927) on “modern wich. According to The Story of Wellesley by art.” Florence Converse, “all students are required to recognize and indicate the characteristic According to the Wellesley College website, qualities and attributes of the great masters and “Alice Van Vechten Brown, appointed in 1897 the different schools of paintings by sketch- as museum director and head of the art depart- ing from photographs of the pictures studied.” ment, modeled the museum after the populist Enrollment soared and Wellesley became the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria first American college with an art history ma- and Albert Museum) in London. In keeping jor. Her duties included serving as director of with Wellesley's emphasis on learning and Wellesley’s Farnsworth Museum which she community service, Brown described the mu- also overhauled. She purged objects not of seum as ‘a place for classes and students, but museum quality and instituted a loan exhibi- also a place in which the public may linger and tion program. Brown established one of the enjoy; a place to bring children, and in which

6 At Yale School of Art, Ozias Dodge had received an award for “Masterly Drawing” and a scholarship to continue his studies at the Art Students League in New York. While in New Haven, as in his years in high school, Ozias worked teaching summer classes to support himself and pay tuition. Influenced by the Realists and the Bar- bizon artists, Dodge’s work is represented in the collections of the Smithsonian Institute, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Library Wellesley College, early 20th century. of Congress. Much of his artwork celebrates the natural and built environment as well as ordinary teachers may study; a model to every college stu- people who were essential to making life possible: dent of what a museum may do for any town in fishermen, farmers and peddlers. His work often the land.’" features farm workers, rivers, woods and fields unmarred by urban development. Despite the As research for her 1914 A Short History of Ital- fact that Norwich had become an urban industrial ian Painting (with William Rankin), she worked metropolis by the time Dodge arrived in 1897, in Italy (1905-1907) with materials and tech- his markedly nostalgic and lingering rural vision niques used by the masters, applying her peda- extends an essentially earlier aesthetic. Dodge’s gogical method to her own learning process. In oil paintings Corn Huskers and Apple Gatherers, her preface, she gives additional thanks to sev- in the gallery in the northwest corner and on the eral other scholars, including Wellesley profes- north wall, respectively, are reminiscent of the sors and museum professionals from Wellesley work of Millet and Corot, painters whose work and the Worcester Art Museum. While Miss he would have studied in and around Paris. Weir’s book began in a chatty, informal manner followed by extensive history and appreciative It may have been as the result of fortune in mar- description, Ms. Brown’s is a work of strict fac- rying that Ozias came to Norwich. The family tual scholarship without aesthetic analysis. Alice into which he married was old and well-respect- Van Vechten Brown served 33 years as head of ed. Robert Porter Keep, a friend of the bride’s Wellesley’s Art Department.

Brown was succeeded by Ozias Dodge, an honor graduate of Yale School of Fine Arts. He had been the Director of the Victoria School of Art in Nova Scotia and had studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and under Jean-Léon Gérôme. During his tenure at the Norwich Art School, he befriended Charles A. Converse, an Academy donor. Through Mr. Converse’s will, money was bequeathed to construct the Converse Art Gal- lery, which was officially dedicated in 1906. The new building was connected by an arched bridge to the Slater Memorial and housed an exhibition gallery above and spacious art classrooms be- Study for Apple Gatherers, Ozias Dodge (1868-1925), low. oil on board, n.d. 7 In 1910, Ozias left the Academy to pursue the re- finement and promotion of his two-color etching process. According to his wife Hannah’s memoir, “he wanted to perfect a process for fine newspa- per reproductions and … he dreamed of enriching the quality of the original prints which were then appearing in the art field.” To this end, Ozias created “Norwich Film” which could be turned into “a perfect negative.” Paper used in the process was made in Belgium. Ozias was making art prints himself at the time, so his work was truly Oziaz Dodge (center) overseeing his drawing class, that of an artist and a businessman. Both the U. early 20th century. S. Library of Congress and the New York Public Library acquired portfolios of his etchings, and father and third superintendent of the Norwich he began to enjoy considerable respect and ac- Free Academy, was a guest at the wedding. Keep claim for the artistry and technology of his two- invited Ozias to Norwich to lecture about French color process. He was invited to James MacNeil painting. In his presentation, Dodge used stere- Whistler’s Art Club in London and to France. In opticon slides, an innovation which portended 1908, Ozias published Experiments in Producing his later interest in marrying art and science. Printing Surfaces. A catalogue from Ozias’ last year at the Acad- The Academy trustees appointed George Albert emy (1910) shows him teaching from 9:00 a.m. Thompson (1868-1938) to succeed Dodge. Best to 1:30 p.m. “daily,” with two overlapping class- known for Connecticut landscapes and coastal es. In addition, on Thursdays, he taught from scenes including atmospheric nocturnes, George 2:30 to 4:30 and on Tuesdays and Fridays from Thompson frequently painted around Bridgeport, 7 to 9:00 p.m. He taught “Preparatory, Antique, Mystic, and New Haven. He was an art teach- Life and Illustration.” Ozias also began a series er at the Yale School of Fine Arts where he had of evening lecture demonstrations about draw- studied. He was also a student of John LaFarge ing for any and all who came. The day classes and studied in Paris. Thompson exhibited at the were intended for the traditional student, while National Academy, the Pennsylvania Academy evening classes were clearly directed toward stu- and the Corcoran Gallery biennials and was, with dents who worked during the day. There were no Charles Davis, one of the original members of age restrictions. The school embraced a classical the Mystic Art Association in 1913. He served as approach, yet aimed to lead to gainful employ- its president in 1931 when the gallery was built ment. and continued to exhibit there until his death. An exhibition arranged by Henry Watson Kent, While in Mystic, Thompson became fully in- first curator of the Slater Museum, included sev- volved in the town’s art community. He taught en oil paintings by Ozias. An unattributed article, adult art students as well as children in the local possibly from an 1899 issue of the Norwich Bul- public schools. He taught many grade levels at letin, said that Ozias “is essentially a ‘plein air’ Mystic Academy, where each child was asked to man. He tries to see … with fresh eyes. … He bring a box of eight Crayola Crayons and to work appreciates high lights and glowing color, … and diligently at the basics of drawing. feels the charm of atmosphere. We can recognize the art of a nation….” 8 Paris. This would mark the beginning of a per- sonal tradition wherein Mrs. Eastman returned every summer, creating marvelous drawings as she sat in the many squares that comprise Paris neighborhoods. People going about their busi- ness, riding trolleys and shopping at street mar- kets populate these small, intimate drawings.

Mrs. Eastman’s work was displayed at the Corc- oran Gallery in Washington D.C. and in exhibitions of the American Watercolor Club and the New York Watercolor Club. Of French Hugue- not descent, she spent time in South Carolina Pendleton Shipyard, Mystic, George Albert Thompson, oil on canvas, 1925 and returned to Paris regularly. Mrs. Eastman often used her students as models. A number of According to the Mystic Art Association, Thomp- alumni have returned to the Slater later in life, or son was well known for his portraiture and land- their children arrive in their stead, bringing along scape paintings. An un-attributed January 10, a photograph and asking to see a painting they 1910, review of an exhibition of 28 paintings recall or about which they were told. Invariably, stated that “The general impression one gains it is a remembered or imagined portrait painted in looking around the walls is of a vigorous and by Mrs. Fuller of a student. Sadly, though there same art, modern in its tendencies but not entan- are many of these in the Slater’s collection few gled with any fads or movements of the extrem- sitters, if any are identified. ists. … The important thing is that he knows how to paint. His composition is sound and his color Mrs. Eastman built a studio in Norwich in Coit has richness and depth.” The work of G. Albert Lane, a structure still standing and occupied as a Thompson was an important part of a MAA Ret- home (by NFA faculty). Interestingly, she took a rospective Exhibition in 1996. summer leave of absence in 1917 to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, an institu- Charlotte Fuller Eastman (1878-1965) studied at tion with an the Norwich Art School from 1897 to 1899 and extensive then at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (1899- cast collec- 1901). She worked in Boston in book illustration, intended tion, traveling in Europe and Great Britain for the for the exclu- publisher. Charlotte met her husband in Boston sive use by its and from a young wife became a young widow as students. She the result of an accident. Moving to Chicago to was replaced live with her late husband’s family, she studied at in 1943 by the Chicago Art Institute and continued her work Margaret L. in book design and illustration. Triplett about whom we While visiting family in Norwich, Charlotte will learn in Fuller Eastman was invited by Ozias Dodge to the next is- return to her native city and alma mater to teach sue. as a substitute from 1909 to 1911. In 1912 Char- lotte returned to become head of the school and Self Portrait, Charlotte Fuller in 1926, she took her first sabbatical, traveling to Eastman, Oil on panel, n.d. 9 The Slater On Display in New London!

The Slater Museum’s Norwich Harbor will be featured in an exhibition at the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London. Entitled Members Collect: The Thrill of the Chase, the exhibition runs from October 16, 2010 to March 20, 2011. It will open with a reception on October 16 at 5:00 p.m. to which all Friends of Slater are invited.

Unless one is an intimate friend, it is not often that the opportunity arises to view the prize possessions from very private collections. But that is exactly what the Lyman Allyn Art Museum is going to do with the upcoming exhibition Members Collect: The Thrill of the Chase. It will feature extraordinary works of art from the collections of Museum members who live in the Norwich Harbor , oil on canvas, c. 1860 by John region of New London, Connecticut east to Westerly, Rhode Is- Denison Crocker land. Landscapes, portraiture, still life…abstract, expressionist, realistic…paintings, sculpture, multi-media. – captivating pieces from impassioned collectors.

The Slater Museum had this prized painting conserved especially for the exhibition. The work was performed by Lance Mayer and Gay Myers over the summer and, in addition to enhancing its beauty, makes the painting more stable, ensuring its longevity.

The Friends of Slater encourages attendance at this event of a sister organization, where at least a taste of the Slater is available during our hiatus.

SERVICE CHANGE REQUESTED