Wind and Dazzle The Art of Charles S. Hopkinson (1869-1962) May 3 to June 30, 2001 VOSE GAILILERKES Of BOST(ON Sporklil/g Oceol/ al MOl/chesler, ca. 1920 Watercolor on paper 13 Xx 20 X inches H-48-S $11,000 FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHARLES HOPKINSON FIRST EXHIBITED HIS We are pleased to present the following dazzLing watercolors at Vose Galleries in the early selection of oils and watercolors together with an 1930s when he was an active member of the Boston informative essay by Hopkinson scholar Leah Eve. In ] 945 Robert C. Vose organized a one-person Lipton. We are indebted to Ms Lipton for her signi- exhibition of oils and watercolors by Hopkinson. ficant contribution to the scholarship of Boston art After his death, howevel~ Hopkinson was largely and culture. overlooked until 1988, when Leah Lipton organized This exhibition would not have been possible a major exhibition of his paintings at the Danforth without the participation of the Hopkinson family. Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts. She We would also like to thank Wendy Hurlbut of the argued eloquently and persuasively for Hopkinson's Archives of American Art, Smithson..ian Institution place among accomplished American modernists. and Lee B. Ewing for their help securing photo- Three years later, Vose held the first of three retro- graphs of Hopkinson's early drawings. spective shows. These exhibitions prompted a reevaluation of Hopkinson's career and works. As Rabat C. Vase /Tl an artist he was truly remarkable for his produc- Abbot W. Vase tivity, skill, and the fresh creative spirit with which he approached his subjects. Cover illustration: Catalogue by Nancy Allyn Jc1rzombek Kite Flyillg, Ipswich, FOl/rtlt (~rIlIl.l/l Photography by Clive RllS~ ca. 1955 Photogrnphy of dnnvillgs in the Chi1rles Hopkinson imd \\lfltercolor on pnpC'l' Hopkinson family pl1pers, Archives of American Art, 12 ~ x 18 ~ inches SmithsoniClI1 Instit'utinn, by Ll:'E'B. E'v\'ing H-47-S Printed by Capibl! OffsL:tComp,lJl)', Inc., Concord, NH $15,000 Copyright CD200l, Vnsc G<.llieries of Boston, Inc. WIND AND DAZZLE: THE WATERCOLORS OF CHARLES HOPKINSON by Leah Lipton Danforth Museum of Art THROUGHOUT HIS LONG AND EMINENTLY successful career, Charles Hopkinson (1869-1962) was acclaimed for his vivid and highly accom- plished portraits, among them, likenesses of President Calvin Coolidge, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The roster of his portraits included important professors, lawyers, bankers and other notable individuals. From this work, he earned a comfortable income, even during the barren Depression years of 1929-1935. He was surrounded by loving women: his wife Elinor, her four sisters, Charles Sidney Hopkinson painting a watercolor in and his five daughters, whose childhood portraits Bermuda, ca. 1945 are among his most charming works. Courtesy of the Bostoll Pllblic Library Prillt Divisioll In those same years he also produced an impres- sive body of watercolors, painted largely for his own pleasure and for the enjoyment of his family and friends. These quick personal studies must have infiltrating American art. It is worth noting that afforded him relief from the demands of his portrait Hopkinson made a sharp distinction in style clients for satisfying or even flattering likenesses. In between his portraiture, painted in oil, and his the watercolors he was free to seek his own rewards. watercolors which he must have felt were in some He could play with abstracted forms and indulge in way less serious. These were small works on paper, fluid brush work and brilliant color. These small requiring less commitment than the oils in both time works on paper represent the most personal and and materials. Thus they were suitable for a more intimate expression of his artistic output. He was radical experimental style. The portraits were com- liberated from all constraints and free to be experi- missioned and provided his livelihood. The water- mental in both technique and subject matter. colors, although frequently exhibited and critically Hopkinson's studio was situated on the top floor well-received, were for the most part kept in the of a comfortable wood-frame house perched above family or given away to friends. the sea in Manchester, Massachusetts. Below the But the people who greatly admired bluff and out at sea were Egg Rock and Dana Island, Hopkinson's portraits were often distressed and small outcroppings of earth and rocks that he deeply puzzled by the watercolors, with their enjoyed painting in every season of the year. From abstract shapes and sometimes non-representational his studio window his ever-changing view induded colors. Because of his extraordinary portrait skills the sweep of Massachusetts Bay and occasionally the the public could not simply dismiss Hopkinson by spires of Boston might even be visible in the distance, accusing him of being unable to draw, although this twenty miles to the southwest. The property was criticism was leveled at most artists attempting mod- called "Sharksmouth" after the suggestive shapes of ernist work at that time. One Boston critic, William the rocks directly beneath the bluff. Germaine Dooley, wondered about what he called Hopkinson's professional success as an artist Hopkinson's "dual personality." He reported in the was based upon his secure reputation as a painter of Boston Evcning Transcript (March 6, 1937) that portraits that initially conformed to the accepted "Reactionaries [called the watercolors] wild, illiterate figurative style popular in Boston at this time. But paintings of the 'ten year old child could do better' he was also keenly aware of the new ideas and deprecation." Still, Dooley went on, since techniques of European modernism that were slowly Hopkinson was "capable of turning out likenesses 1 Dana /s/nlld, AU/WIlli Watercoloron paper 15~ x 19~ inches H-ll-E $9,000 approved by the most conservative, they [the critical evident from an article in the Bostoll Herald in public] cover their discomforture by saying that he is October 1926 reporting on a Boston Art Club show probably playing a few practical jokes." which included, in addition to the "Five," Charles By the mid-1920s, Hopkinson had joined with Demuth and Edward Hopper. The reviewer writes, four kindred spirits, Marion Monks Chase (1874- "Their quest of style, freedom of expression and 1957), Carl Gordon Cutler (1873-1945), Charles coloristic brilliancy carries them pretty far from what Hovey Pepper (1864-1950) and Harley Perkins (1863- the plain person regards as a nice picture ... with all 1964), who were equally eager to explore the new due respect for the value of experimentation in art, possibilities of European modernism. In November the decoration of the homes of the nation is perhaps 1924 they had their first exhibition together at the still the primary function of the painting art." Boston Art Club. Included in this initial group show But the critical judgments were by no means was a sixth artist, John Goss. In December the same entirely negative. A Boston Five exhibition at the exhibition was shown at the Arden Gallery in New Montross Gallery in New York City in January 1928 York City where it was received with great interest. was called by a reviewer "the outstanding water- By 1926, however, Goss had dropped out and from color event of the year." Hopkinson's Wind and that time on the group became identified as the Dazzle, singled out as the best in the show, displayed Boston Five, a name they would continue to use in a complex weaving of color sequences with broad group exhibitions well into the 1930s. washes of sea and sky and allowed large areas of In the next decade the Boston Five exhibited as a white paper to remain untouched to represent the group at the Boston Art Club, the Vase and Grace glare of brilliant light on water. In a review by an Horne Galleries in Boston and the Fogg Art Museum anonymous local critic, his Afternoon Light was at Harvard University. In New York, they showed at deemed "as good as any French master" which was the Delphic Studios and the Rehn, Montross and high praise indeed. The titles he gave to the paint- Fifteen Galleries. \lVhile they differed greatly in style ings reveal his New England focus: Sailing Breezes, what they had in common was a shared purpose to Rock Rhythllls, Spray aJ/d Glint, Rocks and Sea, bring an awareness of modern art to Boston. SharkslIlollth in Alltllll1ll. Although these watercolors may not look Critics frequently singled out Charles Hopkin- particularly modern to our twenty-first century eyes, son for special praise when the work of the Boston these artists employed a new visual language that Five was exhibited and evaluated in newspapers was bewildering to the general public. This is and magazines. His watercolors were perhaps the 2 Dalla Islmld ill September Watercoloron paper 14%x 21 inches H-I-C $7,500 most abstract of the group but they commanded The New Zealand landscapes were shown at the serious consideration because of his reputation as a Margaret Brown Gallery in Boston in October 1948. portrait painter. In fact, his presence as a member of The review in the Bosloll Herald included a photo- the group could be seen as lending considerable graph of Hopkinson standing with the Minister to weight to the validation of the entire group. the United Nations from New Zealand, who later The Boston Five's last shows together were at visited with the Hopkinsons at their home in the Fifteen Gallery in New York in 1936, without Manchester. The following year Hopkinson received Harley Perkins who had gone on to become the an honorary degree from Harvard University.