Wednesday 7 December 2016

American Folk Art - part 20

Continuing a major series on American Folk Art featuring 21 postings. Folk Art encompasses art produced by artists and ordinary folk with little or no training in the arts, and is traditionally utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic. The period I’m covering is the C18th and C19th.
See parts 1-19 also for earlier works.

Note: Follow me on Twitter for notice of updates @poulwebb

This is part 20 of a 21-part post on American Folk Art:



James Bard (1815 – 1877)

James Bard was a marine artist known for his paintings of watercraft, particularly of steamboats. His works are sometimes characterised as naïve art. Although Bard died poor and almost forgotten, his works have since become valuable. Bard had a twin brother, John (1815–1856) and they collaborated on earlier works.

James Bard and John Bard were born in 1815 in New York City. Their father was Joseph Bard, who had been born in England. Their mother was Nellie Purvis Bard, who had been born in Scotland. They had at least two brothers (Joseph and George), two older sisters (Ellen and Mary) and one younger sister, Margaret. Sometime before 1843, Bard married Harriet DeGroot, who was six years older than he was. They had six children, but between 1843 and 1856 five of them died. Only their daughter Ellen survived.
Harriet's brother, Albert DeGroot, later became a steamboat captain and a wealthy man, who commissioned a number of works by James Bard.

During his life, Bard painted or made drawings of at least 3,000 vessels, including probably every steamer built at New York during his active life as an artist. Bard's works included common features intended to please patrons. Sailboats were shown underway with all sails up. Steamboats likewise were shown underway, with numerous flags flying, including a large one bearing the vessel's name. There would often be inscriptions about the ship and its owner.

Although principally a marine artist I did come across one painting by James Bard of a horse;  a commission by the look of it:

1871 Horse Jack of Woodbridge, NJ
inscribed "This Picture The Property of Charles Drake, Presented by James Bard the Artist. NY. 1871"
oil and ink on paperboard 21.4 x 30 cm
Folk Art Museum, New York City

1831 "Fanny"
watercolour on paper 48.3 x 81.3 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1837 "Illinois"
watercolour on paper 56.5 x 99.1 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1837 "Telegraph"
watercolour on paper 47.6 x 81.6 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1845 "Trojan"
oil on canvas 63.5 x 96.5 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1846 "Thomas Powell"
oil on canvas 77.5 x 135.9 cm
Private Collection

1847 "C. Vanderbilt"  ( Cornelius Vanderbilt )
oil on canvas 71.1 x 119.4 cm
Shelburne Museum, VT

1850 "Confidence"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Private Collection

1850 "Reindeer"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 129.5 cm
Private Collection

1851 "America"
oil on canvas 111.1 x 160.7 cm
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre, Williamsburg, VA

1851 "Thomas E. Hulse"
oil on canvas 75.6 x 127 cm
New York Historical Society, New York City

1852 "Niagara"
oil on canvas 87 x 142.9 cm
New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, NY

1852 "North Star"
oil on canvas 106.7 x 162.6 cm
Private Collection

1853 "Austin"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 132.1 cm
National Museum of American History, Washington, DC

1854 "Lewis R. Mackey"
oil on canvas 85.1 x 132.1 cm
New York Historical Society, New York City

1854 "Young America"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Private Collection

1855 "Metamora"
oil on canvas 73 x 124.5 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1857 "Commodore"
oil on canvas 86.4 x 142.2 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport, VA

1857 "James A. Stevens"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 128.3 cm

1858 "Broadway"
oil on canvas 83.8 x 142.2 cm
New York Historical Society, New York City

1858 "Norma"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 132.1 xm
Private Collection

1858 "P. Crary" ( Peter Crary )
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1859 "Metamora"
oil on canvas 73 x 124.5 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1859 "Victoria"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Private collection

1860 "William Bayles"
oil on canvas 81.3 x 137.2 cm
Private Collection

1861 "Isaac Smith"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 132.1 cm
Private Collection

1863 "Fanny"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1864 "A. Fletcher" ( Andrew Fletcher )
 oil on canvas 40.6 x 66 cm
Museum of the City of New York

1864 "Martha Washington"
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

1868 "A.G. Lawson"
oil on canvas 86.4 x 109.2 cm
Private Collection

1871 "Tidal Wave"
oil on canvas 81.3 x 121.9 cm
Private Collection

1874 "Daniel Drew"
oil on canvas 64.1 x 101.6 cm
Private Collection

1874 "San Rafael"
watercolour on paper 47 x 101.6 cm
Private Collection

1880 "Rip van Winkle"
oil on canvas 78.7 x 137.2 cm
Private Collection

1880 "Southampton"
oil on canvas 66 x 96.5 cm
New York Historical Society, New York City

1881 "Saratoga"
watercolour on paper 72.4 x 132.1 cm
New York Historical Society, New York City

1882 "Albertina"
watercolour on paper 52.7 x 101 cm
Marniers Museum, Newport News, Virginia

1882 "Crystal Stream"
watercolour on paper 62.2 x 100 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA

n.d. "Amanda Winants"
oil on canvas 75.6 x 127 cm
Mariners Museum, Newport News, Virginia


n.d. "Cayuga"
oil on canvas 91.4 x 142.2 cm
Private Collection

n.d. "Commonwealth"
oil on canvas 90.8 x 146.7 cm
Private Collection

Monday 5 December 2016

American Folk Art - part 19

Continuing a major series on American Folk Art featuring 21 postings. Folk Art encompasses art produced by artists and ordinary folk with little or no training in the arts, and is traditionally utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic. The period I’m covering is the C18th and C19th.
See parts 1-18 also for earlier works.

Note: Follow me on Twitter for notice of updates @poulwebb

This is part 19 of a 21-part post on American Folk Art:



Joseph Whiting Stock (1815-1855)

1843c Self-Portrait
oil on artists board
Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, Springfield, MA

Joseph Whiting Stock was a painter known for his portraits, miniatures, and landscape paintings, many of which he did on commission. He was born in 1815 in Springfield, Massachusetts.

When Stock was eleven years old, an oxcart fell on him and he was paraplegic for the rest of his life. After this accident, he began to study painting under Franklin White, a pupil of the painter Chester Harding on the advice of his physician, and was commissioned to do a series of anatomical drawings by Dr. James Swan in 1834. That year, Dr. Swan constructed a wheelchair that enabled Stock to paint large canvasses and be lifted on trains so as to travel for commissions. For the next two decades Stock accepted commissions for portraits around New England, working in Warren and Bristol, Rhode Island, New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Middletown, Goshen, and Port Jervis, New York. His studios were located in his hometown of Springfield throughout this time. In 1855, Stock died of tuberculosis in Springfield. He was forty years old.
He also sold boxes, clocks, and frames ornamented with shells, and toward the end of his career he copied daguerreotypes. His journal records that from 1832 to 1846 he executed over 912 paintings and left an additional 85 to 95 among his possessions at his death.


1830s Girl with a Doll

late 1830s Portrait of a Man
oil on canvas 84.1 x 69.2 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

late 1830s Portrait of a Woman
oil on canvas 83.8 x 69.2 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1830s Mary Jane Smith

1840c Portrait of Daniel Plumb Jr.
91.4 x 63.5 cm

1840 Miss Perkins
oil on canvas 73.7 x 61 cm
Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL

1840 Thomas Henry and Wilbur Fisk
116.8 x 91.4 cm
Springfield Museums, MA

1840-45c Full length Portrait of a Young Boy with His Dog
( thought to be Porter Whipple aged 5 )
oil on canvas 119.4 x 96.5 cm

1840c Baby in a Wicker Basket
oil on canvas 77.4 x 66.3 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1840c Girl with Reticule and Rose
oil on canvas 118.6 x 75 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1840s ( attributed to ) Girl in a Blue Dress with Her Pet Dog
oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm


1844 Jane Henrietta Russell, Springfield, MA
oil on canvas 121.9 x 92.1 cm
Shelburne Museum, Vermont

1845 ( attributed to ) Portrait of a Young Girl
oil on canvas 66 x 56.5 cm

1845 John and Louisa Stock
oil on canvas 127.6 x 101.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

1845 Mary and Francis Wilcox
oil on canvas 122 x 101.6 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1845 Portrait of Francis Wilcox
oil on canvas mounted on board 63.5 x 51.4 cm

1845 Portrait of Mary Wilcox
oil on canvas mounted on board 63.5 x 51.4 cm

1847c ( attributed to ) Portrait of a Sea Captain of New Bedford, MA
oil on canvas 90.8 x 75.6 cm

1850 ( attributed to)  Mary Caroline and Otis Hubbard Cooley
oil on canvas 95.9 x 105.4 cm

1850c ( attributed to ) Portrait of Two Children
oil on canvas 106.7 x 86.4 cm

1850c ( attributed to ) Young Girl in a White Dress
oil on canvas 94.6 x 74.3 cm

n.d. ( attributed to ) Child in a Green Dress
oil on canvas

n.d. ( attributed to ) Portrait of a Small Child

n.d. ( attributed to ) Portrait of Amy Philpot in a Blue Dress with Doll and Goldfish
oil on canvas 109.8 x 84.4 cm

n.d. Boy with a Dog

n.d. Double Portrait of a Young Boy with a Whip and His Sister with a Bouquet of Flowers
121.9 x 92.1 cm

n.d. Portrait of a Child
oil on canvas 67.3 x 54.6

n.d. Portrait of a Girl

n.d. Portrait of Elijah Wales at age 6

n.d. Portrait of William James Coffin in a Blue Dress with a Small White Dog
oil on canvas 78.7 x 91.4 cm

Oliver Tarbell Eddy (1799 – 1868)


Oliver Tarbell Eddy was born in Greenbush, Vermont, the eldest son of inventor, printer and engraver Isaac Eddy. Although his father taught him how to engrave on copper he seems to have been primarily self-taught. By 1826 Eddy was in New York City working as a portrait and miniature painter. The following year he exhibited a portrait at the National Academy of Design.
He moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey in  1831 until 1835, when he settled in Newark. Eddy was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church there. He was extremely successful in Newark and painted at least thirteen portraits of members of the family of William Rankin, a hat manufacturer.
Eddy lived in Baltimore between 1842 and 1850, painting portraits and inventing a precursor of the typewriter. He lived in Philadelphia from 1850 until his death in 1868.

1838 Portrait of the Four Youngest Children of William Rankin
oil on canvas
Newark Museum, NJ

1838c Portrait of a Young Girl
oil on panel
102.9 x 76.2 cm

1839c The Alling Children
oil on canvas 119.7 x 159.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

William Thompson Bartoll (1817 – 1859)

William Thompson Bartoll was the son of John and Rebecca Bartoll and was baptised in Marblehead, Massachusetts on June 22, 1817. He married Sally L. Selman in April of 1835. Bartoll, like his father, uncle and brother, was a house painter, as well as a portraitist and mural painter. He is known to have exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum between 1841 and 1855 and he died in 1859 in Marblehead.

1838 inscribed "Mary Farra, age 19 months, 1838"
oil on panel 50.8 x 44.5 cm

1840c ( attributed to ) Portrait of a Child Wearing a Blue Dress, Holding a Tinware Toy Pump
(Elizabeth Snow of Marblehead, MA)
oil on canvas 113.7 x 95.9 cm

1841-42c Harriette Briggs Stoddard
( Mrs. David Tappan Stoddard ) ( 1821-1848 )
oil on canvas 68.3 x 55.9 cm
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA

1845c Boy with Toy Drum
oil on canvas
New York Historical Society

Girl in Orange Dress with Cat

Girl with a Cat

n.d. Portrait of Treat Paine Jr
oil on canvas 58.4 x 50.8 cm
George G. Hartwell (1815 – 1901)

George G. Hartwell was associated with the Prior-Hamblin group of painters. He was related to William Matthew Prior by marriage, and he painted signs and portraits in Bridgewater, Massachusetts and Auburn, Maine. His flat style of painting is very close to that Prior (see part 14) and Sturtevant Hamblin (see part 17). The majority of these works are credited to him by attribution because he didn’t sign his works.

1830-40c ( attributed to ) Portrait of a Young Lady
oil on canvas 80.3 x 67.6 cm

1840c Anna M. Wilcox
oil on academy board 36.2 x 26.1 cm

1840c ( attributed to ) Little Girl in Pink with Book and Rose
oil on canvas 66 x 53.3 cm
Private Collection

1840c ( attributed to ) Portrait of an Unknown Man
oil on canvas 69.8 x 54.6 cm
Private Collection

1840c ( attributed to ) Portrait of an Unknown Woman
oil on canvas 68.6 x 54 cm
Private Collection

1840c Portrait of a Gentleman Holding a Book
oil on canvas 87.6 x 74.3 cm

1845c ( attributed to ) Child Holding a Doll and a Shoe
oil on canvas 67.9 x 55.2 cm
Folk Art Museum, New York City

1850 Triple Portrait
oil on canvas 76.8 x 76.2 cm

n.d ( attributed to ) Boy in BLue with Recorder
oil on paper

n.d. ( attributed to ) Girl with a Rose

n.d. Pair of Portraits of a Gentleman and Lady
oil on canvas and oil on cardboard respectively 35.6 x 25.7 cm