Slater PortraitS tell Many StorieS

by Vivian F. ZoëHis chair is polished to a smooth sheen, a young mustachioed man sits regally in a dark environment, glancing to his left. The viewer is drawn to his pale but elegant face and hands. His gaze seems far into the future. Across an open doorway, a much older man with mutton-chop sideburns sits arrestingly face forward with hands serenely folded in his lap. Despite his direct pose, the latter has a kindly visage. These are son and father, William Albert Slater (1857-1919) and John Fox Slater (1816-1884). The father’s portraitist was attributed by Slater Museum staff about four years ago to Sir Hubert von Herkomer. Only recently was the painter of the son’s portrait identified.

For decades, and in some cases, over a century, objects have been displayed in the Slater Museum with no attribution or donor recognition. These two portraits of probably the most significant people in the museum’s history fall into this category. At the time they were acquired, a small and inconspicuous un-attributed article appeared in the Norwich Bulletin, May 10, 1923, the day after they were hung. It stated that they were installed to the left and right of the proscenium arch of the stage of Slater auditorium. At some point, an unsigned copy was made of the portrait of John Fox Slater.

Attribution of works of art often requires considerable research and fact-checking. In the 19th century, most museums kept records of acquisitions through personal letters and, less frequently, through bills of sale. Before 1958, when Museum of Modern

left to right: William A. Slater by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant; John F. Slater by Sir Hubert von Herkomer; John F. Slater (copy) by Frederick Porter Vinton.

The Muse

Fall, 2014

The quarterly newsletter of the

Slater Memorial Museum

(Continued on page 4)

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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. ZoëNewsletter editor – Geoff SerraContributing authors: Vivian Zoë, Leigh Thomas

Photographers: Leigh Thomas, Vivian Zoë, Barry Wilson

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

The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees:Diana L. Boisclair Jeremy D. Booty Allyn L. Brown, IIIGlenn T. CarberryKeith G. FontaineLee-Ann Gomes, TreasurerThomas M. Griffin, SecretaryThomas HammondDeVol JoynerTheodore N. Phillips, ChairTodd C. PostlerSarette Williams, Vice Chair

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.

a MeSSage FroM tHe DireCtorOne couldn’t ask for a better summer! Unusually cool and dry weather and a stellar temporary exhibition, The Animal Heart, brought a record number of visitors. Excitement surrounded us daily with the filming of a television movie of Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin.’ Planning continued for 2014/2015 exhibitions and programs (read more about upcoming exhibitions below). Perhaps most energizing, the closing of Coldwater Creek in every small town and mall, but most significantly on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, made it possible for us to obtain

at a very favorable price enough display mannikins for fall 2015’s important exhibition, John Meyer of Norwich: An American Original. We will be appealing to alumni, friends and Norwichians in the diaspora for memories, reminiscences, recollections, stories, clothing and objects related to the business and the family that put Norwich on the map of fashion history. Call me if you have something to share about John Meyer of Norwich!

UPCoMing eXHiBitionS, PrograMS anD eVentS

Saturday, Sept. 61:00-3:00 pm

Saturday, oct. 191:00-3:00 pm

Saturday, oct. 111:30 - 5:30 pm

Saturday, oct. 1810:00 - 1:00 pm

Sunday, nov. 22:00 - 7:00 pm

Sunday, Dec. 71:00-3:00 pm

oPening reCePtion: Connecticut Wom-en Artists National Open Juried Exhibition: On view August 30 through September 26, 2014.

oPening reCePtion & gallery toUr: Renaissance in Pastel, CT Pastel Soci-ety National Open Juried Exhibition: On view October 8 through November 9, 2014. Norwich Art School Open House Tour starts at 3:00 p.m.

Walking toUr & Book Fair: Wally Lamb’s Norwich, 1:30 p.m. (see opposite page for details) and Norwich Authors’ Book Fair, 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the Slater Museum Atrium.

Walking toUrS: NFA Campus, Chelsea Parade and Slater Museum. Held in conjunction with the 2014 NFA Homecoming activities.

Sir artHUr Conan Doyle retUrnS: museum tour, re-enactments and dinner; a tick-eted event, please see page 7 for details.

oPening reCePtion: Proof Positive, Printmakers’ Network of Southern New Eng-land: On view December 7, 2014 through Janu-ary 18, 2015. More information on page 14.

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norWiCH WalktoBer 2014! DiSCoVer tHe City’S HiStory

BOHEMIAN NORWICHTOWN

Sunday, october 5 at 3:00pmMonday, october 20 at 11:00am. Meet at 84 East Town St., Norwich Please call (860) 887-6964 with questions.

Join Slater Museum Director Vivian Zoe and researcher Beth Troeger as we discover the salons, exhibitions and lit-erary book clubs that filled the lives of Norwichians Ozias and Hannah Dodge, Charlotte Fuller Eastman, Helen New-ton and others. When they weren’t teaching in their class-rooms at Norwich Free Academy, they were working in their downtown studios or planning the next soirée. Enter the lives of Norwich’s artistic community at the turn of the 20th century. 1.5 hours, 2 miles. Sponsored by: Norwich Free Academy, Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich Com-munity Development Corporation.

NORWICH MILLIONAIRES’ TRIANGLE

Wednesday, october 1 at 10:00amMeet at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 213 Broadway, Norwich

Saturday & Sunday, october 11 & 12 at 10:00am Meet at Chelsea Parade South, Norwich Please call (860) 887-6964 with questions.

Join Norwich in the Gilded Age author Tricia Staley and meet the families who lived in the mansions along Washing-ton Street and Broadway: Norwich’s Millionaires’ Triangle. In the last half of the 19th century, Norwich was a wealthy manufacturing center and its residents drew the attention of people across the nation. Discover who they were and how they lived during the most opulent era of the City’s history. 1.5 hours, 1 mile. Sponsored by: Norwich Free Academy, Slater Memorial Museum, The Norwich Historical Society, Norwich Community Development Corporation.

WALLy LAMB’S NORWICH

Saturday, october 11 at 1:30pmMeet at Norwich Free Academy, 305 Broadway, Norwich

Hosted by the author, this walk will begin at the Norwich Free Academy, where Lamb was both a student and a teach-er. Participants will proceed past Wally’s boyhood home on the way to downtown Norwich, then up Broadway to Un-cas’s Leap, which was pivotal to the writing of his novel I Know This Much Is True. The tour ends back at NFA where Wally will explain the importance of Slater Memorial Mu-seum in the development of his fictions. Distance is ap-proximately 2 miles, and the walk may be difficult at times.

All walking tours are free, and pre-registration is not required.

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(Continued from page 1)

Art registrar Dorothy H. Dudley created and published the first standardized registration methods for museums, every museum had its own unique process for recording acquisitions, a process known in professional terms as “accessioning.” With a history of over 125 years, the Slater Museum’s records have been kept in a variety of ways, from scrapbooks, to bound and loose leafed notebooks, to folders of letters. The museum’s first curator, Henry Watson Kent, a Columbia-trained librarian, kept detailed records of all museum activities. His annual reports to the NFA Trustees were masterpieces of concise detail. Kent’s departure in 1900 left unfortunate lapses.

Cryptic notes in subsequent reports to the NFA Trustees and careful examination of the painting for a signature reveals that Ellen Burnett Peck Slater made a gift of a portrait of her husband William by Benjamin Constant. The oil on canvas, signed upper right and dated 1889, portraying the young and dashing William Albert Slater

Benjamin Constant ca. 1890

at the age of 32 has been attributed without doubt to Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant. The signature, painted in a color very close in hue and shade to the picture ground, is nearly impossible to see without focus of a bright light. Signatures in upper corners are also relatively rare. Along with the signature, “Boston,” in smaller lettering appears. Ellen Burnett Peck Slater donated the painting to the Slater Memorial Museum after William’s death in Washington, D.C., possibly in preparation for her move to California. Research on the artists of both portraits, makes clear that William’s education at Harvard had kept the family connected to Boston.

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (also known as Benjamin Constant), born Jean-Joseph Constant (1845-1902), was a French painter and etcher best known for his Oriental subjects and portraits.

The painter was an influential teacher of many American students who came to Paris for training, including Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1859-1924). A visiting professor at the Académie Julian, Constant, quite possibly overlapped the student days there of Ozias Dodge, future Norwich Art School Director. Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students for the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but offered independent training in art. At that time, women were not allowed to enroll for study to the École des Beaux-Arts, but the new Académie Julian accepted them, providing an alternative education and training. Men and women were trained separately, though women participated in the same studies as men, including the foundation of academic art training – drawing and painting of nude models.

Eventually, Académie Julian students were granted the right to compete for the Prix de Rôme, a prize awarded to promising young artists. The longstanding success of the Académie was secured by the well respected and established artists whom Rodolphe Julian employed as instructors, who, like Constant were exponents of the academic style. With expanding success, Académie Julian opened schools in other locations around Paris.

Constant was born in Paris and early on partnered with an English student there named Rawlins to organize an informal atelier. Some students remembered Constant as a “powerful, brutal painter, with florid taste.” A telegram he wrote to “Mme Sarah Bernhardt, at the Grand Hotel, Paris, Dec 9, 1896,” displays his effusive bent.

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Madame,A day after a cruel mourning, it is for me another sorrow that I cannot be present to your glorious day show and acclaim “la dicieme muse” (the Tenth Muse).... The most prominent artist of our times! My seat, alas! will remain empty, but I shall be there anyway by heart and enthusiasm.Benjamin Constant”

His reference to the tenth muse suggests that she was, for him, a personal muse or inspiration, beyond the original nine Greek daughters of Zeus.

Before Paris, Constant’s career began in Toulouse at the École des Beaux-Arts there. He also studied with Alexandre Cabanel and debuted at the Paris Salon in 1869 with Hamlet and the King (Musée d’Orsay), which sparked a sensation. The painter was only 24 years old yet captured the play’s drama and varied themes.

The Salon, sometimes referred to as the Paris Salon, was the official exhibition of the Académie des Beaux Arts. Between 1748 and 1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world. The first Salon in 1725 was held in the Palace du Louvre. In 1748 a jury of artists who had received awards in the past was empaneled to select work for exhibition. The jury system infused the Salon with a stamp of authority bestowing undisputed influence. The Salon exhibited paintings floor-to-ceiling, now called “Salon-style,” on every available

In the Studio by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881. Collection of the Dnipropetrovsk State art Museum, Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine)

inch of space. The public flocked to the exhibitions and the new discipline of art critique was established. Many of the critics, writing in popular news media of the day, did nothing more than parrot the remarks they had overheard from the crowds.

Paintings with literary themes achieved a height of popularity between 1830 and 1850. Stories from classics like the work of Shakespeare were readily understood by the middle classes and needed no further explanation. However, this universality of theme was fraught with the danger of pre-conceived images of the action and characters.

Constant painted Hamlet and the King during the French Second Empire (1852 to 1870), wherein, as prescribed by Emperor Napoleon III, the function of the Empire was to guide the people in a government based on the “Napoleonic Idea.” The Emperor was deemed the representative of the democracy and, as such, supreme. He viewed himself as the representative of the great Napoleon I, as the guardian of the social gains of the French Revolutionary period.

Through the anti-parliament French constitution instituted by Napoleon III, all executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who was solely responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the emperor rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established

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as a constituent part of the empire. France, not long from Napoleon I’s legacy, and under fear of anarchy, conferred supreme power, with the title of emperor upon Napoleon III.

The French Legislative Body was not allowed to elect its own president, regulate its own procedure, propose a law or an amendment, vote on a budget in detail or deliberate in public. Free speech was forbidden and the press was subjected to a system of cautionnements (“caution money”, deposited as a guarantee of good behavior) and avertissements (requests by the authorities to cease publication of certain articles), under sanction of suspension or suppression. Books were subject to censorship and suspects were under surveillance with imprisonment, exile or deportation possible without trial. Suspicion and mistrust of papists complicated the almost paranoid government control.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, one of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays, was written between 1599 and 1602. Set in Denmark, it dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius’s brother and Prince Hamlet’s father. Claudius succeeds to the throne, bypassing the dead king’s son, and takes as his wife Gertrude, the old king’s widow and Prince Hamlet’s mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness, from overwhelming grief to seething rage and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. Its themes of monarchic suppression, succession, fratricide and religious redemption during the French Second Empire could have easily engendered controversy. Constant’s depiction of Hamlet’s indecision captures both the action of the play as Shakespeare wrote it image above: Un Coin du Salon de 1880 by Édouard Joseph Dantan (1848-1897).

Private collection; Below: Hamlet et le Roi by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, 1896. Collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

(Continued on page 8)

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“Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same...”

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A telegram from Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in The Adventure of the Creeping Man.

Sir Arthur ConAn Doyle returnS to norwiCh

november 2, 2014120 yeArS After hiS originAl AppeArAnCe, Arthur

ConAn Doyle will re-AppeAr on the StAge of SlAter hAll

In 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle made a lecture tour of America. On his tour, he made one stop in Connecticut, at Slater Hall, on the campus of the Norwich Free Academy. On Sun-day, November 2nd, almost 120 years to the day from his original appearance, the Men on the Tor, the CT Chapter of the Baker Street Irregulars, America’s Sherlock Holmes Society, invite you to their Fall dinner, where they will be commemorating and recreating his ap-pearance, in the very same building where he appeared, on the stage where he spoke. We hope you will attend this special and unique event. The program will start at 2:00pm with a tour of the Slater Memorial Museum and Slater Hall. The museum, founded by Gilded Age luminaries of Norwich, features (among other things) one of the earliest Amer-ican cast collections of the World’s great ancient sculpture. The Slater has been described by many as a miniature version of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. At 3:00, Doyle’s November 3rd, 1894 appearance at Slater Hall will be recreated. The pro-gram will start with a talk about Doyle’s tour by Men on the Tor chairman Mike Berdan. Then, local historian and Norwich in the Gilded Age author Tricia Staley will tell us about Norwich in the 1890s at a time when it was one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S.: why Doyle would have chosen this town to appear in, and what he would have seen there. This will be followed by Arthur Conan Doyle - twice. First the Tor’s own Jeff Bradway will be appearing as Doyle, talking about Sherlock Holmes and his own literary career, in an abridged version of the lecture originally delivered on the very same stage so many years ago. Then, we will be showing the film interview the real Arthur Conan Doyle made in 1930, shortly before his death. The program will be followed by a catered dinner in the room adjoining the lecture hall, where the rest of a typical meeting of The Men on the Tor will take place, with the usual toasts, a quiz on the novel, Hound of the Baskervilles, and a Sherlockian paper.

Please detach and remit with payment to the Slater Memorial Museum, 108 Crescent St., Norwich CT 06360Pre-registration must be received by Monday, October 1; Regular registration rate, $35/pp by October 24.

Presented by the Slater MeMorial MuSeuM

of Norwich Free Academy108 Crescent Street Norwich, CT 06360

(860) 425-5563www.slatermuseum.org

Name(s):

Address:

Telephone: Email:

Pre-registration fee: $30.00 per person: includes cocktails and dinner (appetizer, entree, dessert and beverages). Program only: Free.

Total Enclosed ($30.00/pp): Please make checks payable to Slater Memorial Museum

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The Connecticut Industry Mural

On view in the slater museum atrium

september 6 - OctOber 30A little more than a year ago, Michael Bor-ders was interviewed by the Hartford Busi-ness Journal about his near-30-year passion. His explanation, paraphrased, describes “The Connecticut Industry Mural as a tour-ing, 10-foot by 40-foot painting on canvas of the people who impacted Connecticut’s industrial history, the land where industrial history took place, the machinery of manu-facture and the products of manufacture in Connecticut and the way they interfaced over roughly 350 years. In the work, the imagery is positioned chronologically, re-flecting Connecticut’s Industrial experience from 1634 through contemporary times; a documentary mural. Borders strove to por-tray that history in a stimulating, historically accurate and aesthetically pleasing way, making it to resonate across a spectrum of human experience, including those with lim-ited background information about Connect-icut’s history.

Since there was no single text about Con-necticut’s industrial past and prowess, Bor-ders was faced with the daunting effort of visiting nearly every historical society and library in the state. He wanted to create a single picture; a snapshot of Connecticut’s industrial history, manifested in a single, symphonic visual composition. The result was a powerhouse of a visual imagery with subtle nuances and feeling; detailed and syn-chronized. He created eight composition/stories, one for each county. New London County is featured prominently. In it, one can divine the distinctive profile of Ponemah Mill.

Connecticut Industry Mural: New London County by Michael G. Borders, o/c, 1981-2002

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and a theatrical atmosphere, seemingly lit by footlights along the edge of a stage. It is this use of motivational and extremes of light and shadow, chiaroscuro, that characterizes Constant’s work throughout his career.

When the Salon came under fire by the avant-garde group of artists, Constant defended it, remarking that painters “acquire honour, money [and], glory” through that institution. “For many of us [the Salon] provides our livelihood, and without it more than one of the great masters that we admire today would have died wretched without anyone knowing.”

In 1863, Napoleon III instituted the Salon des Refusés, containing a selection of the works that the Salon had rejected that year, marking the birth of the avant garde. In 1888–1889, Les Nabis began as a rebellious group of young student artists who banded together at the Académie Julian. Les Nabis (nah-BEE) were Post-Impressionists who set the pace for fine and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, some joined from other ateliers. In 1890, they began successfully participating in public exhibitions, while most of their artistic output remained in private hands or in the possession of the artists themselves. Meeting at Académie Julian, and then at the apartment of Paul Ranson, they preached that a work of art is only the visual expression of an artist’s synthesis of nature in metaphors and symbols, paving the way for the early 20th century development of abstract and non-representational art. They often worked quickly using media in new ways. The post-Impressionist styles they embraced touched upon some aspects of contemporary art nouveau and Symbolism. The influence of the English Arts and Crafts Movement set them to work in media that involved crafts beyond painting:

printmaking, book illustration, poster design, textiles, and set design. Integrating art into daily life was a goal they held in common with most progressive artists of the time. By 1896, the unity of the group had begun to break as post-Impressionist styles became more mainstream.

In 1870, Constant entered military service during the Franco-Prussian War. After the war he did not return to study in Paris but instead chose to travel. A visit to Morocco inspired him to turn from the typical academic Greco-Roman subject matter to more exotic Northern African themes in the manner of the Orientalists. Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists. An “Orientalist” may be also the traditional be a scholar of Oriental studies. Orientalism was more widely used in art history referring mostly to the works of French artists in the 19th century, whose subject matter, color and style reflected their travel to the Mediterranean countries of North Africa and Western

Nabis Landscape by Paul ranson, 1890. Private collection.

Les Chérifas by Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant, 1884. Collection of the Museum of Fine arts, Carcassonne, France.

(Continued from page 5)

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Asia. The Slaters would have been exposed to the works of Orientalists in their travels in the Levant and in Europe, especially France.

Orientalist subject matter proved successful for Constant, who won a third-class medal at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878, the same year in which he was awarded the Legion of Honor. The Museum of Fine Arts in Carcassonne has a stunning example of Constant’s orientalism, Les Chérifas, dated 1884. About 1880, Constant decided to concentrate on portraiture. One example portrayed a major French politician, Emmanuel Arago, whose daughter became Constant’s wife. In the United States and England, Constant painted members of the highest level of society: Queen Victoria and Queen Alexandra sat for him. The last year of his life, Constant painted the striking Judith (Metropolitan Museum of Art). In addition to his Eastern pictures and portraits, Constant is known for his ceilings at the Paris Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) and the Opéra-Comique. As he aged, his reputation was as a stalwart of the old Salon system. Benjamin-Constant also was a writer of repute, contributing a number of studies about contemporary French painters. In 1893 the Institute de France elected him a member, the supreme achievement of a French artist, writer, or intellectual.

He is quoted, “It is America which made me a portrait painter. Until I went there I was almost solely a painter of subject pictures. I had made one or two attempts at portraiture, which I had not deemed satisfactory. I need

not tell you that I was received in the United States with the most exquisite courtesy. And, little by little, Je me suis fait, I acquired confidence in myself, and portrait painting soon became more interesting to me than anything else.” He won the grand medal of Honor with the portrait of his son. According to his New york Times obituary, May 26, 1902, Benjamin-Constant by his own admission, attempted to emulate Rembrandt van Rijn in capturing both the image and psychology of the sitter. He certainly managed to capture Rembrandt’s mysteriously atmospheric light. In 1899, he obtained a commission to paint a portrait of Queen Victoria which was displayed and won the Grand Prix at the Paris Exposition of 1900. The work was commissioned by Sir William Ingram, the proprietor of the Illustrated London News. Ingram then created thousands of chromolithograph copes for distribution. The same year, he painted his sons André and Emmanuel in a dramatic composition reflecting his academic and aesthetic skills. The painting hangs in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse.

Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New york; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, Scotland; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Musée Condé, Chantilly; Indianapolis Museum of Art; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau; Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; Musée des Augustins, Toulouse; Musée de Vendôme, Vendôme; and Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles.

left: Queen Victoria by Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant. right: André and Emmanuel, Sons of the Artist by Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant.

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The portrait of John Fox Slater given by Ellen Slater was painted shortly before Constant’s death, 1883, by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, Royal Academy (1849-1914). Hubert von Herkomer was born in Waal, near the town of Landsberg in Bavaria, Germany, in May 1849. His forbears were craftsmen providing him a solid foundation for a career in art. His father was a woodcarver and his mother a pianist and teacher of music.

In 1851 in search of new opportunities, the family emigrated to the U. S., arriving first in New York and settling in Cleveland, Ohio. Work was not easy to find, and in May 1857, the family moved to England settling in Southampton. These early years of struggle had an enormous influence on Hubert and helped develop a sympathy for the poor. The family encountered considerable negative sentiment toward immigrants, specifically Germans.

Herkomer returned with his father to Munich in 1865 receiving formal instruction in art there. Although he was largely self-taught, from 1866 through 1867, he received further art training at the South Kensington Art School, now the Royal College of Art in London. The RCA was founded in 1837 as the Government School of Design. In 1853, it became the National Art Training School with the Female School of Art in separate buildings; and, in 1896, it was named Royal College of Art. South Kensington was also the original name of what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum, where plaster casts would have already been available to Herkomer.

Beginning in 1869 Herkomer’s woodcuts appeared regularly as art journalism. Through his work depicting those of little means, Herkomer was one of a small number of illustrators who impressed and influenced Van Gogh. The Graphic regularly published his favored themes including scenes of poverty and social realism. Published by reformer William Luson Thomas, the influence of The Graphic within the art world was immense. As an introduction, Herkomer sent Thomas a drawing of a group of gypsies. Thomas accepted the picture and the following week it appeared in The Graphic. Herkomer was paid £8 for the picture, and Thomas urged him to send more. Herkomer later recalled: “It is not too much to say that there was a visible change in the selection of subjects by painters in England after the advent of The Graphic. Mr. Thomas opened its pages to every phase of the story of our life; he led the rising artist into drawing subjects that might never have otherwise arrested his attention; he

only asked that they should be subjects of universal interest and of artistic value.”

During the early 1870’s, a large number of his drawings were published in The Graphic. However, unlike his two friends, Luke Fildes and Frank Holl, Herkomer was not offered a full-time post on the magazine. As a free-lance artist, Herkomer had to propose his own subject matter. Although Herkomer was angry when Thomas was unwilling to employ him as a staff member of The Graphic, he later admitted: “In my heart I bitterly resented these words, but they were the words I needed: they were the making of me as an artist.”

He was exhibiting work regularly, and in 1875 his work The Last Muster, a study of Chelsea pensioners, caused a sensation at the Royal Academy. The Last Muster was painted after the artist had attended a service at the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, a home for veteran soldiers (known as the ‘Chelsea Pensioners’) who could not support themselves. Herkomer wrote, “The idea was to make every man tell some different story, to be told by his face, or by the selection of attitude.” According to the curators of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums, Liverpool, “The attitude of the central figure, slumped forward with his stick slipping from his grasp, indicates that he has indeed answered ‘the last muster,’ while his neighbor anxiously feels his pulse.”Poverty and death were unusual subjects for Victorian painters, who invariably presented them in an ennobling and dignified light. He had first published a version of this subject in The Graphic in 1871. He then developed it into the painting, which received high praise at the Royal Academy and went on to win a gold medal at the Paris exhibition of 1878.

Hubert Herkomer married Anna Weise in 1873 and in 1874 moved to ‘Dyreham,’ a cottage in Bushey, Hertfordshire,

Self-portrait by Hubert von Herkomer, ca.1880

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with his wife and parents. He was married three times, his first and second wives died young; he fathered four children.

Bushey remained Herkomer’s home until his death in 1914, although he spent long periods in Landsberg. He opened the Herkomer Art School in Bushey in November 1883 as a means to put forward his own teaching methods and to show his distaste for traditional art teaching. His progressive methods produced a number of successful artists in their own right. Between 500 and 600 students attended over a twenty-one year period.

Another of Herkomer’s major influences on Bushey was the building of his home, Lululaund, in the style of a Bavarian castle. It was designed by the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (his only European work) in return for a portrait. By the time Herkomer occupied the house in 1894, it was reputed to have cost over £75,000 (about $160,000).

Hubert von Herkomer, wrote a letter to a friend while in the U.S. (1882): “I have three sitters every day. It seems like a dream that I can with my own honest handiwork make so much. In the two and a half months I shall have done thirteen portraits for money. These thirteen portraits bring me six thousand six hundred and fourteen pounds sterling. I have already paid into my bank this year five thousand pounds, so I shall have in the nine months of this year over eleven thousand. Everybody wants to be painted now. Whenever I come to Boston again a clear year’s work is ready for me. This is not a wild speculation but a reality.” Once again, the Boston connection assists

with any research related to the Slaters. Herkomer’s interests in later life ranged from fine art printing, music, theatre, film-making, and motoring, to art in all its forms, including the portrait painting for which he is predominantly known.

The fascinating discovery is that the second portrait of John Fox Slater, long hanging in the Slater Auditorium is a copy of the Herkomer by Frederick Porter Vinton (1846-1911). Frederick Porter Vinton, born in Bangor, Maine, died in Boston, Massachusetts, again, probably exposing the Slaters to his work. He was active to the end of his life.

Vinton moved with his family to Chicago when he was around ten years old. He moved back to Boston when he reached majority and, in 1864 began to study with William Morris Hunt (1824-1879). At the same time he took drawing classes with the renowned anatomist, Dr. William Rimmer (1816-1879) at the Lowell Institute in Boston. At the Boston Athenaeum, Vinton learned figure drawing from plaster casts. Vinton worked at a local bank and wrote art criticism for the Boston Advertiser, earning money to study in Europe in1874.

His first year in Europe he studied under Léon Bonnât (1838-1922) in Paris and later, at the Royal Academy in Munich. In 1875, preferring the French method of painting, Vinton returned to Paris to become one of Jean Paul Laurens’ (1838-1921) first American students. He returned to Boston in 1879 and in 1882, returned to Europe to study with William Merritt Chase and Robert Blum. This trip was spent in Spain studying the work of

Hard Times by Hubert von Herkomer, 1885. Collection of the City art gallery of Manchester, england.

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the Spanish master, Velázquez. His third trip to Europe came shortly after marrying Annie M. Pierce of Newport on June 27, 1883. This time it was off to Holland to study the work of another master, Franz Hals. The influence of both Velázquez and Hals can be seen in Vinton’s work.

Vinton, who specialized in male portraits, was one of Boston’s most sought after portrait painters. His first major commission was in 1878, when he was employed to paint Thomas Gold Appleton of Harvard University. It is likely that William Albert Slater saw this portrait while a student at Harvard during the same period. From that time on, Vinton painted over 300 portraits. Statesmen, jurists, authors, and professional men were among his many sitters. In 1881 and 1885 he was using the former studio of William M. Hunt located at 1 Park Square in Boston and, after 1887, his studio was in his home at 17 Exeter Street, also in Boston.

Vinton was a member of the National Academy of Design; Associate in 1882 and Academician in 1891; a founding member of the St. Botolph Club, Boston, in 1880; the Lowell Institute’s Tavern Club; and the Society of American Artists in the 1880’s.

He received numerous awards, including an Honorable Mention at the Paris Salon in 1890; a medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900; a gold medal at the Panama-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, Ny; and a gold medal at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904. He exhibited at the Boston Art Club almost every year from 1873 to 1909 and at the 1895 Atlanta Exposition. Vinton was awarded a gold medal at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, the same year and at the same exhibition that William Slater’s latest pet project, the Normal Training School of Norwich, won a Certificate of Excellence.

Memorial exhibitions were held at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and, in 1911, the year William Slater died, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibited 124 of Vinton’s paintings, of which, 50 were portraits. Vinton’s work is represented in the collections of many museums including the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, both in Massachusetts; the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor; the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine; and the Washington University Gallery of Art in St. Louis, Missouri.

Returning to the mystery of placement, it’s clear from the limited documentation available, that the Vinton

version was donated by Ellen in 1923, along with the Constant portrait of William. She was most likely closing the couple’s Washington, D.C. home for her move to California wishing to “downsize.” The Herkomer original is the version seen hanging high in early images of the Peck Library, now Sears Gallery. The original may have been commissioned specifically for the Slater Memorial Building. The reverse of the copy is inscribed “Copy from portrait of Mr. Slater, by H. Herkomer, copy by Frederick P. Vinton.” The art supply house marked the stretcher “for F. P. Vinton.”

Why would William and Ellen have Frederick Vinton create a copy of the Herkomer? Most likely for sentimental reasons. It’s certain that during his life, William, who was only 27 when John Fox Slater died, enjoyed having a portrait of his beloved and revered father gracing the walls of each of his stately homes. It’s also possible that both paintings were posthumous. Could the Herkomer have been painted from a photograph? The sitter’s pose is more like one for the camera. As they did with painters, the Slaters sought out the most fashionable portrait photographers. The museum possesses a cabinet card of a photograph of John Fox Slater by the society and celebrity photographer Napoleon Sarony, admittedly in a different pose. Sarony, the photographer to the stars was called upon to capture John Fox Slater’s image around the same time that his likeness was commissioned by Herkomer whose brief work foray in the U.S. was seized by the wealthy and prominent in the Boston area.

Thomas Gold Appleton by Frederick Porter Vinton, 1878. Collection of the Harvard art Museums.

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Proof Positive, an exhibition of work by regional printmakers will close out the calendar year and begin 2015. The exhibition will highlight a re-cent partnership between the Slater Museum and the Printmakers’ Network of Southern New Eng-land. The “marriage” was first proposed by Mel-ody Leary, a professional printmaker and former director of the Norwich Art School.

The members of the PNSNE work in a wide range of printmaking techniques; etching, aqua-tint, wood and metal engraving, lithography, let-terpress, screen printing, relief processes, colla-graphy, monotype, photo and Polaroid transfers, digital prints and contemporary non-toxic pro-cesses are all represented in the creative output of this diverse group of professionals.

In 2013, the PNSNE donated a collection of over 100 prints, including woodcuts, linocuts, seri-graphs, mezzotints, monotypes, lithographs and collographs and five combined portfolios. The exhibition will feature works from this collection as well as those loaned by the artists specifically for this show.

Proof Positiveon view December 7, 2014 through January 15, 2015

opening reception sunday, December 7 from 1:00 - 3:00

Image: “Up for Air” by Margot Rocklen, PNSNE member