Internet Antique Gazette » marine paintings & prints

Tordoff, Frederick – English/American Artist

hcst — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:16:24 +0000

Frederick Tordoff (born 1939)

A New Jersey-based artist, Fred Tordoff specializes in marine and sailing subjects.

Born and raised in a coastal town in England, Tordoff sketched local scenes and landmarks. While studying marine radio and electronics in Yorkshire, he began making paintings of ships in oils as an avocation. He would continue to pursue this dual career, traveling the world as a radio and electronics officer aboard ships and producing paintings of ships, first in oils, later in watercolors.

Currently Tordoff resides in New Jersey, and paints maritime scenes of the Hudson, Nantucket and New Bedford whaling ships, and the northeast coast of the U.S. His paintings are in collections in England, the United States, Scotland, Holland, Norway, New Zealand and South Africa.

biographical information courtesy of the George Glazer Gallery (georgeglazer.com).

Smith, Joseph B. & Smith, William S. – American Artists – Marine, Father & Son

hcst — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:09:54 +0000

Joseph B. Smith (1798-1876) & William S. Smith (1821- ?)

A master of nautical ship portraits, Joseph B. Smith was born in New York City in 1798, and trained for the printing trade. His son and partner in many paintings, William S., was born in 1821.

Joseph’s earliest known work was a lithograph of his printing depicting the clipper ship Mechanic’s Own. His earliest known painting was the 1849 portrait of the Steamer Hartford underway and bound for the California goldfields (now in the Museum of the City of New York). In partnership the father and son Smiths are known to have produced at least four large-folio works for Nathaniel Currier, the Great Republic in 1855, Adelaide, Ocean Express, and Red Jacket in 1856. Currier’s lithographs credited them to “J.B. Smith & Son, Brooklyn.”

Through the 1840′s until 1862 (when son William enlisted in the Union Army) the Smith duo produced a substantial number of large nautical scenes and ship portraits, of which about thirty are known to have survived. They include two ferry portraits, 17 portraits of sailing ships, 7 portraits of steam powered vessels and 2 yachts. Most are privately owned, but several are in museum collections, including those of the Essex Museum, the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Mariners’ Museum.

The Smith’s did not always sign their paintings, often electing to affix a business card to the reverse. Even without their signature, many of their works can be positively identified by their American flag, at once distinctive and used by them consistently in this form (a full rippled flag streaming in the wind to the right with a mostly straight top and a somewhat concave form to to the other three sides).

William survived the Civil War and was discharged in 1865. Perhaps because of his father’s advanced age, their artistic partnership was never renewed and William himself is lost to history. Joseph, however, moved to the Philadelphia area where he is known as a lithographer and from a few small sketches and watercolors. He died in Camden, New Jersey in 1876.

p4A.com acknowledges the scholarship of A. J. Peluso, Jr. as the source of many of the facts summarized in this note.

Silva, Francis Augustus

hcst — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:44:25 +0000

Francis Augustus Silva (1835 to 1886)

Silva began painting when he was apprenticed to a sign painter in his native New York. Despite receiving no formal art education, he launched his fine art career in 1865 and by 1868 was included in the National Academy of Design’s annual exhibition.

Although Fitz Hugh Lane and Martin Johnson Heade are often heralded as the leaders of the Luminist movement, Silva has come to be recognized as a strong contributor, particularly through his coastal views. He travelled extensively up and down the Northeast coast, painting views of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts’ North Shore, Narragansett Bay, and the Hudson River. Through careful manipulation of light and color Silva rendered these landscapes most thoughtfully, not only accurately translating the terrain before him, but evoking the sentimentality of the natural American landscape.

Perhaps the words of Silva himself best explain his approach to painting. Silva was recorded as stating “A picture must be more than a skillfully painted canvas; it must tell something…Some men can never paint from a memory or feeling – they give us only cold facts in the most mannered way…Many of our artists learn certain artist’s tricks and then repeat them continually, with no idea of the deeper meaning of art, but only the outside of things, and very trivial things at that. All earnestness of purpose is lost, and with them art becomes a useless field of affectation where their tricks of color and handling are displayed.”

Reference note courtesy of Skinner, Inc., May 2003

Lane, Fitz Hugh (Henry) – American Artist

hcst — Tue, 17 May 2011 09:21:50 +0000

Fitz Hugh (Henry) Lane (1804 to 1865)

Fitz Henry Lane was one of the foremost American marine painters of the nineteenth century. He was born in 1804 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and spent much of his youth sketching the Cape Ann shore. He apprenticed with William S. Pendleton, the Boston lithography firm, in the early 1830′s, specializing in topographic views. In the 1840′s Lane probably saw the works of Robert Salmon and Washington Allston in Boston, and it was at this time that he decided to concentrate on painting. The paintings of the late 1840′s and early 1850′s reflected Lane’s earlier graphics training, in conjunction with the influence of the marine artists of the earlier generation.

The following information is reprinted with permission from an editorial in the Maine Antique Digest by S. Clayton Pennington. Copyright Maine Antique Digest, July, 2005.

Getting the Names Straight

It is not often that the title of a book contains earth-shaking news, but a reprint of John Wilmerding’s** 1971 Fitz Hugh Lane gives the story away with its new title, Fitz Henry Lane. That’s right, the name of one of America’s foremost marine artists has been changed by the foremost Lane scholar.

According to a press release by the Cape Ann Historical Association, “The discovery was made in 2004, the 200th anniversary of Lane’s birth, in his hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the Cape Ann Historical Museum celebrated with a year-long series of programs and special events. Wilmerding spoke in the fall, attracting the predictable standing room only crowd and prompting several completely unexpected developments.”

As the introduction to the book explains, “In the audience that night was Sarah Dunlap of the Gloucester Archives Committee. When Wilmerding ended the evening by posing questions about Lane that remained unanswered, Dunlap thought that local researchers could be helpful. She talked to Stephanie Buck, the librarian/archivist at the Museum, and together with other members of the Gloucester Archives Committee, they decided to tackle the mystery of Lane’s name. It was generally established that he had changed his name from the original Nathaniel Rogers Lane, and Dunlap and Buck tracked down Lane’s 1831 letter to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts requesting a name change. His petition was granted in 1832, and his name became not Fitz Hugh Lane but Fitz Henry Lane.”

The text of the reprint has not been changed, it still contains references to Fitz Hugh Lane, which may still perpetuate the old information.

…Left unmentioned is author Tony Peluso’s claim in the September 1992 M.A.D. that at least half of the unsigned paintings attributed to Lane were actually painted by Mary Mellen.”

p4A.com note: **John Wilmerding (born 1938) is one of America’s most distinguished art collectors, scholars and authors. He is the great-grandson of Henry O. Havemeyer, a sugar tycoon and important early collector of Americana and prints. His grandmother was Electra Havemeyer Webb, one of the most influential Americana collectors of the early twentieth century and the founder of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (1947). In 2004 Wilmerding gave a collection of 51 great American paintings, drawings and watercolors, including works of Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, George Caleb Bingham, Martin Johnson Heade, John Frederick Kensett, Frederick Edwin Church, and many others, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where he had served as senor curator of American Art and Associate Director.

Norton, William Edward – American Artist

hcst — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:23:50 +0000

William Edward Norton (1843-1916)

William Edward Norton grew up in Boston, studied at the Lowell Institute and later with George Inness. He went to sea as a teenager (his family owned ships) and his experiences there led him to favor marine subjects throughout his career.

In 1868, Norton went to Paris to continue his studies, and eventually settled in London. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and at the Paris Salon. He returned to the U.S. in 1893, and worked in New York until his death. He was a member of the Salmagundi Club and the Boston Art Club. Norton favored the Barbizon style of painting over Impressionism as is readily apparent from his work.

Lever, Richard Hayley – Australian/American Artist

hcst — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:55:36 +0000

Richard Hayley Lever (1876-1958)

Richard Hayley Lever best known as a Post-Impressionist of marine scenes, he was born in Australia, and moved to London in 1893. He settled at St. Ives in Cornwall in 1900, where he painted marine scenes. For the next ten years, the modified impressionist style he developed brought him much recognition in Europe. In 1911, New England painter Ernest Lawson persuaded him to emigrate to the United States and Lever established his studio in Caldwell, New Jersey.

After the Depression he was forced to give up his New Jersey home and became director of the Studio Art Club in Mt. Vernon, New York. For the following 20 years he spent his summers at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and painted widely throughout the New England States including Caldwell, Manasquan, Woodstock, Nantucket, Vermont and Mohegan Island. In his later years Lever’s palette became more vibrant and his typically bold and slashing signature of the 1910′s and 1920′s moderated and he signed his later work with less flourish.

Today Lever’s painting can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the White House.

Information courtesy of Northeast Auctions.

Richard Haley Lever refused to acknowledge any stylistic similarities of his own work to other prominent artistic movements during his career. His style was, simply put, his very own. Lever was born in Australia, and his travels took him to Europe, Great Britain, and eventually to the center of the modern art world- the United States. It was here that he gained the most recognition for his individualistic style: his exhibitions and awards are numerous, and he is lauded for his harbor scenes of Manhattan, St. Ives and other areas he encountered during his travels.

Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, June 2007.

Jacobsen, Antonio Nicolo Gaspara – American Nautical Artist

hcst — Fri, 13 May 2011 09:51:18 +0000

Antonio Jacobsen

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1850, Antonio Nicolo Gaspara Jacobsen studied art at the Royal Academy of Design in Copenhagen and came to New York City in 1871 to avoid being drafted into the Franco-Prussian War.

To earn money, Jacobsen decorated safe doors for the Marvin Safe Company and began painting ship portraits for the Old Dominion Steamship Line. His reputation grew to the point that he was widely regarded as one of America’s finest marine artists, painting around 4,000 portraits of the steamships that came to dock at the New York City Harbor between 1876 and 1919. Jacobsen’s paintings of these ships were often based on plans and blueprints supplied by their owners. Three New Orleans based steamer lines, the Morgan Line, the New Orleans Belize Royal Mail, and the Central American Steamship Company gave him some of his most extensive commissions.

In his later years, Jacobsen’s daughter Helen helped paint the sky and water of his pictures and his son, Carl, painted some of his own ship portraits. Jacobsen died in 1921 in West Hoboken, New Jersey, fondly known as the “Audubon of Steam Vessels.”

Jacobean’s artistic output can be difficult to believe but two books have been published listing about 3,500 specific paintings: Antonio Jacobsen – The Checklist, published in 1984, identifies approximately 2,500 specific Jacobsen paintings. Another 1,000 are listed in Antonio Jacobsen – The Checklist: Addenda List Number 2 published in 1994.

The work ethic that produced such a large quantity of well regarded paintings was described in the April 2, 1887 edition of the Maine Journal as follows: “We recently dropped in on marine artist Jacobsen at his studio on Palisades over-looking the Hudson, and found this gentleman improving the day, which was a pleasant one, by painting marine pictures at the rate of one every two hours, in the endeavor to catch up with the many orders he had on hand. It is a question if there is another marine artist in the United States or the world that can do as satisfactory work in his line as Jacobsen. He has made himself so valuable as a producer of perfect pictures of steam and sail vessels that those who have been accustomed to patronize him would be ‘at sea,’ as it were, should his hand cease to wield the brush. May he be spared to paint the entire new naval fleet, now an established fact, and the new merchant marine fleet in prospective.”

Reference note by p4A editors. Updated April 2011.

Gifford, Charles Henry – American Artist

hcst — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:49:33 +0000

Charles Henry Gifford (1839-1904)

The son of a Fairhaven, Massachusetts ship’s carpenter, Gifford worked as a shoemaker until 1862, when he enlisted in the Union Army. After fighting in the Civil War, Gifford returned to Fairhaven in 1865 and decided to take up painting. He established a studio in New Bedford in 1868 and, like his fellow Fairhavener, William Bradford, decided to focus his attention on the sea. Gifford showed considerable talent, not only for the particulars of ships and sailing, but for the subtleties of atmosphere and light. As John I. H. Baur, Gifford’s biographer, has written, “Gifford was a typical Luminist in his concern for light, his mirror-like surfaces, and his preference for working on an intimate scale” (An American Luminist: Charles Henry Gifford (1839-1904), The Katonah Gallery, Katonah, N.Y., 1987).

According to Baur, Gifford painted some of his most impressive seascapes from the beach behind the house he had built for himself on Poverty Point in Fairhaven in 1875. Among these are many of the small but highly finished canvases that Gifford called “my little gems”.

Drew, Clement – American Marine Artist

hcst — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:00:10 +0000

Clement Drew (American, 1806 to 1889)

Clement Drew was a noted Massachusetts marine painter, figurehead carver, photographer, and art dealer.

Dougherty, Paul – American Artist

hcst — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:56:16 +0000

Paul Dougherty (1877-1947)

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Paul Dougherty became a famous painter of dramatic marine scenes and desert landscapes although his family hoped he would become a lawyer.

Following his father who was an attorney, he graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1896 and New York Law School in 1898. But he changed professions to art and studied with Robert Henri and in Europe for five years from 1900 to 1905.

He then painted along the coast of Maine and his paintings were compared to those of Winslow Homer. Of his success, John Sloan said: “Everything came to him; all his pictures sold, he won all the prizes. The rich delighted to honor him, and his wives were glamorous” (Falk).

In 1907, he was elected a Member to the National Academy of Design in New York. He experimented with sculpture but settled on marine paintings, primarily focused on the ocean. Arthritis forced him to seek a milder climate, and in 1928, he began spending his winters in Arizona where he painted desert landscapes and mountains. In 1931, he moved to the Monterey Peninsula in California.

His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Joslyn Museum in Omaha; and the Fort Worth Museum in Texas as well as many other museums.