Art: Painting, Engraving, Sculpture

The study of art history is not usually place-specific: certainly a focus on a single state would produce a myopic view and odd conclusions. And few scholars have attempted state studies of art. William Warren's Bicentennial pamphlet on art and architecture is mentioned above, in the Architecture section. The WPA Guide includes a section, "Notes on Connecticut Art," pp. 95-102. Now over forty years out-of-date, it is nevertheless handy, one of the very few summary pieces on the subject. The essay takes an historical approach, covering developments from Ralph Earl to WPA-sponsored murals in Darien and Stamford public schools. It would serve as an excellent guide for organizing a study of art in Connecticut. The Mattatuck Historical Society in Waterbury, which is developing an historical list of Connecticut artists, in 1964 published A Tentative List of Connecticut Artists. It includes painters, etchers, engravers, and sculptors from the eighteenth century to 1964. Another work, alone in its class but now a century out-of-date, is H. W. French's Art and Artists in Connecticut (New York, 1879; reprinted by DaCapo Press, 1970). The work is organized by artists--134 of them--and includes six sculptors and, for goodness sake, a chapter called "Female Artists." See also Frederick Sherman, Early Connecticut Artists...., noted above.

For a couple of decades beginning in 1955, the CHS Bulletin devoted its October issue to cataloging the annual art exhibition display at the Society building in Hartford. Most of the catalog pieces were written by the Society's longtime director, Thompson Harlow, and many of them feature Connecticut artists and Connecticut landscapes. Those articles will form the core of any study of the subject using secondary materials.

The list of articles below was compiled by standard historical bibliographic techniques; it represents absolutely no sophistication about art and artists. We trust that it will be helpful, nevertheless, to beginners, dilettantes, and lazy undergraduates.

Adams, John Coleman. "Gibson, The Artist-Naturalist of Connecticut." Connecticut Magazine 7 (1902) 3-4. Deals with William Hamilton Gibson. Many illustrations.

Bartlett, Ellen Strong. "A Patriarch of American Portrait Painters." Connecticut Magazine 7 (1902-03) 5:589-601. Nathaniel Jocelyn (1796-1881), portraitist and engraver of New Haven.

Beardsley, William A. "An Old New Haven Engraver and His Work: Amos Doolittle." Papers of the NHCHS 8 (1914) :132-50. Doolittle (1754-1832) engraved portraits by Earle and other patriot painters, and early U.S. maps as well. He was also associated with Daniel Read and Simeon Jocelyn in publishing music.

--"Hezekiah Augur: Woodcarver, Sculptor and Inventor." Papers of the NHCHS 10 (1951) :258-85, This paper, read in 1919, includes illustrations of Augur's busts in marble and some of his woodcarvings. Augur (1791-1858) lived in New Haven and at one time was an associate of S.F.B. Morse.

Cogswell, Alice W. "Art Education in the 'Rose of New England.’” Connecticut Quarterly 4 (1898) 2:201-07. An illustrated account of the art school at the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich, 1898.

Cooper, Helen A. John Trumbull; The Hand and Spirit of a Painter. Exhibition catalog. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1982.

Cooper, Helen A. John Trumbull: the hand and spirit of a painter. New Haven: Yale Univ. Art Gallery, 1982. xv, 292p. Conn. Includes biographical sketch.

Crane, Susan Underwood. "Edward Sheffield Bartholomew." Connecticut Quarterly 2 (July-September, 1896) 3:203-14. A long piece about this sculptor, whose "Sappho" and "Eve Repentant" were at the Wadsworth Athenaeum. He was born in Colchester in 1822 and died in 1858.

Heming, Arthur. Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme. Chester: Pequot Press, 1971 A sixty-nine-page pamphlet that contains a humorous account of Connecticut's most famous artists' colony; illustrated with cartoons and including many sketches by the artists of one another.

Hull, Julia Lansing. "An Appreciation of Louis Gudebrud, a Connecticut Sculptor " Connecticut Magazine 10 (1906) 2:337-43. Gudebrud was a student of St. Gaudens. He did J.E.B. Stuart, Lasalle, and the Jefferson Davis Memorial, among other works.

Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin. Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic. New Haven, Yale University Press/Hartford, The Wadsworth Atheneum, 1991.

Little, Nina F. American Decorative Wall Painting, 1700-1850. Sturbridge, Mass.: Old Sturbridge Village, 1952. This work includes a section on Connecticut art and artists, pages 53-59.

--"Little-known Connecticut Artists." CHS Bulletin 22 (October, 1957) 4:97-103. This is an introduction to an exhibition catalog; both catalog and introduction are very useful.

--“Winthrop Chandler. Limner of Windham County, Connecticut.” Art in America 35 (April, 1947) 1:75-168. Chandler was a contemporary of Ralph Earl and Richard Jennys. The article constitutes the entire issue. Jean Lipman says in the introduction that Chandler ranks with Earl and Jennys as “an outstanding provincial painter of the eighteenth century....Chandler’s assembled work proves him to have been one of our greatest portrait and earliest scene painters.” (pp. 75-76) Numerous black-and-white photographs of Chandler’s works are included.

Mitchell, L.B. “James Sanford Ellsworth, American Miniature Painter.” Art in America 41 (Autumn, 1953) 4:151-84. The entire issue is devoted to Ellsworth (1802-1874?), a Connecticut itinerant.

Mitchell, William Donald. “Connecticut’s Contribution to Art: Olin Levi Warner...of West Suffield...one of (America’s Great Sculptors).” Connecticut Magazine 12 (1908) 1:127-28. Warner did, among other things, the scenes in brass on the doors of the Library of Congress.

Monroe, Myra E. Dowd. “Connecticut Artists and their Work: An Appreciation of Gilbert Munger.” Connecticut Magazine 8 (1903-04) 4:775-84. Munger, who came from Madison, was hired at the age of thirteen as an official naturalist-artist by the U.S. government, but much of his work was done in Europe. He died in 1903.

Owen, Charles Hunter, “Connecticut Artists and their Work: An Appreciation of John Lee Fitch.” Connecticut Magazine 10 (1906) 2:332-35. A very short piece about Fitch (1836-1895), a Hartford landscapist.

Randall, Alice Sawtelie. “Connecticut Artists and their Work: An Appreciation of Fidelia Bridges.” Connecticut Magazine 7 (1902-03) 5:583-88. Bridges was a water colorist of Canaan.

Randall, Herbert. “Achievements of a Connecticut Sculptor: Paul Wayland Bartlett....“ Connecticut Magazine 9 (1905) 2:389-94. Bartlett did ornaments and statues for the north side of the state capitol, including Haynes, Mason, Hopkins, Eaton, Ludlow, and Edwards.

Sherman, Frederick Fairchild. Early Connecticut Artists and Craftsmen. New York: priv. printed, 1925. See index for more on this work.

Sizer, Theodore, ed., with Rollins, Caroline. The Works of Colonel John Trumbull: Artist of the American Revolution, revised edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967. Jules Prown calls this “one of the basic studies in the literature of American Art.” (p. viii) The 1967 edition, also published by Yale, locates many paintings listed as unlocated in the 1950 edition. It also includes a number of essays by Sizer originally published in scattered journals. This is a tremendous work. It includes many photographs of Trumbull’s paintings. Those of Sizer’s forty articles on Trumbull which are not found here are collected in the editor’s biography of Trumbull listed below, in the “Biographies” section.

Towsend, Henry H. “John W. Barber, Illustrator and Historian.” Papers of the NHCHS 10 (195l) :313-36. Barber did the woodcuts found in his classic Historical Collections. See above.

Ward, Gerald W.R. and William N. Hosley, Jr., eds. The Greater River: Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 163501820. Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, 1985. A magnificent oversize exhibit catalog copiously illustrated with sophisticated yet accessible essays by top scholars on landscape, material life, regional culture, architecture, textiles, and several other crafts.

White, Henry Cooke. The Life and Art of Dwight William Tryon. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1930. A biography by a loving friend. Many, many black-and-white reproductions of Tryon’s paintings.

Whitmore, Harriet E.G. “Miniature Painting in the Colonial Days,” Connecticut Magazine 7 (1902). A three-part series.

Exhibition catalogs are a fruitful source of information about and reproductions of paintings. Some are lavishly illustrated, and they usually include excellent biographical, descriptive, and critical essays by recognized authorities. There are a few that focus on Connecticut painters:

William Benton Museum of Art. Connecticut and American Impressionism (1980) The staff of this museum, located on the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs, produced a glorious volume of art and history. The Exhibition covered the era from 1882, when J. Alden Weir first visited Windham, to the deaths in 1935 of Childe Hassam and Walter Griffin. The catalog includes essays and scores of pictures, many depicting Connecticut land and sea scenes.

Darnell, Jane, and Ferguson, Charles. Charles Russell Loomis, 1857-1936, Connecticut Journeyman Artist A Retrospective Exhibition. This is a catalog of an exhibition held at the New Britain Museum of Art in 1976. It has twenty-eight pages and includes reproductions, an essay, and a bibliography.

Mattatuck Historical Society. The Connecticut Artists Collection. Waterbury: the Society, 1968. The Mattatuck Historical Society has an extraordinary collection of paintings by Connecticut artists in the museum in Waterbury. The Society is attempting to develop a collection of paintings by artists who were born in Connecticut or worked or lived here a “reasonable” time. This is an illustrated, eighty-four-page catalog of Society holdings.

Randall, Herbert. “Exhibition at the Athenaeum of Several Contemporary Painters.” Connecticut Magazine 8 (1903) 1:108-12, 2:308-12. A two-part piece dealing with numerous artists, a few from Connecticut.

See also The Art Museums of New England: Connecticut and Rhode Island (Boston, David R. Godine, 1982) by S. Lane Falson, Jr. Falson, former Director of the Williams College Institute of Art; provides concise essays on selected collections in the states leading museums. Many illustrations.

William Benton Museum of Art. Connecticut and American Impressionism. Sotrrs, Univ. of Conn., 1980. The work principally of Hildegard Cummings -- a cooperative exhibit: Benton Museum, Hurlbutt Gallery, Greenwich Library, Lyme Historical Society.