Past Features

Thomas Young

The fashion of painting miniature portraits developed as a genre of traditional portrait painting. By creating a miniature likeness of a loved one, the artist enabled the recipient to carry or wear the image wherever he or she might like. Miniature portrait painting flourished during the American Revolution and continued into the middle of the nineteenth century.

The Museum has been fortunate to acquire an excellent example of this genre, A Portrait of A Gentleman, by artist Thomas Young.

Thomas Young (1765-1821) spent his professional career in Providence, where his prominent sitters included the Senator and Governor of Rhode Island. Young’s miniature of Mary Thayer Holden is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Signed miniatures by this artist are exceedingly rare.

Set in the original rolled gold pendant frame with beaded bezel, this miniature is signed on the backing paper: Thos. Young/1799. It is interesting to note that the miniature has a square of silver foil behind the face, a European technique virtually unknown in America in the 18th century.

Thomas Young
A Portrait of A Gentleman

Deb Perry

Photography in America evolved, in many respects, right alongside everything else.

The evolution of American photography has long been entwined with the evolution of our country. From the dramatic Civil War photographs of Matthew Brady to the work of Jacob Riis who opened our eyes to the conditions of tenement life at the turn of the century and on to the work of Ernest Withers which so vividly documented our nation’s struggle to establish Civil Rights, our photographers have used their skills to bring our social issues to life.

From another perspective, photographers like Ansel Adams shared the beauty of the American landscape, Margaret Bourke White showed how beautiful machines could be, and a bevy of talented others turned their lens on everyday life in the most modern and progressive nation in the world.

The Museum recently discovered the work of photographer Deb Perry whose eye for both urban and rural life is sharp. Her work speaks volumes about the way we live and the things we value. Through the generosity of a private gift, we were able to acquire two works by this talented Midwestern artist and add them to our growing collection.

Deb Perry
Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Center, NYC
2006, Digital Photograph

Wayne Burnett

The history of American woodworking is rich. Virtually the first truly skilled artists in the Colonies were our cabinet makers, who were lured here by the promise of a seemingly endless supply of fine wood — and a steady stream of customers as settlers sought to replicate the furnishings most had left behind in Europe.

Philadelphia, New York, and Newport were the centers of early American woodworking and the furniture created there was unrivaled. Each handcrafted piece was a sublime blend of artistry and practicality. Over time, the market forces of a growing middle class population led to the industrialization of furniture making. Even still, fine woodworkers continued to make exceptional pieces for the more affluent population and thus skills were passed down through generations.

Beginning in the 1960’s with the renaissance of American Crafts, fine woodworking gained momentum and, today, we are fortunate to have an ever expanding pool of talented woodworkers from coast-to-coast.

We found this superb chair by noted Indiana woodworker, Wayne Burnett, in an exhibition at the vibrant Pendleton Art Center in Rising Sun, Indiana and purchased it for our new American Contemporary Art & Design Collection. It’s a stunner and exemplifies the quality of the work being done today.

Wayne Burnett
Rocking Chair
2006, Curly maple and walnut
From the Collection of the FWMoA

Louis Lozowick

Best known for his lithographs of skyscrapers, constructions, and machinery, Louis Lozowick emigrated to the States in 1907 after graduating from the Kiev Art School in the Ukraine. Here, he continued his studies at the National Academy of Design in New York and became absolutely awed by the rise of that American metropolis. To his thinking, “...the dominant trend in America of today, beneath all the apparent chaos and confusion, is toward order and organization which find their outward sign in the rigid geometry of the American city:... in the squares of its streets, the cubes of its factories, the arc of its bridges, the cylinders of its gas tanks...”

Lozowick was devoted to a career-long study of industrial and urban America — its construction, its evolving skyline, and the lives of the people living in its midst.

As a muralist for the Public Works Art Project, he also toured the country extensively, avidly sketching scenes of American life which, later, found their way into his lithographs.

Although he was also a painter, his true love was lithography and he continuously worked and re-worked his heavy litho stones to achieve the powerful, velvety dark areas that he used to contrast his open planes of pure white.

We are most appreciative of the Hamilton Circle’s support that enabled us to add his fabulous Above The City to the Museum’s growing collection.

Louis Lozowick
Above the City
1932, Lithograph

DeWitt Lockman

The history of American Art is rich with the stories of artists of prodigious talent and recognized achievement whose reputations somehow did not manage to extend much beyond their particular lifetime. One of these gifted, yet currently under-appreciated, American artists is DeWitt McClellan Lockman, an extremely talented painter born in Brooklyn in 1870. The Museum has recently been given a major Lockman picture by one of the Midwest’s most aesthetically astute designers, Mr. Russ S. Sunday.

The picture, entitled Pandora’s Box, is a striking portrait of Ione Kimmell Grey (a cousin of Mr. Sunday) who was a very fashionable model at the turn of the 20th Century.

Lockman was at the height of his popularity when he executed this fine painting. Long considered a child prodigy, Lockman shocked everyone in the art world when, at age 10, the National Gallery selected one of his drawings for their annual exhibition. By the age of 19, he was exhibiting regularly in Paris and throughout Europe. Lockman’s work was so highly sought out that even at the height of the Depression, his portraits regularly sold for $3,000. DeWitt Lockman’s works are held by numerous institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Academy of Design.

We are extremely thankful for Mr. Sunday’s generosity and very proud to count a major work by this distinguished American artist
in our Museum’s collection.

Bust of Christopher Columbus

American sculptors in the nineteenth century looked to Rome for instruction, inspiration, and raw material, primarily the finest marble in the world. In Rome, surrounded by countless classical figures from Antiquity and the Renaissance, young Americans diligently studied proportions and learned how to apply the chisel to stone. Two of the most talented Americans in this company were Horatio Greenough and his younger brother, Richard. Horatio’s arrival abroad preceded his brother’s by over a decade and he had the good fortune to have befriended Bertel Thorvaldsen, Antonio Canova’s most talented student. Canova was the unrivaled dean of Neoclassic sculpture but, as he aged, he looked to Thorvaldsen to carry his mantle.

Thorvaldsen and Greenough looked beyond neoclassicism, though, to a more naturalistic approach to their subjects. Rather than putting their sitter’s countenance on an idealized Greek body, they portrayed their sitter realistically, as the individual was in nature. This new approach found tremendous popular support and secured their reputations quickly. When young Richard arrived in Rome in 1837, he found himself warmly welcomed as an artist who would soon be as famous as his older brother. Richard’s training progressed very well and, after two years in Italy, he returned to Boston to open a studio and begin his career. He secured numerous small commissions, but it was his formidable bust of historian William H. Prescott that established him as an important sculptor. Immediately following its completion, Richard’s studio was steadily busy with commissioned work.

Today, Richard Greenough’s sculptures grace the galleries of numerous museums, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and our Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Our bust of Christopher Columbus by Greenough is one of his most inspiring and accomplished works. From the intricate folds of the collar to the optimistic cast of the young explorer’s gaze, the carving is masterful. We are fortunate to have acquired such a fine example by one of America’s most talented 19th century sculptors and we urge you to visit soon to see this masterwork. We are ever grateful to the Newman Foundation for their support of this major acquisition.

Richard Greenough
Bust of Young Christopher Columbus, 1856
Museum purchase with funds provided
by the Clinton E. Newman Foundation

Philadelphia Silversmith Samuel Williamson

Toward the end of the eighteenth century and into the first decade of the nineteenth, American silversmiths developed a new aesthetic that increasing referenced Greek and Roman sources. The extreme simplicity of form and precise pro­portion of this classically inspired style appealed to the new republic, whose national motto, decimal currency, form of federal government, as well as public architecture, were all based on Roman forms. In silver, as in furniture, the new style was chiefly characterized by clean lines, restrained ornament, and refined proportions.

Philadelphia silversmith Samuel Williamson was just finishing his apprenticeship with master silversmith Joseph Lownes as this new aesthetic emerged and he delighted in the opportunity to be among the first to work in the popular new style.

Williamson proudly opened his own shop in the heart of the city in 1794 and his reputation for fine work grew rapidly. He was commissioned to make tea sets, coffee services, and various elegant serving pieces for all the wealthiest families in Philadelphia.

One of his largest commissions came from Merriweather Lewis who was in Philadelphia preparing for his great expedition. Seeking a fine craftsman to create gifts for the Indians he and William Clark were sure to encounter, Lewis was sent to Williamson’s shop. In 1803, just two years before he created our handsome teapot, Williamson produced five hundred brooches and seventy-two rings for the Lewis & Clark expedition.

Samuel Williamson
Teapot, ca. 1805, Silver
Museum purchase with funds
provided by the Hamilton Circle

Robert Duncan

One of my favorite artists in our permanent collection is the supremely talented Robert Scott Duncanson, the very first African American artist who was able to earn his living through his painting. Born in 1822 in upstate New York, Duncanson apprenticed as a house painter and carpenter while teaching himself to paint by copying reproductions of Hudson River School landscapes. Both diligent and gifted, Duncanson progressed rapidly, advertising himself in the local paper as a “painter and glazier” while he was still in his teens.

Just after turning nineteen, Duncanson moved to Cincinnati where he rented a studio beside that of another young, aspiring artist, William Sonntag, who painted in a similar classical style. Both young men began exhibiting and selling their pictures almost immediately. Duncanson’s work attracted the attention of Nicholas Longworth, the wealthy Cincinnati banker and horticulturalist who also became known as the “Father of the American Grape Culture.” Longworth began collecting Duncanson’s work and introducing him to the wealthiest families in the region. Most significantly, in 1850, Longworth commissioned Duncanson to paint eight murals in his palatial, Federal-style home which, later, became the Taft Museum.

Duncanson’s reputation continued to grow throughout the decade and he traveled all over America. During the Civil War, he went to England to paint landscapes and study classical motifs in European painting. By the time that he returned to the States to settle in Detroit, he had become recognized internationally.

Our Duncanson is one of his most compelling pictures—a romantic, timeless landscape with an idyllic stream in the foreground that carries our eyes deep into the picture to the rugged mountains in the hazy distance. We are indeed fortunate to have a work by this esteemed African American artist in the Museum.

Robert Duncanson
Adirondack Mountains, 1868, Oil on board
Gift of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art Alliance 1997.08

Duncan Phyfe Table

In the history of American furniture, few names command as much respect and recognition as that of Duncan Phyfe.

Phyfe’s reputation was based on his insistence on adhering to the highest standards, working with the best of woods. His popularity stemmed from his dedication to creating excellent furniture which, in his day, was relatively reasonably priced. Phyfe strongly believed that quality should be within the reach of all Americans and he accomplished that by maintaining a large shop of over one-hundred skilled carvers and joiners who could produce sufficient quantities of furniture to keep prices down.

Young Duncan arrived in America with his family, the Fifes, from Scotland where the dismal economy and living conditions threatened the family’s welfare. His father, a cabinetmaker immediately found employment in New York and Duncan, 16, was offered an apprenticeship. After several years, in 1792, he was ready to open his own shop and it was at this time that he chose to change the spelling of his name to Phyfe. This may have been to distinguish his work from that of his father or, more likely, the change was prompted by a sensible desire to have a more French sounding name in an increasingly anti-British environment.

Phyfe’s early furniture relied heavily on designs from European pattern books, but the quality of his craftsmanship, beautiful proportioning, and his elegance of line soon established him as one of the most important influences of American Federal Period design.

The Museum recently acquired the superb Duncan Phyfe game table c.1820 illustrated here with the assistance of the Clinton Newman Foundation and displays it prominently in the American Art Initiative Gallery on the second floor.

Duncan Phyfe Table

Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Smith

We have recently had the good fortune to acquire a pair of handsome American portraits that present a pleasant couple—Mr. & Mrs. George Smith—who, in 1840, were upwardly mobile in Baltimore society and eager to confirm that fact by commissioning these two paintings.

The source of the Smith family’s newly accumulated wealth was the gradual resurgence of the shipbuilding business in Baltimore after the lull that followed the War of 1812. As young Smith came into his own as a shipbuilder, the yards were regaining their vitality by developing ships for the growing American merchant marine fleet.

A great many artists were drawn to Baltimore by the strengthened economy. Among these were renown portraitists like Henry Inman, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale. These artists secured many important com­missions. But other, lesser known, portraitists were also successful rendering the likenesses of prosperous Baltimore bankers and merchants.

Our research has revealed nothing yet about the artist who painted these portraits. Nor do we know anything about the pleasant evening in the Smith’s home when these pictures were unveiled to family and friends. We can only assume that the Smiths were pleased by the manner in which they were portrayed and very proud to have their pictures on display.

In the history of American Art, portraiture is one of the most dominant subjects, especially during this period. We are very pleased to have acquired this pair of classic American portraits and are thankful to the Clinton E. Newman Foundation and Mr. Bruce Chaney for their support for this important acquisition.

Artist Unknown
Portrait of Mr. George Smith
Oil on canvas

Artist Unknown
Portrait of Mrs. George Smith
Oil on canvas

Tea and Coffee Set

During the mid-nineteenth century, American architecture, furniture, and the decorative arts were dominated by a series of design revivals which can be best understood as reactions to a world that was rapidly urbanizing and becoming more complicated. Of these new versions of earlier styles, none was more popular than the Rococo Revival with its naturalistic emphasis and its romantic elegance. While exerting virtually no influence on architecture, the energized flourishes of the Rococo Revival style dominated the libraries and parlors of the finest homes in color schemes, fabrics, furniture, and servingware. Silverwork with elaborate and intricate flowers, vines, and leaves “chased” (a hammering technique) into beautiful relief patterns was extremely fashionable and those silversmiths who specialized in such delicate techniques were in high demand. Charles Grosjean and Eli Woodward were two of the most accomplished silversmiths in Boston in the 1850’s and frequently worked on commission for the numerous retailers of luxury goods. In early 1850 they created this marvelous four piece coin silver tea and coffee set for a wealthy client looking for a distinctive service that would complement her horticultural interests. The chased and engraved floral decoration, applied vines, and twig-form handle and spout were expertly rendered by the two master silversmiths, who even cast two whimsical putti seated in a garden environment as the finials.

This handsome set was a gift to the Museum in honor of Trustee Nancy Stewart by her friends. It is a significant and substantial work of art by two of America’s most respected silversmiths and a perfect beginning to our American Silver Collection.

Woodward & Grosjean for Lincoln & Foss
Tea and Coffee Set, ca. 1850
Coin silver

Woodward & Grosjean for Lincoln & Foss
Tea and Coffee Set, ca. 1850 (detail)
Coin silver

American Tallcase Clock

The goal of the Museum’s American Art Initiative is to provide each of our visitors with the opportunity to experience and gain an understanding of the full historical range of American Art. To that end, we are dramatically expanding our Permanent Collection and working to create a new permanent exhibition that will present a two-hundred year survey of American fine & decorative art. Our very first purchase for this new exhibition is a handsome, early American Tallcase Clock (c.1820) which was owned by a prominent Fort Wayne couple, successful hotelier William McKinnie and his wife Georgie Fleming McKinnie. William was preceded in the hotel business in Fort Wayne by his father, Captain McKinnie who moved here from Philadelphia after the Civil War and operated hotels and restaurants that catered to the railroad traffic. Georgie’s family also prospered in Fort Wayne — her father was a well-loved teacher before becoming the publisher of the News-Sentinel and then he later became owner of the railroad.

Several things make this grand clock a special find. First, because we could clearly trace this clock’s provenance, we were able to determine that it was in original condition (except for a few very minor repairs) and had not been restored. We were also able to ascertain that the “works” of this particular clock were indeed intended for this particular cherry case. In a clock of this vintage it’s not uncommon to find the works of one clock have been switched to a different case. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of this marvelous tallcase is that we believe it was made in the workshop of one of America’s greatest clockmakers, Seth Thomas. As a teen, Thomas apprenticed for several years with clockmaker Eli Terry in Wolcott, Connecticut, first learning cabinet-making and then how to craft the delicate wooden gears and mechanisms that comprise a clock’s works. By 1810, he had saved enough money to partner with fellow apprentice Silas Hoadley to buy Eli Terry’s business from him in 1810. The two young men worked diligently and, in just three years, Thomas had saved enough money to strike out on his own in nearby Plymouth Hollow. We believe that the McKinnie Clock was made by Thomas in his new Plymouth Hollow shop in approximately 1820.

With the generous assistance of Gene & Sarah Philips and Bruce Chaney, we were able to acquire the McKinnie Clock as the first new acquisition of the American Art Initiative. This splendid example of American clockmaking is now on permanent display in the Museum. We invite you to come in soon to see this fabulous new addition to our Collection.

American Tallcase Clock (c.1820)