Ernest Haskell

Last updated
Ernest Haskell
Ernest Haskell self portrait.jpg
Self portrait by Haskell
BornJune 30, 1876
DiedNovember 1, 1925

Ernest Haskell (June 30, 1876 - November 1, 1925) was an American artist and illustrator, internationally famous in his lifetime and remembered for his etchings, as well as engravings, pen-and-ink drawings, lithographs and watercolors. [1] He was a pioneer in the field of theatrical posters. [2] He created many portraits and caricatures of luminaries of the day. [3] During World War I he was commissioned by the United States Army to develop camouflage painting. [4] Haskell's etchings and intaglio prints are considered by critics and scholars to be his most important contribution. [5]

Contents

Biography

Ernest Haskell was born on June 30, 1876, in Woodstock, Connecticut. His mother was Caledonia deRennes Haskell and his father was Besture Haskell. [1] Ernest spent his childhood on the Haskell farm and attended Woodstock Academy. While convalescing from an attack of typhoid fever, he passed the time sketching and drawing. Ernest was a teenager and had expected to attend Yale University on a football scholarship he had secured. However, his artwork attracted attention which led to an offer of employment in the field of magazine illustration. Soon he was working in New York City as a professional artist in the art department of the New York American . [1] His techniques were mainly self-taught at this point. Over the next decade Haskell made three extended trips to Paris, France, for the purpose of conducting independent art studies. Haskell was encouraged and assisted in this endeavor by his older sister Mabel Percy Haskell, [3] herself an artist and writer and newspaper correspondent. On the first trip he enrolled in a prestigious art school, the Academie Julian, but did not stay, instead devising his own system of studying and practicing. [6] For a time Ernest was a protege and friend of James McNeill Whistler, who taught him to make etchings. [1] He made several caricatures of Whistler. [6]

Upon returning to New York from Paris in the late 1890s Haskell brought with him techniques he had learned in the field of advertising and theatrical posters. [3] His work in this area became very popular. [1] He made posters promoting magazines such as Scribner's, Collier's, Truth, and Pearson's. [7] His portrait subjects included stage actresses Helen Hayes, Ethel Barrymore, Minnie Maddern Fiske (no relation to Haskell although the famous poster of Mrs. Fiske by him was printed by her cousin at Ottman Lithographic Co.) and Maude Adams. He was a member of the Players club on Gramercy Park in Manhattan during this period. [3]

Haskell himself was the subject of a portrait by Zaida Ben-Yusuf (published in The Critic magazine September 1899), who was known for her artistically rendered photographic portraits of eminent artists and political figures of her time. [8]

Ernest Haskell by Zaida Ben-Yusuf New York City 1899 Ernest Haskell circa 1899 by Zaida Ben-Yusuf .jpg
Ernest Haskell by Zaida Ben-Yusuf New York City 1899

In 1903 he married Elizabeth Louise Foley, [1] a writer and member of New York society, and in 1906 they bought some land and a farmhouse on the coast of Maine in the town of Phippsburg. They lived there in the summer seasons, returning to New York City during the winter months. [5] Haskell worked on etching and painting in the summers, and on trips to California, while maintaining portrait commissions and commercial work in the winters. In 1915 he was engaged by the newly formed Metro Pictures Corporation (later to become MGM films) as a poster artist. [9] Ernest and Elizabeth had two children, Hildegarde and Eben. [5] During this period Haskell was doing much work in the line of creating etchings, in Maine as well as in California and Florida. When exhibited, these met with critical acclaim, [1] so Haskell became known as a "fine" artist as well as a portraitist and poster lithographer. He belonged to the group of artists who were exhibited at Alfred Stieglitz' famed 291 Gallery in New York City. [5] He also had one man shows at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, [5] the Berlin Photographic Company [2] and the Art Institute of Chicago among other venues. Haskell exhibited with the Brooklyn Society of Etchers from 1916 to 1922.

Ernest Haskell served in World War I in the Camouflage Unit. [4] He was one of the artists who developed camouflage painting for the United States Army to disguise battleships and to use on soldiers' uniforms. His wife Elizabeth contracted influenza in the 1918 flu pandemic and died in New York City. [3] Ernest took the children and went to live in northern California. [1]

Ernest Haskell by Dorothea Lange Ernest Haskell portrait by Dorothea Lange (version 2).jpg
Ernest Haskell by Dorothea Lange

In 1920, at the studio of photographer Dorothea Lange, he met Emma Loveland Laumeister. They were married in San Francisco [1] and returned to New York City, where twins Ernest Jr. and Josephine were born. [5] The pattern of dividing time between New York and Maine continued for about four years. At that time, Haskell had been working in watercolors which were admired for their modern style. [1] On November 1, 1925, he was returning to his family in Maine after organizing an exhibition of the new paintings in New York when he was involved in a fatal automobile accident near West Point in Phippsburg, Maine. [10]

The exhibition became a memorial show at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City. Ernest was eulogized by fellow artists and friends John Marin and Childe Hassam among others. Royal Cortissoz called him "a brilliant artist". [11] Henry McBride called him "the American etcher". [1]

Legacy

In the years since Ernest Haskell's death there have been numerous retrospective shows of his work. Among these were three shows in the centennial year of his birth, 1976, at the Honolulu Academy of Art, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, [2] and the New York Public Library. [12] In 1981 there was a show called "Ernest Haskell: A Retrospective of Prints" at Associated American Artists on Fifth Avenue in New York City, curated by Sylvan Cole Jr. [13] Ernest Haskell's work was included in an exhibition entitled "Three Centuries of American Art" at MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in 1938.

His work is being re-discovered in the 21st century, one example of this being a major exhibition in 2011 at the Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, "How He Was to His Talents, the Work of Ernest Haskell", researched and curated by Andrew Mellon Curatorial Fellow Katrina E. Greene. [5] There are collections of Ernest Haskell works in many museums in the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Hunterian Gallery, Glasgow University in Scotland.

As of 2017, the property on the coast of Maine, in Phippsburg, where Haskell did some of his later work has been added to the National Register of Historic Places in the United States.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaston Lachaise</span> American sculptor

Gaston Lachaise was a French-born sculptor, active in America in the early 20th century. A native of Paris, he is most noted for his female nudes such as his heroic Standing Woman. Gaston Lachaise was taught the fundamentals of European sculpture while living in France. While still a student, he met and fell in love with an older American woman, Isabel Dutaud Nagle, then followed her after she returned to America. There, he became profoundly impressed by the great vitality and promise of his adopted country. Those life-altering experiences clarified his artistic vision and inspired him to define the female nude in a new and powerful manner. His drawings, typically made as ends in themselves, also exemplify his remarkably new treatment of the female body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Indiana</span> American artist (1928–2018)

Robert Indiana was an American artist associated with the pop art movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Herbert Woodbury</span> American painter

Charles Herbert Woodbury, was an American marine painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yasuo Kuniyoshi</span> Japanese-American painter (1889–1953)

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was an eminent 20th-century Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Katz</span> American artist (born 1927)

Alex Katz is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints. Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally. He is well known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and heightened colors are considered as precursors to Pop Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Marin</span> American artist (1870–1953)

John Marin was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Driskell</span> American painter, scholar, and curator (1931–2020)

David C. Driskell was an American artist, scholar and curator; recognized for his work in establishing African-American Art as a distinct field of study. In his lifetime, Driskell was cited as one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of African-American Art. Driskell held the title of Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, is named in his honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Trevelyan</span> English artist and poet

Julian Otto Trevelyan was an English artist and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Judd Waugh</span> American painter (1861–1940)

Frederick Judd Waugh was an American artist, primarily known as a marine artist. During World War I, he designed ship camouflage for the U.S. Navy, under the direction of Everett L. Warner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zaida Ben-Yusuf</span> American photographer (1869–1933)

Zaida Ben-Yusuf was an American portrait photographer based in New York. She was known for her artistic portraits of wealthy, fashionable, and famous Americans during the turn of the 19th–20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leopold Seyffert</span> American artist (1887–1956)

Leopold Gould Seyffert was an American artist. Born in California, Missouri, and raised in Colorado and then Pittsburgh, his career brought him eventually to New York City, via Philadelphia and Chicago. In New York the dealer Macbeth established him as one of the leading portraitists of the 20th century and his over 500 portraits continue to decorate the galleries, rooms and halls of many of America's museums and institutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Goldthwaite</span> American artist and advocate of womens rights (1869–1944)

Anne Goldthwaite was an American painter and printmaker and an advocate of women's rights and equal rights. Goldthwaite studied art in New York City. She then moved to Paris where she studied modern art, including Fauvism and Cubism, and became a member of a circle that included Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. She was a member of a group of artists that called themselves Académie Moderne and held annual exhibitions.

Peter Grippe was an American sculptor, printmaker, and painter. As a sculptor, he worked in bronze, terracotta, wire, plaster, and found objects. His "Monument to Hiroshima" series (1963) used found objects cast in bronze sculptures to evoke the chaotic humanity of the Japanese city after its incineration by atomic bomb. Other Grippe Surrealist sculptural works address less warlike themes, including that of city life. However, his expertise extended beyond sculpture to ink drawings, watercolor painting, and printmaking (intaglio). He joined and later directed Atelier 17, the intaglio studio founded in London and moved to New York at the beginning of World War II by its founder, Stanley William Hayter. Today, Grippe's 21 Etchings and Poems, a part of the permanent collection at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is available as part of the museum's virtual collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colby College Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Maine, United States

The Colby College Museum of Art is an art museum on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1959 and now comprising five wings, nearly 8,000 works and more than 38,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Colby College Museum of Art has built a collection that specializes in American and contemporary art with additional, select collections of Chinese antiquities and European paintings and works on paper. The museum serves as a teaching resource for Colby College and is a major cultural destination for the residents of Maine and visitors to the state.

Charles S. Klabunde is an American artist whose work has been characterized both as existential realism and as fantastical symbolism. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska.

Gertrude Tiemer Wille was an American painter, photographer, and poet. Tiemer achieved her greatest notoriety for inter-dimensional, multi-exposure photography. Her paintings of landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and other pieces adopted both the realist and abstract styles of art. Tiemer exhibited her work at galleries in Maine, New York City, and other venues throughout the U.S. and internationally.

Charles W. Duncan (1887–1970) was an American avant-garde painter in the circle of artists that gathered around the photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz. He is now known primarily as the subject of one of Charles Demuth's famous poster portraits.

Charles Steven DuBack (1926–2015) was an American artist, known for his large-scale paintings, collage, and drawings.

Sigmund Abeles is an American figurative artist and art educator. His work embodies the "expressive and psychological aspects of the human figure; an art focused on the life cycle." He taught art for 27 years at various institutions including Swain School of Design, Wellesley College, Boston University, the National Academy, and the Art Students League of New York. Currently Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, Abeles works full-time in his NYC and upstate NY studios. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards for printmaking, drawing, painting, and sculpture, including Pastel Society of America Hall of Fame honoree in 2004 and most recently the Artists' Fellowship 2017 Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal. His work can be found in many public institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Abeles was one of three artists featured in Manfred Kirchheimer's 2012 feature-length independent film Art Is... The Permanent Revolution, on the history of the art of protest in prints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliot O'Hara</span> American painter

Eliot O'Hara was an American artist and educator known for his masterful watercolors, especially his impressionistic landscapes. The Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine has over 120 of his watercolors representing all aspects of his work. His paintings are in the collections of many museums in the USA and have been the subject of exhibitions throughout the United States. He was an influential educator through his nearly 40 years of teaching, writing, and film making.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pousette-Dart, Nathaniel; Marin, John (1931). Ernest Haskell, His Life and Work. T.S. Hutson.
  2. 1 2 3 Ernest Haskell- A Retrospective Exhibition. A Portfolio of Selected Work, Introduction by Ruth Fine Lehrer, Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Copyright 1976 Bowdoin College
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Flair for Theatrics" Art and Antiques magazine 28, no.12 (December 2004)p.86 by Abigail Aldridge
  4. 1 2 The Most of John Held Jr. illustrations by John Held Jr. introduction by Marc Connelly copyright 1972 Stephen Greene Press
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Greene, Katrina E. (2011). How He Was to His Talents : the Work of Ernest Haskell. Amherst, Mass.: Museum. ISBN   9780914337300.
  6. 1 2 In Pursuit of the Butterfly, Portraits of James McNeill Whistler by Eric Denker. Published by the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. copyright 1995 Smithsonian Institution
  7. American Art Posters of the 1890s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art including the Leonard A. Lauder Collection, compiled by David W. Kiehl Copyright 1987 Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
  8. Zaida Ben-Yusuf, New York Portrait Photographer, Frank H. Goodyear III, National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution Copyright 2008 Merrell Publishers Limited
  9. Motion Picture News Vol.12 no.3 p.60 July 24, 1915
  10. The New York Times, Tuesday, November 3, 1925 "Ernest Haskell Dies in Auto Crash"
  11. New York Herald Tribune November 7, 1926
  12. Bulletin of the New York Public Library Summer 1976 by Robert Rainwater
  13. ERNEST HASKELL Retrospective of Prints May 4–23, 1981 Associated American Artists, 663 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. Catalogue by Sylan Cole Jr., President

Further reading