Starkweather Catalogue
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William E. B. <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
Maine & the Maritime<br />
Provinces of Canada
William E. B. <strong>Starkweather</strong>:<br />
Maine & the Maritimes Provinces of Canada<br />
<strong>Catalogue</strong> to Accompany an Exhibition<br />
held at the<br />
Tides Institute & Museum of Art<br />
Eastport, Maine<br />
July 18 — August 17, 2008<br />
Cover: Coast at Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. 1939.
Figure 1. William <strong>Starkweather</strong> in his studio. Peter A. Juley & Son, photographer. Courtesy of<br />
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection. Negative number: J0094994.<br />
2
WILLIAM E. B. STARKWEATHER<br />
MAINE AND THE MARITIME PROVINCES OF CANADA<br />
ANTHONY PANZERA<br />
“The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has past,<br />
and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.<br />
Life if well spent is long.”<br />
R 1174 [1]<br />
Leonardo wrote these words as a way of describing the ebb and flow<br />
of generations, the helter-skelter of life, as though we as humans<br />
are all spinning tops, occasionally bumping into one another and<br />
then spinning off in opposite, undetermined directions. It is this<br />
existential component of life that is totally unexplainable and<br />
unpredictable.<br />
Thus it was that almost concurrently with my appointment to a<br />
teaching post at Hunter College in 1969, William E. B. <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
quietly passed away at a nursing home in New Haven, Connecticut,<br />
two days before his 90 th birthday. I of course knew nothing about<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>, or he of me. He began teaching at Hunter College in<br />
1936 and retired in 1948. Shortly after I began at Hunter, I met a<br />
graduating senior, Peter Falotico, whose father passed on to him a<br />
body of work acquired at auction. It was a portfolio of watercolors<br />
and oils by William <strong>Starkweather</strong>, many of them works of Eastport,<br />
Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. It was due to the<br />
confluence of these totally coincidental events that this exhibition,<br />
the latest in a series of <strong>Starkweather</strong> exhibitions, was born.<br />
WILLIAM EDWARD BLOOMFIELD STARKWEATHER<br />
William E. B. <strong>Starkweather</strong> lived a full, rich and prolific life. [2]<br />
He was an accomplished artist, museum curator, lecturer, author,<br />
[1] Richter, Jean Paul, The Literary Works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Unabridged<br />
ed. first published in London, 1883, 3rd ed. New York: Phaidon Publishers,<br />
1970, vol. ii, p. 244, R 1174.<br />
and beloved teacher. He was also an itinerant traveler – visiting<br />
Bermuda, Mexico, Italy, France, and Spain and eventually finding<br />
his way to Eastport, Maine and the Maritime Provinces. There, he<br />
would return again and again to visually record the craggy coasts,<br />
surging seas and dramatic vistas.<br />
While details of <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s early years are sketchy, he is thought<br />
to have been born on May 16, 1879, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His<br />
father died some four or five years later, in 1883 or 1884, and his<br />
mother, along with William and his sister, immigrated to the United<br />
States, settling in New Haven, Connecticut. Soon after the family<br />
arrived, Mrs. Bloomfield also died and the children were placed<br />
in an orphanage, from which they were adopted by John Henry<br />
and Hannah Elizabeth <strong>Starkweather</strong> of Winchester, Connecticut,<br />
and raised in New Haven. <strong>Starkweather</strong> attended high school in<br />
New Haven, where he apparently developed his artistic bent, and<br />
following graduation, in 1897, he decided to enroll at the Art Students<br />
League in New York, New York. According to a recorded interview<br />
with him, his adoptive parents did not offer encouragement, either<br />
morally or financially, for his artistic endeavors. Despite their lack of<br />
support, he managed to make his own way and was soon immersed<br />
in his studies at the League.<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> studied with Kenyon Cox, one of the founders of the<br />
school, J. Carroll Beckwith and John Henry Twachtman. From Cox,<br />
who followed the rigorous and disciplined approach taught in the<br />
[2] All of the biographical information on <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s life stems from<br />
my research completed at the Hispanic Society of America and elsewhere,<br />
for the exhibition of his work held at Hunter College in 1988 entitled,<br />
William E.B. <strong>Starkweather</strong>, 1879-1969, The Travel Pictures, and from the thesis<br />
of Tracy Myers submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts<br />
Degree from Hunter College, 1990, entitled, Bright Light and Bitter Wind:<br />
A study of William <strong>Starkweather</strong>.<br />
3
Figure 2. All for Art and the World Well Lost. Eastport, Maine. 1920.<br />
European academies, <strong>Starkweather</strong> gained sound and structured<br />
training in drawing, and, in time, he became an accomplished and<br />
confident draftsman. From Beckwith and Twachtman, he learned<br />
to appreciate and work in color, particularly as the Impressionists<br />
employed it; these two instructors also awakened a passion in him<br />
for working outdoors, en plein air.<br />
At the end of two years of study, and with the encouragement of<br />
his teachers at the Art Students League, <strong>Starkweather</strong> decided to<br />
do what so many other striving young artists had done and were<br />
doing – study in Paris. He set sail in November, 1899, and upon his<br />
arrival he immediately enrolled in the Academie Colarossi. There<br />
he studied drawing and painting under a number of eminent artists<br />
and began to truly appreciate how enticing a way of life this could<br />
become. Yet, only two months later, a single event changed his life<br />
and convinced him to literally change his course of action.<br />
That life-altering experience occurred in January, 1900, at the Paris<br />
Universal Exhibition. There, <strong>Starkweather</strong> saw The Sad Inheritance,<br />
a painting by the Spaniard Joaquin Sorolla. It is a large, brilliantly<br />
Figure 3. Eastport, Maine. 1920.<br />
lit, sun-dappled scene of the beach and the sea, showing a group of<br />
some two dozen naked, orphaned boys being helped into the surf<br />
by a tall, black-robed monk. Many of the children are crippled and<br />
pictured with distorted and underdeveloped limbs. Sorolla hoped<br />
the pitiful scene, originally titled, Children of Pleasure, would make<br />
it painfully clear that their sad inheritance is the devastating effects<br />
of syphilis. The painting was highly acclaimed by critics and won<br />
the exhibition’s Grand Prize. It also had a profound influence on<br />
William <strong>Starkweather</strong> who decided then and there to study with<br />
Sorolla.<br />
A determined <strong>Starkweather</strong> returned to the United States in January<br />
1901, and moved into a garret on New York City’s Washington<br />
Square South. He found a teaching job at a private boys’ school<br />
nearby and illustrated books in his spare time, working hard to save<br />
money for his proposed sojourn in Spain where he hoped to study<br />
with Sorolla. He wrote to Sorolla, and after several letters with no<br />
response, he decided in 1903 to seek him out in Seville, where he<br />
4
Figure 4. Karl Larsson, Grand Manan. 1921.<br />
Figure 5. Painting My Model, Eastport, Maine. 1922.<br />
mistakenly believed him to be, and ask to be his student. So, with<br />
an accumulated $700 in savings, he left to realize his ambitions.<br />
Once in Spain, however, <strong>Starkweather</strong> providentially settled into a<br />
highly recommended pensione in Madrid, the owner of which was<br />
acquainted with Sorolla. An introduction was orchestrated and the<br />
young, inexperienced artist found himself studying with the master<br />
in Madrid almost immediately. <strong>Starkweather</strong> quickly discovered<br />
that Sorolla conducted very little of what could be considered<br />
traditional teaching. Rather, the master believed that experience<br />
and concentrated effort was the mistress of learning. Undeterred,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> was determined to learn what he could from Sorolla,<br />
even if it was confined to painting by his side. In time, he found<br />
that what Sorolla did emphasize to his students was what was really<br />
important to him as an artist: a combination of the drawing facility<br />
of the old masters and the color of the Impressionists. They were<br />
at the core of his work and eventually would become the heart of<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>’s as well.<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> also discovered in the accomplished Sorolla an<br />
enthusiasm he had not encountered before. He was a tireless worker<br />
and devoted himself to painting eight hours a day for most of his<br />
life. His boundless energy and passion manifested itself in his speed<br />
of execution, brilliant sense of color and interest in the effects of<br />
light, particularly sun light, on form. <strong>Starkweather</strong> absorbed these<br />
lessons well and adopted the master’s approach. In time, he also<br />
learned from the master that anything and everything was worth<br />
painting and he bridged the gaps with all subjects, from landscapes<br />
to portraits, and from genre to religious. Through Sorolla’s eyes, he<br />
also developed an admiration for Sargent and Velasquez. Indeed,<br />
Sorolla was known as the “Spanish Sargent.”<br />
In 1906, after three years at Sorolla’s side, when we can assume he<br />
learned as much as he could from his mentor, <strong>Starkweather</strong> returned<br />
to the states and settled into another studio, number 60 Washington<br />
Square South. During the next three years, he traveled back and<br />
forth from New York to Europe to paint in Italy and previously<br />
5
Figure 6: Spruce & Sea, Grand Manan. 1926.<br />
unexplored areas of Spain. His relationship with Sorolla, however,<br />
was hardly over. In 1909, at the invitation of his patron, Archer M.<br />
Huntington, founder of The Hispanic Society of America, Joaquin<br />
Sorolla ventured to the United States. Arrangements were made in<br />
advance for a large traveling exhibit of Sorolla’s works and for several<br />
portrait commissions, including that of President William Howard<br />
Taft. Sorolla wrote to his former student to tell him the news<br />
and <strong>Starkweather</strong> came to meet the master and escort him to his<br />
hotel. It was then that <strong>Starkweather</strong> was first introduced to Archer<br />
Huntington. Realizing what an asset the Spanish-speaking young<br />
American could be to Sorolla, Huntington engaged <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
to accompany the master as translator and administrator for the<br />
exhibition venue. This was a considerable responsibility as the<br />
exhibit – and its 356 paintings -- was scheduled to travel from New<br />
York to Buffalo and, finally, to Boston, and <strong>Starkweather</strong> oversaw<br />
the crating and uncrating of the works. In between, he traveled<br />
with Sorolla to translate as he fulfilled his portrait commission<br />
obligations. During this time, <strong>Starkweather</strong> also developed a series<br />
6
Figure 7: Rocks & Sea, Grand Manan. 1930.<br />
of lectures on Sorolla and on Spanish art and published the first of<br />
more than a dozen essays and books on the subject. And, with the<br />
tireless energy of the master who taught him, he still found time to<br />
paint and build on his body of work.<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>’s close ties with Sorolla and his involvement with<br />
the traveling exhibit also led to a fruitful and lasting relationship<br />
with Archer Huntington. Obviously impressed with the young<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>, Huntington sent him to Europe in 1910 to procure<br />
medallions for the American Numismatic Society, another<br />
institution he created and favored. The trip took <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
all over Europe and when he returned Huntington appointed<br />
him assistant curator of The Hispanic Society. That same year,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> ventured to Bermuda, specifically to paint. By the<br />
following year, 1911, he was again on the road escorting another<br />
Sorolla exhibition to Chicago and St. Louis.<br />
It was shortly after the second Sorolla exhibit that <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
began to develop his pattern of traveling, painting and exhibiting,<br />
Figure 8: Swallow Tail Light, Grand Manan. 1934.<br />
a schema that would continue to sustain him for a good deal of his<br />
life. He embarked on a long, extensive stay in Europe and spent<br />
time in Italy, Spain and France, even managing to visit with Sorolla<br />
in Biarritz. During his stay, he amassed a considerable body of work,<br />
painting landscapes, figurative compositions, portraits and nudes.<br />
In 1913, he returned once again to New York’s Hispanic Society, with<br />
a commission to paint for posterity the interior of the museum, while<br />
he continued to maintain his curatorial position. The considerable<br />
body of work <strong>Starkweather</strong> brought back from his travels, including<br />
some 28 paintings, became the basis for his first one-man exhibit in<br />
1914 at the Folsom Gallery in New York, New York. He also took<br />
up residence at yet another Washington Square South studio, this<br />
time number 43.<br />
For about 25 years, <strong>Starkweather</strong> lived in Greenwich Village around<br />
Washington Square Park. Between 1913 and 1916 alone, he lived in<br />
at least three different studios in the area. From them, he worked on<br />
a series of park views, scenes of lower Manhattan, and a number of<br />
7
Figure 9: On a Magdalen Island Beach, Havre Aubert. 1937.<br />
figurative compositions. Anxious to work on much larger paintings,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> eventually moved to number 45 Washington Square<br />
South. In a letter to Archer Huntington, he explains that he finally<br />
has a studio with “… ceilings so high it is possible to put together the<br />
large painting which has been [so] long in preparation.” [3]<br />
The painting, Portrait of Margaret Donegan, A Studio Scrub Woman,<br />
is undoubtedly the largest and most ambitious painting of his career.<br />
The painting is now lost and few details of it are left, but from the<br />
photograph (fig. 1) reproduced here, which shows the painting, the<br />
interior of <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s studio and <strong>Starkweather</strong> himself seated in<br />
a chair, it is possible to estimate its size at approximately 12-feet high<br />
by six-feet wide. The subject of the painting is the scrubwoman,<br />
Margaret Donegan, who is mourning her dead son. Donegan is<br />
[3] Letter from WEBS to Archer Huntington dated May 15, 1916. Rare<br />
Books and Manuscripts Collection, Hispanic Society of America, New<br />
York.<br />
Figure 10: Northern Waters, Chuck Ladd, Entry Island. 1938.<br />
portrayed in the center of the canvas; on her right an artist works<br />
on a painting of a nude while his model poses on the opposite side<br />
of the canvas to the left of Donegan. Clearly, both the artist and the<br />
model are absorbed in their work and oblivious to the distress of the<br />
central figure. Above Margaret Donegan, in a semi-circular lunette,<br />
her son is pictured being mourned and cradled by Mary and Jesus<br />
in a classic pieta composition. The work occupied <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
for years and was the centerpiece of the 35 paintings in his second<br />
exhibit at the Folsom Gallery in 1916. The critics both praised and<br />
derided the work. While some thought it was a sincere effort to<br />
portray the devastation of the ignored mother in mourning, others<br />
found it sentimental and overly religious. The criticism, and the<br />
fact that the exhibition was not a great financial success, must have<br />
been a blow to <strong>Starkweather</strong>. It obviously led him to think about his<br />
future livelihood, and by 1919, <strong>Starkweather</strong> began a new and long<br />
teaching career, which included positions at Cooper Union, Pratt<br />
Institute, the Traphagen School and, eventually, Hunter College,<br />
from where he retired.<br />
8
Figure 12: Sunlit Cliffs, Magdalen Islands. 1938.<br />
Figure 11: An Artist’s Bedroom, Grand Manan. 1938.<br />
In 1920, keeping with his habit of traveling, painting and exhibiting,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> decided to begin the first of many trips to Maine and<br />
the Maritime Provinces of Canada. It was also the beginning of<br />
his interest in watercolor, to which eventually he became devoted.<br />
In fact, during the last half of his life, the greatest portion of<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>’s work was done in watercolor. Whether or not this<br />
change in medium was related to the disappointment of his final<br />
show at the Folsom Gallery is impossible to know, but the facility,<br />
speed and fluidity he adapted in his use of watercolor served him<br />
well for the rest of his professional life. In addition, he established<br />
a new work pattern that he would follow for many years. We know<br />
that he always painted while he traveled, but at this time in his life,<br />
his travels took a different turn. He took trips with small, intimate<br />
groups of friends – specifically as painting sojourns. He worked<br />
continually, recording visually the places he visited, the people<br />
around him, and the rooms he stayed in. In this sense, he followed<br />
in the tradition of a long line of artists whose travels became their<br />
works: Sargent’s visions of Venice, Twachtman’s views of Newport<br />
waters, Chase’s Long Island beaches, Homer’s brilliant Caribbean<br />
series and Hopper’s Cape Cod paintings. For <strong>Starkweather</strong> and<br />
friends in 1920, the place was Eastport, Maine. The brilliant summer<br />
light captured in broad brush strokes of pure color juxtaposed with<br />
bold contrasts of light and dark are ever-recurring characteristics of<br />
his work. The intensity and concentration of the artist lost in his<br />
work in the compelling 1920 portrait of Lars Hoftrup make the title<br />
All for Art and the World Well Lost (fig. 2) wonderfully accurate.<br />
Also in 1920 <strong>Starkweather</strong> painted a view of the town of Eastport in<br />
Eastport, Maine (fig. 3), with its church and steeple in the background<br />
and its houses and boats afloat in the foreground, all flooded with<br />
the brilliant summer light in strokes of shimmering color. The town,<br />
quaint and picturesque, evokes a time of tranquility and serenity,<br />
just as <strong>Starkweather</strong> saw it, and just as one might see it today.<br />
In the summers of 1921 and 1922, <strong>Starkweather</strong> and his group<br />
returned to the picturesque sites, dividing their time between<br />
Eastport, Maine, and Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick,<br />
Canada, just off the Maine coast. The artist captured painting on<br />
Grand Manan Island in the watercolor, Karl Larson (fig. 4), is so<br />
engrossed in his labor, he seems oblivious to the waves crashing<br />
on the craggy rocks below him. Yet there is a serenity and peace<br />
in his absorption, accentuated by <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s clever use of the<br />
churning white foam, halo-like around the artist’s head. It frames<br />
the dark shadowed face and dark brown hair with a light that is<br />
almost spiritual, if not angelic.<br />
9
Figure 13: At Cape St. Mary, Nova Scotia. 1954.<br />
On the other hand, one can only imagine the combinations of fun<br />
and freedom and passion for hard work that <strong>Starkweather</strong> realized<br />
as he executed Painting My Model in 1922 (fig. 5). While it is tempting<br />
to take the painting literally and imagine the model a local waitress<br />
from a restaurant in Eastport frequented by <strong>Starkweather</strong> and his<br />
friends, it is hardly conceivable such an event could have actually<br />
taken place in 1922, nor could she have lasted more than a few<br />
minutes in the frigid waters off Northern Maine. The image of the<br />
artist painting himself painting his model evokes humorous flights<br />
of fantasy as well as a kind of mysticism, which is evident in many of<br />
his other works. Yet, this work is a tour de force with radiant light<br />
playing over the artist and rock, and the model misty and distant in<br />
the washed out, softened hues of aerial perspective.<br />
In Spruce and Sea (fig. 6), painted in 1926, on Grand Manan Island,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> does not revert to the romantic and softened images<br />
he executed in watercolor, rather he uses the bolder, more powerful<br />
10
oils to depict the gnarled and twisted image of a spruce tree, battered<br />
and ravaged by North Atlantic winds. The coast and rocky shore<br />
are clearly below the promontory the spruce tree stubbornly clings<br />
to. We can almost feel the cold wet wind the tree endures, which<br />
is somehow mitigated by the sight of seagulls floating gently on the<br />
same rough wind, and the same spruce tree basking in the beautiful<br />
play of the setting sun on waves rolling into shore.<br />
In Rocks and Sea, 1930 (fig. 7), and Swallow Tail Light [House] (fig.<br />
8), done four years later in 1934, both on Grand Manan Island,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> employs watercolor again. Both pictures have the<br />
same sun-dappled quality and strong bold shadows of the earlier<br />
work, but they seem a bit less lyrical, a bit less romantic. This use of<br />
watercolors, then oils, then watercolors again, leads one to believe<br />
that while <strong>Starkweather</strong> focused more on the aqueous medium<br />
in this later phase of his life, he continued to use oils where they<br />
seemed more appropriate to the subject or scene before him.<br />
In 1937 and in 1938, <strong>Starkweather</strong> and his friends began to venture<br />
much further afield. Far above the island of Nova Scotia is a tiny<br />
archipelago, the Magdalen Islands. One can see on the enclosed<br />
map what an arduous trip it must have been, probably taking days<br />
by car and hours by several ferries, to arrive at place that must<br />
have seemed like the most remote place on earth. In the lovely<br />
watercolor, On A Magdalen Island Beach (fig. 9), in the tiny town of<br />
Havre Aubert, on Entry Island, we find what must have been a fairly<br />
common sight, a couple of old Boston whalers past their prime, side<br />
by side, flanked by rusting anchors. We can tell the whalers are<br />
no longer serviceable because they are doubling now as planters in<br />
the backyard of the nearby house. In the 1938 watercolor, Northern<br />
Waters, Chuck Ladd, Entry Island (fig. 10), <strong>Starkweather</strong> also recorded<br />
Mr. Ladd on Entry Island, silhouetted against the sea, and so<br />
immersed in his painting he seems to notice neither the turbulent<br />
waters, nor the cold gray sky surrounding him. Although we see but<br />
a small portion of the rocky shore he sits on, we get the impression<br />
that it encircles the entire island.<br />
Back on Grand Manan Island we have perhaps my favorite image of<br />
all. It is a watercolor of <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s hotel room depicting what<br />
these trips must have been like for these adventurous painters. In<br />
An Artist’s Bedroom (fig. 11), 1938, we see the simple trappings of a<br />
world gone by: the floral wallpaper, washstand, basin and pitcher,<br />
clothes hung helter-skelter, interspersed everywhere with the<br />
fruits of <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s labor. Yet, despite its rustic simplicity, the<br />
appropriate jacket and tie for dinner hang on the wall, testament to<br />
the gentility of the time. Ironically, just above that jacket and tie,<br />
we can see what looks like a watercolor version of the same view of<br />
the Tides Institute & Museum of Art oil, Sunlit Cliffs (fig. 12). This<br />
painting, also done in 1938, is a brilliant little oil (12 x 16 inches) with<br />
a richness and impasto that only oils can provide. The hill the artist<br />
stands on casts its shadow over the promontory below as the sun<br />
glistens in the blue-green sea beyond. It must be early mid-morning<br />
as the brilliant sun, rising in the east behind <strong>Starkweather</strong>, glistens<br />
off the white and pink rocks and the shadow slowly shrinks behind<br />
the oncoming noon day sun.<br />
The cover painting for this catalogue, Coast at Peggy’s Cove, 1939, and<br />
this last painting, At Cape St. Mary, 1954 (fig. 13), were both painted<br />
on Canada’s Nova Scotia, but are separated by some 15 years. The<br />
painting, At Cape St. Mary, painted in somber browns and grays,<br />
and weighted by the heavy impasto of oils, shows the jagged and<br />
battered rocky coast of Nova Scotia. These coastal outcroppings<br />
and massive boulders were witness to centuries of change, and the<br />
timeless assault of winds and waves. They serve as a metaphor for<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>’s long and weathered life. By this time, at age 75, he<br />
had witnessed the great transition from the 19 th to the 20 th century,<br />
both world wars, and the Korean Conflict. He must have felt at<br />
this moment in his life the enormous weight of such extraordinary<br />
events, and it must have been a time of great reflection.<br />
In just a few years, <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s eyesight would begin to fail,<br />
yet, ever determined, he continued to paint even with the aid<br />
of a magnifying glass. Sometime in the early 1960s, however,<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong> moved into the Golden Manor convalescent home in<br />
New Haven, Connecticut, and in 1969, just two days short of his<br />
90 th birthday, he passed away. He was buried in the <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
family plot in Winchester, Connecticut; his old and used palette,<br />
which was cast in bronze, marked his grave. Sadly it was stolen<br />
sometime after his burial and has never been returned.<br />
Prof. Anthony Panzera<br />
Hunter College, CUNY<br />
11
Map of Maine and the Maritimes Provinces of Canada<br />
Showing Travels of William <strong>Starkweather</strong><br />
1. Eastport, Maine<br />
2. Grand Manan, New Brunswick<br />
3. Cape St. Mary, Nova Scotia<br />
4. Port Maitland, Nova Scotia<br />
5. Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia<br />
6. Entry Island, Magdalen Islands<br />
7. Harve Aubert, Magdalen Islands<br />
12
William <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s Life in Brief<br />
1879 Born May 16, Edinburgh, Scotland?<br />
1884 Brought to the United States by his mother and adopted by<br />
John and Hannah <strong>Starkweather</strong> of Winchester, Connecticut.<br />
Attends Hillhouse High School in New Haven.<br />
1896-99 Attends The Art Students’ League. Instructors include<br />
Twachtman, Cox, Bridgeman, Blum and DeCamp.<br />
1899- Attends Academie Colarossi in Paris. Instructors include Collin and<br />
1901 Gustav Courtois.<br />
1901-03 Teaches in private boys’ school and illustrates books.<br />
• Studies with Joaquin Sorolla in Spain.<br />
1909 Meets with Sorolla in the United States. Group exhibition at the<br />
Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.<br />
• <strong>Starkweather</strong> appointed assistant curator of Hispanic Society.<br />
1910 Travels to Bermuda to paint.<br />
• Tours the United States with the Sorolla exhibition.<br />
• Travels to Articoli-Corrado, Italy, to paint with Wilford Conrow. Exhibits with Societe des Artistes Francais, Paris<br />
(also 1926).<br />
1914 Has solo exhibit at Folsom Galleries, New York, New York (also 1916, 1927).<br />
Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (also 1915, 1917).<br />
1915 Travels to Essex, Massachusetts to paint. Group exhibit at Albright Art<br />
Gallery, Buffalo, New York.<br />
1916 Group exhibit at McDowell Club, New York, New York. Solo show at Folsom Galleries.<br />
1917 First Society of Independent Artists show. Exhibits with Chase, Sloan, Henri, Glackens, Butler (also 1920).<br />
1919 Group exhibits at Guild of American Painters, Babcock Galleries, New York, New York (also 1921-23), Society of Independent<br />
Artists and Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Joins Salamagundi Club, New York Watercolor Club.<br />
1921 Solo exhibit, Gallerie Intime, New York (Reviewed November 1921, The Arts, vol. II, pages 111-112.) Also group shows at<br />
American Watercolor Society and New York Watercolor Club, New York, New York. (Also 1923-1927, 1929, 1931-36). Also in<br />
group show at Powell Gallery, New York, New York.<br />
1923 Solo show at New York Public Library, 115th Street branch. Group exhibits: Society of the Aquarellists, Ainslie Galleries, New<br />
York City and The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York (1934, 1935).<br />
1924 Group shows at City Club, New York, New York and Popular Vote for Oils, New Haven, Connecticut.<br />
1925 Travels to Italy to paint in Tuscany. Group exhibit at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Receives Mrs. William K.<br />
Vanderbilt Prize for Watercolor. Also wins Dana Gold Medal for Watercolor, Pennsylvania Academy of Arts.<br />
1926 Group shows at The Art Institute of Chicago; Mystic Artists, Mystic, Connecticut, and Societe des Artistes, Paris.<br />
Wins Jones Prize for Watercolor, Baltimore, Maryland and elected to American Watercolor Society.<br />
1927 Solo show, Folsom Galleries, New York, New York. Group exhibit at Allied Artists of America, New York,<br />
New York. (1928, 1931-33, 1943).<br />
1929 Solo show at Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia,<br />
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Pennsylvania. Wins Philadelphia Prize for Watercolor, Academy of Fine Arts.<br />
1930 Group exhibit at Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<br />
1933 Group exhibit with Brooklyn Society of Artists, Grant Studios, Brooklyn, New York, (1934, 1936, 1943-Brooklyn Museum).<br />
1934 One-man exhibit at Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, New York. Group show at Art Association of Newport, Newport,<br />
Rhode Island.<br />
1936-46 Taught watercolor classes at Hunter College, New York, New York.<br />
1937 One-man show at Fifteen Gallery, New York, New York. Group exhibits in Museum of the City of New York and 70th Annual<br />
American Watercolor Society show.<br />
1938 Solo show at Fifteen Gallery, New York, New York.<br />
1939 Solo show at Fifteen Gallery, New York, New York.<br />
1940 Solo show at Fifteen Gallery, New York, New York.<br />
1948 Museum of Art, Endless Caverns, new Market, Virginia, housed 55 <strong>Starkweather</strong> paintings.<br />
1962 Centennial Exhibition of American Water Color Society, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.<br />
1966 Represented in the Centennial Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York<br />
New York. One-man exhibit at Showcase Art Gallery, New York, New York.<br />
1969 <strong>Starkweather</strong> dies in New Haven, Connecticut.<br />
1988 Solo exhibit, The Travel Pictures, Leubsdorf Gallery, Hunter College, New York, New York.<br />
1989 One-man show, Vantage Points, Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory, North Carolina, Saint John’s Museum of Art, North<br />
Carolina.<br />
1998 Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, New York.<br />
2001 Spainerman Gallery, New York, New York (also 2005, 2006).<br />
2007 Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee.<br />
2008 Taft Museum of Art, Cinncinnati, Ohio.<br />
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William <strong>Starkweather</strong>:<br />
List of Works in the Exhibition<br />
Peter Falotico (PF) Collection Plus Two from the Tides Institute & Museum of Art (#40 & 41)<br />
Plus Map and <strong>Catalogue</strong> Numbers<br />
Fig.# PF# Title Location Medium Year Size MAP#<br />
3 Under Brooklyn Bridge Winter New York, New York Oil 1915 11x14<br />
5 Lower New York from Battery New York, New York Oil 1916 11x14<br />
2 7 All for Art and the World Well Lost Eastport, Maine WC 1920 21x21 1<br />
3 8 Eastport, Maine Eastport, Maine WC 1920 20x20 1<br />
4 10 Karl Larsson Grand Manan Island WC 1921 20x20 2<br />
11 At Grand Manan Island Grand Manan Island Oil 1922 12x16 2<br />
5 12 Painting My Model Eastport, Maine WC 1922 21x21 1<br />
6 16 Spruce and Sea Grand Manan Island Oil 1926 21x28 2<br />
7 17 Rocks and Sea Grand Manan Island WC 1930 22x22 2<br />
8 18 Swallow Tail Light Grand Manan Island WC 1934 21x21 2<br />
9 22 On a Magdalen Island Beach Havre Aubert, Can. WC 1937 21x21 6<br />
23 An Artist’s Bedroom Magdalen Island WC 1938 21x21 6<br />
11 24 An Artist’s Bedroom Grand Manan Island WC 1938 21x21 2<br />
25 Bright Morning Port Maitland WC 1938 17x22 4<br />
26 No. 1 Road to the Sea Entry Island, Canada WC 1938 21x21 6<br />
10 27 Northern Waters, Chuck Ladd Entry Island, Canada WC 1938 21x21 7<br />
28 Post Office at Havre-Aubert Entry Island, Canada Oil 1938 12x16 6<br />
29 Road To the Sea Entry Island, Canada WC 1938 21x21 6<br />
COVER 30 Coast at Peggy’s Cove Nova Scotia, Canada Oil 1939 12x16 5<br />
13 33 At Cape St. Mary Nova Scotia, Canada Oil 1954 12x16 3<br />
40 Northern Lights Magdalen Island Oil 1938 12x16 5<br />
12 41 Sunlit Cliffs Magdalen Island Oil 1938 12x16 5<br />
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Acknowledgements<br />
The Tides Institute & Museum of Art deeply thanks Peter Falotico for his willingness to share his remarkable and extensive collection<br />
of William <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s paintings for this exhibition. He has been a consistent promoter of William <strong>Starkweather</strong> for many, many<br />
years. This exhibition represents the first time that these works have been shown to the public outside of New York. Their exhibition<br />
represents a homecoming of sorts to a coastal area where Willliam <strong>Starkweather</strong> so frequently worked.<br />
Deep thanks are also due to Prof. Anthony Panzera of Hunter College in New York for agreeing to tackle the task of writing an essay<br />
for this catalogue that explores William <strong>Starkweather</strong>’s work in Maine and the Maritime Provinces and situates this work within<br />
<strong>Starkweather</strong>’s entire career. He has performed a remarkable feat in assembling the essay in short order.<br />
We are very grateful to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for permission to use a photograph taken by Peter A. Juley & Son of<br />
William <strong>Starkweather</strong> in his studio.<br />
Finally, we wish to acknowledge with deep thanks the charitable contribution of Jim, Andrea, Christopher and Kelly Allen of Poquott,<br />
New York, towards the costs of producing this exhibition catalogue.<br />
© 2008, Anthony Panzera, “William E.B. Starkwather: Maine & the Maritime Provinces of Canada.”<br />
© 2008, Tides Institute & Museum of Art.<br />
This exhibition catalogue has been printed in an edition of 1,000 copies by Penmor Lithographers of Lewiston, Maine.<br />
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