15.05.2020 Views

Starkweather Catalogue

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

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 />

13


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 />

14


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 />

15


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 />

16

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!