USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five. Volume III > Part 49
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CHAPTER XLVIII.
PICTORIAL ART-WATERBURY ARTISTS-BURTON, JOHNSON, DEARTH AND OTHERS-TEACHERS AND AMATEURS-SCULPTORS- BISSELL AND THE BARTLETTS-ART COLLECTIONS-PICTURE STORES-PHOTOG- RAPHY - PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY - ARCHITECTURE, EARLY AND LATER-ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS-STONE YARDS AND MONU- MENTS-MURAL TABLETS-COINAGE-TOKENS-PLANCHETS FOR THE MINT-COINS FOR FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS-THE COLUMBIAN AWARD MEDAL.
I N a community where the early settlers must wrest a livelihood from the sterile soil, the æsthetic instincts awaken but tardily; so that it is not until a comparatively recent date that we find a record of any faint stirrings of artistic life in Waterbury, or of encouragement extended to artists from out of town.
PICTORIAL ART AND SCULPTURE.
In 1850 Jared D. Thompson established a studio in Gothic hall. He resided here at intervals, during a period of three years, and in that time executed two oil paintings of Centre square and its surroundings (see pages 21 and 55), as well as portraits of several prominent citizens. Apparently, however, he found the atmosphere not conducive to artistic or financial growth, for no record is found of his return hither after 1853.
The first citizen of Waterbury to enter the brotherhood of artists was, apparently, Charles Uzziel Clark Burton, to whom refer- ence has already been made in the chapter on literature (page 960). He was the only son of Joseph and Eliza (Clark) Burton (page 231), and was born in Waterbury, June 14, 1818. His maternal grand- father, Captain Uzziel Clark, followed the sea through a long and eventful life and accumulated considerable wealth. He had visited foreign countries and was familiar with works of art, and by virtue of his knowledge and taste was enabled to produce in his home an atmosphere of refinement and elegance unusual at that period in
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the rural districts of New England .* In this home young Burton spent a considerable part of his time, and there received a training which helped to develop his artistic and literary tastes. A native delicacy of constitution led him to avoid the out-door sports of boy- hood, and gave him, among those who were building up strong con- stitutions, a reputation for effeminacy. A schoolmate who had been visiting in his home, said to him, as he was leaving, in a burst of friendly feeling, "Why, I don't see but that you are as bright as other boys."
He was sent to school at Westfield, Mass. His father purposed to have him enter upon a business career immediately upon leaving school, but the idea was distasteful to him, and to his father's life- long disappointment the plan was abandoned. He entered instead the Academy of Fine Arts in New York, under the charge of Pro- fessor Samuel F. B. Morse, then an artist of eminence, but after- ward more widely known as the inventor of the telegraph. Here his proficiency was most encouraging, but he was recalled from his studies by the death of his father. The following year (1839) he spent some months in Great Britain and also visited France, where he wrote letters of interest to several Connecticut newspa- pers,-his first essay in the field of literature. On his return home he made his first attempt at business, and opened a store on the corner of Exchange place and West Main street; but the venture proved unsuccessful. Financial troubles and the death in 1851 of his sister, Mrs. Augustus Brown, so preyed upon his delicate consti- tution that he voluntarily retired into seclusion.
During the months spent in Hartford he devoted himself to art, and his pictures, chiefly landscapes, attracted much attention. It was said by a critic of the period that "they were marked by a pre- cision of touch and a delicacy of tint worthy of the miniaturists." After this he again visited Europe and occupied himself in sketch- ing, travel and study. His contributions to the National Magazine, referred to on page 960, were illustrated by his own drawings. But his most finished and elaborate work, while abroad, was a series of sketches of ruins in the island of Gottland, which were never pub- lished, but are the property of a gentleman in New York. He was for a time an attaché of the American legation at St. Petersburg,
* The kindly aid rendered by Captain Clark at the time of the San Domingo massacre has been referred to elsewhere (page 232, note). His family entertained for months some of the French refugees who came to this country on his vessel. To two child waifs, entrusted to him by friendly nurses in the darkness of night, he gave a home and a business education. One of them, whose mother took refuge on a vessel bound to another port, found no trace of her until, after he had become of age, he met her in Paris,-the mother speaking no word of English, the son no French. On Captain Clark's estate stood the hostelry where, it is said, Chateaubriand once stopped on his way to Albany.
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PAINTERS, SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS.
Thomas H. Seymour being then the resident minister at the Rus- sian court. He resided also at Rome, and there united with the Protestant Episcopal church. Returning home in 1857 he devoted himself to literature, and lectured, taught and wrote on art sub- jects. He conducted the drawing classes in Miss Porter's school in Farmington, and delivered a course of lectures on the history of art at Yale college. Later in life he became purchasing agent in New York for a number of West Indian and South American houses, and visited the West Indies from year to year. Through nearly all his life he was a sufferer from serious nervous and physi- cal ailments which he endured with much courage and patience. He died at Farmington on February 13, 1873, while visiting at the home of his friend, Edward Hart, and was buried at Riverside cem- etery, in the establishment of which he had taken a deep interest.
Mr. Burton possessed a genuine love of art; his reverence for the antique was deeply ingrained, and his whole nature was so poised as to unfit him, in a sense, for the exigencies of practical life, but to render him at the same time a delightful companion and friend. Added to his artistic temperament were the graces of a courtly gentleman, so that he found a welcome in the best social circles in whatever countries he visited. His articles on the Wash- ington family, elsewhere referred to, were prepared while he was the guest of G. W. P. Custis at Arlington. A friend who wrote of him shortly after his death, in the Waterbury American, said:
Mr. Burton had many of the qualities that make up a splendid man, and I feel ure that he had all the qualities that make up the gentleman. He was exquisite n his tastes, and never lowered his standard. . . . He loved art intensely; it vas his absorbing passion, and if his health had been equal to his fancy, he would ave excelled almost all competitors.
Next, in order of time, comes Horace Chauncey Johnson, to whom Vaterbury has learned to lay almost exclusive claim. He opened a tudio here, in Baldwin's block, in 1860. Mr. Johnson was born in )xford in 1820, and received his early education in Cheshire. His riends were so strongly opposed to his pursuing the calling of an rtist, that he devoted himself for a time to mechanical pursuits. le was employed in a lock shop in Terryville, and while there ivented a drill for boring artesian wells which gained for him an ternational reputation. At length, his natural inclinations moved im so strongly that he abandoned his occupation and commenced a ourse of art study, under A. H. Emmons of Hartford. He subse- iently entered the National Academy in New York, and passed te years from 1856 to 1858 as a student in Rome. Upon returning this country, he established himself in Waterbury, and made his
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
home here until his death, which took place December 3, 1890. Mr. Johnson gained a wide reputation as a figure and portrait painter, and executed portraits of a large number of Waterbury people. His likenesses were capital, and his work showed the conscientious study and painstaking attention to detail characteristic of the old school. In 1852 Mr. Johnson married Ellen, daughter of Ard Welton. Their
STUDIO OF H. C. JOHNSON, 1890.
only daughter, Caroline, inherits her father's artistic tastes, and has painted many excellent studies of still life, which have been favor- bly noticed by artists.
Henry Golden Dearth, son of John W. Dearth of Bristol, R. I., is another artist of note who has spent a large portion of his life in Waterbury. His father was connected with the whaling business and during the civil war was an artillery officer. He was also a talented musician, and his home was a literary and artistic centre. Henry was born April 22, 1862, and was the youngest of five children. In his childhood he was surrounded by influences favorable to the development of his remarkable talent. At the age of fifteen he came to Waterbury, and made his home with one of his sisters who had married George A. Stocking, a resident at that time of this city. He entered the employ of Brown & Brothers, and was
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PAINTERS, SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS.
afterward for a time connected with the Waterbury Clock com- pany, and the Waterbury Watch company; but his passionate love for art made business pursuits so distasteful that he eventually devoted himself solely to the study of painting, and entered the studio of Horace Johnson. After three months passed under Mr. Johnson's instruction, he went to Paris and studied for a year in the atelier of Herbert, Ecole des Beaux Arts. The ensuing year he spent in Waterbury, but returned to Paris in August, 1885, and there continued his work in the atelier of Aimé Morot. He has con- tinued his studies at intervals in the great art centre since that time, and has made occasional visits to Waterbury, but has regarded the studio which he established in New York as his headquarters.
The first picture by Mr. Dearth that appeared in the Academy of Design in New York was exhibited in the spring of 1888. In the following year he was elected a member of the Society of American Artists, and in 1892 he was on the jury at their exhibi- ion, while in 1893 he was on both the jury and the hanging com- mittee. In the latter year the "Webb prize " of $300 was awarded o Mr. Dearth's landscape "The Deerfield Valley."
Antoinette Alcott Bassett, the daughter of Homer F. Bassett, ilthough born in Berea, O., grew up to womanhood in Waterbury, having removed hither with her parents while still an infant. She las from her childhood cultivated her taste for painting. She studied n New York art schools, as well as in the studios of R. Swain Gifford, William Sartain and other prominent artists. From 1882 to 1887 he had a studio in Waterbury, where she instructed classes of enthusiastic pupils and instituted a series of studio receptions. any of her admirers here are owners of the exquisite flower- ieces in which she excels. In 1888 Miss Bassett removed to Orchard Park, Erie county, N. Y.
Charles F. Carter, a son of Calvin H. Carter, is one of the few oung men of Waterbury who have devoted their lives to the pur- uit of art. He studied here and at the New Haven Art school, nd in 1889 exhibited a study of still life at the Academy of Design in New York. In 1892 he visited California with a younger rother, and remained there three years.
Calvin Curtis, a native of Stratford (born July 5, 1822) spent wo years of his life here, and during that period painted portraits f many leading men. Mr. Curtis received his early education in ne district schools and academy of Stratford, and later studied ith Daniel Huntington. In 1843 he opened a studio in New York, and became a successful artist, exhibiting many of his pictures : the National Academy. After leaving New York he returned to
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
his native state, and passed the years from 1854 to 1856 in Water- bury. He resided for a time in Birmingham, later removed to Bridgeport, and subsequently established himself in Stratford.
Another artist who made a brief sojourn in Waterbury was Samuel P. Scott (born in Danbury, 1835) who in the summer of 1870 was commissioned by William Brown to paint the two beautiful pictures of his farm which are still in the possession of residents of this town.
Among those who may be reckoned as professional artists, resid- ing in Waterbury at the present time (1895), are Fannie Neal, daughter of Benjamin F. Neal, who has been a diligent worker for several years past and a successful teacher in water colors and in the decoration of china; Mary Averill Phipps, who has been at work for twenty-two years, came from Norwich to Waterbury in 1893, and is a teacher in oil, in water color and in china painting: .and Mrs. Minnie Rogers Steele, who is devoted to the same three departments. These ladies have kilns for developing and complet- ing their work in china and that of their pupils and patrons.
Besides those who may properly be classed as professional artists, Waterbury has been the home of a number of persons who have not only exhibited artistic tastes and a knowledge of art, but whose productions have indicated the possession of decided skill, if not genius. Prominent among these is Hiram W. Hayden, to whose work as an artist reference has been made in the biographical sketch on page 357. The Hon. F. J. Kingsbury in a note bearing on the same subject says:
Mr. Hayden very early developed strong artistic tastes and capacities. I remember among his productions very creditable free-hand and portrait drawings: also etchings on copper, and a pentograph for making reduced copies of drawings -not to mention fulminating powders and other similar indications of his ability. all good of their kind-before he was thirteen years old.
To such occupations as these Mr. Hayden has continued to devote his leisure hours throughout his life,-the latest product of his skill being a bronze medallion, representing the head in profile of the Rev. Dr. Anderson, which he completed toward the close of 1895. The success of the likeness in this case is exceeded only by the perfect finish of the work, a finish which extends to the minutest details. Evidence is not wanting to prove that Mr. Hayden's taste and ability have been inherited. The artistic skill of his daughter Florentine is well known in the circle of her friends; but it may not be known to them or to the public that she was one of the illus- trators of the handsome edition of the Poetical Works of Mrs. Browning, published by T. Y. Crowell & Co. in 1884.
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PAINTERS, SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS.
Alongside of Mr. Hayden's work may be placed certain wood arvings produced some years ago by William Lawson (who, how- ver, is by trade a wood carver), the most notable of which was a ead in bas-relief of the Rev. R. W. Micou. Another artizan who eserves recognition as an artist is Charles E. Prétat, deceased Octo- er 8, 1895, at the age of seventy. He was born in Paris, and became n artistic designer, an expert in weighing and valuing precious ones, and a sculptor. His work as a designer was confined mostly the setting of jewels, including those belonging to royalty. He ame from France to New York in 1851, to superintend a branch E a Paris jewelry establishment, and afterward became a special esigner for Tiffany & Co. He removed to Waterbury in 1874. His conze medallion of Washington is regarded by good judges as a asterpiece. Mr. Prétat was a man of wide reading, of much charm conversation and of marked individuality. His wife was Matilda redericka, daughter of Thomas Grinelle of New York. There are vo daughters and two sons who have inherited in large degree leir father's artistic tastes.
Many others might be mentioned who have devoted themselves art as a pastime, if not as a profession, but we can only name lietta Farrel (now Mrs. William Arthur Knowles), who studied r two years in Rome, and on her return to Waterbury exhibited me of her works, and Ella Mullings, who studied in the New ork Academy of Arts in 1882, and whose brush is never long idle.
SCULPTORS.
While Waterbury cannot boast the honor of being the birthplace George E. Bissell, the sculptor (born at New Preston, February 1839), she claims him as a citizen, for he was but fourteen when was first employed as a clerk in a store in this city. In 1862 he listed in the Twenty third regiment of Connecticut volunteers, d served in the army for a year. At the end of that time he came assistant paymaster in the navy and acted in that capacity til the close of the war. In 1869 he removed to Poughkeepsie, Y., and became an apprentice in the monument works estab- hed there by his father and brother, and it was while thus gaged that he conceived the idea of becoming a sculptor. His st work was a life-size figure of a fireman in marble, made for
f t fire department of Poughkeepsie; which was so successful that der orders followed in rapid succession. In 1875 Mr. Bissell nt to Europe to pursue the study of his art, and on his return V executed a number of fine portrait-busts and figures in marble and bonze. In 1878 he modelled and executed, as a monument for the
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
family of John C. Booth, a colossal figure in granite, and in 1883 and 1884 designed and erected the Waterbury Soldiers' monument. He also modelled the por- trait-statue of Colonel John L. Chatfield, which was ex- hibited at the salon in Paris. One of Mr. Bissell's most noted works is the statue erected in Edinburgh as a memorial to the Scottish- American soldiers who par- ticipated in the war for the Union. The monument consists of a figure, cast in bronze, of Abraham Lin- coln, standing upon a base of polished red granite, and holding in his hand the emancipation proclamation. Below, upon the surbase, is seated a freed slave, his hands outstretched, and his face upturned to the presi- dent. Besides the two STUDIO OF GEORGE E. BISSELL IN PARIS, WITH THE FIGURE WHICH SURMOUNTS THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. monuments at Riverside already mentioned, Mr. Bissell's work is represented there by eight or nine others.
Another distinguished sculptor who spent some years of his early manhood in Waterbury, and feels an interest in it because of his former connection with it and the encouragement and appreciation which he has met with here, is Truman Howe Bartlett. He is the son of Bulkley Howe and Henrietta (Richardson) Bartlett, and was born October 25, 1836, in Dorset, Vt., a town which is practically the centre of the marble quarry interests of the state; so that from his childhood he was favorably situated for the development of his naturally strong artistic bent. After a comparatively short term in the village school he entered one of the marble yards of the place. where he quickly became an expert letterer and an enthusiastic student of beautiful designs and illustrated works of art. It was while thus engaged that he decided upon his life work. He left Dorset while still a lad, to study art under a celebrated Italian sculptor, in New York. From New York he came to Waterbury, and here opened a studio. His first patron was John P. Elton, for
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PAINTERS, SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS.
whom he executed a portrait bust, and he followed this work by a bust of Aaron Benedict. He produced also several beautiful ideal heads, among others the much admired "Connecticut Girl." Mr. Bartlett received, a little later, a commission from Charles Benedict to execute for the cemetery lot of the Benedict family an ideal statue of heroic size, whereupon he went at once to Paris, and studied under the best French and Italian masters, while maturing his conception of his subject. At the end of two years he returned :o Waterbury, and the colossal bronze figure of Wisdom, cast after is design, was put into position with appropriate ceremonies. The lepth and purity of the conception and the grand lines of the igure created a profound impression in the world of art, and Mr. Bartlett was accorded a place in the first rank of American sculptors. An elaborate editorial notice in the Waterbury American of December 5, 1872, gave the following account of the statue ind the sculptor:
It is a massive figure in bronze, designed by Truman H. Bartlett, formerly f this city, but for several years past a diligent student of sculptural art in taly and France. It is an honest, and we think successful, attempt at a represen- ation of Wisdom. It stands therefore as symbolizing not an emotion or sentiment, ut a principle which lies at the foundation of all true religion-one of the perma- ent facts of the present and the future. The statue rests upon a pedestal of lymouth granite, more than seven feet from the ground. It represents a female gure in a sitting posture, nine feet high, and is meant to embody the noblest con- eption of the human form. The strength of wisdom is represented, and also its weet beneficence; and the two coalesce in a noble impersonation. The womanly lement is abundantly expressed; but it is not a girlish or sentimental ideal the rtist offers us, but a character which embodies the old Hebrew conception of wis- om associated with moral purity and spiritual strength. These qualities are sug- ested by the almost colossal size of the figure, by the large and massive limbs, like lose of a hero of the classic time, by the heavy, man-like cheeks, and by the immense eetling brow. It is an embodiment of power rather than beauty. The artist's "eatment of his subject is not conventional, but fresh and realistic; so that the vis- or who is familiar with what may be called the art of Raphael rather than of [ichael Angelo, will experience at first glance a touch of disappointment, and find necessary to place himself on a new æsthetic standing-point. But by degrees the eling of strangeness passes away, the meaning treasured up in limb and feature nd symbol breaks slowly upon the inner sense, the stately figure grows more and tore benignant and winning.
On the back of the seat is inscribed, "T. H. Bartlett, Rome, 1871," and on the ft side, " Ferd. v. Miller fudit, Muenchen, 1872." These inscriptions afford but slight indication of the two years of faithful thought and diligent labor, in the udio and in the foundry, which are represented in this monumental figure. It highly creditable to the artist to have produced a work so noble and so full of eaning. Our community may well be proud to remember that Mr. Bartlett is a aterbury man, and that here amidst the inharmonious din of a manufacturing wn the discovery of his true vocation beamed upon him.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Immediately after this success, Mr. Bartlett removed to Paris, where he made his home for a period of twenty years. During this time he became intimate with Barye, Frémiet and Rodin, three of the master sculptors of France. About 1888 he returned to America and established himself in Boston, where he has devoted himself to literary as well as artistic pursuits. He has written the life of William M. Hunt, of whom he was a close personal friend, as well as many articles on sculpture, architecture and painting for the art periodicals of the day. After removing to America Mr. Bartlett passed one summer in France, in the village of Brabizon, to collect materials for two articles, giving an account of the lives of the great triumvirate, Jaquis, Millet and Rousseau, whose wonderful lives were lived almost entirely in that quaint little hamlet, in the bonds of a common friendship. Mr. Bartlett has at different times given a series of delightful lectures, which he designates "Art Talks." Among his more important works should be mentioned his statue of Horace Wells, the discoverer of anæsthesia. In 1895 his name was added to the list of American artists who wear the ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
On January 23, 1863 he married Mary Ann White. Their only child, Paul Wayland Bartlett, was born in Waterbury. He began his studies in sculpture at the early age of fourteen, in Paris. He was appointed a member of the jury on medals in the section of paint- ing in the great exhibition of 1888, and received one of the three medals of honor given to American artists, and was the youngest person upon whom that honor had ever been conferred. His "An- Indian Dancing," exhibited at the Paris salon of 1889, was spoken of at the time in the art journals as probably the boldest and most remarkable study of movement that a modern sculptor had ever accomplished. He has lately attracted attention by his casts in bronze in the cire perdue, or "lost wax," process. Some of his pro- ductions, exhibited in Paris, give promise of results which may com- pare favorably with the famous bronzes of Japan.
ART COLLECTIONS.
Many art treasures are possessed by the people of Waterbury -collections of paintings, engravings and etchings, to say nothing of china or of stone implements; but a description of them would perhaps be out of place in a history of the artistic achievements of the community. One collection, however, which deserves special mention because of its great excellence and value, is the series of engravings owned by Louis D. Griggs. The nucleus of the collec- tion belonged to Austin Steele (the grandfather of Mrs. Griggs),
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