History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 64

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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The following commendation of the young sculptor, written before he had yet accomplished a single work in marble, will be read with interest. It was probably from the pen of Judge Hall, editor of the Western Monthly Magazine, in which it appeared April, 1835 :

Mr. Powers would appear, from the facts which we have stated, and a variety of others of similar import which might be added, to possess a rare combination of intellectual and physical endowments-a fecundity of creative power, a quickness of invention and contrivance, a mathematical accuracy of judgment in reference to mechanical com- . binations, a peculiar facility in subjecting matter to the influence of his mind and a readiness in acquiring the skillful use of tools. He com- bines, in short, the genius of the inventor with the skill of the practical artisan, and can conceive and execute with equal felicity.

We are glad that this ingenious gentleman has turned his attention to a branch of art which is both lucrative and honorable, and in which he stands undoubtedly without a rival. His present occupation is that of making busts in plaster by a process of his own invention.

He is a musician by nature, and we have heard that he can imitate sounds with the same ease and success with which he moulds the most obdurate metallic substances or the rudest clay into graceful shapes. But we have not room to repeat all that can be done by the admirable genius of this distinguished artist. If any friend will suggest anything he cannot do, we will notice it in our next.

Another famous pupil of Eckstein was Jubal Klefin- ger, better known by his anglicized name of Shubael Clevenger. He made his humble beginnings in 1836, in a stone cutter's shop, in partnership with George Bassett, on the southeast corner of Race and Seventh streets. Here he engaged in putting ornaments on tombstones, when his talent was favorably noticed by Mr. E. S. Thomas, editor of the Evening Post, who, at Clevenger's suggestion, sat to him for a bust, which was chiseled di- rectly from freestone, without the intervention of a model. The effort was highly successful, and brought him at once into the public 'regards as a sculptor. He studied and worked with Eckstein a few years, and then went to Italy. He continued to give brilliant promise, but, un- happily for the world of art, he died while upon the ocean, on his way home in 1844.

Dr. Frederick Hall, an observant traveler from the east, who was here in 1837, published the following notes upon Clevenger and Powers :

This city is becoming famous as a nursery of the fine arts, or rather of artists. A gentleman took me this morning to a small shop, where we

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saw three full-length statues, nearly completed, carved out of hard sandstone, representing three individuals with whom my conductor was well acquainted. "They are," said he, " perfect likenesses." The workmanship appeared to me to be of an high order-not equal to the Apollo de Belvidere, the Venus de Medicis, but not at all inferior to that displayed by the untaught Scottish sculptor 'Thom, in his universally admired statues of "Tam O'Shanter," "Souter Johnny," and the " Landlord and Landlady "-a work which will render the name of their author as immortal as history. This artist, like Thom, has had no instruction, I am told, in the use of the chisel. His own native, unbor- rowed talent and taste led him to employ it. A few years spent in the studios of Rome or Florence would, I think, make him one of the first sculptors of our age. His name is Clevenger. We did not see him as I hoped to do. He was absent.

Mr. Powers, the gentleman who attracted so much attention last winter at Washington by liis skill in moulding likenesses, is from this town, though a native of Vermont. He is, you know, shortly to em- bark for Italy to perfect himself in his profession. I promised to write him a letter of introduction to our worthy friend, Mr. Cicognani, late American consul at Rome. This promise I have this day fulfilled, and left the letter, as he requested, with Mr. Dorfeuille, the proprietor of the Western museum. Mr. Dorfeuille invited me to examine the vast assemblage of curiosities, which his own individual enterprise and per- severance had enabled him to form. Besides the thousand and one arti- cles which are common to all museums, I was pleased to find an exten- sive collection of Indian and other curiosities, which have been ob- tained in the western States, many of which are full of interest for the antiquary. I observed, too, a number of wax figures, of surpassing beauty, formed by the hand of the sculptor, Mr. Powers, who was em- ployed during two or three years at this establishment.

Before Powers and Clevenger, however-even before Eckstein-the sculptor's art had been cultivated in Cin- cinnati, in a way unknown, we suspect, in the great art centres of the world. The rapid increase and very pros- perous character of the business of steamboat building created a large demand for figure-heads and other sculp- tured, carved, and gilded ornaments, These were done here in tasteful style, and sometimes almost with touches of genius, by Messrs. Sims and Shepherd, whose work is mentioned with due commendation in Drake and Mans- field's Cincinnati in 1826. The last of these was a Penn- sylvania German who came to the place under the name of Schafer (afterwards anglicized into Shepherd) in 1814, and began business as a wood-carver, the pioneer of what has since become a great and notable thing in the Queen City. In 1822 he executed the wooden statue of Mi- nerva, which old citizens will remember as standing for many years upon a column before the Western museum, on the southwest corner of Main and Pearl streets. The head of the statue is now in possession of the Historical and Philosophical society. For a number of years Shep- herd was associated with Mr. Sims, and their work, on steamboats and elsewhere, was much admired.

About 1819 Messrs. Sims and Shepherd found a rival in William Jones, whose published card announced him as "carver and gilder," at No. 6 West Front street; but ten years afterwards both establishments had disappeared, and the business was solely in the hands of Hiram Frazer, who had in his employ a skilled German workman named John Nicholas Adam.

One of the carly painters here, about 1823, was Joseph Kyle. He left few of his works in Cincinnati, however, and spent most of his artistic life in New York city, where he died a few years ago. He painted portraits and genre pieces.

'The rendezvous of local artists in the carly day was

principally the City hotel, kept by David Kautz, on the corner of Sycamore and Lower Market streets. For about five years, however-from 1819 to 1824-they oc- cupied as a sort of club room for evening reunions a large apartment in the second story of a boarding-house kept at No. 75 Sycamore street by Mrs. Sophia Amelung. The following-named gentlemen are known to have been frequenters of this place: Mr. Nathan W. Wheeler, por- trait painter at No. 78 Broadway, corner of Lower Mar- ket street; Edwin B. Smith, historical and portrait paint- er, afterwards of New Orleans; A. W. Corwine and Jo- seph Mason, portrait painters, the latter afterwards of New Orleans; and Joseph Dorfeuille, director of the Museum, but more famous as an archaeologist and ca- terer for the public entertainment than as an artist or patron of art. He was a Suabian by his nativity, and his name was properly Dorfel, which became Dorfeuille to conform to the then popular taste, which, perhaps in con- sequence of Lafayette's visit, ran to names and things French rather than German. He traveled widely in Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land, collecting in his wan- derings many curiosities, which he brought to this coun- try for exhibition, uniting with them a display of Western amphibia and of foreign and domestic birds. Letton's Museum was already in existence when he came to Cin- cinnati in 1823; and he was induced to combine his col- lection with it and take the management of the whole exhibition.

Occasional visitors to the Sycamore street club-room were the distinguished ornithologist, Jean Jacques Audu- bon, who made Cincinnati his base of operations for a time; and Dr. Robert Best, the first director of the mu- seum. The gathering-place of the artists was removed in 1824 to the quarters of the dancing-master of Cincin- nati in that day, Herr Philibertus Ratel, on Third street, between Main and Walnut.

The Cincinnati Directory of 1829 makes the following additions to the heretofore short catalogue of local art- ists: Portrait painters-Aaron Day; Alonzo Douglass, on Sixth streets, near Main; and Christopher Harding. Thomas Dawson, miniature painter, 22 Main street. Sam- uel Dickinson, decorative painter; Samuel M. Lee, land- scape painter, Third street, between Main and Walnut ; and Michael Lant, historical painter. Messrs. Day, Dickinson, and Lant had their studios at Kautz's City hotel, which was still much resorted to by the gentlemen of the brush and palette.

A notable event about this time (1828) was the open- ing of the gallery of fine arts, by Frederick Franks. This was situated on the southwest corner of Main and Fifth streets, above the drug store of Allen & Sonntag. Franks had studied at Dresden and Munich, and was a meritori- ous artist. He belonged, however, to the school, if school it be, of the Dutch artist known by the soubriquet of "Hell-Breughel;" and, like him, delighted in repre- senting imps and devils, goblins, witches, robbers and the like. He had a picture of his own in his gallery, deline- ating the infernal regions ; and some time after opening it made the famous chamber of horrors whose preparation Is generally and wrongly attributed to Hiram Powers.

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In this, by machinery and movable figures, demons, spir- its, snakes, grotesque and frightful objects, and electrified iron batteries or railing heightening the effect by giving a shock to the visitor when touched, the infernal regions were represented with a horrible vividness and fascina- tion that drew large numbers to visit the unique show. After the death of Mr. Dorfeuille, this inferno went with Mr. Franks to the museum of which he took charge, and was there long and successfully exhibited. It is made the subject of further notice in our chapter on amuse- ments.

A number of young artists, some of whom have since become famous, received their training, in part, in Mr. Franks' gallery. Among these were Miner K. Kellogg, and the brothers James H. and William H. Beard, Daniel Steele, John Tucker, William H. Powell, and the poet painter Thomas Buchanan Read, were also of that period. Kellogg was the son of a successful Cincinnati merchant, and was enabled early to establish himself in Florence, where he remained, painting chiefly genre pictures. In this country he painted portraits of Presidents Van Buren, Polk, and Jackson, Chief Justice Taney, Generals Scott and Worth, and many other dignitaries. At Constanti- nople, some time before his death, he executed a full length portrait of Reschid Pasha, the Grand Vizier, which so gratified the eminent Turk that he presented the artist, in addition to a good price for his picture, a superb gold cup, studded with diamonds.

The Beards profited by the instruction of Franken- stein as well as the opportunities of the art gallery. They became portrait-painters of note, but likewise com- posed genre pieces of much beauty and excellence. William H. Beard has become very celebrated, especially as an animal painter; and many of his pieces are well known in Cincinnati. Over thirty-five years ago Miss Harriet Martineau thus wrote of one of the brothers, probably him, in her Retrospect of Western Travel :

We next went to the painting-room of a young artist, Mr. Beard, whose works pleased me more than that of any other American artist. When I heard his story and saw what he had already achieved, I could not doubt that, if he lived, he would run a noble career. The chief doubt was about his health, the doubt which hangs over the destiny of almost every individual of eminent promise in America. Two years before I saw him Beard had been painting portraits at a dollar a head in the interior of Ohio ; and it was only a year since he suddenly and accidentally struck into the line in which he will probably show himself the Flamingo of the New World. It was just a year since he had be- gun to paint children. He had then never been out of his native State. He was born in the interior, where he began to paint without having ever seen a picture, except the daubs of itinerant artists. He married at nineteen, and came to Cincinnati, with wife, child, an empty purse, a head full of admiration of himself, and a heart full of confidence in this admiration being shared by all the inhabitants of this city. He had nothing to show, however, which could sanction his high claims, for his portraits were very bad. When he was in extreme poverty, he and his family were living, or rather starving in one room, at whose open window he put up some of his pictures to attract the notice of passen- gers. A wealthy merchant, Mr. G., and a gentleman with him, stopped and made their remarks to each other, Mr. G. observing, "The fellow has talent, after all.' Beard was sitting behind his pictures, heard the remark, and knew the voice. He was enraged. Mr. G. visited him, with a desire to encourage and assist him; but the angry artist long resisted all attempts to pacify him. At his first attempt to paint a child, soon after, all his genius shone forth, to the astonish- ment of every one but himself. He has proved to be one of the privi- leged order who grow gentle, if not modest, under appreciation ; he

forgave Mr. G., and painted several pictures for him. A few wealthy citizens were desirous of sending him to Italy to study. His reply to every mention of the subject is, that he means to go to Italy, but that he shall work his own way there. In order to see how he liked the world, he paid a visit to Boston while I was there, intending to stay some time. From a carriage window I saw him in the street, stalking along like a chief among inferiors, his broad white collar laid over his coat, his throat bare, and his hair parted in the middle of his forehead, and waving down the sides of his face. People turned to look after him. He stayed only a fortnight, and went back to Ohio expressing great contempt for cities. This was the last I heard of him.

J. R. Johnston was also one of Franks' pupils, and shared his master's taste for the grotesque and horrible. Two of his best historical pieces, "Starved Rock," rep- resenting the scene of a terrible legend of the Upper Illinois river, near Ottawa, and "The Mouth of Bad Axe River," are still owned in the city.

In 1833 the celebrated historical painter, W. H. Powell, began his career in Cincinnati, which was subse- quently pursued with great distinction in Washington city, Paris, and other places at home and abroad. In this city he painted portraits, fancy and historical pieces; but gradually developed a specialty for the last, which chiefly won him renown as the first painter in that de- partment in America. His first historical piece was "Salvator Rosa among the Brigands." ' Another, repre- senting "Columbus before the Council at Salamanca," was exhibited at Washington in 1847, and with such suc- cess as to secure Mr. Powell a commission from Con- gress, against more than sixty competitors, by a unani- mous vote of the senate and over six to one in the lower branch, to paint an historical picture in the sole panel of the rotunda of the capital then remaining vacant. He chose the subject, "De Soto discovering the Mississippi;" his conception of which may be studied at leisure by visitors to the capitol. Other pieces of the kind of Mr. Powell's production are the "Burial of De Soto," and the ."Signing of the Constitution by the Pil- grims on board the Mayflower." His "Battle of Lake Erie," in the rotunda of the capitol at Columbus, is much admired. Some notable portraits of his are also extant, as one of Lamartine, painted for the Maryland Historical society, and two of John Quincy Adams, one of which was presented to the Cincinnati observatory, in recognition of the services rendered by "the old man eloquent" in founding that institution.

Read has attained unto fame rather as a poet than an artist, and his later life, which has been spent mostly in Rome, has not fulfilled the promise of his youth in giving life and beauty to canvas. Still, his work is very pleas- antly remembered, and such of it as remains in Cincin- nati is still shown with much interest.

Among the toilers in art here during the decade 1830-40, may be mentioned Thomas Tuttle, a portrait painter and one of West's pupils, who commenced his career in 1830; Sidney S. Lyon, here in 1836, but afterwards of Louisville, a portrait and landscape painter; E. Hall Martin, marine painter, who went in 1851 to California, leaving many of his first pieces here; Augus- tus Rostaing, 1835, carver of cameo likenesses and ideal heads upon shell, who returned to France, his native land, and resided in Paris; Frederick Berbrecht, a Prus-

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sian landscape and historical painter, and producer of the altar pieces burned with the Trinity Catholic church in 1852; George Henry Shaffer; Thomas Campbell, 1840, miniature painter; W. P. Brannan, landscape and genre painter; A. Baldwin, marine scenes principally; T. Witheridge, afterwards of Dusseldorf, where he painted "The Poachers," which was much reproduced in litho- graphy; John Cranch, of New York subsequently, painter; and John Airy, an English sculptor, who made the Gano monument, now in Spring Grove cemetery. Airy is said to have possessed a fair amount of genius and a rich fancy, coupled with genuine devotion to art ; but he suffered from the weakness of appetite, which took him prematurely out of the world.

Other early Cincinnati sculptors were Christopher C. Brackett, a name, as associated with Boston, of very con- siderable renown; H. K. Brown, who went to Brooklyn and achieved eminence; John L. Whetstone, after- wards a well-known civil engineer; and Nathan F. Baker, sculptor of "Egeria" and of the "Cincinnatus" which may still be discerned through the grime and soot on the front of the Baker building on Fourth street, between Main and Walnut. Though he long since abandoned the chisel, he is still an enthusiastic lover and patron of fine art.

Eastman Johnson, one of the most successful and dis- tinguished of American artists, had his studio for a time in Cincinnati, in the Bacon building, at the corner of Walnut and Sixth streets. He had more of the sensitive high-art feeling than most of his professional brethren; and, although his circumstances then presented a striking contrast to the wealth and ease of his later years, so much so that at times he could not pay his board-bills, he de- clined to lower his customary rates for a portrait-seventy- five dollars, which was rather high for that time. Mr. Ratterman relates the following anecdote by way of excep- tion :

"A widow came one day to Johnson, asking him to paint the portrait of her only son, a lad of four years. She had lost her husband without retaining his picture; and, as the boy had the features of his father, she could not bear to think that she might also lose the boy with- out his portrait, and thus be deprived of all recollection of her deceased husband. But she had only forty dol- lars. It was all she possessed, and the art of photograph- ing was not yet invented. Not even was there a daguer- reotypist in those days in Cincinnati. So she offered to Johnson these last forty dollars, if he would paint the picture of her boy. Mr. Johnson, however, refused to take less than seventy-five dollars for painting it, and the widow left in despair. A week or so later, however, he was unable to pay his board and lodging, and was turned out on the street by his landlady. He obtained a new boarding-house, upon Mr. Wiswell going security for him. Two weeks later Johnson asked Wiswell if he knew the lady who wanted the portrait of her boy painted. He had reconsidered his determination, and would paint the portrait for the forty dollars. The widow was found, the portrait of the child painted; and a beautiful picture it was, indeed. The picture was exhibited in Wiswell's,

and was admired by every one seeing it, which brought to Johnson more work than he could make."

While here, Mr. Johnson painted portraits of Edmund Dexter, George Selves, and many other prominent citi- zens. He afterwards gave his energies mainly to genre painting, in which, as well as other departments of the art, he has achieved great distinction.

The transition period of art in Cincinnati, from the earlier to the later time, is considered to be that of the Frankenstein family-four brothers and one sister-all of them eccentric personages, and two of them, John P. and Godfrey N. Frankenstein, artists of no little merit. The latter was a landscape painter of note in his day, copying directly from nature, and exhibiting marked originality in his treatment of themes. He painted many portraits ; among them those of Abbott Lawrence, Charles Francis Adams, George Ticknor, and other famous Bostonians. He was the tutor in art of the more distinguished William Sonntag, son of a German chemist who was junior mem- ber of the firm of Allen & Sonntag, dealers in drugs and medicines. Mr. Ratterman says :

When Sonntag began to paint his pictures, they were so novel in their conception and rich in coloring, though less delicate in their exe- cution, that they at once became the rage. Everybody wanted to have a "Sonntag," and Sonntag was not disinclined to please everybody; so he painted away, and every two or three days brought forth from his fruitful easel a new landscape, and into his pocket a new treasure of fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred dollars-and all sides appeared for awhile satisfied. Soon, however, it was ascertained that Sonntag's pictures were not at all scarce, but as plenty as blackberries; and the parties that had measured the value of a picture according to the com- parative scarcity of them, not in the point of real merit, became dissat- isfied, and the Sonntag rage subsided.

But after this mania for his pictures had passed, Sonn- tag became so poor that he lived for a time upon the charity of his friends, who finally made a collection to purchase the railroad ticket with which he went away. In New York afterwards he became very popular, and amassed wealth by his busy labors.

Godfrey Frankenstein was a sculptor as well as painter, and made the portrait bust of Judge McLean, which still stands in the United States district court-room in Cincin- nati. The other brothers, Francis and George, also tried their hand in painting, but did not attain the celebrity of John and Godfrey. Tradition says that their early ten- tative efforts were expended in 1828, upon a series of painted tablets for Jacob Reiss' pleasure-garden. Miss Frankenstein was also something of an artist, but is bet- ter remembered as the first teacher of the German de- partment in the Cincinnati public schools. The Frank- enstein family went finally to Springfield, Ohio, where they now reside.

A second Cincinnati academy of fine arts was founded October 18, 1838, by a number of young men, "in order that by their union they might obtain greater facilities for improvement in the various branches of the fine arts." Godfrey Frankenstein was its first president, and John L. Whetstone, the sculptor, first secretary. The next year they opened an art exhibition, the first of the kind ever made in the west, at the Mechanics' institute. It com- prised about one hundred and fifty works, by both foreign and native artists ; and though it realized nothing by way

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of pecuniary profit, it served an admirable purpose in stimulating the æsthetic and artistic sentiment here, and preparing the way for better things in the future.

It is held by local authorities on art history that its golden age in this city was the decade 1840-50. Mr. Ratterman relates:

During this period art evinced more life, more vitality, morc self-reli- ance, in Cincinnati than at any other period. After 1850 it sank lower and lower. Not that the city then ceased to produce artists of genius. On the contrary, it raised in modern days more than ever, and compar- atively more and greater ones than any other American municipality, not excepting the "Hub of the universe." It is no bombastic puffery if we make this assertion. Our city was generally the starting point of American artists. We gave them birth and nourishment in thir infancy; and when our artists were grown to manhood, then the east would come to woo and wed them, and boast of them as their own.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 64

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666