Old Finds: A Nantucket Legacy (James S. Hathaway)

Folk art is fraught with loss. One of the best-known artists, Joseph Whiting Stock, recorded 900 paintings in his lifetime, but only 100 still survive. It is quite possible that this statistic applies to every folk artist we know, prompting the grim realization that only a slim fraction of these major and minor masterpieces are still intact at all.

The same may be true for folk artists themselves. For every single one we have identified, there might be another whose name we’ll never know. And even among the artists who have survived — the lucky ones by name, the unlucky ones as a “limner” — a large number of them have slipped through the cracks. I’d like to help bring them back. 

Our first is James S. Hathaway. 

I first saw these while scrolling an endless search of Frick Digital Collections, using the magnificently unsophisticated approach of looking at a lot of pictures and hoping something will stick. This one made me stop and stare.

It’s James S. Hathaway’s striking representation of James Brown Coleman, a blacksmith “who also pulled teeth free of charge for those who were in pain.” Through Hathaway’s talent, Coleman’s good character and kindly benevolence shines through.

Above all, the portrait is immediately arresting. For a painting to be worth looking at, it must have that intangible quality that draws your eye and keeps your attention. It’s the ability to bring life to a picture that sets apart the truly great painters. Hathaway demonstrates that in spades. Through the haze of grayscale microfilm (I’ve limited myself to the Frick records for this article), we can tell that he renders his subjects’ heads with crisp precision, giving them an intense, compelling quality. They look as though they might start talking.

Hathaway draws a powerful impression of specific personalities. Some are stern, yet kind-eyed, like the Hon. Walter Folger (1765-1849). (His biography in the Frick record is long, but incredibly impressive; he was a highly inventive man who taught himself the various arts of watchmaking, law, and politics.) Walter’s wife, Mrs. Eunice Macy Folger (1781-1845) has a keen, intense stare. She holds what appears to be a book; visual details are unclear, but like all of Hathaway’s pictures, the old portrait has compellingly managed to capture her soul.

Other sitters, like Thomas Macy (1787-1864), are pleasantly inscrutable. Christina Gale Stubbs Macy, Thomas’s third wife, is alert and thoughtful. We know very little about the sitters, aside that Christina married Thomas three months after the death of his second wife. Hard to say what the exact situation was, but Hathaway has represented them in a flattering, well-adjusted manner.

Meanwhile, my favorite of the child portraits is the young Edward Mitchell, who looks intelligent beyond his years. Hathaway has perfectly rendered his face with precise brushwork.  Edward stares directly at you out of the painting with that intense expression, challenging the viewer to make eye contact. (Some people don’t like that about folk art portraiture. It’s one of my favorite parts!) 

All of Hathaway’s children are beautifully porcelain-like, frozen in time. Their immaculate faces and intense expressions are compellingly bright and crisp. In comparison, Hathaway’s hands, bodies, and clothes are consistently softer, as if there is a blur effect radiating out from the center of the picture, drawing the viewer’s attention back to the captivating central point: the face. We can see those same hallmarks here in the portraits of Charles Frederick Coffin (1835-) and Lydia Coffin (1837-). 

Hathaway seems to have a good grasp of the diminishing scale of landscapes, but no matter the scale of the picture, his sitters’ bodies are noticeably less realistically rendered, preferring that more stylized approach. One wonders if Hathaway spent most of the portrait sitter’s time capturing their face, and sketched in the rest for later. He might've felt that for efficiency's sake, painting a fully detailed outfit was a lesser priority, and focused on capturing a truly accurate and spirited likeness. The approach clearly worked for him. A notable exception, however, is Phebe Coffin Edwards, shown here, with her elaborately ruffled dress. Another is the Little Nantucket Girl with Book, but she, too, is only detailed in bits and pieces, letting the focus rest on her clever, alert face.

From the simple treatment of the hands in Hathaway’s earlier works, without clear articulation of finger joints, we can tell that he was likely a self-taught limner.

Very possibly, he did not receive any artistic education at all until later in life: Hathaway painted the portraits of the Coffin children in exchange for payment to study art in Europe. 

Despite the lack of information on his early years, Hathaway developed a knack for semi-stylized realism, reminiscent of the work of the better-known Deacon Robert Peckham, a fellow Massachusetts native who is inextricably linked to the town of Westminster just as Hathaway is to Nantucket. The stylistic likeness is overwhelming at times, leading me wonder whether these Massachusetts artists might’ve crossed paths during their itinerant journeys.

(Peckhams, bottom row: William Williams Cowee, Fenimore Museum; Betsy Batchelor Hale, private collection; Sally Gates Brackett, Forbush Memorial Library; Silas Hale, private collection. All Peckham paintings shown here have been adjusted to grayscale for comparison with Hathaway’s old records.)

But there are still some substantial differences between them, such as this comparison of Peckham’s Raymond Children and Hathaway’s Coffin Children. Peckham was interested in interiors, and Hathaway preferred exteriors. Adult subjects are superimposed against a plain background, but Hathaway's children usually appear outdoors, in an open-air setting. He uses props for a small number of portraits, but much less often, and with less symbolic significance, than Peckham. Now and then a dog will appear as a child’s companion, sentimentally completing the scene.

The artist’s paintings appears to be heavily concentrated in Nantucket, as if by gravitational pull. We know from a footnote that Hathaway completed the whole set of Coffin child portraits in repayment for funds to study in Europe c. 1842. He must have successfully returned and resumed his work: we know he had a studio in Nantucket in 1846, in which his portraits were rescued from the great fire. The fire survivors, the source of these records, are this striking pair of portraits, Mary A. Folger and Edward R. Folger.

However, we still know very little about Hathaway’s own life, aside from narrowly escaped tragedies and European study trips. He frequently painted batches of portraits for family groups, such as the Coffins and the Folgers; four of the latter appear in this article alone, and there are countless Coffins in the roster. 

There are a few surviving records of Hathaway’s prices - $50 for a child group of three, which we know from a receipt for the Coffin children triple-portrait. He charged $10 for an individual bust in oval, such as Mr. or Mrs. Folger. 

No word on whether he offered a bulk discount.

I’ll end with another small plot twist. While writing the conclusion for this article, I was trying to recreate the search conditions in which I’d tracked down Hathaway in the first place. I searched for “Massachusetts” and scrolled through the Frick site, and idly spotted Captain David N. Edwards, “American School.” He looked a lot like a Hathaway. But surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it? 

I was right. Not only did the Captain Edwards portrait originate in Nantucket (collection of Mrs. Harriette E. Schenck), but one of the confirmed Hathaways, shown above, is Edward’s own daughter — Phebe Coffin Edwards! They have identical biographical anecdotes (tragic but true). 

The “Italian who came to Nantucket,” mentioned at the end of that record, is probably just Hathaway returning from his European studies! And from his lovely matching portrait of Hepsabeth Gardner, we can tell that the art lessons in Italy were worthwhile. He’s gained a more professional and precise sensibility, with improved hands and nuanced faces, while retaining all of his original charm.

I suppose that makes two extra Hathaway portraits in the world. I’m delighted they turned up. Maybe there are even more, just waiting to be found.

Come back next time to find out.

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Note: While color photographs of many of these works exist at the Nantucket Historical Society, I chose to use only the old black-and-white records for the first Hathaway article. In fact, I was so urgently compelled to write this post that I was halfway finished before I'd even realized there were modern photos... so I decided to complete it accordingly, highlighting the skill and quality without the benefit of color. After all, it does say a lot about why Hathaway's paintings are worth looking at.