Paintings Worth Looking At

In which a name is more than it seems. Recently, I found myself wandering through the expansive Massachusetts Five Colleges Database. I punched in a search for “Portrait,” just to see what happened. Nearly 4500 records were found ; I paged through every single one of them. (Yes, really. Some, I'm afraid, are better than others.) This appealing portrait quickly became one of my favorites. Painted by the folk portraiture master Joseph Goodhue Chandler, it depicts Mary Lyon (1797-1849), the pioneering female educator and founder of Mount Holyoke College. It’s a very likable image, full of warmth and sincerity alongside that classic New England austerity. (Thanks to Emily Wood, assistant Curator of Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, MA), for the high-resolution images of both paintings, and for additional context and information!)

Collecting requires patience.  Patience while sifting through endless prints, reproductions, and lackluster landscapes. Patience while keeping an eye on the calendar. And above all, patience on the day of the auction, sitting at the computer as the clock ticks by, waiting for your lot number for what feels like an eternity.  And even then, there are no guarantees. Such was the case for this very fine Zedekiah Belknap, Portrait of a Lady Reading a Bible. She’s colorful, appealing, and well-preserved, surviving in exceptional condition for two centuries. 

In which “eminently artless” turns into “more than average merit.”  Last time, I wrote about Peckham’s portrait of the famous poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, explaining the good Deacon’s ties to the anti-slavery cause. After all, there’s plenty to discuss about the strength of his beliefs, not just his artistic skills. Regrettably, this led to the disappointing finale: Whittier didn’t like Peckham’s portraits, and considered him “eminently artless.”  Or did he?  My post-article follow-up research revealed an astounding revelation: Whittier actually approved of Peckham’s portrait, saying that it captured his youthful image. He may or may not have once called him “eminently artless,” but he liked the picture well enough. 

The art of resemblance is a tricky one. People don’t like being committed to memory in an unflattering likeness (just ask any photographer). Historically, artists often chose to enhance a person’s appearance, smoothing out any blemishes and modifying their features for the better. Most frequently, portraits aspired towards whatever the contemporary ideal of conventional beauty happened to be, which varied widely over time and culture. However, the underlying principle is the same: Don’t make them look bad.

Why do the paintings I study keep showing up on TV? This is the third time!  ( Mr. Miner and son , Mrs. Miner and daughter )

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. 

  An unexpected postscript… - - - It seems like the folk art paintings I research tend to recur again and again with alarming frequency. I'll write to a friend about an artwork I've come across, and hear "I was at that auction" or "I own that painting" or "I saw that portrait last week”! This happens so often that you'd think there's only a few dozen folk art paintings in the whole world. Except for the ones I'm trying to find , like Oliver Ellis Adams, which I expect will turn up 100 years from now in Antarctica. After posting my article about another mysterious Peckham child in blue — “Girl and Cat" — I shared it with American folk art expert and dealer David Schorsch , who's wisely advised me before on my Peckham research. And, to my astonishment, he replied as follows:

From a typo to a temporary loss of identity. A large part of my folk art research method involves scrolling through thousands of records of American School sales, looking at countless pictures to match patterns and spot similarities. There’s a method to the madness, even though most of the time, it is just madness. But when something leaps out, it makes it all worthwhile. One example of the illogical soundness of the brute-force search is Frances and Humphrey Cousens — Peckham’s last two paintings, as listed in Deborah Chotner's Hobby Horse catalog (p. 43), aka the Peckham bible. 

By now, I come across Peckham paintings with statistically unusual frequency, but spotting one in the background of a TV show is a bit much. (painting: Hobby Horse , National Gallery of Art)

In which a cat is very hard to find, because art imitates life. It may not come as a surprise that my recent interest in the works of folk portraitist Deacon Robert Peckham has led me to compile a full catalog of known and unknown Peckhams. After all, when one discovers a new favorite artist, it’s a natural instinct to gather together all of their works, arrange them in proper detailed order, and then go find some more. Fortunately, the job’s much easier when the artist is consistent. So far, during the Peckham-scavenging process, I’ve spotted about a half-dozen of them. They’re usually not too difficult to track down. However (at risk of sounding like the Wicked Witch of the West) this little girl and her little cat escaped me for months. 

In which an investigation starts with folk art, visits the Netherlands, and ends up back at folk art. I'll admit, I got lucky with this one. I was looking on a stock photo website for “portrait painting” (as one does) and, several dozen pages into the mixed results, I stumbled upon this lovely lady.   Her slightly primitive rendering and sincere charm reminded me of American folk art pastel portraits, an area I’ve spent quite some time researching. I wondered if she might be connected to the works of New England itinerant artists, such as Micah Williams or James Martin . She’s not an exact match, but there’s a vague likeness in the direct eye contact, the soft flat shading of the skin, and the straightforward, almost confrontational, framing of the portrait subject.

In which a terrifying little boy goes missing, but winds up immortalized in a classic horror movie. The process of compiling an artist’s works is never easy. Especially in folk art, unsigned pieces are often scattered far and wide, identified only by stylistic quirks and a tenuous chain of linked names and family connections. So, for the sake of thoroughness, whenever I’m tracking down an artist, I scrounge around as many sites as I can get my hands on. You never know what might turn up.