p. 420
...For many years
Lawrence C. Earle, whose virile talent has received due recognition,
was a leader among the painters, prominent in all their gatherings,
energetic, ambitious, and widely popular. When he decided a few years ago to
make his home in New York, the artistic fraternity of Chicago lost its most
active spirit. Mr. Earle's quick intuition and keen sense of humor
have been of great service to him in the clever character studies with which
his name has of late been associated. Many talented artists have spent a
part of their lives in Chicago, and then played truant, either in the desire
for further study or for widening fame. Carroll Beckwith, F.S. Church, Harry
Eaton, J. Francis Murphy, and Walter Shirlaw came out of the West, and for
several years George Hitchcock's stormy genius agitated the placid waters of
Chicago's art and society. John Donoghue's best work was done here; and
among the younger men Truesdell, Guy Maynard, and William L. Dodge have left
the West to study to some purpose in Paris. ...
p. 426
...Most of these early collections have disappeared,
but a few of the men who owned them continued steadily to increase and
improve their collections. Of these, S.M. Nickerson, J.H. Dole, and Henry
Field were the most prominent. Mr. Nickerson has retained many of his early
pictures, and his gallery presents a curious array of diverging methods.
Bierstadt and the Hudson River school are represented, and there are the
conventional examples of Verboeckhoven and Meyer von Bremen, of Bouguereau
and Rosa Bonheur. The most notable pictures are by the men of 1830, - a
beautiful glimpse of radiant summer, by Daubigny, a lovely group of women by
Diaz, one of Rousseau's views of boundless country, a tribute to the beauty
of evening stillness by Dupré, a Nile landscape by Fromentin, and "the Fiax
Carder", a study of labor by Millet. Clays, Ziem, Alma Tadema, and Mittling
are also here, and a brilliant interior of the Hotel Rambouillet is painted
with Isabey's peculiar dash. Many varieties of oriental art have also
interested Mr. Nickerson, and he has gathered together beautiful bronzes,
sword guards, and lacquers, and a collection of carved jade, which is justly
famous. Mr. Dole's unpretentious collection has also been the
accretion of years. Some good work by Earle, several heads full of
character by Ellen K. Baker, a beautiful, quiet landscape by Macy, and a
fine Domingo, are prominent in his gallery; and Mr. Dole is also the
fortunate possessor of three or four of Winslow Homer's clever sketches and
several of Blum's exquisite Venetian water-colors.
Title: The New England magazine. / Volume 12, Issue
4
Publisher: New England Magazine Co. Publication Date: June 1892
City: Boston Pages: 828 page images in vol.
