Henrik Mayer
1908 - 1972
“A Hartford Biography”
© Gary W. Knoble, 2015
The prolific muralist and painter Henrik Mayer was a significant figure in the history of the Hartford art scene. He and his wife Jessie Hull Mayer, also a muralist, arrived in Hartford in 1946. He was to head the Hartford Art School for 10 years during its transition from an independent institution located at the Wadsworth Atheneum to a part of the University of Hartford. The new campus was completed in 1956 when Mayer resigned as director. He continued to teach and paint in Hartford until his death in 1972, creating many murals in local institutions.
Mayer was born in Nashua, New Hampshire on January 24, 1908. While in high school, he worked as an assistant at the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. He was encouraged in his artistic pursuits by Maud Briggs Knowlton, who was a well-known Manchester artist, art educator, and the first director of the Currier Gallery. He graduated from the Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1927.
He then studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts, where he received a BFA in 1931. While studying at Yale, he apprenticed with mural painters, Eugene Savage and Willy Pogany. Upon graduation, Mayer was awarded the William Wirt Winchester Fellowship for study in Europe. In 1932 he married Jessie Hull of New Haven, who was a fellow student and mural painter at Yale. They were married at Shepherds Point in Branford, Connecticut. Both Mayer and his wife Jessie began to paint murals for the WPA in the year they were married. They often bid on the same mural projects.
After graduating from Yale, the Mayers moved to New York City where he taught for a year at Cooper Union. He served as a designer and decorator for the Cosmopolitan Club when they were building their new home on 66th Street. Mayer and his wife Jessie collaborated in designing the murals for the “octagonal room” at the club.
In 1934, the Mayers moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. He became Assistant Director of the John Herron Art School under Donald Mattison and she became the assistant to the curator of the Indianapolis Art Museum. Mattison, only three years Mayer’s senior, had also studied at Yale and worked as an assistant to Eugene Savage. Mayer remained at Herron for 13 years. At some point during that time he also served as a guest instructor at the University of Iowa. While at Herron he received several prestigious prizes including the Edwin A. Abbey Award from the National Academy of Design in 1938, the Second Altman Prize from the National Academy for his painting, “Halloween Carnival” in 1941 (this painting is in the Herron art gallery), and prizes from the John Herron Art Institute in 1943 and 1946.
Mayer and his wife Jessie designed many murals under the auspices of the WPA. His most famous murals are probably those done in 1936 for the Louisville, Kentucky Marine Hospital. His wife was the runner up bidder to create these murals. In recognition of the quality of her submission, she was commissioned to do a mural at the Culver, Indiana Post Office. She also did murals for the Post Offices in Jasper, Indiana and Lagrange, Indiana.
The Mayers spent their summers painting in Branford, Connecticut and Monhegan Island, Maine.
In 1946, they moved to Essex Connecticut where he became the director of the Hartford Art School, which was then located at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. He succeeded Frederick S. Hynd, who continued teaching at the art school. Several sources say that Mayer was also the director of the Atheneum but this is incorrect. The confusion is probably due to the fact that A. Everett Austin resigned as director of the Atheneum on January 1, 1945, but his successor, Charles C. Cunningham was not appointed until 1946.
On September 25, 1946, an article in the Hartford Courant announced Mayer’s appointment and his plans for the art school.
“Included in Mayer’s plans for the Hartford Art School is a system whereby prospective students, beginning next June, will be required to take entrance examinations. ‘We are aiming now for college grade students,’ Mr. Mayer Said. ‘With the new affiliation with Hillyer College art school students will eventually study English, psychology, philosophy and other academic subjects in conjunction with their art courses’, he said. ‘Upon completion of the prescribed four year course diplomas will be awarded.’”
This marked the beginning of the alliance between the Hartford Art School, Hillyer College, and The Hartt School of Music, which would result in the creation of the University of Hartford. One of Mayer’s first actions was to invite his former student at Herron, Paul Zimmerman, to join him in Hartford to teach at the Art School. Mayer told Zimmerman he had hired him since he had observed at Herron that when Zimmerman’s fellow students needed help, it was Zimmerman they always turned to. Zimmerman taught at the art school and painted in Hartford for the next 40 years.
In 1946 the Town & Country Club in Hartford held a show featuring prints and sculptures by Mayer and works of Zimmerman and Hynd. In 1949 and 1958, Mayer won first prizes from the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art. In 1955 the Atheneum held a show that included works of Wolfgang Behl, Clifford Jones, Gail Martin, Mayer, Alan Tompkins, and Paul Zimmerman, all faculty members of the Hartford Art School. Additional works in the show were by Hartford artists Irving Katzenstein, Walter Meigs, and Howard Rackliffe.
Mayer’s daughter Julie was born in 1952.
In 1956, the Art School joined Hillyer College and The Hartt School of Music at the newly built campus of The University of Hartford in West Hartford. Mayer had helped design the building for the art school. During his 10 years as director, Mayer prepared the Art School for the transition from an independent institution to a part of the new University of Hartford. He signed the papers of incorporation and then, in 1956, resigned as administrator. Mayer remained at the school as professor of painting and chairman of the faculty from 1956 until his retirement in 1970. In 1956, Richard Freeman served as dean of the Art School for one year and was succeeded by Alan Tompkins, who remained dean for 11 years.
In 1957 Mayer received first prize at the Boston Arts Festival. In 1958 he received an Honorary Medal of the Hartford Art School, the school’s highest honor. He became a National Academy Academician in 1969, three years before his protégé Zimmerman.
Both of the Mayers continued to design numerous murals throughout the country. His notable local mural commissions included the Newington School (1953), Whiting Lane School in West Hartford (1954), Riverside Trust in Hartford (1956), outdoor mosaics at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Connecticut in Storrs (1959), the Wethersfield Library mural featuring the founders of Wethersfield (1959), an outdoor mural at Southern Connecticut State University, and a commission from The Hartford Fire Insurance Company.
He continued to paint and exhibited nationally until the end of his life. His local solo shows included those held at Wesleyan University and the Lyman Allen Museum.
Mayer died in the Yale New Haven Hospital on December 19, 1972.
In October of 1973, the Hartford Art School held a memorial exhibition in the Joseloff Gallery, of 73 of Mayer’s works ranging from 1931 to 1972. The works came from the collections of Paul Zimmerman, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Springfield Museum of Fine Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Connecticut General Insurance Company, the Wesleyan University Press, the Hartford Hospital, the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and a number of private collectors. A small commemorative brochure accompanied the exhibition.
Ask/Art, “Henrik Martin Mayer”, “Maud Briggs Knowlton”
Fineestateart.com
Gaddis, Eugene R., William G. DeLana Archivist and Curator of the Austin House
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2015
Hartford Courant, “Prof. H. M. Mayer Dies; UofH Art School Figure”. 12/20/72, 9/25/1946, 6/16/1955, 6/5/1958
“Henrik Martin Mayer 1908-1972”, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, 1973
The Herron Chronicle, 2003
Legacy.com, “Jessie Mayer Obituary”, 2009
National Academy.org
Wethersfield Library.org, “A Library Treasure”
Wikipedia, “”Eugene Savage”
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