Louis Orr

Louis Orr (1876-1966)

(A Hartford Biography)

© Gary W. Knoble

Hartford’s master engraver, Louis Orr, was considered by many to be Hartford’s greatest artist. Born and educated there, he spent most of his adult life shuttling back and forth between Paris and Hartford. In 1919 he was made a member of the French Legion of Honor. Although he loved Paris, he once said he always wanted to be known as “a Hartford boy”.

Louis Orr was born in Hartford, Connecticut on May 9, 1876. His father, John H. Orr, was an engraver and printer and one of the contributing editors of the “Century Dictionary”. His ancestors had been printers since 1745, first in Scotland and later in the United States. His grandfather, James W. Orr, was the “Dean” of American Wood Engravers and had a shop on Nassau Street in New York City. His uncle was also and engraver. His mother was Caroline Orr. An article about Orr, that appeared in the Hartford Courant on November 15, 1925, contains many of his memories of his boyhood in Hartford.

“My father was one of a large family; all the boys receiving their training in the shop on Nassau Street (NYC). But the desire to see the world descended amongst them and the more adventurous set forth. My uncle Louis carried the thing too far. His unconquerable lust for wandering landed him in Springfield, Mass. But there is a limit to everything, and he settled there to pass his days in comparative prosperity. Father was not so bold. He journeyed to Hartford before becoming satiated and it was in Hartford that he made his home.”…..”when my father noticed me as a kid cutting out pictures in patent leather and pasting them on board to make wood cuts, he calmly informed me that he would break my back if ever I became an artist.”

By 1892 the family was living in Jersey City, New Jersey, but his mother moved the family back to Hartford when his father died. As a youth he attended the Arsenal School. In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s, he was a student of Walter Griffin at the Art School of the Art Society of Hartford, (later to become the Art School at the University of Hartford). Griffin arranged for him to paint in the galleries of The Wadsworth Atheneum in the early mornings. He also is said to have studied with Charles Noel Flagg at Flagg’s Art Student’s League of Hartford. Around this time he was working at Plimpton’s, a stationary store, as a “Printer’s Devil” under Levi Sherwood. An article about Orr that appeared in the Courant on April 3, 1937, noted: “While still a printer’s devil at Plimpton’s he studied printing in the evening at the YMCA. Several of his drawings were shown by an instructor to Mrs. Charles C. Beach, then head of the Hartford Art School, who felt they showed promise and secured for the youth a scholarship at the school.” Mrs. Beach approached her father encouraging him to sponsor the young artist. He refused stating in Orr’s words: “Don’t spoil a good printer and make a poor painter”. Instead, Mrs. Beach arranged a scholarship to the Art School of the Art Society, where she was President.

He is first mentioned in the Hartford Courant in April of 1903. He had a work in an exhibition of Hartford artists at the Atheneum that included works by Mrs. Mabel Bacon Plimpton English, a fellow student at the Art Society, Dawson Dawson Watson, later a teacher at the Art Society, Flagg, one of his teachers, and Henry Gernhardt, another student of Flagg’s, and others. In June, a notice in the Courant mentions that Orr, a student at the Art Society, had won one of two scholarships to study for the summer at the Byrdcliffe Summer Art School in Woodstock, New York, where Dawson Watson was to be a teacher.

In 1904, he was still studying with Griffin at the Art Society. The Courant noted that he was also the President of an organization called “The Grinder’s Club” that was hosting a lecture at the Atheneum on Whistler by Henry Cooke White. In April, the Art Society held an exhibition of works by its 55 students. Orr was singled out for praise in the Courant Article.

“Louis Orr has the decorative poster in color, announcing the exhibition, very effectively throwing a distant view of Hartford beneath an ornamental arch with entablature. Mr. Orr was at Byrdcliffe last summer and shows a landscape, which took first prize there, and also some monotypes and pencil sketches. The monotypes are rapidly drawn sketches in color on copper, one or two impressions, only being taken while the color is fresh. Some of them are quite effective, showing some relation to etching.”

In August, he was again mentioned in an article about the art scene in Hartford. The article mentions the current activities of the prominent Hartford artists including Griffin, White, Charles and Montague Flagg, William Bolling Brandegee, Daniel, Wentworth, William Gendey Bunce, Mrs. English, and Mrs. Frances Hudson Storrs. It recognized Orr, then living at 462 Windsor Avenue (now North Main Street), as one of two notable young artists. “Mr. Orr executed the cover design of the current ‘Connecticut Magazine’. It is a Dutch scene of three colors, poster effect, and very striking workmanship.”

In October, the Hillyer Institute at the YMCA, (which was later to become Hillyer College at the University of Hartford), announced that Louis Orr would be teaching “Applied Art”.

In April of 1905, the Art Society held the 29th annual exhibition of student works. Sixty works were shown. The Courant reported that Orr won, “first prize for life work, a man’s head, strong and masterful, drawn in charcoal, which was selected for republication in a New York journal, before it was know that it would take a prize”

Also exhibited was his poster for the school. Included on the board of the school at the time were: Mrs. Beach, Mrs. English, and Mrs. Henry Cooke White.

In the 1906 exhibition of the Art Society, Orr again received special mention in The Courant. “Louis Orr shows a pastel in the class (life class) very strong in its drawing and very real. It received special mention but it was not entered in competition for the prize.”…..”The exhibition also contains one or two still-life studies, and several small landscapes by Louis Orr which attract considerable attention.” In an interview published in the Courant November 15, 1925, he notes that for some reason the San Francisco earthquake ended his scholarship.

“In this emergency some of those connected with the art school came to my rescue. Mrs. Beach, James Goodwin, Dr. Henry White, and Miss Ferguson, the daughter of the President of Trinity, were among my fairy godparents and together they gave me $350 with the suggestion that I go to Lyme instead of Paris as there the money would last longer. “

Reflecting the “lust for wandering” of his namesake uncle Louis, he opted for Paris, quite a bit farther afield than Springfield Mass. He left his job at Plimpton’s and sailed for Europe. He arrived there not speaking any French. He remembers being in a restaurant where, since he could not read the menu, and could not speak the language, he instead drew a picture of three boiled eggs and a loaf of French bread. The waiters excitedly passed the drawing around complimenting him on his artistic skills and promptly served him three baked potatoes and a German sausage.

In January 1908, in an article about the Art Society Art School, the Courant reported,

“Mr. Louis Orr has sent home most interesting examples of his work in Paris from time to time, and an exhibition of a series of his sketches, subjects of street scenes, the river and bridges in and about Paris, was shown in the new gallery during the fall and attracted much favorable comment. The society also hears of honors that his work has received in Paris from time to time, with great pleasure and satisfactions. “

By October of 1908 he was back in Hartford for an exhibition of his etchings of Paris and Hartford. A Courant article noted that Mrs. Beach bought his etching of the “Trocadero”. His mentor Bunce also returned to Hartford from Europe in 1908.

In February of 1909 the Courant reported that he was in Old Lyme “at Miss Griswold’s for a month or two, painting out of doors”. In December, he held an exhibition in his Hartford studio at 7 Pliny court behind Engine House No. 5 where several painters had maintained studios before him.

In April of 1910, he was still studying at the Art Society. Its annual exhibition was held at its gallery at 22 Prospect Street. In a review of the exhibition the Courant reported: “Among the etchings is one of the front of City Hall, the old statehouse, which shows the beauty and delicacy of the building when it is properly seen.” Also included in the exhibition was a portrait of William Gedney Bunce. Robert Logan, his friend and fellow engraver, later wrote, “He (Orr) constantly avers, however, that William Gedney Bunce of Hartford helped him more than any other worker.”

In an article announcing an exhibition of his work at the Moyer Gallery in April, the Courant describes him as, “Louis Orr of this city, whose etching command a large sale both in this country and Europe…”

In May, the Connecticut League of Art Students held its first annual exhibition at the League’s studios at 92 Pearl Street. The Chairman of the League was A. J. Eaton. Besides Orr, the artists included in the exhibition were Bunce, Bradegee, Wentworth, Tuttle, Brabazon, Oscar Anderson, James M. Manners (actually James McManus), A. Moll, Piero Tozzi, Vincent Olmstead, W.H. Smith, Harold Douglas, Frederick C. Bock, Paul Saling, Albertus Jones, Eaton, Carl Ringius, J.H. Grant, A. Moll, Alfred Miller, Ralph Seymour, W.C. Carney, and Henry Gernhardt, a virtual roll call of the Hartford male artists at the time.

By October of 1910, Orr was working for The Hartford Times, teaching at the Art Society, and studying at the Art Student’s League. According to a Courant article in 1919, among his students was Hartford born Milton Avery.

On July 23, 1910, the founding of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts was announced in the Courant in an article written by James Britton. Present at the first planning meeting were Smith, Anderson, Brabazon, Seymour, Ringius, and Britton. At the first general meeting, held in Flagg’s studio, were Smith, Flagg, Brandegee, Tuttle, Seymour, Bock, Robert Entress, Carl Dietrich, H. Green, Ringius, McManus, Moll, and Britton. The first annual exhibition of the Academy was planned for December, and the first annual meeting was scheduled for January of 1911. Orr’s photograph was included along side those of the other founders. Britton included “Louis Orr, at present in Europe” in a list of other artists expected to be involved in the Academy. In another article in November of 1910, Britton spotlights Orr as one of four whose works have attracted considerable attention. The other three were Tuttle, McManus, and Eaton. Britton notes that Orr, recently back from Paris, is preparing an exhibition of his summer works at his Pliny Court studio.

The Hartford Courant, November 11, 1910

By James Britton

Recent Work of Hartford Artists

Notable Paintings by Messrs. Tuttle, McManus, Orr and Eaton

“Among the professional artists of Hartford, there are four young men whose works have attracted considerable public attention. To be just to these painter whose abilities and personalities are so different in character, it would seem necessary to forgo (?) minor pleasures in the presence of the seductions of technique. For if one considers that only a single manner of handling paint is admissible, the sum of artistic enjoyments will certainly be limited, and a serious injury inflicted upon the artist who does not aim to entertain the eye with clever hatchings and deft strokes.

Louis Orr, who recently returned from France, is preparing and exhibition of his summer work, to be held at his Pliny Court studio. Mr. Orr painted a number of sketches in Arles whose titles indicate the nature of his subjects: “Church of Saint Maries of the Sea”, “Cathedral of Saint Trophime”, “A Convent Ruin”, “the gray Chapel”, etc. At Paris, Mr. Orr sketched in the Gardens of the Luxembourg the celebrated fountain of Marie de Medici, the doorway of Cardinal Richelieus’s church, St. Sulpice, etc. Mr. Orr’s recent work in not noticeably different from that formerly exhibited. He still works on a rather small scale, using in his drawings as little color as possible, though in his oil pictures, coloring with vivid and sharp tones. One of his most effective paintings shows an old Paris street in the moonlight. There is a sort of witchy green tone pervading this picture that gives it a dramatic, even a theatric aspect. Mr. Orr has a native skill of hand that is quite attractive, and serves him best when working in black and white. His work in etching is facile and clever.”

During 1910 and 1911, when he was in Hartford, Orr was working with Bunce on two large panels commissioned by State Bank for its new lobby. These murals are now in the New Britain Museum of American Art.

In April of 1911, Orr held a show at Moyer’s Art Gallery of eighteen paintings, etchings and pastels. Around this time he resigned as “resident instructor” of the Art School and returned to Paris where he entered the Academie Julien, studying with Jean Paul Laurens. (His fellow Hartford artist, Russell Cheney, had studied with Laurens in 1907.)

In 1912 he participated in another show at Moyer’s but was probably not there in person. The Courant article describes him as the former headmaster of the Hartford Art School. Other artists in the Moyer’s show included White, Bunce, and Dwight Tryon. Around 1913 he married Gabrielle Chaumette in Paris. He remained in Paris during the “Great War”. The Hartford newspapers ran numerous stories in the teens, twenties and thirties describing in great detail his wartime experiences. An article in the Courant on April 5, 1922 lauds his accomplishments in Paris and describes his character. “Mr. Orr is simple and sweet in his manner, modest and by no means self-centered. He is like a boy who has won a race and glories in it from excitement, rather than from a sense of prowess.”

In 1917 he was hired by the French government to make etchings of the major cathedrals, many of which were under attack by the German forces. In one instance while he was etching the partially ruined Rheims cathedral, it was bombarded forcing him to take cover.

In 1919 he was made a member of the French Legion of Honor for his wartime activities.

In 1920, he returned to Hartford after being gone for eight years. He was on the ship La Lorraine. Katherine Seymour Day, a fellow Hartford artist and savior of the Twain and Stowe houses, was on the same ship and at the same table. Orr had been hired by a group of Springfield, Massachusetts businessmen, to make a series of etchings of several buildings in Springfield. He was in Hartford for another exhibition at Moyer’s Gallery. In 1921, the Courant noted that his etchings of Springfield could be seen in the windows of Moyer’s.

In March of 1924, Wiley’s Art Store held a show of works by Orr and his teacher Griffin. On November 15, 1925, the Hartford Courant published a long article recounting his memories and experiences of Hartford and Paris entitled “A Printer’s Devil Wins His Spurs”.

In 1926 he did a series of ten etchings of buildings at Yale.

In April of 1927 there was a show of Orr’s pastels of the Alambra and the newspapers announced that the Louvre museum had purchased the plates of his etchings of the French cathedrals. According to the Hartford newspaper accounts, this was the first time that the work of a living American artist had been purchased by the Louvre.

In 1930 there was another exhibition of his work in Hartford. The show was then to travel to New York and Boston, but nearly all of the works were sold in the Hartford show.

In 1934, Moyer’s showed his etchings of Princeton for the first time.

In 1937 He returned to Hartford again for a show at Moyer’s. In an interview in the Courant he is quoted as saying, “Of course I am fond of Paris. I have lived there since 1914. But there is no place like American and I would rather be known as an American, a Hartford boy, than anything else”.

He was back in France during the Second World War. In 1945, after the war, there was an exhibition at the Town and Country Club on Woodland Street that showed several of his new etchings including the North Carolina group, “Ports of America” , Harvard, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Wellesley, Stamford, the University of Virginia and Pittsburgh University.

In 1950 he returned to Hartford. He was invited, by his old benefactor, Mrs. Beach, to set up a residence and studio in the carriage house behind her Woodland Street mansion. After her husband died he was invited to move into the mansion itself. In 1951 the house was acquired by the Phoenix Insurance Company and ultimately demolished for a parking lot.

In an article published on May 15, 1955 the Courant called him “Hartford’s most famous artist” and describes him as “official etcher to the United Nations.”

His wife Gabrielle died in Paris in 1961. Orr lived in Hartford for most of the final decade of his life, but died in his Paris apartment on February 18, 1966 and is buried in Nimes with his wife.

Over the years many of his works have been acquired or donated to local galleries and institutions. The New Britain Museum of American Art has several, as does the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Connecticut Historical Society, and the Saint Joseph’s University Art Gallery. In 1984 a collection of 60 of his etchings was donated to the University of Hartford Art School, his alma mater.

His good friend Florence Berkman wrote a beautiful tribute to him in The Hartford Times on March 5, 1966, just a few days after his death.

Article in "The Hartford Times" Sat, March 5, 1966; page 7. (Hartford CT)

Titled: Friends Honor Memory of Orr, Recall Etcher's Hartford Youth

Author: Florence Berkman).

"Don't spoil a good printer and make a poor painter. This was the advice given by a father (an art collector) to his daughter who had asked him to give a young artist she had just discovered a grant for study. 'But he has extraordinary talent.' She told her father. The young man was an apprentice printer at Plimpton’s.

The father was the late James G. Batterson, one of the founders of the Travelers Insurance Co.: The daughter was Mary Batterson Beach (wife of Charles C. Beach): the year was 1906, and the artist was Louis Orr, who died last week.

The story of the young printer's success as a world renowned etcher and artist is well known. Phillip Kappel, a Hartford born artist, and himself a noted etcher, said of Orr, 'he was one of the great masters. He was tops, a real master of architectural subjects, especially’.

His greatness lay in the extreme detail he worked into his etchings, which did not overrun the story. He had a fluid, flowing line, and his work had vitality,' said Kappel, now a resident of New Milford, CT. Whose work will go on exhibition at the end of this month at the Boston Art Center, Trinity College.

Mr. Orr was my inspiration when I was a child. I used to see his works in the window of the Moyer Gallery, then on Trumbull Street (in Hartford CT).

A son and a daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Beach, J. Watson Beech and Mrs. George

Capon (nee Elizabeth Beach), reminisced recently on the lifelong relationship with Louis Orr and their family. Beach said there was no doubt in his mind, that if his mother had not "discovered" Louis Orr, Louis would have spent his life as a printer and illustrator.

Recalling his first encounter with Mrs. Beach, Orr, writing in 1925, said he had found himself becoming interested in the decorative borders that Plimpton did when he was an apprentice there. As a result he went to a printer's school sponsored by the YMCA, later working half days and studying the rest of the time. A series of illustrations he did for Eugene Sue's (Wandering Jew) showed so much talent that his instructor showed them to Mrs. Beach.

At the time she was president of the Hartford Art Society, now the Hartford Art School, the University of Hartford. She was impressed and went to her father for the grant. When he refused it, she obtained a scholarship to the art school for the young artist. When Orr was told the good news he dashed home to tell his parents. His mother, was delighted, his father furious.

'He took his hat and coat,' Orr recalled, 'and we marched impressively to the beautiful home of Mrs. Beach on Woodland Street” (Hartford),

'Am I to understand that my son is about to become an artist- long haired, absent minded, with dandruff on his collar?' His father demanded of Mrs. Beach. 'I shall always remember, Mrs. Beach's reply," Orr said. 'The gracious, handsome lady said, " I don't think Louis' hair will grow very long.”

'I was enrolled in the school.'

He left Plimpton’s and with part time work went to the Art School. Later Mrs. Beach and a few other philanthropic people gave Louis Orr $350 dollars to go to Lyme for a summer of study. He went to Paris to become the first American artist whose work was acquired by The Louvre. This was in 1919. He was also made an officer of the French Legion of Honor.

Maurice Moulle, chief of the Bureau of Acquisitions for The Louvre, said of Louis Orr at the time: Slender, with a frank and open countenance, cordial manner, eyes sparkling, a bit of accent, much modesty, unlimited kindness, such is the excellent etcher Louis Orr.

Born in Hartford, CT, he has resided in Paris for many years and it was here that he married. Pupil of the late Jean Paul Laurens, Louis Orr has inherited a probity of his master. He is first of all conscientious. Rarely has it been permitted to encounter an etcher with such a beautiful temperament. His needle is spiritual, brilliant in supply. " He is an idealist who sees, feels and interprets his subject poetically”.

A remarkable draftsman, he knows how to ally the reality with the (fantasie) he creates when necessary and he has taken a pre ponderant place among the masters of original black and white etchings. It is difficult to class the technique of Lois Orr. He is, above all, himself, but it is permitted to say that he continues, notably, the traditions of the American School, and that he recalls the charm of Whistler and the brilliant qualities of John Sargent. La France can but congratulate herself that it extended its hospitality to Louis Orr.

Orr spent a great part of his life in France but in 1940 returned to America to do a series of 50 plates on landscapes, historical sights, plantations houses and harbors in North Carolina. In 1950 he returned to Hartford (CT), and again Mrs. Beach assisted him. This time she gave him a studio in her elegant garage, which had been converted from a stable. A few years later after Dr. Beach's death, she invited him to reside in her home. One of the most elegant homes in the area with a staff of servants to help tend to his needs.

Patrons of the arts of the caliber of Mrs. Beach are not common today. Louis Orr was fortunate to have crossed her path.

Gallery.net website, Louis Orr (1879-1961)

The Hartford Courant Archives, 4/3/1903, 6/2/1903, 3/7/1904, 4/20/1904, 8/25/04, 10/4/1904, 4/19/1905, 4/20/1906, 1/31/1908, 10/22/1908, 2/10/09, 12/1/1909, 4/12/1910, 5/12/1910, 5/19/1910, 5/25/1910, 7/23/1910, 10/19/1910, 11/18/1910 (James Britton), 3/30/1911, 4/7/1911, 5/27/1911, 7/21/1911, 9/28/12, 11/23/1912, 6/3/1919, 7/6/1919 (Robert Logan), 9/30/1919, 12/21/1919, 3/27/20, 9/15/1920, 10/15/1920, 10/19/20, 6/6/1921, 4/5/1922, 11/15/25, 4/11/1927, 3/20/1924, 4/24/1927, 6/8/34, 4/3/1937, 4/15/37, 1/11/1945, 5/13/1955, 2/22/1966, 8/18/1969, 1/11/1884

Florence Berkman. “Friends Honor Memory of Orr”, The Hartford Times, March 5, 1966, Page 7

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