Robert Vonnoh

Robert William Vonnoh (1858-1933)

“A Hartford Biography”

© Gary W. Knoble, 2014

Vonnoh, one of the most noted of the American Impressionists, was born in Hartford but his family moved to Boston when he was young and he never lived in Hartford after that. However, he kept his ties to the city throughout his life and always noted with pride that he was a native son of Hartford.

Robert William Vonnoh was born September 17, 1858 in Hartford, Connecticut. His birthplace was the present site of the State Library. His parents emigrated from Germany and settled in Hartford. When Vonnoh was 5, his father was killed in the Civil War. His family moved to Boston when he was young. It is possible that his father’s death was the reason for the move. He grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

He is said to have decided to be an artist in 1872, when he was 14. At that time, he began working for Armstrong and Co. Lithographers. He first studied art with Charles C. Perkins and Walter Smith at the Boston Free Evening Drawing School. From 1874 to 1879 he studied at the Thayer Academy in South Braintree and at the Boston Free Evening Drawing School.

In 1881 he went to Paris and studied for two years at the Academie Julian under Gustav Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre.

Upon his return to Boston he taught at several schools before replacing Frank Crowninshield in 1885 as an instructor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at age 27.

In 1886 he married his first wife Grace D. Farell. In 1887 they moved to France where they spent four years living in Grez-sur-Loing. He was to live in Grez off and on for the rest of his life.

He returned to Boston in 1891. From 1892 until 1896 he taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. He was elected to the Society of American Artists in 1892.

In 1899 he moved to Rockland Lake, New York with his second wife, the sculptor Bessie Potter ANA. They moved to New York in 1903 and began to spend their summers at Florence Griswold’s in Old Lyme. In Old Lyme he became close friends with the painter George Bruestle, who was also of German parents and had also studied at the Academie Julian in the 1890’s. Vonnoh was to paint many portraits of George and his son, the painter Bertram Bruestle.

In 1906 he was elected to the National Academy of Design. In 1907 he and his wife moved back to Grez and lived there part time until the First World War.

While he had moved from Hartford as a boy, he continued to celebrate his Hartford heritage and Hartford returned the admiration. His received what may have been his first recorded notice in the Hartford newspapers on April 8, 1913 when his fellow Hartford painter and critic, James Britton, praised his work in the Hartford Courant. In an article entitled, “Work of Hartford Artists in New York – Talcott, Bunce, Tryon, Vonnoh, Griffin , Britton, noting the group’s paintings at the American Academy and the Salmagundi Club wrote, “Hartford has reason to be proud of this representation, though it is true that some of these artists have done their best work out of Hartford, it is also true that they are proud of their Hartford connection.” Britton continued to praise Vonnoh’s work in the Hartford Courant. On October 29, 1913 he wrote, “Mr. Vonnoh, at present occupying a studio in New York, is an able draftsman and a colorist of great charm. Hartford has never produced a portrait painter who has to a more marked extent the qualities that command popular admiration. Mr. Vonnoh is, as well, a landscapist of importance, his famous picture of ‘November’, being a representative modern work of the highest type.” On December 21, 1913 Britton praised Vonnoh’s portrait of the sculptor Bessie Potter, his second wife, that was being shown at the Montross Gallery in New York. “Hartford should have a rather keen interest in this painter, for, though during recent years he has lived much in New York and abroad, he was born in Hartford and speaks of the fact with evident pride.” “With the fine works here mentioned we confidently expect others to come which will place their author permanently in the very front rank of American artists.” On January 8, 1914 Britton praised Vonnoh’s portrait of Charles Francis Adams

Unable to return to Grez because of the war, 1918 saw Vonnoh back at the Pensylvania Academy teaching, where his students included William Glackens (who’s wife was from Hartford), Robert Henri, John Sloan, and Maxfield Parrish.

James Britton in his diaries mentions several encounters with Vonnoh in New York City in the years from 1919 to 1925. In the first encounter in March of 1919, Britton, no stranger to spirited discussions, notes with apparent glee his success in baiting Vonnoh and challenging his pronouncements.

March 24, 1919

(In NYC visiting “Mitch’s” gallery) “ Inside hear Vonnoh ranting upstairs in Miss Gerth’s show (Lillian Gerth). Ranting. After his victims go I grab him (Vonnoh) and tell him about the paper (Britton is publishing an art criticism paper) & he rants again rants, says ‘No painter should criticize another painter it isn’t good ethics etc.’ Maxfield Parrish comes in. Vonnoh introduces him & while we argue hot and heavy Gregg comes in. I ask Vonnoh if it’s worse for an artist to write criticisms than it is to sit on a jury. This finds sympathy from Max Parrish and Vonnoh is quelled for a minute. I mention Kenyon Cox’s portrait of M. Parrish & M says it was agony to sit and C gave him a little deformed arm. I say, ‘I’ll do one that’s like him’ partly to Vonnoh. Parrish laughs and says ‘Never again’ Vonnoh continues to rant and rant wishes me luck says he’s on 23rd St. and wants me to come in. As I start out I find Gregg’s been waiting all the time after young Mitch had come to warn Vonnoh who was yelling that there was a newspaper man out there and not to slam the newspapers too hard. I said to him ‘Oh, that’s Gregg of the Herald he doesn’t mind he likes this stuff.’ When Parrish goes he says after seeing Lillian Gerth’s nudes ‘I’m going out to get a policeman’ After Vonnoh goes and I start out Gregg is standing waiting for me.” (Volume 2, page 51)

He encounters him again a few weeks later.

April 12, 1919

“ In morning I met George Ennis on Eighth St. & he asks me back to the Salmagundi for a drink. Find Vonnoh there. Give him hell & he tells how the war killed his ‘$25,000 a year portrait business – limousine & all that.’ Feels much knocked out. I tell him his group show lacked diversity. He admits it reluctantly. Vonnoh mentions the fine article I wrote about an ex. of his years ago (probably the December 1913 article in the Hartford Courant) says ‘I hope you feel the same way now, and I hope you meant it.’ “(Volume 3, page 19)

Britton, not stranger to expressing himself forcefully, recognizes a fellow talker.

December 12, 1919

“Academy private view (National Academy of Design). As I go in Vonnoh and Jonas leave. Go in and sit in the Vanderbilt……Then Vonnoh comes back & sits down and talks (the following in parenthesis, was written in 1932 when Britton was editing his diaries.) (Vonnoh the greatest rattle box of a talker on earth. Robert Vonnoh, now one of the older men but sprightly and keen as a hawk.) Vonnoh tells Dickinson (Sydney) I wrote a great article about him once, but thinks I have changed toward his work. I tell Vonnoh to have a big resume show of his work. He thinks so. Mention Reinhardt’s as I talk with Vonnoh and D”. (Dickinson). (Volume 4, page 43)

In 1920, Vonnoh participated in the annual show of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in Hartford and won the $100 Charles Noel Flagg prize for his entry. The Hartford Courant published his letter of appreciation. “Nothing gives me more satisfaction than the contents of your letter advising me that my native town has considered an example of my work worthy of the Charles Noel Flagg Prize.”

Juries were one of Britton’s favorite targets of criticism. In a 1921 diary entry he finds another opportunity to nudge Vonnoh for his frequent jury participation.

November 18, 1921

“Academy opening. Find Vonnoh sitting on a bench explaining to Dickinson why he (Vonnoh) kicked out D’s picture of his ‘father and mother’ (Vonnoh had a hell of a nerve. He was playing the typical jury sitter telling his victim just wherein his work fell short of the standard set up by the scoundrel jury. However it was quite all right for Vonnoh to bait D. for D. is himself a jury sitter and plays in his turn the role Vonnoh now assumes. Vonnoh had a double deal of villainy to account for on this occasion because as well as jury sitter he was hangman.) V says something about the values (in the picture) being wrong. At least D so reported.” (Volume 7, page 52)

While Vonnoh and Potter continued to travel back and forth between France and the US, from 1922 on he spent most of the rest of his life in Graz. In 1923, he told Britton he preferred living in France because it was cheap.

December 13, 1923

“Go down to Vonnoh’s studio. Luckily I find him just about to leave. ….. Sits down and talks. Says, ‘you know I can live in France for very little about $18 a month’ Says ‘Live out in the country outside of Paris. It costs too much to live in America.’ “ (Volume XXXIX, page 114)

Vonnoh’s fellow Hartford native Dwight Tryon, an avid Tonalist, apparently did not think much of Vonnoh’s impressionistic paintings. Britton reports that during a February 1925 visit to Tryon’s New York studio in New York, he asked Tryon what he thought of Vonnoh’s work. “I mention Vonnoh as a Hartford native as we all are and ask Tryon if he thinks well of his work. ‘No’, he says, ‘I’ve never seen anything of Vonnoh’s that impressed me. He doesn’t seem to have individuality’”.

Britton himself obviously respected Vonnoh a great deal. In July of 1924 Britton writes of his plans to form a “New Society of American Artists. The first name on his list was Vonnoh’s. Other Hartford painters he considered worthy of participating were James McManus, Russell Cheney, and Walter Griffin.

Through the spring of 1925 there were several organizational meetings for the new society. Vonnoh played a very active role, loudly vetoing names he did not like and forcefully arguing for his favorites.

March 1925

“Vonnoh has a little speech to make in which he drags in religion and the dictionary to which I have to put a stop. He is a little touchy with me after that but I make him see the good nature involved.” (Misc. Volume 3, page 5)

March 31, 1925

“I mentioned Emil Carlson for membership in the New Society of American Artists and Vonnoh said ‘No’. Old Emil Carlesen I just saw him at the Academy jury, sitting there sticking out his head and saying ‘Wotten!, Wotten!, let them wait.’ Vonnoh also paid his respects to Jos. Pennell and killed his name when Donahue proposed it. It is quite evident that Vonnoh has some scores to settle with some of the old timers.” (Misc. Volume 3, page 13)

In 1925, the new society had its first exhibition at Knoedler Gallery where both Vonnoh and Britton participated.

Vonnoh was frequently in Hartford and Old Lyme in 1927. In Hartford, Britton visited James McManus who told him, “Vonnoh has been doing some good portraits this summer in Lyme. Says 23rd building (Vonnoh’s long time New York studio) is down and Vonnoh is now located principally in Lyme. Says V has just painted George Bruestle for the Academy.”

Vonnoh was elected a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in 1927.

In 1931 he was again in Hartford when The Hartford Courant reported that he had painted a portrait of Colonel Lucius Holt, in the Pratt Street studio of James Goodwin McManus (the portrait is now at West Point) “many examples of his work can be seen at Brown’s Studio on Trumbull Street (260 Trumbull)”.

Vonnoh died in Graz on November 27, 1933. His ashes were buried beside his wife Bessie Potter in the Duck River Cemetery Old Lyme. The Courant reported his passing in a December 29, 1933 obituary entitled “Robert Vonnoh, Noted Hartford Artist Dies”.

Britton apparently missed the obituary at the time but noted in his diaries in March of the following year.

March 15, 1934

“ Sorry to record the passing of Robert Vonnoh who died abroad – knew nothing of this till today or yesterday. So they go – Luks, Noble, Vonnoh, the endless procession into the ground. Vonnoh almost 80. What now. Wonder that I don’t hear from N. D. Potter who is now living near Vonnoh’s Lyme property.” (Misc Volume 22, page 75)

Britton himself died only two years later. “So they go.”

Ask/ART, Robert William Vonnoh (1858-1933)

Dearinger, David B., Paintings and Sculpture in National Academy of Design, Volume I, 1826-1925, 2004

The Hartford Courant, 4/8/13, 10/29/13, 12/21/13, 1/18/14, 4/24/20, 7/16/23, 9/20/23, 2/18/27, 3/16/31,12/29/33

Robert Vonnoh (1858-1933), Hollis Taggart Gallery, 2007

Robert Vonnoh, Wikipedia

Stula, Nancy, James Britton: Connecticut Artist