Portrait
of Ralph Curtis
on the Beach at Scheveningen
John Singer
Sargent -- American
painter
1880
High Museum of
Art
Atlanta,
Georgia
Oil on panel
26.7 x 34.3
(10 1/2
x 13 1/2 in.)
Jpg: High
museum of art
Ralph Wormeley
Curtis (1854-1922)
American painter, was
Boston born
and a graduate of Harvard. He eventually lived in Europe and was a
painter
of portraits, genres, and interiors.
Ralph and John
would become good
friends. They were 2nd cousins (their father's were cousins) though
they
didn't meet until Curtis went to Paris to study art. It's not exactly
clear
when that was. 1880 seems to be the best account. It would be through Francis
B Chadwick that they met and all three traveled to the Netherlands
in August of '80 to excape the heat and study Frans Hals. It was here
at
Scheveningen that he paints Ralph on the beach.
Here Sargent
combines drawing
and brushwork in a single action, as Hals did to capture Curtis's air
of
carefree sophistication.
(The
High museum of art)
* * *
Born into a
prominent Boston family,
after Harvard in 1878 at the age of twenty-four, Ralph Wormeley Curtis
went to Europe with his family. They eventually set up their primary
residence
in Venice on the Grand Canal buying part of the Palazzo
Barbaro. It would be here that he would do most of his painting and
would find himself at the center of a cosmopolitan circles of artists
including Isabella
Stewart Gardner, Henry
James, Edith
Wharton, Vernon Lee,
and
of course his cousin and friend: John Singer Sargent.
He joined Carolus-Duran's
atelier and studied at the Academe Julian under Gustave
Boulanger
and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre [1].
Between 1881 and
1893, he exhibited
regularly at the Paris Salon, eventually winning an honorable mention
at
the Paris Exposition Universal of 1889.
In 1897, he married
his wife (Lisa
de Wolfe Colt) and settled in the Maritime Alps, though often
returing
to Venice and his parent's palazzo. He, like Sargent, traveled all over
Europe and painted where he went, but wasn't nearly as successful. From
what I can gather (so far) Curtis didn't really make a living off his
paintings.
Independently wealthy he was an gentleman artist.
His father Daniel
Curtis was an attorney,
also Harvard trained, an agent for Brown, Shipley & Co, of
Liverpool
and London; and was also a Trustee for the Boston Public Library.
The influence of
Sargent on Ralph's
art was significant. One can see the two working on similar subjects
Sargent would
later paint a
number of portraits of Ralph's family:
Note:
Exhibitions
John Singer Sargent,
An Exhibition -- Whitney
Museum, NY & The Art Institute of Chicago 1986-1987
Gondola
Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle, 2004
- 1) info from
Blake
Benton Fine Art
Forum:
From:
Marie-Charlotte
<iszk owsk
imc@state.gov>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004
I really enjoyed your site. whe I was very young I stayed in
the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice. I used to know Ralph Curtis and his
siters Patricia and Liza. This was in the early sixties. I would like
to get in touch with them, do you have any contact address? I
would appreciate an email address. m.c. iszkowski
|
