xt7dnc5s7x8z https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7dnc5s7x8z/data/mets.xml Heermann, Norbert. 1918  books b92-135-29326510 English Houghton Mifflin, : Boston ; New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Duveneck, Frank, 1848-1919. Frank Duveneck  / by Norbert Heermann. text Frank Duveneck  / by Norbert Heermann. 1918 2002 true xt7dnc5s7x8z section xt7dnc5s7x8z 







FRANK



DUVENECK



BY



NORBERT HEERMANN


   WITH ILLUSTRATIONS



   BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
     9be Ifibersibe press Cambtibue
          igi8

 






































COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY NORBERT HEERMANN

        ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


        Pablished October zqz8

 










              PREFACE

IN a well-known dictionary of American artists
in which considerable space is devoted to al-
most all of our artists, we find under Frank
Duveneck's name just a small paragraph, and
under that the editor's remark: " No answer to
circular." This is characteristic of Duveneck.
Since it was not a very easy matter to get the
chronology of the works and most interesting
facts in connection with them correctly, I am
especially indebted to those who have aided me
in the preparation of this little work, to Mrs.
William B. Pratt, Mr. Clement Barnhorn, and
Mr. Oliver Dennett Grover. For permission to
make use of photographs of their paintings by
Duveneck I am grateful to the Cincinnati Mu-
seum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Chi-

 






vi            PREFACE
cago Art Institute, the Queen City Club of
Cincinnati, and the Boston Tavern Club, and
to Mrs. Henry C. Angell and Mr. M. A.
DeWolfe Howe, of Boston.



 














              ILLUSTRATIONS

Frank Duveneck .         .   .    .   .   .    .   . Frontispiece
    From the Portrait by Joseph DeCamp, owned by the Cin-
    cinnati Museum
    Joseph DeCamp's portrait of Duveneck strongly indicates his physical
    and mental make-up and harmonizes very well with Mrs. Pennell's de-
    scription (page 85). The expression of his eyes and hands in the canvas,
    suggesting a quietude that to the outsider might mean almost anything,
    yet to those that know him conveys the feeling of latent power and re-
    minds one that these blue eyes of his are used to look at things firmly
    and to take from them a clear-cut summary of what is there. The por-
    trait is a double tribute of DeCamp to his teacher. It was a work of
    love, time having been taken from commissions to complete it for a gift
    to Cincinnati, where DeCamp was born and received his early art train-
    ing. It also carries the sign of the latter's training under Duveneck. A
    fine piece of characterization; the person summed it up who said, " Cut
    the hand on the left out and show it to anybody that knows Duveneck
    and he will tell you whose hand it is."

The Old Schoolmaster         .    .   .   .    .   .    .   .  4
    Owned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, now hung
    in the house of its former owner, Mrs. Henry C. Angell,
    Boston

W  histling Boy     .    .   .    .   .   .    .   .    .   .  8
    Owned by the Cincinnati Museum

Woman with a Fan .                       .12
    Owned by Mr. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Boston

Young Man with Ruff          .    .   .   .    .   .    .   ..6
    Owned by the Cincinnati Museum

Portrait of Professor Ludwig Loefftz             .      .      20
    Owned by the Cincinnati Museum

 








viii



FRANK DUVENECK



Unfinished Portrait Study      .
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum

Portrait of Mr. William Adams.
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum

Turkish Page
   Owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts



. 24



. 28


 32



Woman with Forget-Me-Nots .      .   .  .   .  . 36
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum
Sketch of a Turk.  .   .  .   .  .   .  .  .   . 40
   Owned by the Tavern Club, Boston
Portrait of J. Frank Currier .44
   Owned by the Art Institute, Chicago
Red-Haired Man with Ruff .    .  .   .  .   .  . 48
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum
The Cobbler's Apprentice.                        52
   Owned by Mr. Charles P. Taft
Portrait of John W. Alexander .56
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum
Well and Water-Tank, Italian Villa   .  .   .  . 6o
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum
Old Town Brook, Polling, Bavaria.                6o
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum
Florentine Flower Girl .  .   .  .   .  .  .   . 64
   Owned by the Cincinnati Museum
Siesta .68
   Owned by the Queen City Club, Cincinnati



Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice. - Etching



. .  72

 







           FRANK DUVENECK                     ix

The Rialto, Venice. - Etching.  .  .  .   .  . 76
Memorial to Elizabeth Boott Duveneck.-Sculpture. 8o
   Bronze in the " Allori " Cemetery, Florence
Facsimile of the Letter adopted first by the Foreign
Members of the Jury for the Panama-Pacific In-
ternational Exposition and later endorsed by the
Entire American Jury.                      . 82



 































































  FRANK DUVENECK
From the Portrait by Joseph DeCamp

 
This page in the original text is blank.


 









      FRANK DUVENECK

                    I

"AFTER all 's said, Frank Duveneck is the
greatest talent of the brush of this generation."
These are the words which John Singer Sar-
gent spoke at a dinner given in London in the
early nineties, in a discussion of the merits of
such eminent men as Carolus Duran and others.
This judgment, deliberately spoken by a man
whom artists and laymen alike have come to
regard as the most technically brilliant of
painters, would not now, any more than it did
then, arouse contradiction in a company of
artists. Yet to the general public it would come
with a shock of surprise. This is in part be-
cause Duveneck's work is not accessible to the
general public. Another reason lies in the fact
that the greatness of Duveneck's art is best un-
derstood by the student of painting. His style,

 





FRANK DUVENECK



simple and direct, is "sans phrase,"- without
technical tricks for effect, without persuasive
story subjects, without even so much self-con-
sciousness as is implied in the word "senti-
ment." Of literary association there is none,
of doctrine or dogma there is none. The world
of this painter is not history, not imagination,
not psychological analysis, not ethics; those
fields which our public loves to explore. His
compelling interest is in the normal aspect of
man and nature, the subjects he chooses are
everyday types; he conceives them in an un-
pretentious spirit, but transmits them as en-
dowed with quiet power. There is in his work
a certain finality of grasp with a dignity, a calm,
which to the connoisseur is akin to the serenity
of the Greek, while to the multitude it may ap-
pear actually commonplace.
  That a man of this type should later have
been almost lost sight of, except by his intimate
circle of artist friends, is not altogether sur-
prising in this country and at a time like the



2

 





















THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER
         I87I

 























  This portrait, with the keen grasp of the expressive features of this
stern, old-fashioned figure, was painted in Duveneck's second year in
Munich - an astonishing achievement.



 






















































THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER
         x871

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 






          FRANK DUVENECK              5
present, when change swiftly follows change
and is greeted with a clamor that distracts at-
tention from earlier achievement.

  We owe it to the Duveneck Gallery at the
Panama Pacific International Exposition that
the full power of this personality has been once
more thrown into full relief; and the action
of the jury in awarding him a special medal,
the highest in its power to bestow, is a timely
reminder of the truly classic standard of his
work and of its importance in the development
of our national school.
  To appreciate the effect of his painting, when
it was first exhibited over forty years ago, we
must remember the lack of national character
in the American art of that day. The country
was flooded with foreign paintings which in-
spired our painters to either the sentimental
story picture of Dusseldorf lineage, or the dry
reflection of other lifeless works. Only here
and there the flicker of independent thought

 






FRANK DUVENECK



appeared. Inness, the father of the naturalistic
movement in American landscape, who had
just returned from Italy, was beginning to feel
his way towards the splendor of his later work.
Homer Martin was in more or less an experi-
mental stage, and so was Alexander H. Wyant.
John La Farge's poetic genius was getting
ready to express itself with full mastery for the
first time in his mural decoration in Trinity
Church, Boston (i876), and George Fuller's no-
ble art was yet hidden from the public, his inti-
mate friends alone knowing that he painted in
the intervals of his farm work at Deerfield, Mass-
achusetts. William Morris Hunt was actually
the only widely recognized artistic personage
at the time. He had opened a studio in Boston
in i862. It proved successful, and his lectures
on art, notably the art of his great inspiration
Millet, also of Delacroix and Daumier, pre-
pared in that city the most open-minded audi-
ence which existed in the country.
Before this audience, in 1875, came Frank



6

 





















WHISTLING BOY
     1872

 


























The young Duveneck's complete realization of technique, clearness
of vision, and powerful aim for what is vital in portraiture. Every-
thing here fairly palpitates with life.



 
























































WHISTLING BOY
     1872

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 





FRANK DUVENECK



Duveneck with his little one-man show of five
canvases, a young fellow of twenty-seven
years with but a three years' schooling in
Munich behind him. The canvases he showed
were "The Woman with a Fan," "The Old
Schoolmaster," "Portrait of William Adams,"
"Portrait of Professor Loefftz," and the
"Whistling Boy." Here at last was a person-
ality that spoke a definite, a beautifully and
powerfully definite language. Duveneck's ex-
hibition proved an immediate success. The
pictures were acclaimed by Hunt and many
others and by the whole press. The opening
of a new era in American art was proclaimed.
In I877, the National Academy Exhibition in
New York, including a group of canvases by
the American painters from the Munich School,
became a fresh landmark, and with the found-
ing in the following year of "The Society of
American Artists " and their subsequent exhi-
bition at the Kurtz Gallery in New York in
i878, the new era in American Art was fairly



9

 






FRANK DUVENECK



launched. The younger men among the Amer-
ican painters had been brought into contact
with a vital influence from outside and had
been taught to respect their own reaction to
it. As we have seen, this first impulse came
by way of Munich; later Paris became the
art school of the world. All this now is too
well known to be dwelt upon.
  In speaking of Duveneck I would emphasize
the powerful effect of his own work at the out-
set of our era. What he accomplished after
that, while not less surely, was more quietly
done. His class in Florence, then known as
the "cDuveneck Boys," his Italian paintings,
his series of Venetian and Florentine etchings,
his work as a sculptor, decorator, and as ad-
viser has been of inestimable value, the story
of his life affording a natural bridge by which
to pass from our early period to the present
day.



IO -

 



















WOMAN WITH A FAN
       i873

 






















  Like the romance of a long-forgotten day this lady emerges from
the dark with her fan, her graceful feathery hat, her quaint ruche, silk
dress, and black shawl. Asked once in reference to the superb paint-
ing of her eyes, the depth of them, Duveneck said: " Yes, in those
days I had eyes like a hawk and yet I painted two days on that one eye
in the light."



 

















































WOMAN WITH A FAN
      1873

 
This page in the original text is blank.



 









II



FRANK DUVENECK was born in I848 in Coving-
ton, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from
Cincinnati. Among his early recollections are
a variety of interesting incidents of the Civil
War. Naturally, living on the border-line
of North and South, he felt the influence of
the conflict through contact with the sick
and wounded; also with negro refugees, half
starved, helpless, and often not too hospitably
received. At this time the Benedictine Friars
were making altars for Catholic churches in
Covington, and they employed Duveneck, still
a mere boy, in his first artistic work. He painted,
modeled, carved, decorated, finding a great
deal of pleasure in the variety of his work.
His ability soon attracted the attention of a
local painter named Schmidt, and later, at the
age of eighteen, of a church decorator of Ger-
man birth and training named Lamprecht,

 






FRANK DUVENECK



who coming just then to Cincinnati accepted
him as an assistant. The varied work which
followed proved of importance in Duveneck's
development. He learned his craft in the next
few years, the rough craft of painting on large
surfaces. He decorated churches in many dif-
ferent places, even as far away as Canada.
Realizing more and more his artistic ambition
and being strongly advised by his fellow dec-
orators to study abroad, he managed to get to
Munich, which had at this time taken the
place of Dusseldorf as the leading art school
in Germany, and entered the Royal Academy.
This was in 1870. After working for three
months in the Antique Class, Duveneck was
admitted, without any of the usual preparatory
life drawings, to the painting class of Wilhelm
Dietz, one of the radicals among the faculty
who had become a professor at the Academy
the same year that Duveneck entered. Among
his classmates at this time were two who
afterwards became famous; one of them being



I4

 


















YOUNG MAN WITH RUFF
        1873

 
























  Another example of the artist's intensely vital construction of the
head with direct brush drawing.



 














































YOUNG MAN WITH RUFF
        1873

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 





FRANK DUVENECK



Ludwig Loefftz, later a professor and after
that Director of the Munich Academy; and the
other, Wilhelm Tribner, who ranks among
the strongest modern German painters.
  It is interesting to linger over the condition
of the art world of Munich at the time young
Duveneck stepped into it. It was a period of
transitions. Within a generation the sound
draughtsmanship, painstakingly built up on
German soil by schooling received in France,
had been followed by a wave of enthusiasm
for color and now again had received a fresh
impetus from Paris. At that time in the French
capital, Delacroix and Ingres, the arch-roman-
ticist and arch-classicist, still held their own.
Besides these there were masters such as those
glorifying the Napoleonic legend, Horace Ver-
net and Meissonier; the discoverers of the
Orient for art, Decamps, Marilhat, Fromen-
tin; the genre painters of all kinds; together
with the elegant portrayers of feminine beauty,
Cabanel, Baudry; the serious stylists, like



17

 






ic8       FRANK DUVENECK
Chasseriau, Flandrin, and Chenavard, and the
excellent landscape painters. And finally there
were the revolutionary realists with Courbet
at their head. In place apart stood Corot and
Millet, whose art though closely associated
with the Barbizon School is yet greater.
  Something of all these was reflected in Mu-
nich in the sixties, and what is for us most in-
teresting is the fact that two men there at least
were following a course parallel to that of
Courbet. These men were Wilhelm Leibl,
whose influence in Munich was very strong
even then, and Wilhelm von Dietz, the young
instructor into whose hands Duveneck fell.
Their art, resisting the artificialities of the
older painters, Piloty and Makart, had been
inspired by an intense study of nature and of
the Dutch masters in the old Pinakothek, and
had, only the year before Duveneck's coming,
received a fresh impulse through a great exhi-
bition of French art in which Courbet was
represented by a roomful of paintings. Nature,

 


















PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR LUDWIG
           LOEFFTZ
             1873

 
























One of the artist's most beautiful works, a portrait all painters love
for its dignity and completeness.



 




















































PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR LUDWIG LOEFFTZ
                1873

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 






FRANK DUVENECK



pure and simple, was what interested them,
"Un coin de la nature vu i travers un tern-
perament," was the watchword coined for
them by Emile Zola, the spokesman of the
new movement.
  It was among such varied influences that
Duveneck had placed himself and, as was in-
evitable with his temperament, it was with
the naturalists that he instantly aligned him-
self. Theirs was the spirit in which Duveneck
approached his work.
  Given immediately the close contact with a
mood and method so absolutely suited to him,
and remembering also the technical skill which
he had already gained, especially through his
free handling of paint in the work of church
decoration in America, we can more easily un-
derstand the rapid progress of this newcomer
in the stimulating art world of Munich, -
this blond, vigorous, and single-hearted young
giant with the "d eye like a hawk," fresh from
a new world and conscious of his own power.



21

 







22        FRANK DUVENECK
  During his first year in Munich, Duveneck
took most of the prizes of the Academy, from
antique drawing to composition, a progress
which was looked upon as nothing short of
phenomenal. The admirable study of a Cir-
cassian in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
belongs to that year. At that time competitive
compositions were made, the prize-winners
were granted the use of a studio, the expenses
for models to complete the prize competition
usually being paid in addition. Duveneck won
this prize in i872. After establishing himself in
the newly won studio he did not, and indeed
soon proved that he did not have to, return to
Dietz's class, for to this time belongs that series
of canvases of which we need recall only one,
the "Whistling Boy." In this picture are fully
evident the qualities which startled and quickly
attracted the other painters and students to him.
Foremost among these is the expressive use
of the paint itself, an astonishing virtuosity of
brushwork closely related to Franz Hals, in

 




















UNFINISHED PORTRAIT STUDY
           1873

 
























  Note the vitality of brush expression in large planes, just preced-
ing the development of detail within the planes.



 




















































UNFINISHED PORTRAIT STUDY
           I 873

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 





FRANK DUVENECK



which the daring and yet perfectly controlled
hand defines planes, textures, and color with an
unhesitating brush -loaded with paint. Even
to the amateur this method makes an appeal,
its chief merit being liveliness and force with
rich, vibrant color. Later, in the portrait of
the "Woman with Forget-Me-Nots," which is
dated 1876, we feel the distinct ripening in pic-
torial insight. The fact that Duveneck at that
time used to take his pictures to the Pinakothek
and set them beside the old masters, the Dutch
and Flemish being his favorite ones, makes us
understand that as the "Whistling Boy " was
Duveneck pure and simple, the "m Woman with
Forget-Me-Nots" is a development, through
an inspiration that comes straight from the
Netherlands, the hands being very suggestive
of Rubens. Duveneck used a restricted palette
in those days, composed chiefly of plain earth
colors. A student who once asked some one
who knew Duveneck in Munich, what kind of
brushes and colors the latter then used, received



25

 






26        FRANK DUVENECK
the answer: " Oh, generally somebody else's."
In later years Duveneck came under the spell
of the French painters. For a time he became
vitally interested in their technique, so without
much ado he set himself to study their style for
several years, many of his enthusiasts lament-
ing this change. There is a large portrait of his
wife in the Cincinnati Museum which reveals
strikingly this departure; it is a gracefully dis-
tinguished work.

 


















PORTRAIT OF MR. WILLIAM ADAMS
             i874

 























  Note the stately placing of the figure on the canvas, the directness
of expression with the brush, the subtle values in solid painting.



 
















































PORTRAIT OF MR. WILLIAM ADAMS
             1874

 
This page in the original text is blank.



 








III



TOWARD the end of the year 1873, the year in
which the cholera broke out in Munich, Du-
veneck returned to America. He went at once
to Chicago on a commission in connection with
a church decoration. Not wishing to carry too
much, he traveled with little luggage and no
painting material, expecting to buy what he
needed there. Upon arriving in Chicago he soon
found to his surprise that such things as artist
materials were unobtainable goods at that time,
in a town thatto-day can boast of having at least
three thousand artists and art students. So he
was obliged to remain idle until the material
could be sent for. Upon his return to Cincin-
nati he was occupied there with several por-
trait orders, but an exhibition of a group of his
portraits from Munich attracted little or no
public attention, which is perhaps not surpris-
ing in the state of connoisseurship then existing,

 






FRANK DUVENECK



  Then came the year 1875, in which his one-
man show in Boston proved more than a suc-
cess, coming near a sensation. Besides receiv-
ing excellent criticisms, the whole collection
was sold. Nobody was more amazed at this
success than Duveneck himself. He has always
attributed his favorable reception to William
Morris Hunt's lectures on art, which together
with Hunt's own work had cleared the way.
Leibl, whose work in Germany at that time was
very similar to Duveneck's, was still absolutely
misunderstood there by both press and public;
in fact, he had been obliged to leave Munich for
the country in I872, largely because of the lack
of funds. If Duveneck had been intent on busi-
ness he would have accepted the very flattering
inducements offered him to remain in Boston.
However the call of the artist life in Munich
was too strong to be resisted, so he declined
them and returned to Munich the same year,
where he worked until 1877. In company with
his friend William M. Chase, Duveneck then



30

 



















TURKISH PAGE
     I876

 






















  The significance of this handsome arrangement becomes especially
evident when we think that it was painted as early as i876 and first
exhibited the following year. In company with the work of other
young Americans, " The Turkish Page " constituted a direct chal.
lenge to the prevailing conventional spirit of the National Academy.
With the exception of Duveneck's mural paintings, this canvas must
be regarded as his most completely carried out composition.



 





























0



xH
it-
(nat

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 





FRANK DUVENECK



went to Venice, where the two experienced al-
ternations of hardship and prosperity, most of
the time managing to exist on practically noth-
ing and enjoying themselves doing it. One year
later, I878, Duveneck was back in Munich.
Chase returned to America and connected him-
self with the Art Students' League which had
just been formed, teaching being then the only
professional work which he found profitable.
  It was the year before, as I have already said,
in the Spring exhibition of the National Acad-
emy of Design in New York, that the group of
young Americans had exhibited for the first
time together, works which, made in Munich
and Paris, were destined to produce the most
profound and far-reaching results in America's
art development. The most notable among the
exhibitors were Duveneck, Chase, Inness, and
Shirlaw. The conservative- element of the
Academy, which had been having things all its
own way up to that time, became extremely
agitated over the success of these newcomers



33

 






FRANK DUVENECK



from abroad, and especially over the fact that
the canvases of these men were given such ex-
cellent places. At once a meeting was called
and a resolution passed, that every Academi-
cian should henceforth have reserved for his
work eight feet of space on the line. While
this extreme measure was recalled later, it
certainly showed plainly the hostile attitude
towards these young painters, all of whom we
regard to-day as more or less important fac-
tors in the development of our national art.
Incidentally the National Academy's action
resulted in the forming of the " Society of
American Artists," which disbanded only a
few years ago.
  One of the sensations of this Academy Ex-
hibition proved to be Duveneck's "Turkish
Page," now in the Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts. The absolute mastery of all tech-
nical difficulties, the justness of his tonal val-
ues, and the solidity of his - I might say, wet
into wet -straightforward painting, were all



34

 




















WOMAN WITH FORGET-ME-NOTS
           i876

 
























Almost devotional in spirit, the dignity of this portrait takes us back
to the days of the great Dutch painters. Unconsciously almost we
feel Rembrandt, Rubens, and Franz Hals. She is of their company.



 

















































WOMAN WITH FORGET-ME-NOTS
           I876

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 





FRANK DUVENECK



things which had never been seen before quite
as in this canvas. The manner in which the
various textures of this ambitious arrangement
are presented is very handsome, indeed. Be-
sides the modeling and fine flesh quality of
the boy, there are the various beautifully ren-
dered accessories, like the drapery in the back
and the leopard skin in the foreground, the
metallic quality of the brass bowl and vase,
and finally the beauty of the grapes and plum-
age of the white cockatoo with wings out-
stretched and crest raised. Chase painted the
same arrangement with Duveneck, only on a
much smaller canvas; in fact, the pictures
were painted together in Chase's studio. Du-
veneck never thought his own picture quite
finished. While at work their money gave out
and both artists were hard put to pay the little
model for the sittings. The works of the other
members of the group were the same in char-
acter, inasmuch as they revealed a grasp, a
devotion to the beauty of nature, at once truth-



37

 






FRANK DUVENECK



ful, bold, and yet how fine in color and in re-
lation of light and shadow. Chase showed at
the Academy his much-discussed picture called
"The Man with the Pipe," which was a por-
trait of Duveneck.
  One of the prominent New York papers of
the year i877 made the following statement as
to Duveneck's "Turkish Page ": " Here at
last is painting for painting's sake; study for
youth's delight in study, an earnest of the day
when our artists shall be bred at home as well
as born at home, and the seal of a foreign
school, the approval of a foreign master, shall
no longer be necessary to give an American
a position among his own countrymen. Ten
years with such a start as this and we shall
send to the next exposition something better
than sewing machines and patent cow milkers;
we shall send pictures and statues that will
not be shamed by being set alongside the work
of France and England. American artists will
find at home that atmosphere which for many



38

 



















SKETCH OF A TURK
       x876

 























  In richness of warm color and admirable breadth of statement this
canvas ranks among those of Duveneck's strongest period. It was
Chase who one day picked up this picturesque figure from the streets
of Munich and, knocking on Duveneck's door, cried to him: " Come
on over, I have a Turk, - the real thing."



 

















































SKETCH OF A TURK
       I876

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 






          FRANK DUVENECK               41
years they have run abroad to seek and which
to our great loss too many of them have found
there. The Wests and Leslies, the Stewarts,
Newtons, Boughtons, and Whistlers of the
future will be content to breathe their native
air and wear home-grown laurels, nor shall we
have the shame of disputing with foreigners
over our right to call our fellow-countryman a
man, who, for the sake of foreign employment,
denies his American birth and mispronounces
his own name."



 










IV



IN the year I878 Duveneck started a school
in Munich, which became so very popular
that soon two classes had to be formed of
about thirty each, one of Americans and Eng-
lish, the other of different nationalities; and
when the desire to again see Italy took him
back to Florence at the end of the following
year (i879) fully half of his students went with
him. Thus his school was transplanted to the
banks of the Arno, and the members soon
established themselves in the social as well as
the artistic circles of Florence as the "1 Duve-
neck Boys."
  A live picture of this earnest but exuberant
group is given in W. D. Howells' story of
Florentine Life, " Indian Summer," where they
are called the " Inglehart Boys." The breezy
references to them are invested with a feeling
of interest and friendliness. One of the char-

 



















PORTRAIT OF J. FRANK CURRIER
            I876

 
























  This powerful portrait of Currier, one of the American personali-
ties in Munich at Duveneck's time there, deserves to be better known
in this country. Light is thrown on some of Currier's fervently
dashed-off impressions by the spirit of the eye;; as we note them in
this portrait.



 



















































PORTRAIT OF J. FRANK CURRIER
            1876

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 





FRANK DUVENECK



acters introduces them thus: "'They were
here all last winter and they've just got back.
It's rather exciting for Florence.' She gave a
rapid sketch of the interesting exodus of a
score of young painters from an art school at
Munich under the head of the singular and
fascinating genius by whose name they be-
came known. ' They had their own school for
a while in Munich and then they all came
down into Italy in a body. They had their stu-
dio things with them, and they traveled third
class, and had the greatest fun. They were a
sensation in Florence. They went everywhere
and were such favorites. I hope they are go-
ing to stay."' Such was the impression of
them which Howells found in Florence when
he went there the year after they had dis-
banded, and it should be remembered that the
Florence of that day was a rallying place for
the most fascinating people of Europe.
The " Duveneck Boys " stayed together for
about two years working in Florence in the



45

 






FRANK DUVENECK



winter and in Venice in the summer. Among
them were John W. Alexander, John Twacht-
man, Joseph DeCamp, Julius Rolshoven, Oliver
Dennett Grover, Otto Bacher, Theodore Wen-
del, Louis Ritter, Ross Turner, Harper Pen-
nington, Charles Forbes, George E. Hopkins,
Julian Story, Charles E. Mills, Albert Rein-
hart, Charles H. Freeman, Henry Rosenberg,
John 0. Anderson, Charles Abel Corwin, and
others. Oliver Dennett Grover, the youngest
of the group, in speaking about his colleagues
said that the advice of John Twachtman, of
the Cincinnati contingent, one of the older
ones, whose knowledge was wider, was ap-
preciated next to that of the " Old Man," as
they lovingly denominated Duveneck. Then
he continued: " Joseph DeCamp was just
plain I Joe' in those days, the breeziest, cheek-
iest, most warm-hearted Bohemian in Venice.
Full of life, energy, and ambition, he worked
unceasingly and gave and took many a hard
knock. Rolshoven too was endowed by nature



46

 


















RED-HAIRED MAN WITH RUFF
           I876

 
























This head recalls Rubens. It is full of character, stro