Date: Fri 09-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Chew-Formicola-Penn-Academy

Full Text:

NANTUCKET SECTION: The Remarkable Instructors At Penn Academy

By Chew & Formicola

Chew and Formicola have long had a specialty in the work of artists who were

on the faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

Since its founding in 1805 by Charles Willson Peale, the academy has had a

succession of distinguished faculty who have influenced generations of

artists.

The academy, established by artists to teach art, had many of the greatest

names in American painting on its teaching roster. Thomas Eakins, the first

PAFA student to become a teacher, was its guiding force through the 1870s and

80s. Upon his dismissal in 1886, his student, Thomas Anschutz, succeeded the

master, who adhered strictly to the European atelier system instituted by

Eakins.

Also on faculty at that time were William Merritt Chase, Charles Grafly and

Cecelia Beaux. Former student Daniel Garber was hired to teach painting in

1909, followed soon by another American Impressionist, Robert Vonnoh. A

staunch supporter of the Nineteenth Century aesthetic values, Garber remained

steadfastly a realist in the face of pressure from Carles, Marin, Seeler and

Demuth to move toward more contemporary expression. Faye Swengel said of

Garber: "He was the heart of the place, the strong and steady center of the

school." However, he could reduce women students to tears with his acerbic

commentary such as: "Can you cook? Since you can't draw, you'd better learn

how to cook."

Fellow faculty members early in the Twentieth Century were Arthur B. Carles

and Hugh Henry Breckenridge, the two leading proponents of modernism at the

academy. Carles was in constant struggle against the highly conservative

principles of the academy and his Philadelphia patrons.

His trips to Paris from 1907-1913 introduced him to the energy and color of

Matisse and the Fauves. When he joined the PAFA faculty in 1917, students

flocked to hear his lectures on constructing a painting through the use of

brilliant fauvist color. In his own work, Carles' style became increasingly

abstract and his floral still lifes seem to burst explosively from the canvas.

The great teacher of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hoffman, would take a day

train from NY to Carles' studio in Philadelphia. They would discuss Carles'

theories on color and abstraction and then Hoffman would return to the city at

night to impart the essence of the day's conversations to his students at the

Art Students League. Hoffman was so impressed by Carles' work that he once

recommended his own painting be withdrawn at an exhibition at the Museum of

Modern Art and a work of Carles' shown in its place. Hoffman believed that

Carles was a major figure in American Art, stating once, "He had the courage

to try things no one else was doing... and if he'd bee able to go on, no one

would have been greater."

The twice-divorced Carles had a loyal following of adoring young women and

lived a drunken and riotous lifestyle. Although he was dismissed from the

academy in 1925 for being constantly inebriated and missing many classes,

Carles was eventually recognized as a pioneer in modern art in the city and

through the country.

Hugh Breckenridge taught for 43 years at PAFA beginning in 1894. He had

studied in Paris with Bougereau and brought home with him the classical

training that later translated into Impressionist landscapes and solidly

modelled figural portraits. It was not until the 1920s that Breckenridge

renounced the academic vein and plunged into intense color and total

abstraction.

Two of his notable students were Charles Demuth and Ralston Crawford. His

reputation was firmly established when the academy gave Breckenridge a one-man

show of 53 works in 1904. His passion for color and exploration into the

abstract put Breckenridge and Carles in the opposite camp to Garber and the

traditionalists.

A student at the academy from 1913-1918, Franklin Watkins joined the faculty

in 1920. Characterized as one of the most original and forceful painters for

the period, Watkins was strongly influenced by Cezanne, Picasso and Derain.

His most famous painting, "Suicide in Costume," won first prize in the

Carnegie International in 1927. Watkins was a gifted teacher, communicating

solid classical, painterly principles to his students, whom he taught until

his death in 1972.

Francis Speight, son of a Southern Baptist preacher, brought his love of the

effects of sun and shadow on the rich red earth of North Carolina to his

Philadelphia studio. Speight ventured north to study at the academy under

Garber. He plunged into drawing the human figure from plaster casts of great

European marble statues and was soon promoted to A.B. Carles' sketch class,

and to drawing and painting with Philip Hale and portraiture with Hugh

Breckenridge.

Speight remained at the Academy as Garber's assistant. His career as

instructor in drawing, painting, and portraiture spanned a total of 52 years.

In his own work, Manayunk was a favorite theme. With its rich mosaic of light

and shadow dramatically reflected off colorful facades along its hilly

streets, he made an intensely personal statement in which one can see his

acknowledged spiritual kinship to Sloan and Bellows, Burchfield and Hopper.

Another son of North Carolina to make deep and lasting impressions on

generations of PAFA students was Hobson Pittman. Born in Tarboro, he came to

Pennsylvania at the age of 20. He attended both the Carnegie Institute and the

Woodstock Art School and then went to Europe and studied with Watters, Heckman

and Rosenthal. He began his teaching career at Friends Central School in 1931.

He joined the PAFA faculty in 1949 and exerted great influence on a generation

of devoted students.

A master of two different media, oil and watercolor, Pittman painted enigmatic

scenes in which vast interiors merged with deeply shadowed gardens, and table

tops displayed graceful cloths with bright bouquets of flowers. There was

always the suggestion of a warm summer breeze uniting interior and exterior

into a single space.

Pittman's palette became significantly lighter and more delicate in the late

1940s and he remained infinitely romantic. Although this elegant gentleman was

a modernist in spirit, he never forsook realism entirely.

Walter Steumpfig studied at the Academy in the early 1930s. On his Cresson

Travelling Scholarship, Steumpfig "inhaled" the art of his heroes Corot,

Poussin and Caravaggio. His studies enhanced his commitment to his own

distinctly personal, American voice "through which to speak the language of

the Old Masters." Like Speight, Steumpfig was called a romantic realist with a

kinship to Edward Hopper. He focused his attention on the local environs of

the Pennsylvania countryside, the New Jersey seashore, and the sad, seedy

beauty of the urban landscape.

His first one-man show at Durlacher in New York was a sell out and Steumpfig's

career was launched. He bought Carles' Philadelphia studio in 1946 and two

years later joined the academy faculty as instructor in drawing and

composition, a position he held for 22 years. A general critic, he felt it was

his mission to carry out the standards and traditions of Eakins, Anschutz,

Carles and McCarter. Devotion to teaching was a favorite theme in his own

work, often depicting a solitary studio interior and the intimate relationship

of artist and model. An even more powerful theme for Steumpfig was the

solitary, contemplative nature of the individual in which figures were shown

as isolated from one another even in group situations.

At the same time, Julius Bloch was painting his fellow human beings with much

empathy and personal involvement. German-born, Bloch's 15 year career at the

Academy began in 1947. A small, sad-eyed man, he was a keen observer of the

world, especially focused on the plight of the downtrodden. He painted

portraits of Marian Anderson and black folk artist Horace Pippin. With the

election of Roosevelt came the WPA, where artists were supported by Federal

programs. Mrs Roosevelt selected Bloch's "The Young American" for display at

the White House and the Corcoran Gallery purchased "The Striker" for its

collection.

Bloch travelled to Greece and Italy every summer. During the 1950s and 60s,

his formerly somber tones gave way to the vivid colors of the Mediterranean

and his brushwork took on the form of broken patches of color showing the

influence of mosaic tiles. His work is in the permanent collection of the

Mermitage Museum, Moscow.

These were remarkable individuals who led the faculty at the Pennsylvania

Academy of the Fine Arts for over 100 years. Each one gave in his own measure

an abundance of principals, theories, constructs, techniques, and most deeply,

spirituality, on which succeeding generations of artists have built their own

careers and gone on to support or to shatter the old traditions, just as their

teachers did before them.

Kendall Chew and John Formicola deal in paintings and miniature furniture in

Rosemont, Pa.