Ohio History Journal

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COLLECTIONS

COLLECTIONS

AND

EXHIBITS

EARLY

OHIO

PAINTERS:

THE PREWAR YEARS

by DONALD R. MacKENZIE

HIGHER standards in painting character-

ized the pre-Civil War period of art in

Ohio. Improved transportation encour-

aged artists to travel, and almost every

painter visited New York, frequently tour-

ing Boston and Philadelphia as well.

There, they had the opportunity to see a

limited number of imported European

paintings and a variety of notable Amer-

ican works. Most established painters who

desired it were able to manage a trip to

the European art capitals. Such tours

were often financed by prepaid commis-

sions on future paintings or specific com-

missions to copy Renaissance masterpieces.

The latter practice, although criticized by

people today, served a useful purpose in

the period before widespread use of the

camera and colored illustrations. It ex-

posed both the artist and the wealthy

patron to the more sophisticated subjects

and styles of European art.

The results of such travel and study

show in the more competent handling of

materials and a better grasp of the prin-

ciples of art. While many "potboilers"

continued to be produced for profit, por-

traits often were good likenesses, creating

an illusion of organized three-dimensional

NOTES ARE ON PAGE 272

space. Other subject matter in American

painting progressively changed, encour-

aged by the art union movement. Histori-

cal and literary subjects, which had been

looked upon as "higher branches" of

painting, were displaced by landscape and

genre scenes.

Few people today realize the tremen-

dous influence which art unions exerted

at that time on painting in America. The

full effects can be recognized only when

one considers that in 1849 the American

Art-Union in New York alone expended

a larger sum for the purchase of paintings

than all other patrons in America com-

bined.1  This influence is further shown

by the statement of George C. Bingham,

who admitted he produced his many genre

paintings only at the request of the Amer-

ican Art-Union. Without its assistance, he

said, he would not have attempted such a

subject.2 Ohio's most famous woman

artist, Lilly Martin Spencer, also produced

and sold many genre scenes to both the

American and Western art unions.3

Worthington Whittredge, William Sonn-

tag, and Benjamin McConkey, all of Cin-

cinnati, were encouraged by the American

Art-Union to paint regional landscapes,