Ohio History Journal

COLLECTIONS AND EXHIBITS                   255

thirty-six of which were subsequently pur-

chased for distribution. Because of the

reputation achieved by these and other

Cincinnati artists, such as Godfrey Frank-

enstein and Robert Duncanson, the Queen

City was known as a center of landscape

painting by 1850.

Although much contemporaneous criti-

cism charged the American Art-Union

with favoritism and other malpractices,

nearly eight hundred paintings by more

than a hundred artists had been purchased

by 1848. Of these artists, twenty-three

were associated with Ohio; certainly a

distinguished record for a state which

only recently had progressed from the

pioneer stage.

The Western Art Union, which had been

founded in Cincinnati in 1847, continually

increased in membership, and the fine arts

prospered in a manner previously un-

known in the city's history. Charles Cist,

completing a survey of local artists in

1851, summarized the situation in this

statement:

In gathering these facts and dates,

a general visit was paid to the pro-

fessional studios in Cincinnati, and

the gratifying admission was every-

where made by the artists, that they

had employment ample in its extent,

and remunerative in its character;

some of them acknowledging, that

more commissions were offered than

they could possibly undertake to

execute.4

That the artists were so well patronized

was especially significant considering the

progressive shift of emphasis from por-

traiture to landscape and genre subjects.

It is notable that William L. Sonntag,

then at the peak of his career in Cincin-

nati, was painting landscape subjects ex-

clusively and scarcely keeping up with

demand. Nonetheless, the market for por-

traiture continued and many artists were

painting portraits in Cincinnati during

these years.

George W. White's portrait of an un-

known young woman in the Ohio Histori-

cal Society's collection is a good example

of midwestern local painting of the pre-

war period. Born in Oxford, Ohio, in

1826, White had received his first instruc-

tion from Dr. Samuel S. Walker, a physi-

cian and artist of Hamilton.⁵ In 1843

he tried to establish himself in Cincinnati,

but being only seventeen and lacking

experience, his work was not well received.

After other employment and traveling

with a minstrel show for a few years, he

returned to Cincinnati in 1847 to share a

studio with William Sonntag. Sonntag

had not yet attracted public attention,

and both young artists had to augment

their professional income by decorating

omnibuses and railroad cars and paint-

ing stage scenery. In 1848 White painted

a picture of Hiram Powers' statue "The

Greek Slave" which was much lauded and

which established his reputation. His work

enjoyed popularity in Cincinnati, Oxford,

and Hamilton, in which last place he

lived after 1857. Despite highly praised

portraits of Edwin Forrest, Julia Dean,

and other leading people, White was

virtually unknown outside that area.

White's training and background con-

trast sharply with that of John Cranch,

who had come to Cincinnati in 1839. John

was the older brother of Christopher

Pearse Cranch and had been born in

Washington, D. C., in 1807. A graduate

of Columbian College, Cranch received

painting instruction from Charles Bird

King, Chester Harding, and Thomas

Sully, then studied in Italy from 1830 to

1834.6 After working in New York City

for a short time, he moved to Cincinnati,

where his training and prestige were re-

sponsible for his election in 1840 to the

presidency of the section of fine arts of

the Society for the Promotion of Useful

Knowledge.

When Cranch exhibited sixteen paint-

ings in 1842, his works included portraits

of Charles Dickens, William Henry Chan-

ning, and the artists James H. Beard,

B. W. Jenks, and Clement R. Edwards.

He also exhibited allegorical and literary

subjects.⁷ During his six years in Cin-

cinnati, Cranch exercised considerable in-

fluence on other painters, but in 1845 he

returned to the East.

Another artist of equally short resi-

dence, but even greater influence, was

Minor Kilbourne Kellogg. Although half

of his adult life was spent abroad, Kellogg

always maintained close ties with friends

in Cincinnati. His ability as a painter and

his extensive travels and studies made

COLLECTIONS AND EXHIBITS                    259

In Cincinnati, Cridland studied with

James H. Beard and rapidly gained

stature as a portrait artist. He painted

many theatrical people, including John

McCullough, Mary Anderson, Edwin

Booth, and Alvin A. Read. After wide-

spread success, a scandalous love affair

ruined his reputation and caused an emo-

tional imbalance from which he never

recovered.13

The careers of the two Walcutt

brothers, William and David, have happier

endings. Both were successful portrait

painters in Columbus prior to going to

Cincinnati. William Walcutt, who moved

to the Queen City in 1844, continued to

be very successful in portrait work but

found himself drawn to sculpture. In 1849

he moved to New York and in 1852 went

abroad to study in London and Paris.

Shortly after his return in 1855, he was

commissioned to execute the Perry Monu-

ment at Cleveland.

David Walcutt, who learned portrait

painting from his older brother William,

was only twenty-one in 1846 when he

joined his brother in the Queen City.

Earlier he had achieved professional

status in Columbus. Five years later,

when Cist published a long list of Cincin-

natians who owned his paintings, the num-

ber of patrons attested to his popularity

as a portraitist.14 In 1850 David worked

with his brother in New York but soon

returned to Cincinnati. In 1858 he traveled

in Europe. Several of his portraits of

public officials now hang in the Ohio state-

house in Columbus.

While painters in Cincinnati were en-

joying great prosperity, artists in other

parts of the state were still finding it

necessary to travel to keep fully employed.

The wealth from commerce and industry

along the Ohio River could support many

cultural activities which the rest of the

state, being less heavily populated, could

not. Artists tended to follow the main

routes of commerce and usually planned

their tours to end in Cincinnati or Pitts-

burgh. Marietta, a midpoint between the

two cities, was a popular port of call for

artists going up or down the river.

During the middle of the century, two

artists, Sala Bosworth and Charles Sul-

livan, maintained studios in Marietta, al-

though both periodically traveled through

the southeastern part of the state. Lilly

Martin Spencer also began her career

there as a child protege of the two paint-

ers before she went to Cincinnati.

Both Bosworth and Sullivan studied

painting in Philadelphia for about one

year, the former at the academy and the

latter with Thomas Sully. Despite this

training neither artist completely lost the

native primitive quality inherent in his

early work, although Bosworth showed

marked improvement through the years.

His strong, accomplished portraits

brought many commissions in Marietta,

Zanesville, Columbus, Circleville, Chilli-

cothe, and Athens, while his landscapes

excelled those of most competitors. Shortly

before the Civil War, Bosworth's sight

began to fail. He continued to paint on a

limited basis but had to turn to public

service for a means of livelihood.

Sullivan's major interest was landcape

painting, but he too did many portraits,

especially during winter trips through

Tennessee and Georgia. A large number

of his landscapes of the Muskingum Val-

ley and pictures of local residents are to

be found in the collection of the Campus

Martius Museum at Marietta.

On their trips to Zanesville, Bosworth

and Sullivan faced strong competition in

James F. Barton, a local artist who began

painting in 1842. Barton had the advan-

tage of studying at the National Academy

for sixteen months and was a capable

painter. Portraits were his forte, al-

though he occasionally did landscapes.

Artists who traveled north from Zanes-

ville and Columbus had difficulty in find-

ing commissions until they reached the

settled communities of the Western Re-

serve. The northwest part of the state

developed slowly and frontier conditions

prevailed in that area until shortly before

the Civil War. Cleveland, the largest city

in northern Ohio, could boast only six

thousand people in 1840. Nonetheless,

hopeful itinerants crisscrossed the central

and northern part of the state in complex

patterns of travel, distributing their

works over widespread areas. As might

be expected, their paintings often re-

sembled the primitive works produced

earlier along the Ohio River.

The Rev. Robert Hanna, who visited

Cleveland during this period, is here men-

262                                OHIO HISTORY

subjects in addition to portraits and genre.

Today his works are found in leading

museums across the country and in many

Cleveland homes.

Because water transportation provided

easy means of travel between Detroit and

Cleveland, the majority of artists in the

area sought commissions in both cities at

one time or another. Alonzo Pease was

one of many painters who traveled back

and forth. While in Cleveland he painted

Joshua R. Giddings and several other

notable citizens of the Western Reserve.

Surveying the field of painting in Ohio

one hundred years after these artists

were working, one cannot fail to be im-

pressed by their ubiquitous nature.

Equally astounding is the number of men

who depended on painting as a means of

livelihood while central and northern Ohio

were still in the process of being settled.

Two factors may have encouraged this

unique cultural development.

The market for painting may be attrib-

uted to the character of the founders of

Ohio. These were not all rough, illiterate

frontiersmen who established isolated out-

posts in the wilderness; rather, they were

substantial New Englanders, Virginians,

and others of good educational background

and some means. They had been accus-

tomed to well-designed furniture, silver

craftsmanship, and wall decorations in

their former homes, and their families

were taught to respect and enjoy such

heirlooms.

Secondly, the established settlers, espe-

cially the second generation, felt compelled

to have a portrait or painting in the fam-

ily as a symbol of the luxury and culture

so frequently lacking in the utilitarian

furnishings of the home. Undoubtedly

there were other influences contributing

to the demand for paintings, but, in any

case, it is significant that more than three

hundred and sixty professional artists

worked in Ohio prior to the Civil War.

THE AUTHOR: Donald R. MacKenzie

is chairman of the department of art at

the College of Wooster. This is the third

in a series of articles he has written on

early Ohio painters that is based on the

painting collection at the Ohio Historical

Society. The first article, "The Itinerant

Artist in Early Ohio," appeared in the

Winter 1964 issue and the second, "Early

Ohio Painters: Cincinnati, 1830-1850,"

appeared in the Spring 1964 issue.