Thomas Hovenden

Thomas Hovenden
Thomas Hovenden in 1895
BornDecember 28, 1840 (1840-12-28)
Dunmanway, County Cork, Ireland
DiedAugust 14, 1895(1895-08-14) (aged 54)
Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, United States
EducationCork School of Design
National Academy of Design
École des Beaux Arts under Cabanel
Known forPainting
Notable workThe Last Moments of John Brown (1884)
Breaking Home Ties (1890)
SpouseHelen Corson Hovenden

Thomas Hovenden (December 28, 1840 – August 14, 1895) was an Irish-born painter and teacher who spent most of his life in the United States. He painted historical works, domestic scenes and narrative subjects, some depicting African Americans.

Biography

Hovenden was born in Dunmanway, County Cork, Ireland.[1] His parents died at the time of the Great Famine and he was placed in an orphanage at the age of six. Apprenticed to a carver and gilder, he studied at the Cork School of Design.

In 1863, he immigrated to the United States. He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City.[1] He moved to Baltimore in 1868 and then left for Paris in 1874. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts under Cabanel, but spent most of his time with the American art colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany led by Robert Wylie, where he painted many pictures of the peasantry.[1]

Returning to America in 1880, he became a member of the Society of American Artists and was elected an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1881[1] (elected an Academician in 1882).

He married Helen Corson in 1881, an artist he had met in Pont-Aven, and settled at her late parents' homestead in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. She came from a family of abolitionists, and their house had been a stop on the Underground Railroad. An addition to the barn was known as "Abolition Hall," and had been built to house anti-slavery lectures and meetings.[2] Thomas Hovenden made Abolition Hall his studio.

Hovenden was commissioned by Mr. Robbins Battell of Norfolk, Connecticut, to paint a historical picture of the executed abolitionist leader John Brown. Hovenden's The Last Moments of John Brown (1884), is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He also painted a two-thirds replica, that is in the collection of the de Young Museum in San Francisco.[3]

Hovenden's Breaking Home Ties (1890), a picture of American family life, caused a sensation at the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois.[4] It was engraved with considerable popular success.[1]

In 1886, he was appointed Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, replacing Thomas Eakins who was dismissed due to his use of nude models. Among Hovenden's students were the sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder and the leader of the Ashcan School, Robert Henri.

Hovenden was killed in August 1895, along with a ten-year-old girl, by a railroad locomotive at an unguarded crossing near Plymouth Meeting. Newspaper accounts reported that his death was the result of a heroic effort to push the girl out of the path of the train.[1] A coroner's inquest determined his death to have been an accident.[2]

A Pennsylvania state historical marker in Plymouth Meeting interprets Abolition Hall and Hovenden.[5] Hovenden House, Barn and Abolition Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.[6] He is buried across the street in the cemetery of the Plymouth Friends Meetinghouse.[7]

  • Hovenden House, Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. He lived here from his marriage in 1881 to his death in 1895.
  • Hovenden turned Abolition Hall into his studio.

Selected works

  • Self-Portrait of the Artist in His Studio, 1875, Yale University Art Gallery
  • Image Seller, 1876, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • News from the Conscript, 1877
  • Loyalist Peasant Soldier of La Vendée, 1877
  • A Breton Interior, 1793, 1878, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • In Hoc Signo Vinces, 1880, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
  • The Old Version, 1881, San Francisco Museum of Fine Art
  • The Revised Version, 1881, National Academy of Design, New York City
  • Sunday Morning, 1881, San Francisco Museum of Fine Art
  • Chloe and Sam, 1882, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
  • Dem Was Good Ole Times, 1882, oil on canvas, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia
  • Death of Elaine,[8] 1882, Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
  • The Last Moments of John Brown, 1884, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art
    • The Last Moments of John Brown, c.1884, oil on canvas, de Young Museum, San Francisco. A 2/3-size replica.[9]
  • Taking His Ease, 1885, San Francisco Museum of Fine Art
  • I Know'd It Was Ripe, 1885, Brooklyn Museum
  • Their Pride, 1888, Union League Club of New York
  • Breaking Home Ties, 1890, Philadelphia Museum of Art
  • Where the Robins Sing (1890), Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia[10]
  • Bringing Home the Bride, 1893, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Jerusalem the Golden, 1894, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrayal of African Americans

Hovenden taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. One of his students was Henry Ossawa Tanner, an African American who was possibly one of the first Black students to attend the school. Tanner would be famous for painting two images of African Americans, different for portraying them with dignity. These were The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor.

Among Hovenden's works was a series of portraits of two elderly African Americans. His images were different than many made by his contemporaries, because he showed the Black couple as having a sense of dignity, rather than being caricatures.[11] However, he has also been accused of portraying African Americans from a superior point-of-view, the images showing people content in their poverty.[11]

  • Sunday Morning (1881), de Young Museum, San Francisco
  • Contentment (1881), Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia
  • Chloe and Sam (1882), Amon Carter Museum.
  • Old Man with Banjo (1882). Appears to be "Sam" from Chloe and Sam
  • Dem Was Good Ole Times (1882), Chrysler Museum of Art
  • I Know'd It Was Ripe (c.1885), Brooklyn Museum
  • Their Pride [The Bride on Her Wedding Day] (1888), Union League Club of New York

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hovenden, Thomas" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 829.
  2. ^ a b Thomas Hovenden: American Painter of Hearth and Homeland, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, 1995. ISBN 1-888008-00-8.
  3. ^ Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stoeckel in 1897. Accession Number 97.5. Mrs. Stoeckel was Mr. Battell's daughter.
  4. ^ [ Breaking Home Ties,] from Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  5. ^ Abolition Hall marker
  6. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  7. ^ "National Historic Landmarks & National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania". CRGIS: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System. Archived from the original (Searchable database) on 2007-07-21. Retrieved 2012-05-26. Note: This includes Helen Reichart Mirras (December 1969). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Plymouth Friends Meetinghouse" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2012-05-24.
  8. ^ Schantz, Michael. "Thomas Hovenden: American Painter of Hearth and Homeland". Traditional Fine Arts Organization. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  9. ^ The Last Moments of John Brown, from SIRIS.
  10. ^ Where the Robins Sing, from Woodmere Art Museum
  11. ^ a b Albert Boime (September 1993). "Henry Ossawa Tanner's Subversion of Genre". The Art Bulletin. 75 (3): 419. Although Hovenden treated African-Americans with more dignity and sympathy than most previous white genre painters, such as example as Sunday Morning depicts an elderly black couple apparently content amid their dilapidated surroundings and tattered clothing...the joke...is on them as they betray satisfaction with their conspicuously inferior lot...
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