[Rarebooks] Scarce 1893 work on Maine artists

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

Simpson, Corelli C.W. "LEAFLETS OF ARTISTS"

Bangor; John H. Bacon: 1893.

A scarce little compilation of short essays about late 19th century
Bangor, Maine-area artists. The biographies are anecdotal in tone and
scope, having mainly been written by friends or relatives of the artists.
The book, taken as a whole, shows a close-knit artistic community during
the Victorian era when learning to draw and paint was considered a proper
talent, especially for young women.

The men and women who found commercial success often became teachers
themselves, and foremost among them on the Bangor art scene were the
members of the Hardy family. The first artist treated is the noted
portrait and genre painter Jeremiah Pearson Hardy, along with his daughter
Anna E. Hardy and his sister, Mary Ann Hardy. Jeremiah Hardy, known for
his fine portraits, including those of local Indians, was also a genre
painter who is popular these days among fisherman for his whimsical "The
Fishing Lesson", and was the subject of a 1999 exhibition at the Bangor
Historical Society. His daughter Anna was a painter and teacher who
tutored many of the other artists listed in this book.

Also included here are -

-Walter F. Lansil, a noted Marine painter who kept a studio in Boston and
was known for his luminous atmospheric effects;

-Wilbur Lansil, younger brother of Walter, who kept a studio in
Dorchester, Mass. and specialized in livestock portraits;

-Frederick A. Shaw, at the time a popular sculptor who invented
"translucent sculpture" in marble, which he patented, and had his work
exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair;

-George Savary Wasson, a successful Marine artist whose works are in the
Mystic Seaport Museum and Peabody Museum of Salem, and who was also a
popular short story writer;

-Mary Hammatt (who, though it is not noted here, taught drawing at Frank
Sanborn's co-educational school in Concord, Massachusetts around the time
Thoreau would take the students there fishing and huckleberrying);

-Sarah J. Prentiss, a talented artist and author who, during the Civil
War, traveled South to care for sick and wounded Union soldiers in
Southern prison hospitals;

-genre painter George Edward Dale, who studied in the studio of Thomas
Hicks and traveled the galleries of Europe but had a weak constitution and
died at the age of 33;

-Isabel Graham Eaton, who along with Mary Ann Hardy and Anna Eliza Hardy
was the focus of the 1999 Bangor Historical Society exhibition: "The Hardy
Connection: Bangor Women Artists 1830-1900";

-Phebe A. Wood, Mary Ella Merrill and Nellie M. Lincoln, pupils of Anna
Hardy- Wood was a watercolorist and Lincoln took up china painting to
great acclaim and commercial success;

-Marion Mitchell, who painted, wrote and made forest crafts;

-Florence E. Buzzell, who studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts school
and was adept with both charcoal and oils, and also china-painting;

-Helena Wood Smith, an amateur landscape painter;

-Marian Hammatt Rideout, who studied in New York and worked as an art
teacher in Kansas.

An interesting, informal peek into the world of an American arts community
of the Victorian era. OCLC locates 17 copies of this edition, but it seems
scarcer on the commercial market than that would suggest. A second, much
scarcer edition was published in 1894 which included a half-dozen
additional amateur artists. Hardcover. 5.5"x7", 59 pages, portrait
frontispiece; light cover soil; bookplate. [05245] $125.00


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