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About Robert Reid
Two members of the group known as *the Ten — Robert Reid and *Edward Simmons — were primarily muralists. Reid was a charming cosmopolitan artist and more successful in his attempts to juggle the style and conception of the classical mural tradition with that of impressionism. In his "digestion" of impressionism Reid was able to settle upon a distinctive and personal style. He chose a variety of subjects for his easel paintings; however, his large canvases of stereotypical fin-de-siècle American women integrated into a rambling maze of colorful flowers constitutes his most popular and widely recognized imagery. This work prompted critic *Sadakichi Hartmann to describe Reid as "the poet of frivolity." In the same vein, Henry W. Goodrich observed that Reid’s "work is marked by a certain lyrical quality, the song and the joy and the beauty of the world out of doors, the sunlight, the delicate and subtle coloring, the moods of the hours." Moreover, Reid did not live to see the "death" of representational art in America, so during most of his career, his canvases were sought after and highly regarded by the art community at large. In 1918, one writer reported: "No painter of modern times is more renowned as the beau ideal of the cosmopolitan artistic type respected in the studios for his discernment and ability, welcome in the drawing rooms for his grace and wit and charm of manner." This indulgent appraisal was not to be remembered; indeed, had the artist not been a member of *the Ten, it is possible that his rare works and reputation would have disappeared to an even greater extent than it has to date. It seems there are few canvases for dealers to rediscover.
Robert Reid was born in New England in the summer of 1862 when President Lincoln presented the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. And although this historic document and events of the Civil War did not greatly influence Robert’s life, as the son of Louisa Dwight and of Jared
Reid, both descendants of old Massachusetts families, tradition and history were an important part of his education. Reid’s father was the founder of Edward Place School for Boys. Even the academic element in Reid’s painting remained an important influence throughout his career, as has been pointed out. Robert was under the tutorship of his father until 1878 when "severe financial reverses" forced Mr. Reid to abandon teaching for employment as a shoe salesman. From this point onward, Robert lived with his parents and relatives in various places, according to the Robert Reid Papers: Andover (where he attended the Phillips Academy), Hartford, and Westfield, Connecticut.
Reid progressed rapidly at the *School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from the time he enrolled in 1880. He and
his associates *Edmund Tarbell and *Frank W. Benson were guided in their studies by the department head *Otto Grundmann, who took both Tarbell and Reid under his wing. Reid also took instruction from *Frederic Crowninshield. Robert’s studies were based on the disciplined procedures of the European academies: drawing from plaster casts, then live models, as well as practice in portraiture. Related studies were available and encouraged. Even as a beginning student, Robert was enthusiastic in his pursuit of an art career. After approximately one year at the school, he reportedly sold some of his work, but also he was given the position of "assistant instructor," which helped to provide tuition. Soon he founded and acted as editor of The Art Student, a school publication with notes, editorials, and even reproductions, issued between 1882 and 1884. Reid demonstrated a surprising degree of professional maturity in his editorial reviews, which showed carefully worked criticisms, and in his reports on the exhibition of paintings in the Boston Museum.
With Tarbell and Benson already in Europe, the tone of the School changed and in the winter of 1884, Reid took leave of Boston to enroll in the *Art Students League of New York. Less than one year’s training there satisfied him; then in the fall of 1885 he was preparing to sail for Europe. In Paris, Reid joined the rank of countless Americans at the *Académie Julian. Although little is known of his first year there, Reid probably took part in the two-phase study program, consisting of sketching from the live model in charcoal and weekly outside assignments (theme and composition), which required independent study in the Louvre and in other museums. In these academic pursuits, Reid was guided by *Gustave Boulanger and *Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. Following the trend, Reid spent the summer of 1886 in Normandy (Etaples) where he would return until 1889. *Eugene Vail, *Louis Paul Dessar, *Ernest L. Major, and others were painting there. During this period in his career, Reid divided his attention between figurative studies and *plein-air landscape painting. He was anxious to know other parts of Europe, so after almost two years of formal and independent study in France, he traveled to Italy and recorded his sojourn in diary-style letters to his sister in Brooklyn. Reid was most fascinated by Venice for the quality of light and for the masterpieces of Veronese and Tintoretto but he also enjoyed Florence, Rome, and Naples. Reid returned to Paris for the spring Salon of 1887 and was encouraged by his professors to submit his painting Une première communcante (unlocated), which was accepted and even illustrated in the Salon catalogue. Working again at Etaples, Reid maintained a rigorous work schedule and concentrated on religious themes rather than on local *genre. He employed landscape only as a background to a religious or historical subject. Another such work was The Flight into Egypt (unlocated), which was accepted for the Salon of 1888; it suggests that Reid may have been responding to French Symbolism. He intended that his European sojourn was meant to prepare him for his American debut as a professional artist. After returning home in the summer of 1889, Reid exhibited a typical Salon-like painting, Death of the First Born or Her First Born (Brooklyn Museum), which gained him membership in the *Society of American Artists. The painting shows considerable improvement over La première communicante, which has an uninteresting composition. Here, by contrast, a monumental figure of a seated woman fills the visual field in a grand manner. Once Reid settled in New York, he began to show his works. Between 1889 and 1913, Reid exhibited at the *Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At that time, the influence of the impressionist aesthetic became evident. His Reverie, signed and dated 1890 (Manoogian Collection), suggested to Gerdts a kinship to *Theodore Robinson’s impressionism, in "the patchy brushwork, dappled sunlight, and bright but somewhat restricted palette. . . ." In the same year, he painted a Vision of Saint Angela d’Agnant, in which the vision
occurs en *plein air. The canvas was exhibited at the *World’s Columbian Exposition later in 1893. His experiments with impressionistic easel painting were interrupted by the lucrative appeal of *mural painting. In New York, Reid made the acquaintance of *Stanford White, an outstanding American architect, who gave him a commission to decorate his Imperial Hotel (1894). His execution of an unfortunately static mural at the Chicago World’s Fair, in one of the eight domes of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, where he worked with Simmons and *J. Alden Weir, nevertheless gained him high praise, a master artist’s medal, and served as an important step on the high ladder of future mural commissions. Around this time (by 1893), Reid became an instructor at the *Cooper Union and would soon teach at the Art Students League (1893-96).
Here we wish to suspend our usual chronological progression to consider Reid’s activities as a mural painter. Reid painted murals in hotels and churches, such as The Martyrdom of St. Paul in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City, which Hiesinger calls "the first ‘impressionistic’ painting to adorn an American public building;" in the Library of Congress (1897); in the New York Appellate Division Court House (1899); and in the American Pavilion’s exterior niche at the *Paris Universal Exposition of 1900. For his murals, Reid and his colleague Simmons used various styles, unlike *Kenyon Cox and others who invariably employed a dry Renaissance classicism or a "Second Empire Baroque" style. The Five Senses in the Library of Congress approximates the sumptuous figures of Alphonse Mucha and his elegant use of flowing, Art Nouveau contours. For the murals at the Palace of the Fine Arts at the *Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, Reid invented stunning, highly decorative linear motifs. Hamilton Wright described them as:
"...inspiring panels . . . they seem as almost indescribable bits of color, with traceries as delicate as the weavings of a spider’s web, and designs as fantastic as, but far more beautiful than those ever executed by the most cunning of ancient Chinese goldsmiths. "
On the other hand, some were critical of any non-classical mural painting. *Eugen Neuhaus called Reid’s San Francisco panels "too involved in their turbulent compositions" and hinted they were undignified. Most of all, he felt that impressionism did not work when viewed from such a distance. Earlier, Reid used a more illustrative style, for the murals in the State House in Boston (1904); Paul Revere’s Ride is one of the panels there. In the murals and in later work in stained glass, Reid demonstrated an outstanding versatility as an artist. One writer remarked, "There was something superb in the way this young man attacked vast wall surfaces or turned his energies to securing richly translucent effects from stained glass." Reid also accepted commissions for windows in the H. H. Rogers Memorial Church.
In the realm of easel painting, Reid depicted female figures out-of-doors in compositions that have been called essentially decorative. Unfortunately, few of these remain extant. He was given his first one-man exhibition at the Pratt Institute in 1896. There he showed A Summer Girl (Sewell C. Biggs Collection), a somewhat haughty young woman seated on a porch railing, seen from below. Her clothing is entirely conceived in shades of purple. Reid received a Clark Prize in 1897 from the *National Academy of Design (and their Hallgarten Prize in the following year). That December of 1897, Reid took part in the secession from the Society of American Artists, and joined the group known as the Ten. Reid was quoted in the Commercial Advertiser (14 January 1898) as follows: "We are not nearly so dangerous as the public is trying to make out. We haven’t any wonderful ideas of elevating art or founding a school or educating the public. . . ." The Ten’s first exhibition was held at *Durand-Ruel’s New York gallery in 1898. Reid submitted the first of his characteristically large works depicting women in gardens, surrounded by flowers. Among the works exhibited there were Gladiolus, The Trio (The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts), and Breezy Day (Private collection), a three-quarter-length woman standing against a summer sky. Reid considered the exhibitions of the Ten to be "rather routine forums for casual contributions." The artist seemed to enjoy the act of painting in the joyous, impressionistic manner with spontaneous brushwork. *Sadakichi Hartmann was responsible for describing Reid as a "decorative Impressionist." Before about 1910, when Reid turned to interiors with Oriental furnishings, the artist presented one basic theme, inspired by women and flowers. He attempted to unify these motifs by reference to the traditional comparison of floral beauty — the blooming flower — to its human counterpart. Clearly, Reid perpetuated America’s *Genteel Tradition in this imagery: his women, though not as aloof and enigmatic as those of *Thomas Wilmer Dewing, are amply draped, attractive figures who momentarily escape their assumed role in society to dwell in privacy in their own thoughts. The *St. Botolph Club presented Reid with a one-man show in 1902, when he was elected Associate of the National Academy (full academician in 1906). In the spring of 1907, Reid married Elizabeth Reeves, a New York model who had posed for him. But marriage did little to dampen the ceaseless activity and obsession with work and travel. Mrs. Reid resisted accepting the difficult role of being married to a duty-bound but highly successful artist, and the first years of the marriage were unpleasant. Reid had a one-man show at *Montross Galleries in New York in 1911 and again in 1913. His paintings entered the museums of Buffalo, Brooklyn, New York, and Cincinnati. In a continuing demonstration of his versatility, Reid submitted etchings to the Society of American Etchers and exhibited at another solo show at Jacques Séligmann and Co. in New York. In addition, Reid painted portraits, which Evelyn Marie Stuart called "portrait impressions." Somewhat in the manner of an esquisse, à la *Sargent, these spontaneous, decorative likenesses were drawn with the brush. His impressive painting, The Japanese Screen and two others appeared in the *Panama-Pacific International Exposition. In 1916, Reid was divorced from his wife, and three years later he became one of the founders of the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs. He taught there in the 1920s, mainly portraiture. Reid also executed so-called "moonlit motif" landscapes, which were praised when exhibited in New York. He was a successful and popular teacher.
Still listing his address as "The *Players," 16 Gramercy Park, in 1922, Reid enjoyed another one-man exhibition at *Milch Galleries. Although impressionism was inevitably on the wane, Reid, now in his late fifties, remained faithful to it. In 1926, however, he was struck with polio, and had to learn to paint with his left hand. A year later, he had another show at the *Grand Central Art Galleries and a special exhibition at the Broadmoor Academy. These final years were painful and confining. At another exhibition in 1929, he was seen accompanied by a nurse. Reid died that year in December near his Clifton Springs sanatorium — one year later, during the initial period of the Great Depression, one of his paintings sold at auction for a mere fifty-five dollars.
REF.
Hitchcock, 1896, vol. 2, pp. 129-130; Cortissoz, 1900; Hartmann, 1902, vol. 2, pp. 248, 251; Dewing et al, 1903; Henry Goodrich, 1909; Hartmann, 1910-C; Mechlin, 1910-B; Brinton, 1911-A; Neuhaus, 1915-A, pp. 54-57; Art in California, 1916, pp. 137-138, pl. 102; Brinton, 1916, pp. 16, 48; Stuart, 1918; Jackman, 1928, pp. 171-172; Neuhaus, 1931, p. 267; Landgren, 1940, p. 66; Richardson, 1956, p. 306; Hoopes, 1972, pp. 106-107; Boyle, 1974, pp. 147-148, 180, 183; Weinberg, 1975; Pierce, 1976, pp. 25-30, 101-108, 172-173; Hoopes, 1977-A; Burke, 1980, pp. 433-436; Gerdts, 1980, pp. 84-87; David W. Scott, in Encyclopedia of American Art, 1981, pp. 466-468; Quick, 1983, pp. 130, 132; Gerdts, 1984, pp. 181-185; Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 1985, cat. nos. 61-63; A Proud Heritage, 1987, pp. 34, 254; Pike’s Peak Vision, 1989-90, pp. 17-18, 23, 34-38, 182, 193; Ten American Painters, 1990, pp. 112-115; Gerdts, 1991, pp. 112-113; Hiesinger, 1991, pp. 28, 39, 65, 72, 205, 109, 128-129, 153-158, 164-167, 186, 203, 229-233, 242-243; Gerdts, 1992-B, cat. nos. 65-66; Revisiting the White City, 1993, p. 307; Fischer, 1999, pp. 12, 110, 202; Prelinger, 2000, pp. 72-75. |
Paintings by Robert Reid
| Woman in White |
| oil on canvas:50 x 30 inches |
| signed: lower left |
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