Henry and Nancy Rosin Collection of Early Photography of Japan. FSA.A1999.35. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Purchase and partial donation.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Handwritten ledger of Henri Vever's purchases of art from dealers between January 1907 and July 1917. Dealers include Yamanaka Sadajiro, Marcel Bing and George Joseph Demotte.
Arrangement:
This collection is in a box with a smaller, unbound purchase ledger dated 1894.
Biographical / Historical:
Jeweler, art collector, and author Henri Vever was born in Metz, France in 1854. Together with his older brother Paul, Henri Vever managed the family jewelry firm, Maison Vever, from 1881 until Paul's death in 1915 and Henri's retirement in 1921. As an art collector, Vever amassed a large collection of European, Asian, and Islamic art. Through his work as a jeweler, art collector, and author, Henri Vever played an important role in the twentieth-century art world.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Bailey Willis Glass Plate Photonegatives Collection consists of 160 glass plate photonegatives and 119 modern copy prints mostly of Japanese subjects. Depicting Meiji-era Japan and traditional paintings, the photographs are attributed to the prominent American geologist Bailey Willis, who travelled to Japan in 1904 in his return trip from China to the U.S. From 1903 to 1904, Willis led a scientific expedition to China to conduct geological and paleontological investigations under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The expedition was proposed by Dr. Charles D. Walcott, the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, who would become the fourth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1907. After the expedition, the Smithsonian Institution took custody of 375 glass plate photonegatives taken by Willis during his Chinese expedition. The current Willis Collection does not retain Chinese glass plate photonegatives, which appear to be housed in the Huntington Library. Twelve original prints of China are in the Charles Lang Freer Papers, acquired by Freer directly from Willis. The Willis Collection richly documents Japanese local scenes, people, buildings, industries, agriculture, and art. It also contains a small number of Middle Eastern and Western images. These photographs are thought to be taken and/or purchased by Willis during his short stay in Japan in 1904, although there is no direct evidence that Willis was the original photographer of any or all of these. Since there are many views of locations that Willis never visited, it seems likely that the plates were acquired from another photographer.
Arrangement:
Box 1-3 Japanese paintings; Box 4-11 Japanese scenes; Box 12 Middle Eastern scenes, miscellaneous; Box 13 Western scenes, miscellaneous; Box 14 Japanese painting and scenes; Box 15 Japanese scenes
Biographical / Historical:
Bailey Willis was born at his parents' country estate at Idlewild-on-Hudson, near Cornwall, New York in 1857. He was the son of Nathaniel Parker Willis, a poet and journalist, and Cornelia (Grinnell) Willis of the prominent New England Grinnell family. His maternal granduncle, Henry Grinnell, was a benefactor of Arctic expeditions. His mother was instrumental in nurturing young Willis's interest in nature and exploration. After his father's death when Willis was ten years old, his mother, concerned about her son's "tendency to dream ineffectually," decided to train him in the stern disciplines of mathematics and science (Willis, A Yanqui in Patagonia 4). At the age of thirteen, Willis began schooling in Germany, where he received rigorous Prussian education.
Returning to New York in 1874, Willis entered the School of Mines at Columbia University, graduating with degrees in Mining Engineering in 1878 and Civil Engineering in 1879. After graduation Willis worked as an assistant for Raphael Pumpelly, a prominent geologist, by estimating iron and coal resources for the Northern Pacific Railroad. Geological work in the Pacific Northwest convinced Willis to support the preservation of Mount Rainier and its surroundings. The Mount Rainier National Park was established by law in 1899.
In 1882 Willis married his cousin Altona Holstein Grinnell. After her death in 1896, he married Margaret Delight Baker, daughter of anatomist Frank Baker. Margaret assisted Willis as draftsman and secretary.
Willis first earned international recognition as a geologist in the field of structural geology. Following the bankruptcy of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1884, Willis worked on assignments from the United States Geological Survey. While working in the southern Appalachian Mountains, he became interested in what had caused folding and faulting. By using laboratory experiments, Willis investigated the conditions causing the deformation of strata and published his new interpretation of the deformation in the report "The Mechanics of Appalachian Structure" (1893). This study established him as one of the country's leading structural geologists. His later book Geologic Structures (1923) went into three editions.
In addition to geological studies in the United States, Willis actively engaged himself in foreign expeditions throughout his life. From 1903 to1904, Willis led a scientific expedition to China under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. With Eliot Blackwelder, an associate geologist, and R. H. Sargent, a topographer, the expedition investigated the geomorphology, stratigraphy, and paleontology of the country. The result of the expedition appeared as Research in China in 1907, which won a gold medal from the Geographic Society of France. Furthermore, in recognition of this work, Willis was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Berlin in 1910. In the same year the Argentine government invited Willis to conduct a geological survey of Patagonia for the region's irrigation potential.
In 1915, at age 59, Willis accepted a position of Chairman of the Department of Geology at Stanford University, where he remained affiliated as a professor emeritus after his retirement. In California, Willis extended his research to the area of seismology, and served as President of the Seismological Society of America. Believing in the permanence of continents, he held an oppositional view to the continental drift theories. In 1949, Willis died in Palo Alto, California at age 91.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1991.06
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Letters written by Charles Lang Freer to his friend and business associate Frank Hecker (1846-1927) while Freer during multiple trips to Europe between June of 1899 and July of 1903. Freer stayed for long periods of time in London, meeting with the painter James McNeill Whister. He also stayed for long periods in Paris, and at a villa that he co-owned on the Mediterranean island of Capri with his friend Thomas S. Jerome (1864-1914). The final letters describe Whistler's death on July 17th, 1903.
Arrangement:
Organized chronologically.
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 02.1Hecker.travel3
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Brumbaugh, Thomas B. (Thomas Brendle), 1921- Search this
Extent:
10 Items (Letters, written in ink, ball point, graphite, typewritter)
Type:
Archival materials
Correspondence
Date:
1941-1970
Scope and Contents:
This collection is an amalgamation of letters written and recieved by prominent figures in 19th and 20th century American art. Included in this folder are letters between the collector, Thomas Brumbaugh, and various artists, including American playwright and writer Oliver Wolcott Gibbs, mural artist Barry Faulkner, and Louis Hardin.
Arrangement:
Organized chronologically.
Biographical / Historical:
Beginning in his youth Thomas Brumbaugh collected autographed correspondence. Mr. Brumbaugh's collecting instincts resulted in a unique collaborative collection providing a glimpse into the lives of a variety of 19th and 20th century American artists, such as Abbott Thayer. Brumbaugh was a professor of fine arts at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and author of many articles on American art and artists.
Oliver Wolcott Gibbs was an American playwright and writer who lived in New York City. He wrote for The New Yorker and worked as a humorist and theatre critic. Gibbs was a direct descendent of President Martin Van Buren.
Barry Faulkner was an American artist who studied with Abbott H. Thayer, George de Forest Brush, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Along with sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry, Faulkner organized artists to train as camouflage specialists. Faulkner was born in New Hampshire, traveled to Europe as he studied art, and then returned to New York, where he began work as a mural artist. He completed "The Constitution" and "The Declaration" in 1936 for the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom at the National Archives.
Isaac Soyer was a social realist painter from New York City who used working-class and unemployed people as the subjects in his paintings. He also painted portraits for friends, and used his friends and family as models for his work.
Louis Hardin, commonly known as "Moondog," was a blind American composer and poet who lived on the streets of New York for a large portion of his life. He wore clothes inspired by the Norse god Thor, giving him the epithet, "The Viking of 6th Avenue." Moondog was influenced by ambient noises in his environment, and Native American music.
Henry Rox was a German artist who studied in Berlin and Paris before settling in the United States in 1938, where he taught at many universities, including Mount Holyoke College. He is known for fruit and vegetable photo-sculptures.
Ibram Lassaw was an American sculptor in the 20th century. Born in Egypt to Russian parents, Lassaw grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He was influenced by Alexander Calder and Wassily Kandinsky. Lassaw created open-space sculptural abstractions with metal, and helped abstract art grow in the United States.
Harry Rosin was an American sculptor born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After working around the area following his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he traveled to Tahiti, where he married his wife. He is known for his iron sculptures.
Local Numbers:
FSA A2009.06 3
Other Archival Materials:
Thomas B. Brumbaugh research material on Abbott Handerson Thayer and other artists, 1876-1994 (bulk 1960s-1994); Also located at Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Brumbaugh, Thomas B. (Thomas Brendle), 1921- Search this
Extent:
10 Items (Letters, written in ink)
Type:
Archival materials
Correspondence
Date:
1891-1915
Scope and Contents:
This folder is an amalgamation of letters written by Abbott H. Thayer to various people, mostly relatives. The recipients include Moses Beach, Ella Beach, Violet Beach, Maria Oakey Dewing, Gertrude Bloede, and Dr. Samuel T. King.
Arrangement:
Organized alphabetically by recipient.
Biographical / Historical:
Abbott Handerson Thayer was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 12, 1849 to a distinguished family. He moved from Boston to Brooklyn during his childhood, where he attended the National Academy of Design. Thayer often used his wife, Kate Bloede Thayer, her sister Gertrude, and his three children Mary, Gerald and Gladys as models. He also used Clara A. May as a model. His subjects included ethereal angels, landscapes, women, children, and flowers. When Kate died, Thayer's entire outlook on art and life changed. It had been Kate's family that introduced Thayer to the sense of idealism that comes from a German family who had immigrated to the United States. He had learned about the romanticism surrounding art and literature from the Bloedes, all of which encouraged the artist to paint perfectly beautiful figures. Later in life, Thayer established a permanent household in Dublin, New Hampshire, with his new wife, Emma Beach. He loved to paint the surrounding mountains and birds. Interestingly, Charles Lang Freer was one of Thayer's patrons.
Kate Bloede (1846-1890) was Abbott Thayer's first wife, who tragically died following a long battle with depression. Abbott used Kate as a model during his painting career. The couple lived in Paris, where their first two children were born. Upon their return to New York, the Thayers had three more children. In May 1888, Kate developed "melancholia," or depression, following the death of her father, Gustav Bloede. She was admitted to Bloomingdale Hospital, where she was treated for six months. Although her family visited her often, she did not respond well. Abbott transferred Kate to McLean Asylum in the winter of 1888, and then to a sanitorium in 1890. Pulmonary complications developed and Kate died on May 3, 1891. Animosities between Abbott and the Bloede family developed soon after Kate's death.
Emma Beach was Abbott Thayer's second wife, whom he married four months to the day after Kate Bloede's death. She met the couple during the summer of 1881, when they were vacationing in Nantucket. Beach was the daughter of Moses Beach, the former owner of the New York Sun. She was an art student, and over the next few years she visited the Thayers often, developing a close relationship with the children. Emma actually helped Thayer transfer Kate to the McLean Asylum. On July 27, 1891, Abbott wrote to Emma, imploring her to move in permanently with the family for the sake of the children. Her family was quite against this proposal, but the two were married in Nantucket on September 3, 1891. This caused problems between Abbott and the Bloedes, particularly offending Gertrude Bloede and Indie Bloede King, Kate's sisters.
Violet and Ella Beach were Emma Beach's sisters.
Dr. Samuel T. King was Abbott's brother-in-law, the husband of Indie Bloede. Thayer was quite close with King, and therefore it was King to whom he wrote in an attempt to patch things over with the Bloede family, especially Gertrude Bloede. This relationship later deteriorated, with King supporting his wife as opposed to Thayer.
Gertrude Bloede was Kate's sister and was married to Dr. King. It was Gertrude who was most offended when Thayer quickly remarried after Kate's death, and it was Gertrude whom Abbott attempted to reach out to after she refused to speak to him. Gertrude lived a double life as a poet. She published several pieces under the name "Stuart Sterne" in the 19th century.
William Endicott was an American politician from Massachusetts who served as Secretary of War and was influential on the Board on Fortification. Following his retirement, he returned to Boston, was overseer of Harvard College (his Alma mater) and president of the Peabody Academy of Science and Peabody Education Fund. It appears that Thayer's letter responds to a request from Endicott that Abbott participate in a mural in Massachusetts.
Maria Oakey Dewing was the wife of Thomas Wilmer Dewing, an American painter at the turn of the century. Maria herself was an artist who painted mostly flowers, although she began by painting figures. She studied art at the Cooper Union in New York City.
Local Numbers:
FSA A2009.06 1
Other Archival Materials:
Thomas B. Brumbaugh research material on Abbott Handerson Thayer and other artists, 1876-1994 (bulk 1960s-1994); Also located at Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Brumbaugh, Thomas B. (Thomas Brendle), 1921- Search this
Extent:
11 Items (Letters, written in ink, ball point, graphite)
1 Photograph
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Correspondence
Date:
1818-1847
Scope and Contents:
This folder is an amalgamation of letters written and recieved by prominent figures in 19th and 20th century American art. Included in the folder are letters by Robert Reid, Hugo Robus, Thomas Prichard Rossiter, Eugene Speicher, John Greenleaf Whittier and Peter A.B. Widener.
Arrangement:
Organized alphabetically by author.
Biographical / Historical:
Erastus D. Palmer was an American sculptor. He sculpted portrait busts and religious bas-reliefs in a style that combined neoclassical idealism and realism. His most famous sculpture is "The White Captive," which depicts a young girl who has been captured by Native Americans.
Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes was an American architect born into the wealthy Phelps Stokes family. He designed St-Paul's Chapel at Columbia University and some residential buildings in New York. Phelps Stokes also published The Iconography of Manhattan Island, a six volume work about New York City. He commissioned John Singer Sargent to paint a portrait with himself and his wife, Edith née Minturn.
Robert Reid was an American artist who studied in New England and Paris. He began by painting French peasants, but became known for his murals and stained glass designs. Some of his work can be found in the Congressional Library in Washington, D.C.
Hugo Robus was an American painter and sculpture from Ohio. He studied in the United States and Paris, and then taught at the Modern Art School in New York. He worked in a very lyrical cubist style, usually with people as his subject.
Thomas Prichard Rossiter was an American painter born in New Haven, Connecticut. He traveled throughout Europe, painting portraits along the way, and he kept a studio in Paris. He painted mostly portraits, but also completed a series of paintings depicting the life of Christ.
John Frederick Kensett was an American artist and engraver who worked in New Haven, Connecticut, and New York City.
Henry Rox was a German artist who studied in Berlin and Paris before settling in the United States in 1938, where he taught at many universities, including Mount Holyoke College. He is known for fruit and vegetable photo-sculptures.
Eugene Speicher was an American realist painter from Buffalo, New York. He attended the Art Students League, and then studied in Europe for a few years. He was considered a leading portrait artist in America at the time, favoring female subjects. Speicher won numerous awards for his work, and was appointed Director of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1945.
Max Weber was a Russian-born Jewish-American cubist. He studied with Matisse, Rousseau, and Picasso in Paris. Weber helped introduce cubism to America.
John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet. Whittier was an ardent abolitionist who was extremely influenced by the doctrines of humanitarianism, compassion, and social responsibility found in Quakerism. He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and worked as a lobbyist. He is remembered today for his patriotic poetry, and his poems that were later turned into hymns.
Paul Hayne was an American poet who Whittier references in his letter to the publishers Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Hayne had just died, and his son, W.H. Hayne, wanted to edit his later poems for publication.
Widener (1834-1915) was an American businessman from Pennsylvania. During the Civil War, he supplied meat to the Union Army. By investing in trolley cars and public transit services, Widener became quite successful and wealthy. He was an avid art collector whose collection included works by Rembrandt, Edouard Manet, and Auguste Renoir. He is considered one of the top 100 wealthiest Americans of all time.
Local Numbers:
FSA A2009.06 6
Other Archival Materials:
Thomas B. Brumbaugh research material on Abbott Handerson Thayer and other artists, 1876-1994 (bulk 1960s-1994); Also located at Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.