John Leslie Breck: American Impressionist by dgilesltd

JOHN LESLIE BRECK

Jonathan Stuhlman is the Senior Curator of American Art at The Mint Museum. Katherine Bourguignon is a curator at the Terra Foundation for American Art. Jeffrey R. Brown is a retired art dealer and the former Curator of American Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Erica E. Hirshler is the Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Royal W. Leith is a writer and an independent art historian specializing in late nineteenth-century American art.

WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE A Life in Art: Works from the Collection of the Parrish Art Museum Alicia G. Longwell Contribution by Maureen C. O’Brien In association with Parrish Art Museum, NY RENOIR AND FRIENDS Luncheon of the Boating Party Eliza Rathbone Contributions by Mary Morton, Sylvie Patry, Aileen Ribeiro, Elizabeth Steele, and Sara Tas In association with The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC MONET IN GIVERNY Landscapes of Reflection Edited by Benedict Leca Contributions by Benedict Leca, Lynne D. Ambrosini, Andria Derstine, and Beth E. Wilson In association with the Cincinnati Art Museum

Distributed in the USA and Canada by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution The Keg House 34 Thirteenth Avenue NE, Suite 101 Minneapolis, MN 55413-1007 USA www.cbsd.com GILES An imprint of D Giles Limited 66 High Street, Lewes BN7 1XG UK gilesltd.com

Breck_210528_Cover.indd 1

“John Leslie Breck: American Impressionist is a revelation. Never before have so many of Breck’s finest paintings been seen together. It’s a must for anyone who loves Impressionism.” George T.M. Shackelford, Deputy Director, Kimbell Art Museum

Stuhlman

ISBN 978-1-911282-89-1

“This is the book every artist deserves. It is exemplary in the way it illustrates all of Breck’s outstanding works, gives us a much-needed, detailed account of his life in Giverny including his relationship to Monet and his step-daughters, explains his family and his ties to Boston, expands our knowledge by illustrating his work in Venice, Santa Barbara, and Gloucester, and forthrightly examines his good times and his troubled ones.” Theodore E. Stebbins Jr., former Curator of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Harvard Art Museums

AMERICAN IMPRESSIONIST Jonathan Stuhlman Essays by Katherine Bourguignon, Jeffrey R. Brown, Erica E. Hirshler, Royal W. Leith, and Jonathan Stuhlman John Leslie Breck: American Impressionist presents the work, life, and career of the nineteenth-century artist John Leslie Breck, who has been credited with being one of the first American artists to adopt Impressionism and to nurture its acceptance in the United States. Born at sea off Hong Kong in 1860, Breck studied in Germany at the Munich Academy and in Paris at the Académie Julian in the 1880s. In the summer of 1887, Breck visited Giverny, where he began his conversion to Impressionism, befriended Claude Monet, and over the next few years played an instrumental role in the village’s establishment as an American art colony. Many of Breck’s most enduring paintings are from this short but intense period, including notable works such as Mill Stream - Limetz (1888), In the Valley of the Seine - Autumn (ca. 1890), and the series Studies of an Autumn Day (1891). After returning from France, Breck created some of the earliest Impressionist views of California, a large body of particularly beautiful paintings of New England, and what may be the first series of Venetian scenes by an American Impressionist; many of these are published here for the first time. In addition to the 80 or so works by Breck, this volume also features more than 70 additional comparative images, including details, unpublished historic photographs, and paintings by Monet and by leading American Impressionists including Joseph Rodefer DeCamp, Arthur Wesley Dow, Willard Metcalf, Lilla Cabot Perry, and Theodore Robinson. Essays by Katherine Bourguignon, Jeffrey R. Brown, Erica E. Hirshler, Royal W. Leith, and Jonathan Stuhlman chart Breck’s life and career, examine the influence on his work of his stay in Giverny, explore his Venetian paintings, and place him in context within both the American and European art worlds of his time.

American Impressionist

Also available from GILES:

JOHN LESLIE BRECK

Front cover illustration: Sur L’Ept [sic], ca. 1888 (detail of plate 17) Oil on canvas, 18 × 22 inches Collection of Stephen Langer and Margaret Hallowell

£39.95 / $49.95 978-1-911282-89-1

AMERICAN IMPRE SSIO NIS T

Back cover illustration: Suzanne Hoschedé Sewing, 1888 (plate 11) Oil on canvas, 18 1/8 × 21 7/8 inches The Mint Museum, Gift of the Mint Museum Auxiliary and courtesy Heather James Fine Art, 2016.25

16/06/2021 08:48

FOREWORD Todd A. Herman, PhD President & CEO The Mint Museum Who was John Leslie Breck? Admittedly, the name is not one known widely outside of scholars of American art or those immersed in the long shadow that Monet cast on American artists working in Giverny. However, you will see in the following pages of this catalogue, and in the exhibition that it accompanies, that John Leslie Breck had an extraordinary artistic ability which translated to well-crafted and beautiful paintings that seamlessly entwined his various influences, including, importantly, Claude Monet. But Breck was not just another of the many American artists to fall under the light-drenched spell of Impressionism. He was, in many ways, a pioneer. Breck was a driving force in the establishment of the first American artist colony at Giverny, and he was one of the very few artists to develop and maintain a close relationship with the village’s most famous artist-resident. While library shelves bend under the weight of books on Monet, it is through the study of artists such as Breck that we can better understand the complex artistic ecosystem that existed around the French Impressionist circle and how this influenced the development of American art. Breck experienced professional success during his years in France, and that confidence, mixed with his close association with Monet, made him a person to be sought-out by waves of American artists coming to Giverny. This has afforded Breck a singular position in the translation of the Impressionist style to a growing American clientele—even being referred to as the “founder of American Impressionism.” This exhibition, and the accompanying catalogue, are the first to explore the breadth of Breck’s career and to contextualize his relationship with Monet within the broader context of American art and its development at the end of the nineteenth century. By following Breck on his journey to find his artistic voice, and by learning about the interpersonal and professional relationships that shaped his career, we hope to gain insight into a moment during which this “modern” style was introduced to an American audience.

The Mint Museum is extremely pleased to be able to mount this exhibition and introduce the work of John Leslie Breck to a broader audience. Much like the ill-fated exhibition planned of Breck’s late Venetian paintings at the end of the nineteenth century that never occurred (see Royal W. Leith’s essay in this catalogue; p. 151), this current exhibition experienced its own moments of crises as the COVID-19 pandemic ran rampant through the country, causing museums to close just at the moment when the checklist and loan agreements were being finalized. We are extremely grateful to those institutions and private collectors who went the extra mile to continue discussions and process requests so that we could bring this exhibition to completion and present it to you. Breck’s beautiful and colorful paintings are a welcome antidote to the dark days of the pandemic. Jonathan Stuhlman, our talented Senior Curator of American Art, has been working tirelessly on this project for several years, and I am pleased that we, and he, can finally see it on the walls and in print. I would also like to thank the brilliant scholars whose writing and research have brought Breck to life in this catalogue, and to the very gifted staff at The Mint Museum who continue to amaze with their creativity and dedication. Special thanks to the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts whose early support of this exhibition enabled us to persevere through numerous hurdles, and to the Mint Museum Auxiliary whose purchase and gift of Breck’s painting Suzanne Hoschedé Sewing was the inspiration for this exhibition. And finally, we are extremely indebted to our presenting sponsor, Bank of America, who continue their long tradition of bringing art and beauty to communities throughout the country through their generous support.

John Leslie Breck and American Impressionism — An Introspective Historiography

for more inclusive and diverse narratives encourages digging deeper, finding those hidden archives, and reevaluating what they divulge. Into this intellectual ferment we welcome the first monographic study of Breck’s life and accomplishments. This endeavor does not mark an end, however—such efforts are always just the beginning, introductions to new audiences in a new age. More will be revealed. Face to face with an artist’s work, lost in its passion and beauty, we always discover ourselves.

Endnotes 1.

Trevor J. Fairbrother et al., The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870–1930, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1986); Greta, “Boston Art and Artists,” Art Amateur, vol. 17 (October 17, 1887), 93. Elizabeth Johns, “Scholarship in American Art: Its History and Developments,” American Studies International, vol. XXII, no. 2 (October 1984), 21. Monet and the Giverny Group was organized by the American Federation of Arts in 1960 and traveled to six venues across the US in 1961-62. John K. Howat, “Introduction,” 19th-Century America: Paintings and Sculpture, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970), xiv. Oral history interview with Raymond J. Horowitz, January 17, 1973, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, https:// www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_212480. John K. Howat and Dianne H. Pilgrim, American Impressionist and Realist Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 19–June 3, 1973). Breck earned just a brief mention in the catalogue as one of a group of American painters active in Giverny in an entry about Theodore Robinson’s From the Hill, Giverny (now Terra Foundation for American Art). Ray Horowitz credited his and Margaret’s early interest in collecting to their friends Daniel and Rita Fraad, whose own paintings tended toward the Ash Can School. Several other important private collections of late nineteenth-century American art were also formed at this time—a history of friendships, rivalries, and networks as yet to be studied.

Oral history interview with Raymond J. Horowitz, January 17, 1973, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, https:// www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_212480. 7. Hilton Kramer, “American Paintings in ‘The Picnic Spirit,’” New York Times, April 29, 1973, 145. 8. Ernie Wood, “Impressionist Exhibition is a Beautiful Visual Experience,” The [Raleigh] News and Observer, March 10, 1974, V–9; Ernie Wood, “Taking a New Kind of View of American Impressionism,” The [Raleigh] News and Observer, July 29, 1973, V–6. 9. H. Barbara Weinberg, “Robert Reid: Academic Impressionist,” Archives of American Art Journal, vol. 15, no. 1 (1975), 4; Richard J. Boyle, American Impressionism (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1974); Donelson F. Hoopes, The American Impressionists (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1972). Neither book included Breck. John Wilmerding, “Book Review,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 58, no. 2 (1976), 310. William H. Gerdts also noted that the rising interest in American Impressionism in the market and among scholars coincided with rocketing prices for French Impressionism; American works provided a less expensive alternative (Gerdts, American Impressionism, exh. cat. [Seattle: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1980], 9). See also Lisa Koenigsberg, “Art as a Commodity? Aspects of a Current Issue,” Archives of American Art Journal, vol. 29, no. 3/4 (1989), 23–35. 10. Alan G. Artner, “French Art’s Influence Shows up in Scholarly Light,” Chicago Tribune, January 21, 1983, section 3, 12. 11. William H. Gerdts, American Impressionism (New 6.

York: Artabras Publishers/Abbeville Press, 1984), 310. Gerdts’s book followed upon his 1980 exhibition in Seattle, which also included Breck’s work (op. cit.). The first modern article about Breck was published in 1988 (Kathryn Corbin, “John Leslie Breck, American Impressionist,” The Magazine Antiques, vol. 134 (November 1988), 1142–49. 12. “American Impressionist Paintings Bring Millions,” Rapid City [Iowa] Journal, March 18, 1990, H2. 13. One gauge to monitor research interests over time is the metric evaluation of topics undertaken by fellows at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a project carried out by Caroline M. Riley. In a dataset Riley undertook for me in November 2020, she discovered that the greatest number of projects that centered in and around American Impressionism took place in the 1980s, forming 9% of all projects. In the 2010s, the topic dropped to 1% of the total. Other nineteenth-century topics (the American west, print culture, genre scenes, and the like) remained popular into the 2000s (15%), but by 2020 these subjects had also dropped precipitously (9%). Caroline M. Riley, “Report on Nineteenth-Century and Impressionist Research Titles from the Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellowship Program, 1968–2020.” Created November 22, 2020.

John Leslie Breck — His Life and Career

P L A T E 11

John Leslie Breck Suzanne Hoschedé Sewing, 1888 The Mint Museum

Royal W. Leith and Jeffrey R. Brown

P L A T E 12

John Leslie Breck Chez M. Monet, 1888 Private Collection, Courtesy of Montgomery Gallery

John Leslie Breck — His Life and Career

P L AT E 2 3

Lilla Cabot Perry Landscape in Normandy, 1891 Newark Museum

P L AT E 24

Theodore Robinson Afternoon Shadows, 1891 Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida

Royal W. Leith and Jeffrey R. Brown

P L AT E 2 5

John Leslie Breck Grainstacks, ca. 1891 Martin Collection

John Leslie Breck — His Life and Career

Fig. 40 Photograph of Lane’s Cove, fish shacks, and schooners, ca. 1890s. Lane’s Cove Historical Association.

a spring bubbles out of a meadow in which accents of daffodils appear. Breck’s sculptural use of unusually heavy impasto to depict the blossoms enables them to flicker in a raking light, like the action of a breeze upon the branches. The imposition of the frame on the blossoms and the water flowing into the viewer’s space reflects Breck’s lifelong fascination with Japanese art. During the summer that followed, Breck painted several innovative works that allude to the rugged lives led by those who lived and worked on Cape Ann, thus introducing a new theme into his work. One of these is Stone Quarries, Lanesville (plate 32). At first glance, the title seems puzzling. The foreground fills the lower half of the composition with a sagging split rail fence leaning against a tumbled-down stone wall, surrounded by golden rod and wild asters. Behind the fence and the wall, and in sharp contrast to the horizontal line they form, a cluster of ship masts in the center and another cluster further off to the left thrust toward the sky. In the background, beneath a line of trees, a row of small dwellings appears, the huts used by fishermen, reminders of the historical importance of fishing

in that region. By 1893, however, fishing had largely yielded to the granite industry on the west coast of Cape Ann. In fact, behind the older, dilapidated wall lies yet another wall, composed of granite, and the ship masts belong to the schooners and sloops moored in Lane’s Cove that transported stone from nearby quarries to destinations all over the eastern seaboard (figure 40). A contemporary viewer looking at the painting would have been struck not just by its attractive colors and complex composition but also by its topicality. Only a year earlier, the quarrymen of Lanesville, all of them immigrants and engaged in dangerous, underpaid work, had unionized and declared a strike that went on for several months and received prominent coverage in the Boston press.179 Breck concentrated on the subject’s beauty, but in doing so commented ironically on an existence that was anything but beautiful. Breck’s only painting of the city of Gloucester itself similarly focuses on the working harbor (figure 41). The painting’s lower half again depicts the scene’s natural elements, seaweed-glazed rocks and water. In the middle of the painting, a steam-powered trawler, with smokestack and iron trawling beams, sits tied to a dock. Similar vessels became such a common sight in paintings by later Gloucester artists that one can easily overlook its significance here. Since the early eighteenth century, Gloucester had sent fleets of large schooners across long distances in pursuit of cod, haddock, mackerel, and other fish. Sail-powered craft, however, became doomed by the invention in Scotland in the 1870s of steam-powered trawlers, which made their way to America at around the time of Breck’s work. Behind the painting’s trawler, facing in the opposite direction, a schooner floats gracefully at its mooring, superseded in prominence as it would soon become superseded in importance, and foreshadowing the revolution about to occur. During the 1890s, Gloucester harbor became a popular subject for Impressionists, including Breck’s friends Joseph DeCamp, Childe Hassam, and Theodore Wendel, but Breck’s inclusion

Royal W. Leith and Jeffrey R. Brown

P L AT E 32

John Leslie Breck Stone Quarries, Lanesville, ca. 1893 Private Collection, Courtesy of Martha Richardson Fine Art, Boston

John Leslie Breck — His Life and Career

P L AT E 47

116

John Leslie Breck The Dragon in Winter, Essex, ca. 1898 Collection of Stephen Langer and Margaret Hallowell

Royal W. Leith and Jeffrey R. Brown

P L AT E 4 8

Arthur Wesley Dow The Blue Dragon, ca. 1894 Ipswich Museum

117

P L AT E 69

154

John Leslie Breck Fish Baskets, Venice, 1897 Private Collection, Courtesy of Martha Richardson Fine Art, Boston

Royal W. Leith

Fig. 62 John Leslie Breck, Giudecca Canal, 1897. Oil on canvas, 18 × 21 inches. Adelson Galleries/Gavin Spanierman, Ltd.

Fig. 61 John Leslie Breck, Giudecca Canal, 1897. Oil on canvas, 18 × 12 inches. Private collection.

in the Rutland, Massachusetts home of Breck’s aunt and uncle, foreshadowing Breck’s later visit (see p. 35). Despite years of abuse, the fresco has survived and bears a striking similarity to Breck’s Bay at Venice (plate 68), his largest Venetian painting. Following the practice he established in the four solo exhibitions he held during his lifetime, this would have been the first painting listed in his planned exhibition of Venetian works and the exhibition’s focus. Breck arranged the panoramic composition to include the entrances to Venice’s two major canals, the Giudecca and Grand Canals, and some of their principal buildings: Palladio’s Redentore church; Santa Maria della Salute; and the Doge’s Palace. The result is a comprehensive view that justified its title, simply “Venice,” in the earlier memorial exhibition. Santa Maria della Salute is the sole subject of the next largest Venetian painting in the memorial exhibitions, “Santa Maria by Moonlight” (see plate 44, p. 113).

Whereas he filtered his view of the bay through hazy sunlight, his painting of the Salute is a nocturne, a type of painting for which Breck became famous early in his career. Neither of these two paintings, the largest and most ambitious works included in the memorial exhibitions, is signed. Since Breck’s mother accompanied him on his trip to Venice, she must have understood their importance and realized as well that she should add neither a signature nor any finishing touches. The absence of a signature suggests that Breck did not yet consider them done, but there are no obvious indications that this is the case. Little information about Breck’s activities during the last years of his life remains, and the only traces of his actual activities in Venice are the pictures themselves. Many of the works were painted either from or of the Giudecca island, where Breck probably spent most, if not all, of his time living (plate 69; figures 61 and 62). Less frequented by tourists and home to much of Venice’s working class, this location led Breck to

155

JOHN LESLIE BRECK

Breck_210528_Cover.indd 1

Stuhlman

ISBN 978-1-911282-89-1

American Impressionist

Also available from GILES:

JOHN LESLIE BRECK

Front cover illustration: Sur L’Ept [sic], ca. 1888 (detail of plate 17) Oil on canvas, 18 × 22 inches Collection of Stephen Langer and Margaret Hallowell

£39.95 / $49.95 978-1-911282-89-1

AMERICAN IMPRE SSIO NIS T

16/06/2021 08:48