H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Cam p b e l l ( 1 8 7 9 - 1 9 64 ) : A m er i c a n Pai n ter a n d C o l l e c tor
Front cover: detail of Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell’s oil on canvas, Wesleyan College, c.1950. Collection of Phi Mu Foundation; on display Cannonball House, Macon, GA. Back cover, top: Sophie Marston Brannan’s oil on canvas, Mountain Cove. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Back cover, bottom: Robert Knight Ryland’s oil on canvas, The Yellow Teacup. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l ( 1 8 7 9- 1 9 64) : A m er i c a n Pa i n ter a n d C o l le c tor
Wesleyan College Cowles Myles Collier East & West Galleries Porter Family Memorial Fine Arts Building November 1, 2007 through January 31, 2008
November 1, 2007 Dear Friends of Wesleyan, The opening of this exhibition, Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell (1879-1964): American Painter and Collector, can remind us all of the timelessness of art. The familiar Latin adage Ars longa, vita brevis (Life is short, art is long) rings true especially in studying and viewing the Ogden Campbell Collection of American Art, the core of which was donated to Wesleyan College during the 1930s through 1950s. Representing over 60 works of art by this distinguished painter and Wesleyan alumna (Class of 1897) and by friends in her artistic milieu, the collection remains a testament to her commitment to painting, collecting, and generosity to her alma mater. With Ogden Campbell’s foresight to secure a permanent home for her collection, Wesleyan College is able to celebrate fully this exhibition in the Fall of 2007 with students, faculty, family descendants, and the community at large. The collection is important not only to Wesleyan but also to the history of American Art at the turn of the 20th Century. Together the paintings offer a window into the styles and techniques taught in some of the most prestigious studios of New York City during the early 1900s. Trained by renowned masters of American Realism, including William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Howard Chandler Christy, Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell chose traditional subjects of still life and portraiture, yet she imbued her content with her signature brushstroke, both confident and painterly. The exhibition includes many works of art on loan from other institutions, which allows us a unique opportunity to examine Ogden Campbell’s oeuvre in the first comprehensive exhibition of her work to date. Wesleyan is grateful to the donors for loaning paintings for this exhibition: Cannonball House, Macon, Georgia; Columbia University, New York, New York; Dodge County Library, Eastman, Georgia; Dorothy Ogden Brown, Macon, Georgia; Sue Ogden Ballard, Macon, Georgia; Dr. Robert H. Ogden, Gastonia, North Carolina; Phi Mu Foundation, Peachtree City, Georgia; and Martha Singleton, Bearsville, New York. We also thank the guest curators of the exhibit, artist and educator Dorothy Ogden Brown and Director of Hay House Katherine T. Brown, as well as Professor of Art Libby Bailey and Communication Director Susan Welsh, student interns Brittany Taylor and Missy Poole, and student gallery assistants Anshu Karki, Lisa Colburn, Angela Sims, Janelle Burkett, Shantese Cullins, Autumn Encarnacion, and Caitlin Donnelly. Many of the works of art on display have been recently conserved through our Adopt-A-Painting program, such as Edwin Gunn’s Maine Farm, restored in 2005 through a gift from Mary Ann Pollard Houghland ’60. Art is indeed long, but it can last longer with your help. Please consider supporting the Adopt-A-Painting program, which provides a professional conservator’s treatment of both the painting surfaces and the frames. Enjoy the exhibition!
Ruth A. Knox
2 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Roses, oil on canvas, c.1936. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Ruth A. Knox ’75 and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program, October 2007.
A m er i c an Pai n ter a nd C o l l e c tor
3
The Legacyof H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l ( 1 8 79 - 1 9 64 ) : A m er i ca n Pa i n ter a n d C o l l e c tor Early Life in Georgia Helena Eastman Ogden was born in Eastman, Georgia on August 26, 1879. Her father, James Monroe Ogden, was a businessman who had moved south from New York City to marry his first wife, Augusta Lamar of Macon, Georgia, with whom he had two sons: Monroe Gouverneur Ogden and John Lamar Ogden. After Augusta Lamar Ogden’s untimely death with an infant third child, James Monroe Ogden married his second wife, Caro Eastman, in 1878. Caro Eastman Ogden was the daughter of William Pitt Eastman, an entrepreneur from New Hampshire who made his fortune as a lumber dealer and who founded of the city of Eastman. The couple had two daughters: Helena and her sister Susie, who was five years younger. The two sisters remained life-long companions. From an early age, the Ogden sisters’ education was presided over by a mother who had high and ambitious cultural aspirations for her daughters. The family resided on Georgia Avenue in downtown Macon. Caro Eastman Ogden made annual visits to New England and to New York with her father, William Pitt Eastman, taking her two daughters with her. Helena and Susie were thus exposed to the art and music of the major metropolitan cities of the United States during their early childhood. An Education in Art At age fourteen, Helena Ogden began formal study at Wesleyan Conservatory with Miss Mollie Mason, legendary teacher of studio art. Showing great promise as a draughtsman and student of art history, she was involved in many campus exhibitions and arts events. As a Philomatheon, she was committed to the mission of this philanthropic society. Much of the generosity of her mature life stemmed from the ideals of this organization. She graduated from Wesleyan with the class of 1897.
4 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Hydrangeas, oil on canvas,1945. Collection of Dorothy Ogden Brown, Macon, GA.
A mer ic an Pa in ter a n d C o l l e c tor
5
Helena’s father, James Monroe Ogden, died in 1901, leaving her alone with her mother and sister in Macon. Widowed, Caro Ogden moved the family to New York City so that her daughters could pursue artistic careers with greater opportunity. Because Caro Ogden was a native of New England and James Monroe Ogden a native of New York City, there were ample family ties and acquaintances to ensure the family a hospitable welcome. The following year (1902), the Ogden family settled into a Manhattan apartment. Helena Ogden enrolled at the Chase School of Art, later known as the New York School of Art, where she encountered the renowned artist-teacher, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916). The turn of the 20th Century was a time of great ferment in ideas concerning education for women, artistic freedom and experimentation, as well as forays into what it meant to be an artist in America. Ogden studied painting, drawing, and anatomy with Chase. A dynamic and influential teacher, Chase taught many women in his school, as well as in the summer workshops that he conducted on Long Island. Chase urged his students to be independent thinkers and artists by encouraging them to work directly from life, rather than in “the antique manner,” by which he meant drawing from casts.1 Chase painted—and taught his students to paint—in a variety of genres, including still lifes, landscapes and cityscapes, figures (his most frequent models were his wife and children), studio interiors, and especially later in his career, portraits.2 He specialized in oils and pastels. Yet the Chase School was decidedly anti-academic. His spacious studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building was among the most famous, sumptuously decorated artists’ studios in America.3 He dressed formally for his painting demonstrations, taking pride in never getting a speck of paint on his dapper, white suits. His theatrical skills made his classes both instructive and entertaining. Students could enter life drawing classes early in their studies and pursue their own media and subject matter. This artistic freedom and open attitude profoundly influenced Helena Ogden’s sense of her own artistic identity. In 1903, Ogden transferred her artistic study to The Art Students League, located west of Central Park in Manhattan. There she became part of a cohort of women artists who studied with charismatic artist-teacher, Robert Henri (1865-1929). One of his students, Helen Appleton Read (1888-1973) once commented: “Once a Henri pupil, always a Henri pupil. Henri showed [his students] the meaning of art, the flame and the essence within, without which the soundest of academic instruction is sterile and dry.”4 Robert Henri had studied at the Académie Julian in Paris with Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1888) and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1891). Upon his return to the United States in 1892, he taught at the Philadelphia School of Art. In 1900 he moved to New York, where he taught at the New York School of Art (1902-08); organized and participated in several exhibitions, the most famous of which was that of his circle of colleagues called The Eight, held at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908; and taught at the Art Students League from 1915-1927. A passionate teacher, Henri encouraged his students to study the works of the realists of the Dutch and Spanish
6 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Chrysanthemums, oil on canvas, 1946. Collection of Martha Singleton, Bearsville, NY.
A m er i c an Pai n ter a nd C o l l e c tor
7
Baroque period—Rembrandt, Goya, and Velázquez—as well as painters of the 19th Century, especially Daumier, Manet, and Degas. Henri’s own work reflected the dramatic brushwork of the artists he admired and of the noted portraitists of the late 19th Century, such as Whistler and Sargent. Henri was associated with a group of artists who became known as the “Ashcan School.” Committed to the reality and grittiness of modern life, Henri stated, “The most vital art of all time has its roots firmly planted in the soil of life.”5 Inspired by a sense of artistic mission, modernity, and radical social change, Henri stirred the imaginations of his students. A compilation of his teaching style and philosophy, The Art Spirit, was published in Philadelphia in 1923 by his student, Margery Ryerson. The book has been a continuing inspiration to art students since its publication. Studying in Paris was a goal of many late 19th-century and early 20th-century American painters. In 1904, Helena Ogden left for Paris to study painting with French plein air painter Lucien Simon (1864-1945) at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. Simon was noted for his depictions of the coast of Brittany and his genre painting. The influence of the Impressionist painters was evident in the lighter palettes of artists working at this time in Paris. After working with new techniques and colors in France, Helena Ogden returned to New York the following year, 1905. Marriage The Atlanta Constitution marriage announcement of Helena Ogden to the Reverend R. Johnston Campbell, Rector of St. John’s Parish in Frostburg, Maryland on April 24, 1906 refers to Helena Ogden Campbell’s growing reputation as an artist in New York. The account reads: “Many friends were sorry to have her give up what seemed an assured career as an artist to become the wife of even so successful a rector and elegant young preacher as Mr. Campbell.”6 The reality was such that the duties of being a wife were in conflict with the demands of her career. In 1907, within a year of their marriage, a daughter, Mary Eastman Campbell, was born. Reverend Campbell accepted a parish assignment in a western state while Helena returned with her daughter to the home of her mother and sister in New York. Although the couple never officially divorced, they never lived together again, and the marriage essentially fell apart. Helena Ogden Campbell did continue her artistic career and actively involved herself in the arts community in New York. The family (comprised of her daughter Mary Campbell, sister Susie Ogden, and mother Caro Ogden) moved to a house in Dobbs Ferry, New York, just north of Manhattan.
8 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of Winifred Edgerton Merrill, early 1930s. Columbia University in the City of New York. Gift of the Wellesley College Class of 1883, Zeta Chapter of Phi Delta Gamma, and the Women’s Graduate Club of Columbia University. A m er i c an Pai n ter a nd C o l l e c tor
9
An Artist’s Life In 1908, Helena Ogden Campbell set up a studio in New York at 139 West 104th Street. There she continued to paint in oils her favored subjects of still lifes, florals, and landscapes. She began accepting portrait commissions as well as illustration jobs for many magazines. Furthermore, she resumed her studies of art with the illustrator Howard Chandler Christy (18731952), who was renowned for his work in pencil, charcoal, and sanguine (red chalk) drawing. An active exhibitor during the first two decades of the 20th Century, Helena Ogden Campbell was accepted as a member in many juried art associations, including the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, the Society of Independent Artists, the Knickerbocker Artists Association, and the American Artists Professional League. The professional status implied by membership in such elite groups gave her access to many exhibition opportunities and the critical acceptance of her artistic peers. The connections and friendships that resulted from these involvements gave Ogden Campbell a circle of artists whose goal was to enhance and nourish each others’ careers. Summer residencies on Long Island, New York, as well as in Ogunquit, Maine, and the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, afforded Ogden Campbell and her family time away from the City while enriching her close association with fellow artists. She was active during the 1920s and 1930s with the Twilight Park Artists’ Retreat in the Catskills, as well as in the Hudson River Valley Art Association near Woodstock, New York. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell is listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Who’s Who in the East, and Who’s Who in New York. Her biographies in these publications include the awards and citations she received for her paintings and portraits of notable subjects. During the years of World War II and into the 1950s, she cooperated with the Department of the Navy by initiating a program of sketching sanguine portraits of the “90-Day Wonders”—that is, young men who received officers’ training at Columbia University in that short time—to give as rewards to the graduates. She executed over a hundred of these portraits at no cost, stating that the project gave her a sense of contributing to the war effort. As an extension of this program, Ogden Campbell was commissioned to do a three-quarter figure portrait of the first casualty of that group: Ensign Herbert C. Jones, who was killed in action on the Battleship California in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The portrait is on display at Columbia University, along with several other portraits she rendered of University notables. As a result of these works in 1947, Helena Ogden Campbell was granted an honorary membership in Phi Delta Gamma sorority for graduate women of distinction at Columbia University. Helena Ogden Campbell spent much of her time working with her community of artist friends. She wished to share her own good fortune with commissions and exhibitions by helping talented, young artists establish themselves. Ogden Campbell organized exhibits of their works in
10 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of Sidney Lanier, oil on canvas, 1948. Collection of Cannonball House, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
11
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Wesleyan College, oil on canvas, c.1950. Collection of Phi Mu Foundation; on display Cannonball House, Macon, GA.
libraries and other public venues, giving many struggling artists their starts in New York. In the 1930s, she worked with Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City, during his municipal art program that helped launch the careers of many young artists. The Ogden Campbell Collection In 1932, Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell conceived a plan to collect the work of her colleagues. This idea was to benefit her many artist friends by having their works included in a major collection. Ogden Campbell donated the collection to Wesleyan College, her alma mater in Macon, Georgia. In a letter of 1934, she announced her plan to Wesleyan’s president: “For the past year or two, I have had an ambition to gather from some generous artists a group of pictures, some representative pieces of work by well-known people, for Wesleyan. I have had to feel my way before mentioning it to you, but my first expression of this desire was met with so generous an offer that I am writing to you.” The first artist to respond to Ogden Campbell’s proposal was Gladys Brannigan, who offered a watercolor of the gateway to the Wormsloe Plantation in Savannah. This particular painting had been exhibited in Boston and in New York by the American Watercolor Society and was sent on a traveling exhibit across the United States by the American Federation of Artists. With this painting, the Ogden Campbell Collection of American Art was begun.
12 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of William Pitt Eastman, oil on canvas, 1948. Collection of Dodge County Library, Eastman, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
13
Today, the Ogden Campbell Collection of American Art at Wesleyan College is comprised of approximately sixty works of art, including paintings, drawings, and prints. The collection includes her own works, as well as those she garnered from friends in her artistic milieu. Together the works offer a sampling of the artistic sensibility of a traditional, representational style that continued to thrive in America during the early 20th Century, even as the various schools of Abstract Expressionism moved to the forefront of visual arts culture. Regular donations of works by a growing number of artists were sent to Wesleyan over the next twenty-five years. Ogden Campbell’s letters to the presidents of Wesleyan from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s bear witness to her continued active involvement in procuring the artwork and assuring its safe delivery to Macon. Some of the contributing artists were: Edward Dufner, Arthur Freedlander, Gustave Wiegard, Robert Knight Ryland, and William Stanley Haseltine. Helena Ogden Campbell’s own paintings are represented in the collection and include portraits, still lifes, and floral subjects in oil on canvas. In 1951, she received the Distinguished Alumnae Award from Wesleyan College for creating this collection of artwork and bequeathing it to the College for the benefit of future generations of students. Style Ogden Campbell never strayed from the path of realistic interpretation in her painting. During the 1940s and 1950s, she taught life drawing classes at the Barbizon School of Art on East 65th Street in Manhattan, with a focus on direct study from life. Her devotion to depicting the observed world and to realistic images echoed her training in the studios of Chase and Henri. Her approach to teaching figure drawing was firmly rooted in anatomy and thus was in many ways, very academic. Even in the highly charged and experimental atmosphere of the New York art scene in the 1940s through the 1960s, she resisted abstraction, non-objective, and color field painting by holding fast to her ideals of disciplined observation. One art critic in reviewing one of her shows described her work as “honorable realism.”7 She once said in an interview about her work, “God’s world is too beautiful for people to think they can invent things and put their own personalities into the pictures they paint.”8 She chose to work from nature through observation, employing a broad palette and deliberate lines. Yet her fluid brushstrokes demonstrate an Impressionist influence from her plein air experiences in Paris. With a firm basis in realism, Ogden Campbell’s style reflects an open attitude toward interpreting her subjects. Her choices of colors are confident; likewise, she demonstrates an artistic authority in arranging her compositions. The rich surface textures of the oils on canvas and her painterly approach to rendering portraits lend an immediacy and freshness to the subjects, apparent in viewing the works first-hand, even today.
14 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of Reverend William F. Quillian, D.D., oil on canvas, c. 1950. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
15
Late Years and Legacy Ogden Campbell and her daughter, Mary Campbell, maintained an active social and professional life in New York. Frequent sittings for commissioned portraits of famous educational, religious, and business leaders made their home in Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, a busy place. Mary worked in Manhattan as an editor for the publishing house of Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue and Glamour magazines. She was also secretary of the Condé Nast Corporation. Retreat from this hectic public life was their home in rural Vermont. The mother and daughter pair would travel north on weekends to Oakden, the farm house they purchased in Londonderry, Vermont. Helena Ogden Campbell kept a studio-gallery there and painted the landscape en plein air as often as she could. In a newspaper article of 1960 describing a visit to Helena Ogden Campbell’s studio-gallery, the reporter stated: “We had no trouble finding it, for hanging as a sign in front of her studio was an easily recognized floral sketch of hers. The sign at the door bid the visitor to enter, look around, make a selection, and leave the money in the bucket. Trusting souls!”9 Generosity, trust, and a steadfast character describe this woman who endowed Wesleyan College with a continually enriching gift of art. She is remembered as a tall, rather imposing figure, with a gentleness and kindness about her personality that is remembered fondly by those who knew her. Ogden Campbell was an enthusiastic fan of the early children’s television puppet show, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. She enjoyed the company of her small cocker spaniel dog, Buffy, who was always at her side in the studio. She never failed to design and print her own unique Christmas cards that she sent out to her devoted friends and admirers who collected these cards annually. She was an avid letter writer and corresponded widely with a large number of acquaintances, family, and other artists. Although the Ogden Campbell Collection is her most gracious gift to posterity, the artist-donor is remembered as one of a group of women who experienced in the early 20th Century a great shift in the art world, as well as a change in the status of women in America. She was part of establishing a modernist movement in art that moved women into places of prominence in the emerging American art culture. Her involvement in the art world, then dominated by men, was a courageous and determined effort to participate in a life beyond the reach of most women prior to that time. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell was educated, trained by esteemed teachers of art in both America and Europe, and shared her gifts as a painter, art instructor, arts advocate, collector and donor. She is the benefactor to generations of women in art and academia for her commitment to the appreciation of American art. By Dorothy Ogden Brown, Wesleyan class of 1967 and great-niece of Helena Ogden Campbell
16 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Vase of Peonies, oil on canvas, 1952. Collection of Dorothy Ogden Brown, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
17
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Easter Lilies, oil on canvas,1951. Collection of Dr. & Mrs. Robert H. Ogden, Gastonia, NC.
18 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Chrysanthemums with Grapes, oil on canvas, 1946. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
19
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of Sue, 12 years old; Reverse: Portrait of Buffy, sanguine chalk drawing, 1955. Collection of Sue Ogden Ballard, Macon, GA.
20 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of Dot, 10 years old, sanguine chalk drawing, 1955. Collection of Dorothy Ogden Brown, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
21
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell. Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Dress, oil on canvas, c.1957. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
22 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Edward Dufner (1872-1957). Lady in Pink, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Wesleyan College Trustee Dennie McCrary and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program. A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
23
Edward Dufner (1872-1957). Afternoon Stroll, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
24 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
William Stanley Haseltine (1835-1900). Laguna, Venice, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
A m er i c an Pai n ter a nd C o l l e c tor
25
Margaret Huntington (1867-1958). Nantucket Houses, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Virginia Perkins ’63 and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program.
26 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Susan Richer Knox (1874-1959). Mary and Yorkie, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Ruth A. Knox ’75 and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
27
Jane Peterson (1876-1965). Bowl of Zinnias, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Ruth A. Knox ’75 in honor of Cynthia Wright ’75 and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program.
28 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
William John Whittemore (1860-1955). Lorraine Standing, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
29
Edward Dufner (1872-1957). In Summertime, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
30 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Emma Fordyce MacRae (1887-1974). Peggy, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Wesleyan Alumnae Association in honor of Cathy Snow ’71 and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
31
Frances Coates Jones (1857-1932). The Sisters, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA. Adopted by Wesleyan Class of 1960 and restored through the Adopt-a-Painting program.
32 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Chauncey F. Ryder (1868-1949). Two figures in Landscape, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA.
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
33
A. Bartley Bernard. Pomegranates, oil on canvas. Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College. Footnotes 1 Betsy Fahlman (Marian Wardle, ed.), “The Art Spirit in the Classroom: Educating the Modern Woman Artist.” American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910-1945. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), p. 105. 2 National Gallery of Art, American Impressionism and Realism: The Margaret and Raymond Horowitz Collection (Washington, D. C., 2007), p. 1. 3 Ibid. 4 Fahlman, p. 107. 5 Robert Henri, The Art Spirit: Notes, articles, fragments of letters and talks to students, bearing on the concept and technique of picture making, the study of art generally, and on appreciation. (Margery Ryerson, ed. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, 1923), pp. 10-12. 6 “Miss Ogden Weds Mr. Campbell,” Atlanta Constitution, April 26, 1906. 7 Correspondence between Martha Singleton (Bearsville, NY), niece of Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell, and the author, July 2007 (unpublished). 8 Elizabeth B. Greenman, “Profile of Helena E. Ogden Campbell, Artist.” The Aglaia of Phi Mu (vol. 48, No. 4, May 1954), p. 25. 9 G. S. Bennet, Manchester VT Times (October 6, 1960).
Sources “Art Notes.” New York Times, July 20, 1930. Bennet, G. S. Manchester, Vermont Times, October 6, 1960. Fahlman, Betsy (Marian Wardle, ed.). “The Art Spirit in the Classroom: Educating the Modern Woman Artist,” American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri 1910-1945. New Brunswick, NY: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Henri, Robert (Margery Ryerson, ed). The Art Spirit: Notes, articles, fragments of letters and talks to students, bearing on the concept and technique of picture making, the study of art generally, and on appreciation. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, 1923. “Miss Ogden Weds Mr. Campbell.” Atlanta Constitution, April 26, 1906. National Gallery of Art, American Impressionism and Realism: The Margaret and Raymond Horowitz Collection (Washington, D. C., 2007). Singleton, Martha (Bearsville, NY), niece of Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell, in correspondence with Dorothy Ogden Brown, July-August, 2007 (unpublished). Wesleyan Alumnae Office, File on Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell.
About the Author: Dorothy Ogden Brown of Macon graduated in the Class of 1967 from Wesleyan College, where she studied painting and printmaking. She is the great-niece of Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell.
34 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell (1879-1964): American Painter and Collector Biographical Summary Born: August 26, 1879, Eastman, GA
c.1940
Mother: Caro C. Eastman, b. 1844, Dorchester, MA; d. July 8, 1929, NYC Father: James Monroe Ogden, b. Dec. 11, 1831, NYC; d. March 10, 1901, Macon, GA Baptized: April 17, 1881, Christ Episcopal Church, Macon, GA Named for: Maternal grandmother, Helena DeKay Fondey Studied: 1897: Graduated Wesleyan College, Macon, GA, pupil of Mollie Mason 1902: The Chase School of Art, NYC, pupil of William Merritt Chase 1903: Art Students’ League, NYC, pupil of Robert Henri 1904: Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris, pupil of Lucien Simon 1910: Pupil of Howard Chandler Christy, NYC Married: April 24, 1906: to Rev. R. Johnston Campbell Daughter: Mary Eastman Campbell, b. 1907; m. 1963 William Flannery; d. 1979 Memberships: 1894-97: c. 1910-20:
c. 1921-30:
Teaching and Honors: 1947-48: 1940s-50s: 1951:
Philomathean, Wesleyan College Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Society of Independent Artists Knickerbocker Artists American Artists Professional League National Association of Women Artists Southern States Art League Twilight Park summer artists’ retreat, Catskill Mt., New York Hudson Valley Art Association Yonkers Art Association
Honorary Member, Phi Delta Gamma, Columbia University, NYC Instructor, Barbizon School of Art, NYC Distinguished Alumnae Award, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA
Died: March 30, 1964. Buried Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, NY
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
35
Helena Eastman Ogden Campbell (1879-1964): American Painter and Collector Se le c ted Wor ks Exhibite d Allen, Marion Boyd (1862-1941) Going to the Mountain Oil on canvas, 48” x 36” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Greacen, Nan (1908-1999) Cape Cod Landscape Oil on canvas, 15.5” x 19.5” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Bernard, A. Bartley Pomegranates Oil on canvas, 31” x 17” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Gunn, Edwin (1876-1940) Maine Farm Oil on canvas, 25” x 30” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Berneker, Louis F. (1876-1937) Emily Oil on canvas, 24” x 20” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Haseltine, William Stanley (1835-1900) Laguna, Venice Oil on canvas, 21.75” x 42” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Boveri Cantarella, Maria The Broken Jug Oil on canvas Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Hetherington, Alfred H. Seascape Oil on canvas, 26.75” x 32.75” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Bowdoin, Harriet (1880-1947) The Fountain Oil on canvas, 28” x 22” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Huntington, Margaret (1867-1958) Nantucket Houses Oil on canvas, 30” x 36” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Brannan, Sophie Marston Boat Harbor Oil on canvas, 44” x 35.5” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Jones, Frances Coates (1857-1932) The Sisters Oil on canvas, 27” x 22” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Brannan, Sophie Marston Boat Harbor Oil on canvas, 50” x 40” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
King, Paul (1867-1947) Snowing Oil on canvas, 20” x 16” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Brannan, Sophie Marston Mountain Cove Oil on canvas, 50” x 40” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Knox, Susan Richer (1874-1959) Mary and Yorkie Oil on canvas, 34” x 35” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Brannan, Sophie Marston Old Corn House Oil on canvas, 34” x 40” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
MacRae, Emma Fordyce (1887-1974) Peggy Oil on canvas, 24.5” x 20” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Dufner, Edward (1872-1957) Lady in Pink Oil on canvas, 62” x 53” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Mason, Maud M. (1867-1956) The Blue Jar Oil on canvas, 28.75” x 33.5” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Dufner, Edward (1872-1957) Afternoon Stroll Oil on canvas, 45” x 35” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of Winifred Edgerton Merrill Oil on canvas Columbia University Collection (NY)
Dufner, Edward (1872-1957) In Summertime Oil on canvas, 45” x 35” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Roses Oil on canvas, 33.75” x 40.75” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Freedlander, Arthur (1875-1940) Manuello at Work Oil on canvas, 36” x 28” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Hydrangeas Oil on canvas Collection of Dorothy Ogden Brown (Macon, GA)
Note: These thumbnail images have been cropped.
36 H e l ena E ast m a n O gden Ca m p b e l l
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Chrysanthemums Oil on canvas Collection of Martha Singleton (Bearsville, NY)
Ryland, Robert Knight (1873-1951) The Yellow Teacup Oil on canvas, 33” x 28” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Chrysanthemums with Grapes Oil on canvas Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Spencer, Howard Bonnell (1888-1967) The Roaring Brook Road in Autumn Oil on canvas, 23.25” x 19.5” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of Sidney Lanier Oil on canvas Collection of Cannonball House (Macon, GA)
Vonnoh, Robert (1858-1933) Homestead House Oil on canvas, 36” x 29” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of William Pitt Eastman Oil on canvas Collection of Dodge County Library (Eastman, GA)
Whittemore, William John (1860-1955) Lorraine Standing Oil on canvas, 60” x 40” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Wesleyan College Oil on canvas Collection of Phi Mu Foundation
Wiegard, Gustave (1870-1957) Clinging Mists Oil on canvas, 30” x 36” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of Reverend William F. Quillian Oil on canvas Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Williams, Kate A. Mad River Notch Oil on canvas, 29” x 24.25” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Easter Lilies Oil on canvas Collection of Dr. & Mrs. Robert H. Ogden (NC) Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Vase of Peonies Oil on canvas Collection of Dorothy Ogden Brown (Macon, GA) Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of Dot Sanguine chalk drawing Collection of Dorothy Ogden Brown (Macon, GA) Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of Sue Sanguine chalk drawing Collection of Sue Ogden Ballard (Macon, GA) Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Dress Oil on canvas, 45” x 24” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Paddock, Josephine (1885-1964) Green Feather Oil on canvas, 24” x 20” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Peterson, Jane (1876-1965) Bowl of Zinnias Oil on canvas, 24” x 30” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Ryder, Chauncey F. (1868-1949) Two figures in Landscape Oil on canvas, 20” x 24” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
Works not Photographed Berneker, Maude F. The Red Bowl, Oil on canvas, 24” x 20” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Brannigan, Gladys On a Southern Plantation, Watercolor, 16” x 20” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Denby, Edwin H. Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Sepia wash prints on paper: Capella Palatina Palermo Building with many ornate arches The Acropolis, Athens Theatre at Tarmina, Sicily Turrets Mont St. Michel, Gargoyles Turkey Fire in Stambowl Frances Tour das Augustine, Toulouse Roman Aqueduct at Segovia, Toulouse Rio di San Casciano Cloister, St. Bertrand La Chambre du Marmoussets La Cheminee du Franch Goldthwaite, Anne (1869-1944) Candace, Lithograph print, 12” x 16” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Ogden Campbell, Helena Eastman Army General, Charcoal on canvas, 21” x 14” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College Sherman, William (1876-1930) Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Dress Oil on canvas, 31” x 26.5” Ogden Campbell Collection, Wesleyan College
A m er i ca n Pa i nter a n d C o l l e c tor
37
In support of Wesleyan’s art restoration program, your taxdeductible donation may be made by credit card or in the form of a check payable to Wesleyan College and designated for Art Restoration or Adopt-a-Painting. Please contact the Office of Institutional Advancement at 478-757-5187 for additional information. Thank you for investing in the preservation of these special Wesleyan Treasures.
Wesleyan College Macon, GA wesleyancollege.edu