Frank Benton Ashley Linton (February 26, 1871, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – November 13, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American portrait-painter and teacher. He was a student of Thomas Eakins, studied the École des Beaux-Arts, and won a bronze medal at the 1927 Salon Nationale in Paris.[a] Likely a closeted gay man, he lived with pianist Samuel Meyers for more than thirty years.
Linton was the son of Philadelphia building contractor Edwin Ruthven Linton and Sarah Piper. His father was a cousin of the British painter Sir James Dromgole Linton, president of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.[1] Linton attended Philadelphia public schools, and entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1885 (at age 14). He studied under Thomas Eakins, and remained at PAFA following Eakins's forced resignation in 1886. He studied again under Eakins at the Art Students' League of Philadelphia from 1888 to 1890.[2] He was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1890, and studied under Eakins's teachers, Jean-Léon Gérôme and Léon Bonnat.[3] Reversing the usual course, he then studied at the Academie Julien under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Jean Paul Laurens, and William-Adolphe Bouguereau.[4] He returned to Philadelphia around 1896.[5]
Linton painted hundreds of portraits of Philadelphia businessmen, physicians, college faculty, politicians and artists, and also portraits of "Society" matrons and children. These ranged from life-sized, full-length portraits to portrait miniatures.[c] He sometimes worked as a copyist, painting replicas of American colonial and federal portraits,[8] or posthumous portraits from photographs.[9] He occasionally painted landscapes and still lifes, and modeled sculpture.[8]
Linton had a special affinity for portraits of women. He exhibited An Evening's Reminiscence at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, a full-length painting of a nude woman seated before her dressing table and examining a rose.[10] He painted an imperious full-length portrait of the dancer Ruth St. Denis, and a sensual full-length portrait of Ada Forman, a member of St. Denis's dance troupe. The Silver Heel was his playful full-length portrait of his friend and former student, Agnes Allen.[11]
Linton exhibited regularly at the conservative Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts – known as the "Salon Nationale" – from about 1906 to the onset of World War II.[12] He exhibited semi-regularly at PAFA between 1895 and 1912.[13] He had a one-man show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1917,[d] and at the Reading Public Museum in 1939.
Following World War I, Linton was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus to paint a full-length portrait of Commander of American Expeditionary Forces General John J. Pershing, as a gift from the United States to France.[1] The portrait hangs in Les Invalides, the French national military museum in Paris.
Linton had his greatest professional success with a humorous twist on the traditional subject of a beautiful woman at her dressing table. A Fool's Finesse depicted a circus clown standing before his dressing table, and carefully applying one last touch of greasepaint. The painting was rejected for PAFA's 1922 annual exhibition,[12] but was displayed later that year in a window of Wanamaker's department store during Philadelphia Art Week.[16] Renamed The Last Touch (Le Denière Retouche), Linton submitted it to the 1927 Salon Nationale, where it was awarded a bronze medal and purchased for the Musée du Luxembourg, with the intention that it hang in the Louvre after Linton's death.[1] The following year, Linton was decorated by the French government with the rank of Officier d'Academie.[12]
Mr. Linton's facility and versatility, which have often been remarked, are only superficial aspects of his art, which is profound in its inspiration and superlative in its expression. He is not only a brilliant draftsman and colorist, a master of the brush but also possesses the keen psychological insight, which is the hallmark of genius in portraiture, and a freshness of outlook which reflects the rare quality of his creative imagination and lends individuality to his work. Among present-day artists his gifts are unsurpassed and they have won for him the highest honors in the world of art.
His claims to serious consideration, particularly in portraiture and figure work, were soon recognized and at the age of twenty-three he was awarded the silver medal for his exhibit at the American Art Exhibition. His first portrait hung in Paris, that of Dr. J. L. Borsch of Philadelphia, won for him enormous acclaim.
Mr. Linton is also a member of the Internationale Union des Beaux-arts et Lettres, to which only one member in the entire world is elected each year. He received this honor in 1913,[e] when his name was enrolled among the illustrious greats comprising the membership of the Internationale Union des Beaux-Arts et Lettres, including such personages as Kipling, Rodin, Degas, Anatole France, Renoir and many more.[18]
Linton's life partner was the German-American classical pianist Samuel Meyers (1854–1933). They shared a house and studio at 1707 Chestnut Street from 1901 to 1924.[5] Eakins was a frequent guest at their Saturday afternoon musicales,[2] and painted portraits of both men. (The portraits are at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.)[5] It is likely that it was at one of the musicales that Eakins met the Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Hedda van den Beemt.[5] Music (1904),[f] Eakins's portrait of van den Beemt, features Meyers in the background as the pianist.[2]
Linton hosted a March 1924 art exhibition at his Chestnut Street studio featuring paintings by fellow Eakins students Charles Bregler, David Wilson Jordan and Susan Macdowell Eakins (Eakins's widow), along with his own works.[19]
Linton and Meyers moved to a house and studio at 2037 Delancey Street by 1925.[5] Meyers died in July 1933.[20] Linton continued living there through a long illness,[1] until his death in 1943.[21]
Linton may be better remembered as the subject of Thomas Eakins's 1904 portrait than for his own paintings. He was also the model for a statuette by sculptor Samuel Murray, that was exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair.[10] Murray and he were among the former Eakins students who had successful careers. Linton reportedly could command $5,000 to $10,000 for a portrait commission in the 1920s,[21] but he died insolvent, and his paintings and possessions were sold to pay creditors.[21] PAFA's Charles Bregler Collection contains a number of photographs of Linton by Eakins or Eakins's circle.[22] He was one of the former Eakins students interviewed by Lloyd Goodrich for his 1933 biography, Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work.[23]
Linton's private students included artists Agnes Allen,[11] Lila Oliver Asher,[24] Mabel B. Davis,[25] Berla Emeree,[26] Eleanora G. Fiore, Robert O. Frick,[27] Edward Newnam,[5] Joy Rubin,[28] and art historian David Sellin.[29]
Linton's works are in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Delaware Art Museum, the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware, Girard College, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and many private collections.
