Sanford Robinson Gifford
Study for a Self-Portrait (c.1848), Brooklyn Museum
Born(1823-07-10)July 10, 1823
Greenfield, New York
DiedAugust 29, 1880(1880-08-29) (aged 57)
New York City, NY
NationalityAmerican
Known forLandscape art, Painting
MovementLuminism

Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly-regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its emphasis on light and soft atmospheric effects.

Childhood and early career

He was born in Greenfield, New York, the fourth of the eleven children of Quaker ironmaker Elihu Gifford and Eliza Robinson Starbuck.[1] He spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, and entered Brown University in 1842. He left college after his sophomore year, and moved to New York City in 1845 to study art. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith,[2] and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.[1] He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical College.[1]

Although trained as a portrait painter, the first work Gifford exhibited at the National Academy was a landscape, in 1847.[3] Thereafter, Gifford devoted himself primarily to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the Hudson River School. He was elected an Associate of the National Academy in 1851, and an Academician in 1854.[3]

Gifford's travels

Gifford in uniform (1861), Archives of American Art
The Wilderness (1860), Toledo Museum of Art
Twilight in the Catskills (1861), Yale University Art Gallery
The Artist Sketching at Mount Desert, Maine (1864-1865), National Gallery of Art
Long Branch Beach (1867), Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University

Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met and traveled extensively with Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.

In 1858, he traveled to Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest mountain, with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Sketches made during their visit were published in the magazine Home Journal. Gifford painted some 20 paintings from the Vermont sketches. Of these, Mount Mansfield (1858) was his primary work, exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1859. Thompson also exhibited a painting of Mount Mansfield in same exhibition, Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain. Thompson's work is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[4] (See "2008 NAD controversy," below.)

Gifford served as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia during the Civil War, guarding Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, 1861-1863.[5] A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to this troubled time.

During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site. The Mouth of the Shrewsbury River, one noted canvas from the period, is a dramatic scene depicting a series of telegraph poles extending into an atmospheric distance underneath ominous storm clouds.[6]

Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.[7]

Method

Mr. Gifford's method is this: When he sees anything which vividly impresses him, and which therefore he wishes to reproduce, he makes a little sketch of it in pencil on a card about as large as an ordinary visiting-card. It takes him, say, half a minute to make it; there is the idea of the future picture fixed as firmly if not as fully as the completed work itself. While traveling, he can in this way lay up a good stock of material for future use. The next step is to make a larger sketch, this time in oil, where what has already been done in black-and-white is repeated in color. To this sketch, which is about twelve inches by eight, he devotes an hour or two. It serves the purpose of defining to him just what he wants to do. He experiments with it; puts in or leaves out, according as he finds that he can increase or perfect his idea. When satisfactorily finished, it is a model of what he proposes to do.
He is now ready to paint the picture itself. When the day comes, he begins work just after sunrise, and continues until just before sunset. Ten, eleven, twelve consecutive hours, according to the season of the year, are occupied in the first great effort to put the scene on canvas. He feels fresh and eager. His studio-door is locked. Nothing is allowed to interrupt him.
When the long day is finished and the picture is produced, the work of criticism, of correction, of completion, is in place. Mr. Gifford does this work slowly. He likes to keep his picture in his studio as long as possible. Sometimes he does not touch the canvas for months after his first criticisms have been executed. Then, suddenly, he sees something that will help it along. I remember hearing him say one day, in his studio: "I thought that picture was done half a dozen times. It certainly might have been called finished six months ago. I was working at it all day yesterday." But one limitation should be noted here. Mr. Gifford does not experiment with his paintings. He does not make a change in one of them unless he knows precisely what he wishes to do. When Mr. Gifford is done, he stops. And he knows when he is done. Yet, on the other hand, he would rather take the risk of destroying a picture than to feel the slightest doubt respecting any part of it. The moment of his keenest pleasure is not when his work is satisfactorily completed, but when, long beforehand, he feels that he is going to be successful with it.[8]

Gifford would often revisit an image later, sometimes years later, painting a variation based on his sketches and own inspiration, or a patron's wishes.

Thirty-six Venice paintings, based on his 1869 drawings and studies of the city, were listed in the 1881 memorial catalogue of Gifford's works. He painted additional Venetian works, according to biographer Ila Weiss. In 1875, he wrote to a friend: "I have painted so many Venetian pictures during the last five years that I have lately declined to paint them when they have been asked for. One can't stay in Venice forever any more than one can eat partridge every day."[9] In the same letter, he wrote about his commission fees: "The price of such a picture the size of the [Fishing Boats Entering the Harbor of] Brindisi is $1600 without the frame. That is the price I received for the Brindisi, [Lake] Geneva, and [Mount] Renier [sic] [- Bay of Tacoma].[9]

"Chief pictures"

Gifford enclosed "A List of Some of My Chief Pictures" in a November 6, 1874 letter to Octavius Brooks Frothingham. He updated that list in 1880.[10] Many of these works were characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffused sunlight. He often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance, in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected.[11]

Death and legacy

Portrait of Mary Cecilia Gifford (1878), Art Institute of Chicago
Galleries of the Stelvio, Lake Como (1878), Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute

In June 1877, at age 53, Gifford married Mary Cecilia Canfield (1824-1887), the widow of a friend. They had no children.

On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, after having been diagnosed with malarial fever. That autumn, the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized a memorial exhibition of 160 of his works.

The Gifford collection comprises nearly 70 pictures, and enough studies for pictures to bring the total up to 160 numbers. It occupies the entire west gallery. While the limited time allowed for the formation of the collection and the inconvenient season for securing loans prevented that completeness of representation which was desired, yet enough has been gathered to exhibit successfully the extent, the beauty, and the real power of Mr. Gifford's work, as well as its defects and limitations. Among the more important pictures that are displayed may be noted Twilight in the Wilderness (1861), Kauterskill Clove (1863), Mansfield Mountain (1868), The Mouth of the Shrewsbury (1868), Sta. Maria della Salute (1870), Tivoli (1870), San Giorgio (1870), A Venetian Twilight (1878), The Matterhorn at Sunrise (1879), The Parthenon (1880), and Venice (1880).[12]

The following year, MMA published a catalog of his works, which listed 734 paintings and featured an appraisal of his work by his friend, John F. Weir of Yale University:[13]

Mr. S. R. Gifford was represented [at the 1876 Centennial Exposition] by his Sunrise on the Sea-Shore, of which it may be said that the sea and its solitude has seldom inspired a more profound motive, or one more adequately rendered, than this picture. Tivoli and Lake Geneva are no less admirable, but with a very distinct sentiment, and Pallanza, Lago Maggiore has a full-blooded sense of light, modified by tone that is in every respect masterly in treatment. Two pictures by the same artist, Fishing-Boats of the Adriatic and San Giorgio, Venice, are as strong and pronounced in color as the former works are delicate and suggestive. The artist is varied in his powers, and sustained, free, and finished in his methods. His pictures always manifest great elevation of thought and feeling. They are the interpretation of the profound sentiments of Nature rather than of her superficial aspects.[14]

Two-hundred-ninety-four of Gifford's paintings were to be auctioned at Madison Square Garden in two sessions.[15] Part 1 went off without a hitch, but Part 2 had a tragic end.

The same lesson is also enforced by the sale of the pictures and sketches of the late Sanford R. Gifford, the most important sale, so far as American art in concerned, held in a long while. The collection consisted of 294 sketches and finished works, which were sold in two divisions, on the evenings of April 11th and 12th, and 28th and 29th, and realized an aggregate $42,200. The highest price was paid for the finished picture, The Ruins of the Parthenon, which was bought for the Corcoran Gallery of Art, at Washington, for $5,100.[16]

The preview for the second session, on the evening of April 21, was advertised as a benefit for New York City's Hahnemann Hospital. The crowd was larger than anticipated, and with some 800 people packed into the building, the floor of the ballroom collapsed, in what became known as the Madison Square Garden disaster. Five people were killed and twenty-two were injured.[17]

Between 1955 and 1973, Gifford's heirs donated the artist's letters and personal papers to the Archives of American Art, at the Smithsonian Institution. In 2007, these papers were digitally scanned in their entirety and made available to researchers as the Sanford Robinson Gifford Papers Online.[18] Twenty-four of Gifford's sketchbooks survive, and are in the collections of Yale University, the Brooklyn Museum, Vassar College, and elsewhere.

2008 National Academy of Design controversy

Frederic Edwin Church, Scene on the Magdalena (1854), private collection
Sanford Robinson Gifford, Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859), private collection

In December 2008, one of Gifford's paintings, Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859), became part of a controversy over deaccessioning by the National Academy of Design.[4] The Academy was a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose policy stated that member museums could not sell works of art to cover operating expenses, only to purchase superior works or to weed out inferior or redundant ones. Prior to joining AAMD, the Academy had sold two Thomas Eakins works (including his "diploma painting," Wrestlers) in the 1970s, and Richard Caton Woodville's War News from Mexico (1848) in 1994.[19] According to its former curator, David Dearinger: "When the Academy later applied to the museum association for accreditation, Mr. Dearinger recalled, it was asked about the Woodville sale and promised not to repeat such a move."[20]

In a 2008 sale, the Academy quietly sold Frederic Edwin Church‘s Scene on the Magdalene (1854) and Sanford Gifford's Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859) to a private collector for US$13.5 million.[4] The former was the Academy's only painting by Church; the latter was its only painting by Gifford. Both had been "donated to the Academy in 1865 by another painter, James Augustus Suydam."[21] News of the sale was broken by arts blogger Lee Rosenbaum.[22] As punishment for these actions, AAMD asked its other member museums to "cease lending artworks to the Academy and collaborating with it on exhibitions."[21] The Academy had contemplated selling additional paintings, but those plans were abandoned after being reported by Rosenbaum.[23]

Selected works

NOTE: Gifford's "Chief Pictures" are listed in bold.

Europe

Lake Nemi (1856-1857), Toledo Museum of Art
Venetian Sails, A Study (1873), Washington University Museum of Art, St. Louis
Lake Geneva (1875), Rhode Island School of Design Museum
Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), National Gallery of Art
Leander's Tower on the Bosphorus (1876), Fogg Museum, Harvard University

Middle East

United States

A Gorge In The Mountains - Kauterskill Falls (1862), Metropolitan Museum of Art
A Coming Storm (1863/1880), Philadelphia Museum of Art
Haverstraw Bay (1866), Cleveland Museum of Art
Mount Rainier, Bay of Tacoma – Puget Sound (1875), Seattle Art Museum
An Indian Summer Day on the Claverack Creek (1877), Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sunset over New York Bay (c.1878), private collection

American Civil War

Camp of the Seventh Regiment, near Frederick, Maryland, in July 1863 (1864), Seventh Regiment Armory, New York City

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "On the north side of the room hangs Mr. S. R. Gifford's Tivoli, No. 340. It represents the well-known valley, with a pile of buildings on the left, and a small stream running down the center. The valley is bathed in a glow of golden sunlight. The picture is specially noticeable for its fine tone, the wonderful atmospheric effects which have been introduced, and its admirable perspective. Quite in a different style to this is No. 376, Mount Hood and the Dalles, Columbia River, Oregon, by the same artist. It is painted with all Mr. Gifford's usual careful attention to detail. The mountain in the distance is particularly fine.[33]
  2. ^ "His painting of the Matterhorn towering into the blue, smitten by the glow of the setting sun, is, it not too much to say, one of the noblest attempts at mountain painting ever undertaken by an American artist. We know not which most to admire, the firmness of the technique, the purity of the atmospheric tints, or the superb manner in which the outlines of the stupendous obelisk of th Alps have been chiselled against the heavens.[45]
  3. ^ The New York Leader critic George Arnold's praise for the painting is quoted in Avery et al., pp. 167-168.[1]
  4. ^ "One of the most important pictures was A Twilight in the Adirondacks, by Sanford R. Gifford. It is a lake-scene in the forest, just as the shadows of approaching night begin to creep over the landscape. The sky glows with reflected light, and this brilliant after-glow is repeated in the quiet water. In the deep shadows of the forest on the bank of the lake in the middle ground, there glows the firelight of a hunter's camp, but otherwise there is nothing in the landscape to disturb the impressive quiet of the scene."[65]

References

  1. ^ a b c d American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution. Biographical information.
  2. ^ Myers, Kenneth (1987). The Catskills: Painters, Writers, and Tourists in the Mountains, 1820-1895. Hudson River Museum. ISBN 978-0-943651-05-7.
  3. ^ a b Sandford Robinson Gifford from NAD.
  4. ^ a b c Scandal over Mansfield Archived 2009-02-10 at the Wayback Machine by Mark Bushnell, Rutland [Vt.] Herald, January 11, 2009. Retrieved 1/13/09.
  5. ^ Kevin J. Avery, "Sanford Robinson Gifford," Archived 2021-10-22 at the Wayback Machine Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, from MMA.
  6. ^ "2003". Artfact.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2012-04-25.
  7. ^ SRG pictured on horseback, with caption Picture 1. Archive of American Art. Smithsonian Institution.
  8. ^ George William Sheldon, American Painters, Volume 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1879), pp. 16, 17-18.
  9. ^ a b S. R. Gifford to John F. Weir, May 6, 1875, Yale University Library, quoted in Weiss, p. 144.
  10. ^ Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser et al., Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 160.
  11. ^ Ila Weiss, Poetic Landscape: The Art and Experience of Sanford R. Gifford (Associated University Presses, Inc., 1987), pp. 327-329.
  12. ^ The American Art Review (Boston: Dana Estes and Charles E. Lauriat, 1881), p. 36.[2]
  13. ^ a b c "Sanford Robinson Gifford, artist," The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 2 (New York: James T. White & Company, 1921), p. 443.
  14. ^ John F. Weir, "Sanford R. Gifford. His Life and Character as Artist and Man." in A Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1881), pp. 7-11.[3]
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Picture Sales of the Month (April 1881)". The Art Journal. New York: Patterson & Neilson: 160. 1881.
  16. ^ The American Art Review, Volume 2 (Boston: Dana Estes and Charles E. Lauriat, 1881), div. 2 (May 1881), p. 42.
  17. ^ "Fall of the Madison Square Garden Building in N. Y., killing 5 persons and injuring 22." Handbook of the United States of America (New York: Gaylord Watson, Publisher, 1881), p. 169.
  18. ^ "Record Sanford Robinson Gifford papers, 1840s-1900 | Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution". Archived from the original on 2008-03-04. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
  19. ^ Lee Rosenbaum, "Now at the Met: Crystal Bridges-owned Painting Sold in 1994 by the National Academy" CultureGrrl blogpost, October 12, 2009.
  20. ^ "Branded a pariah, the National Academy is struggling to survive" Archived 2016-08-12 at the Wayback Machine by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, December 23, 2008, p. C1, NY edition. With image of painting. Retrieved 1/13/09.
  21. ^ a b "National Academy Sells Two Hudson River School Paintings to Bolster Its Finances" Archived 2015-04-10 at the Wayback Machine by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, December 6, 2008, p. C1, NY edition. Retrieved 1/13/09.
  22. ^ '"Lee Rosenbaum" (not alter ego, "CultureGrrl") in NY Times Today' Archived 2009-03-31 at the Wayback Machine December 6, 2008 Culture Grrl blogpost. Retrieved 1/13/09.
  23. ^ 'Auction House Privately Handled the National Academy Sales; Two More Possible Disposals Identified' Archived 2009-03-30 at the Wayback Machine December 5, 2008 Culture Grrl blogpost. Retrieved 1/13/09.
  24. ^ Lake Nemi from Toledo Museum of Art.
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Kevin J. Avery & Frank Kelly, (2003). Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  26. ^ Saint Peter's from Pincian Hill from PAFA.
  27. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n United States Centennial Commission, International Exhibition, 1876. (Philadelphia: John R. Nagle and Company, 1876).[4]
  28. ^ Venice Archived 2019-07-13 at the Wayback Machine from MBRNHP.
  29. ^ Venetian Sails from Kemper Art Museum.
  30. ^ Contemporary review of painting. jpg. American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  31. ^ Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore from SIRIS.
  32. ^ Tivoli from MMA.
  33. ^ "Opening of the Forty-fifth Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design," The New York Times, April 17, 1870. p. 3.
  34. ^ The Annual Exhibition of the National Academy 1870 p. 705. jpg. American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  35. ^ Contemporary review in New York Herald, Monday, June 27, 1870. jpg. American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  36. ^ Contemporary review 1872 (date?). jpg. American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  37. ^ Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore from MMA.
  38. ^ Lago Maggiore from Vassar College.
  39. ^ Lake Maggiore, Italy (1858) from New-York Historical Society Museum & Library.
  40. ^ Rheinstein from Kemper Art Museum.
  41. ^ "A visit to the studio of Mr. Sanford R. Gifford" by J.F.W. Evening Post (N.Y.) March 18, 1875. "JFW" is almost certainly John Ferguson Weir.
  42. ^ John Ferguson Weir: The Labor of Art by Betsy Fahlman (University of Delaware Press 1997) Reports close connection between the two artists, also both National Academy and 7th Regiment members.
  43. ^ Galleries of the Stelvio from MWPAI.
  44. ^ Villa Malta, Rome from SAAM.
  45. ^ S. G. W. Benjamin, The American Art Review, Volume 1 (Boston: Dana Estes and Charles E. Lauriat, 1881), pp. 351-352.
  46. ^ American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution Mont Cervin (Matterhorn), circa 1856-circa 1868. (Box 2 (pam), Folder 16).
  47. ^ Ruins of the Parthenon from NGA.
  48. ^ On the Nile from DIA.
  49. ^ Gebel Haridid, on the Nile from Vassar College.
  50. ^ On the Nile from SIRIS.
  51. ^ Constantinople from The Golden Horn from MWPAI.
  52. ^ Siout, Egypt from NGA.
  53. ^ Leander's Tower from Harvard University Art Museums.
  54. ^ Mount Mansfield from Springfield Museums.
  55. ^ Early October in the White Mountains from Kemper Art Museum.
  56. ^ The White Mountains from New Britain Museum of American Art.
  57. ^ The Wilderness from Toledo Museum of Art.
  58. ^ Lake Scene - Mountain Background from Addison Gallery of American Art.
  59. ^ Twilight in the Catskills from Yale University Art Gallery.
  60. ^ A Gorge in the Mountains from MMA.
  61. ^ October in the Catskills from LACMA.
  62. ^ Kauterskill Clove, Catskill Mountains from Art Institute of Chicago.
  63. ^ A Coming Storm from Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  64. ^ The View from South Mountain from St. Johnsbury Athenaeum.
  65. ^ The Art Journal for 1876 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1876), p. 21.
  66. ^ The Artist Sketching from NGA.
  67. ^ An October Afternoon from MFAB.
  68. ^ Sandy Hook from Whitney Museum of American Art.
  69. ^ Noted in Independent review Ap. 23, 1868. jpg. American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  70. ^ Clipping dated April 21, 1881, identified only as "New York." American Archives of Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  71. ^ A Passing Storm from Wadsworth Athenaeum.
  72. ^ Rocks at Porcupine Island from Farnsworth Art Museum.
  73. ^ A Home in the Wilderness from Cleveland Museum of Art.
  74. ^ Mountain Landscape from Yale University Art Gallery.
  75. ^ Hunter Mountain, Twilight from Terra Foundation.
  76. ^ Johnson, Kirk (June 7, 2001). "Hunter Mountain Paintings Spurred Recovery of Land". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 25, 2014. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  77. ^ Morning in the Hudson from Terra Foundation.
  78. ^ Haverstraw Bay from Cleveland Museum of Art.
  79. ^ Tappan Zee from Christie's Auctions.
  80. ^ Hook Mountain, near Nyack from Yale University Art Gallery.
  81. ^ Appletons' Journal Archived 2011-05-21 at the Wayback Machine pp.315-16 March 4, 1876. Retrieved 1-13-09.
  82. ^ Valley of the Chugwater from Amon Carter Museum.
  83. ^ Kaaterskill Falls from Detroit Institute of Arts.
  84. ^ Mount Rainier, Bay of Tacoma from Seattle Art Museum.
  85. ^ A Sunset, Bay of NY from Everson Museum of Art.
  86. ^ Preaching to the Troops from SIRIS.
  87. ^ The Blue and Gray in Black and White by Bob Zeller (Praeger Publishers 2005) p. 50.
  88. ^ Bivouac of the Seventh Infantry from SIRIS.
  89. ^ "The New York Times April 23, 1880" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved 2012-04-25.

Further reading

External links

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