Jervis McEntee, Diary
Wednesday, 30 September 1876
Great Uncle
JERVIS McENTEE My great uncle
was born in Rondout (Kingston), Ulster County, New York,
on July 14, 1828. He was a "Hudson River School" artist
who in 1851 studied under Frederick Edwin Church. Church
had himself studied under Thomas Cole "father" of the
Hudson River School of American Landscape painters.
Jervis married Gertrude Sawyer in 1854 and with his
wife opened a studio as a charter resident of Richard
Morris Hunt's "Tenth Street Studio Building", New York
City in 1857. Numerous Hudson River artists also lived
at the Tenth Street Studio including such well known
artists as; Frederick Edwin Church, Thomas Worthington
Whittredge, William Holbrook Beard, Albert Bierstadt,
John Ferguson Weir and Sanford Robinson Gifford to name
a few. All were close friends but Gifford was often his
traveling companion and his life long friend. In 1860
Jervis was elected an Associate of the National Academy
of Design on the strength of his "
MELANCHOLY DAYS" (location unknown) and
he became a full Academician the following year. The
McEntees generally spent their Summers and Autumns at
Rondout and returned to their studio in New York in the
Winter. They traveled abroad in 1868 and spent time in
England and France. In September they met Church and his
wife in Switzerland; they traveled south and together
sketched arriving in Rome in October. In Rome they met
Sanford Gifford and together they frequently wandered
and sketched in and around the Roman countryside.
Gifford left in January but Church and McEntee stayed
through the Winter and occupied adjacent studios in the
Hotel
de Russie. Together with George P. A. Healy, Church and
McEntee started working on "THE
ARCH OF TITUS", (The Newark Museum), Newark,
N.J. which was completed in 1871. The oil on canvas,
74x48 inches, depicts the three of them in the forground
with the Arch, Coliseum and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
and his daughter in the distance. The McEntees headed
north in March sketching along the way and left England
for home in July, 1869. Jervis kept a dairy (Archives
of American Art, Smithsonian Institution) and it is
probably the most cited document about the history of
American Art during this time period. It tells us all
there is to know about McEntee himself and the work he
produced in the last two decades of his life. But the
great value of the Diary (5 volumns, thousands of words)
lies in its cumulative effect. It is the piling up of
detail over a twenty year period which provides such a
vivid accurate impression of the life of a typical New
York painter during and after the Guilded Age. McEntee
knew every artist of note in the City and he comments on
most of them. There are many references to literary
figures, politicians, journalists, clergymen,
capitalists and architects. Some of the more notable
friends of McEntee were; Edwin Booth, great American
Shakespearian Actor, Edwins brother John Wilkes Booth,
William Cullen Bryant, Brete Harte and Helen Hunt
Jackson. Jervis father James took Mrs. Wilkes Booth to
the train station the day after John shot Lincoln.
Calvert Vaux, an excellent landscape architect of the
firm of Olmsted and Vaux, was married to Jervis sister
Mary. Olmsted and Vaux disigned Central Park in New York
City
and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Poetry provided the
themes for many of his paintings and by some critics
was a person of "melancholy" which was evident in his
painting and probably his inspiration for "MELANCHOLY DAYS". Jervis
was a First Lieutenant in the 20th regiment during the
Civil
War and painted many scenes one of his best is "VIRGINIA in 1862"
(location unknown). Jervis is best known for his oils
but also did watercolor sketches of pencil and ink on
paper. Gertrude was the model for "
SOLITAIRE" 1873 (location inknown) and
passed away in 1878. Jervis continued to live and paint
at the Tenth Street Studio and in Rondout until his
death in Kingston on January 27, 1891. "A finished
career, Death of Jervis McEntee, one of America's
greatest painters" Kingston Daily Leader (January 28,
1891). Perhaps this will help all of us rediscover
Jervis McEntee one of the great 19th Century Landscape
Painters.
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