Joseph Pennell: Our Philadelphia

"Joseph Pennell's success with the Panama prints encouraged him to use lithography for the one hundred five illustrations in 'Our Philadelphia," upon which he now set to work. No artist's eyes have been keener for the picturesqueness of the modern world than Pennell's and he was stirred by the arrangement of the tall skyscrapers rising, story after story, above the little red brick and white marble streets. He did not waste his time lamenting the past. He drew what survived of it and got what he could out of the present.

His reputation as a lithographer was strengthened by this book, an unrivalled presentment of his native town as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century
. He wished to have the prints safely preserved in the archives of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and offered them for an absurdly small sum. The Society refused - only to change its mind in more recent years and buy them for a high price from a dealer.

Socially, Philadephia amused him so inclined was it then, though not later, to accept us as the prophets usually unrecognized in their own country. We were offered a steady course of dinners, luncheons, receptions, visits, ceremonies. Pennell went when they did not interfere with his work. When they interfered, I went without him. Those were the days when to be asked to meet Doctor Weir Mitchell 'placed' one, and we were asked; when to figure in Peggy Shippen's 'Ledger' column was a social certificate, and we figured; when Mr. and Mrs. Talcott Williams were expected to give an evening in their Clinton Street house to every distinguished guest, and they conferred this distinction upon us; when to be invited to the Penn Club was to have the Philadelphia seal set upon one's fame, and the Club not merely invited us but held a reception in our honour. 

The climax came when all Philadelphia was again invited to meet us, this time at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and a hero was made of the once unpopular student. It was an unhoped-for olive branch and Pennell was pleased."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters of Joseph Pennell, Volume Two" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)  

 

 

Joseph Pennell: Lithographs of the Panama Canal, Pt. 2

 

"Cranes - Miraflores Lock"
by Joseph Pennell

From "My Lithographs of the Panama Canal" by Joseph Pennell:  

"Unlike my experiences of a lifetime at other government works, I was asked for no permit. I was allowed to go where I wanted, draw what I liked. When any attention was paid to me, it was to ask what I was working for, to give me a glass of ice water - precious, out of the breeze at the bottom of a lock - offer to get me a photograph or make one, to suggest points of view, or tell me to clear out when a blast was to be fired.

Drawing had other interesting episodes connected with it, as when I sat at work in Culebra Cut, the leading man of a file of workers, carrying on his head a wooden box stopped beside me and looked at the drawing. As I happened to look up I noticed the box was labeled, 'Explosive, Highly Dangerous.' Then with his hands in his pockets, he and the rest of the gang stumbled off, along the ties, slippery boulders and through the mud. The sensation was peculiar. 

It was interesting, too, when one had been working steadily for some time, to find oneself surrounded by little flags to announce that the whole place had been mined and should not be approached, or to find oneself entangled in a network of live wires ready to touch off the blasts from hundreds of yards away, and to remember that I was behind a boulder about to be blown to pieces and might be overlooked.

But nothing happened to me. I did not get malaria or fever, or bitten or run over. I walked in the sun and worked in sun, and sat in the swamps and the bottoms of locks and at the edge of the dam, and nothing but drawings happened, but I should not advise others to try these things, nor to get too near steam shovels which 'pick up anything from an elephant to a redbug,' but sometimes drop a ton rock, nor play around near track-lifters and dirt-train emptiers - for those things are small respecters of person.

I did not bother myself about these things, nor about lengths and breadths and heights and depths. I went to see and draw the Canal, and during all the time I was there I was afforded every facility for seeing the construction of the Panama Canal, and from my point of view it is the most wonderful thing in the world. I have tried to express this in my drawings at the moment before it was opened, for when it is and the water turned in, half the amazing masses of masonry will be beneath the waters on one side and filled in with earth on the other, and the picturesqueness will have vanished."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "My Lithographs of the Panama Canal" by Joseph Pennell.)

Joseph Pennell: Lithographs of the Panama Canal, Pt. 1

"At the Bottom of Gatun Lock"
by Joseph Pennell

From "My Lithographs of the Panama Canal" by Joseph Pennell: 

"The idea of going to Panama to make lithographs of the Canal was mine. I suggested it, and the 'Century Magazine' and 'Illustrated London News' offered to print some of the drawings I might make.  But it was not until January 1912, that I was able to go - afraid the work was finished and that there would be nothing to see. Photographs taken a year or eighteen months before, showed some of the locks built and their gates partly in place. Still I started, and after nearly three weeks of voyaging found the Isthmus of Panama ahead, a mountainous country with deep valleys filled with mist - like Japanese prints. Next day I started across the continent to Panama, for I learned the government headquarters were there, and, until I had seen the officials, I did not know if I should be allowed to work or even stay on the Isthmus. 

At Gatun I got off the train, and saw the tops of the locks only a few hundred yards away. From there I looked down into a yawning gulf stretching to right and left, the bottom filled with crowds of tiny men and tiny trains - all in a maze of work. Overhead, huge iron buckets flew to and fro, great cranes raised or lowered huge masses of material. As I looked, a bell rang, the men dropped their tools, and line of little figures marched away or climbed wooden stairs and iron ladders to the surface. The engines whistled, the buckets paused, everything stopped instantly, save that from the depths a long chain came quickly up, and clinging to the end of it, as Cellini would have grouped them, were a dozen men - a living design - the most decorative motive I have ever seen. For a second only they were posed, and then the huge crane swung the group to the ground and the design fell to pieces as they dropped off.

In the evening a ride of two hours took me over the thirty miles to Panama. The next morning I went to the Administration Building and presented my letters, though I did not know if I should be allowed to draw. But it seemed that everything had been arranged for me by the Commission, who, it also seemed, had been doing nothing for weeks but waiting my coming. I was clothed, fed, taken about in motor cars and steam launches, given passes on the railroad, and finally turned loose to go where I wanted and draw what I liked - and if anything happened or did not happen I was just to telephone to headquarters. 

The following day, donning my khaki and pocketing my pass and some oranges, I started for the locks at Pedro Miguel to get a drawing of the great walls that led up to the great gates, now nearly finished. I had come at exactly the right time. The walls were surmounted with great arches and buttresses - the most decorative subject, the most stupendous motive I have ever seen - almost too great to draw."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "My Lithographs of the Panama Canal" by Joseph Pennell.}

Joseph Pennell: The Death of Kind Edward VII

The Funeral Procession

Preparation for the Lying in State

"Joseph Pennell was back in London when King Edward died on May 6, 1910.  From that night until after the funeral on May twenty-sixth he had little peace. Our front door was besieged by newspaper, messenger and telegraph boys. The postman came heavy laden. The 'Daily Chronicle,' the 'Illustrated London News,' the 'Times' clamoured for drawings, and the journalist in him, long quiescent, awoke as of old. He would not have sought the work. He had done with this sort of illustration, but when it fell to him uninvited, he plunged into it with his accustomed go and vigour. 

He has told the story: the dark night of waiting for the end outside of Buckingham Palace; the days in Westminster Hall, he, the one illustrator to get in while carpenters and painters made ready for the Lying-in-State; his equal success on the day of the funeral with the aid of John Burns, triumphantly capturing building and point of view he had decided all along must and should be his. He revelled in the excitement, and rejoiced when it was over."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters of joseph Pennell, Volume Two" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.) 

Joseph Pennell: Efforts, Successful and Not

"The 'L' and the Trinity Building"
by Joseph Pennell

"Joseph Pennell's new studio was an inspiration. He experimented with his Pittsburgh and New York plates, trying to get out of them all he put into them. He hovered about tone in etching 'by way of aquatint and sandpaper - at last I have tackled mezzotint . . . and having lots of fun and making lots of messes.'

Now and then other work interrupted. The 'Century' discovered an author as keen about the practical progress of modern industrialism as Pennell was about its picturesqueness, and little journeys were numerous, here and there in England, to France, to Germany, to Belgium, for a series of drawings and etchings to illustrate Mr. James Davenport Whelpley's article on 'The Commercial Strength of Great Britain'; 'Germany's Foreign Trade'; 'Belgium, the Balance Wheel of Trade'; and 'The Trade of France.' 

In whatever leisure was left him he kept up his large correspondence and fulfilled his every duty on committees. 'Time is short,' he reminded Morris in one of the first letters on his return. In those that followed he discussed each and every detail of the fast approaching exhibition in Venice - exhibitors, space, decoration, packers, insurance, expense. The hanging was the most important, why not 'a simple background grey or white canvas - if you are not afraid - and a simple gold band - as we do in the International.' Only the best work was to be accepted, for it was wise to remember the British attitude towards the Americans represented that winter in the International Society's Exhibition, an attitude almost of hostility against not only the mediocre but the fine.

He made out lists of artists to be represented. He reported that T.R. Way will lend a group of Whistler's lithographs, but Mr. Alexander will not lend the portrait of Miss Alexander, refuses to send 'the little girl from home again.' Mrs. Saint Gaudens wants Saint Gaudens' reliefs and bronzes included; examples of McLure Hamilton and Cecilia Beaux are matters of course. And so it went on. He urged a friend: 'My dear Morris if we [as Americans] want to keep abreast of Contemporary art we must work - something more than hustle - I am afraid this show will hurt us...' 

Sadly the show did not reflect well on the Americans as a whole, but Pennell himself did better. In June he was made a National Academician, then in November he sold all of his prints in the Venice exhibition - the Pittsburgh and latest New York etchings - to the Municipality of Venice for their Public Gallery."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters of Joseph Pennell, Vol. Two" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)  

 

Joseph Pennell: New York, New York!

"New York Bay from the Margaret" by Joseph Pennell
Pastel on Brown Paper

"On June Twentieth, 1908, Joseph Pennell sailed for New York. While he was there, the Grolier Club proposed to give a show of his etchings with one hundred and fifty-seven prints in all, a proposal which he did not consider twice before accepting. Another show of his work was opened at Keppels'. He was also making illustrations of New York with coloured chalks on brown paper, his knowledge of New York growing with each drawing. These would be used in an upcoming book.

At the end of October I joined him, my first visit to my native land in twenty-four years. He was at the Belmont. 'People ask me why I go to the Belmont,' he wrote in the 1919 Keppel Catalogue. 'I go to get things like this ('The Clock, Grand Central') and from every room on every side I get subjects just as inspiring.' It was well that work no longer monopolized all his time. 

"The Clock, Grand Central" by Joseph Pennell

November was a month of dinners, lunches, visits, committee meetings. And he was my guide, on foot to lower New York and its skyscrapers, on ferryboats to the waterfront and its glories. And we were still in New York when 'The Life of Whistler' was published. If it cost us much time, labour and grave anxiety, we were repaid. It was an immediate success, both in England and America. Landing at Southampton on the morning of December third, in the first paper we opened we found an advertisement announcing the second edition.

That same winter McLure Hamilton painted him, in his long grey blouse, sitting in his studio by his table littered with bottles of acid, copper plates, and baths, a misty glimpse of St. Paul's through the window beyond. A.S. Hartrick made a lithograph of him in the same blouse, turning the wheel of his press. He sat to J. Kerr-Lawson for a second lithograph, to Clifford Addams for a second painting. William Strang's tinted drawing of him was made some few years before. These and Whistler's portraits, the lithographs, were on our walls. A professional beauty could be in no greater demand as a sitter, his friends used to tell him."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The LIfe and Letters of Joseph Pennell, Vol. Two" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)  

 

Joseph Pennell: A New Home and Studio

"Wren's City Out of the Adelphi Terrace Windows"
by Joseph Pennell

"Although his home and studio on Buckingham Street in London never ceased to please Joseph Pennell, he could not resist the finer views he could have just two short blocks away on the top floor of the Adelphi Terrace House. He could look down upon an unsurpassed arrangement of the Thames, Waterloo Bridge and Wren's City. It gave him one of his unfailing inspirations: why not build a studio on the roof from which Westminster Abbey to the west, as well as St. Paul's to the east, could be seen. The architect thought it was a good idea and improved upon it. He built not merely a studio, but an entire fourth floor divided into three flats, and for two of them Pennell signed a lease of twenty-one years without flinching.

Of the flat on the river front he made his studio - a palace indeed compared to his old one. The splendour of London was spread out before him. Space was plentiful for shelves and a long, low chest of drawers to store prints and drawings in. A large closet held his huge collection of old paper for printing. The press with its paraphernalia was sold for one of the less picturesque, more practical presses the Bank of England printed its bank notes on, until hand was exchanged for electric power. The walls were bare, a single print hanging in the studio, papered in grey, but this print appropriate: Toulouse-Lautrect's affiche for 'L'Estampe Originale.' The white or pale rose on the other walls made a good background for the few Whistlers and Pennells hung. The rooms were as empty as our needs allowed, a few rugs on the well-polished floors, a few pieces of indispensable furniture. The emptiness was a beauty in itself. 

We moved in towards the end of March and I doubt if we could have moved in then, or ever, without the help of Augustine. I wonder I have not said before that she was the stay and support of the household, and had become one of the family. She was the most competent of women, a genius as a cook, a paragon of order and cleanliness. And from the first day she understood Pennell, helped him in a hundred ways, saw to the packing up and sending off of his drawings and prints, when in France hunted up old paper for him, had no fear of work, and was the only person with the courage to scold Whistler when late for dinner. 

Thanks to her powers of organization by the middle of April, Pennell, with his blocks of brown paper and his coloured chalks, was in Italy, finishing 'Italian House,' journeying as far south as Rome, Civita Vecchia, and Naples. By the end of May he was back, writing to Harrison Morris about the Whistler Memorial and a proposed exhibition of American artists in London, and answering Van Dyke's suggestion for a New York book."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters of Joseph Pennell, Volume Two" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)