Birge Harrison: Studies in France

"Novembre" by Birge Harrison

"It was not until 1874 when Birge was 20 years old that he settled down to serious study and then entered the school of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. From there he went to Paris in 1876 with John Sargent, who had come to Philadelphia in that year to visit certain relatives residing in the old Quaker City. When they reached Paris, Sargent and he entered the atelier of Carolus Duran, where they were fellow students of Abbott Thayer, Will Low, Theodore Robinson, Carroll Beckwith and the late Frank Fowler. What a brilliant group of young Americans they were, who first gave us a national standing in the world of modern art!

A little later they were joined by such men as Augustus St. Gaudens, John Alexander, Tryon, Tarbell Arthur Hoeber, Robert Reid, John Twachtman and many others whose names have since become famous over two continents.

Arthur Hoeber wrote about this particular period of Birge Harrison's career. He said, 'No more delightful, hard-working crowd of artistic men perhaps were ever gathered in the four walls of a studio, than this care-free group of  Americans, Englishmen and Frenchmen. There were delightful summers spent at Grez, that paradise of the artist, down in the department of the Seine and Marne. There Mr. Harrison was fortunate enough to pass a season wtih Robert Louis Stevenson and Mrs. Osborne, the lady who was subsequently to become the wife of the novelist.

The winters in the old Carolus class in the rue Notre Dame des Champs were thoroughly enjoyable. The days were supplemented by afternoons in the famous Cour Yvon that met from four to five o'clock in the Hemicycle in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Here drawing was done by the more advanced men and competition was great."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Birge Harrison: Poet Painter" by Charles Louis Borgmeyer.)