Hermann Dudley Murphy: James McNeill Whistler

"Henry Ossawa Tanner" by
Hermann Dudley Murphy

"In December 1886, at the age of nineteen and while still a student, Hermann Dudley Murphy made the illustrations to accompany an article entitled, 'A Whistler Sketch,' published in the journal 'American Art Illustrated.' His drawings, done after Whistler, are Murphy's earliest known work and imply a knowledge of Whistler's work at the earliest stage of his career. 

Furthermore, his understanding of and admiration for Whistler's work could soon develop much more rapidly, since the period of his study in Paris was the time of Whistler's greatest influence in the artistic community of the city, especially upon young American students. Whistler was then living in Paris, his fortunes had recovered, and official recognition had come in the very year of Murphy's arrival in Paris with the purchase of the portrait of his mother by the French government for the Luxembourg Gallery. He was also made an officer of the Legion of Honor. In the next few years Whistler's studio became a rendezvous for young Americans and it is certainly possible that Murphy could have met the 'little butterfly' at that time.

Whistler's impact upon Murphy, while it conditioned his sensibility always, is to be seen most strongly in his early portraits and landscapes with their subtle color keys, delicate harmonies, and unusual and carefully adjusted compositions. Indeed, even the artistic monogram which he combined with his signature derives from Whistler's famous butterfly. Among the portraits, that of his friend and roommate from Paris, the painter Henry O. Tanner is the most notable example of this influence. The composition derives from Whistler's self-portrait in the Detroit Institute of Arts and its crepuscular tonalities generally recall Whistler, though Murphy's picture is more strongly drawn and characterized than most of Whistler's portraits and its quietness differs from the mannerism or jauntiness of the usual Whistlerian pose. The truth is that Murphy was assimilating other influences into his work, and while he often reminds us of Whistler, he is still a very distinct artistic personality."

To be continued

 

("H.O. Tanner" by Hermann Dudley Murphy. Excerpts from "Hermann Dudley Murphy" by William A. Coles.)