George P.A. Healy: First Artistic Efforts

"Jeanette Ovington" by George Healy

George Healy wrote: "Nothing seemed to predestine the Boston boy to an artistic career. He was soon old enough to realize that his mother had difficulty in making ends meet. His one aim was to fine some means of helping her. He despised no job that came in his way, from holding a gentleman's horse to the sweeping of snow off door steps. Meanwhile he attended the public school. His only artistic achievement was the drawing of maps, in which he surpassed all the other pupils. 

The revelation of his talent came in quite an unexpected way. He was spending the afternoon, a rainy one, with some friends who were amusing themselves with coloring prints. One of the little girls said: 'You could not do as much, could you, George?' "I cannot know until I have tried.' So he took up a brush and went to work. The others accused him of having already painted, but he had not. Only then and there he determined that paint he would, in the future.

In those far-off days there were no art schools in America, no drawing classes, no collections of fine plaster casts and very few pictures on exhibition. But the boy never wavered. He drew everything he saw. When he had no money to buy paper and pencils, he drew with charcoal on walls, on the floor, everywhere. But he drew perpetually. 

Then with the presumption of youth he induced a friendly bookseller to exhibit a copy he had made from a print of Guido Reni's 'Ecce Homo.' It so happened that a Catholic priest passed that way and inquired whether it was for sale. 'But,' said the priest, 'I am poor. I could only offer ten dollars for it.' Ten dollars - a fortune! Many years afterwards an old man, wearing a Roman collar, stopped him and asked, 'Are you Mr. Healy, the artist?' "I am.' 'Then, Mr. Healy, I think I must have been the first, or one of the first, of your patrons. Do you remember an 'Ecce Homo' you exhibited in Boston when you were a mere boy? That picture still hangs in my village church.' This chance meeting was a great joy to the artist."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life of George P.A. Healy" by Marie Healy Bigot.)