Gari Melchers: Involvements

"Woman Reading by a Window" by Gari Melchers

"After Gari and Corinne Melchers return from Weimar, Germany, in the late summer of 1915, they traveled to Detroit. Melchers' mother had died while he was en route to America, and the artist returned to his hometown to arrange for the sale of the family home and its furnishings. In December 1915 and early the following year, Melchers was in New York and once again leased a studio at the Beaux-Arts Building across from Bryant Park. In September 1916 Melchers purchased the Belmont estate in Falmouth, Virginia, and established a studio there. During the remaining years of his life Melchers was to live and work both in New York and Virginia.

By reestablishing a studio in New York he continued to benefit from the artistic, social, and business opportunities provided by this cultural mecca. He became a member of the Century Association, a prestigious club of writers, artists, and patrons of the arts; the Coffee House, a club providing an 'inexpensive and agreeable meeting place for men who were interested in the arts,' and from 1920 to 1926 was chairman of the New Society of Artists, an organization that sponsored an annual exhibition of works of its members, as well as lectures and demonstrations by member artists.

Melchers was also active in art organizations outside of the New York area, particularly in Virginia and Washington, D.C. The painter championed the cause of America art through the leadership he provided as chairman of the Smithsonian Commission to Establish a National Gallery of Art, the gallery known now as the National Museum of American Art. In 1923 he succeeded Daniel Chester French as head of the commission, which was set up by Congress to oversee the construction of a museum to house artworks given as gifts to the United States and to judge which of these gifts were worth including in a national collection. He continued to serve in this capacity until his death in 1932.

Melchers' contributions to art in America on a national level were augmented by his involvement on the state level in Virginia. In 1930 he became a member of the Virginia Arts Commission. At this time the commission was preparing the State Capitol and its grounds in Richmond for the celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of George Washington in 1932. Melchers made recommendations for the restoration of the Capitol and nearby bell tower and for the execution and display of a series of portrait busts of Virginia-born presidents in the Capitol rotunda."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Gari Melchers: His Life and Art" by Joseph G. Dreiss.)