Joseph Pennell: The Belgian Artists

"Sunset Over the Thames" by Emil Claus

"No idea of London in 1914-1915 can be given without mention of the Belgians who invaded it in their flight from the invaders of their country. Joseph Pennell's sympathy was great for the artists who had flown with the crowd - horror, sadness was in all their eyes. Pennell felt they would have been wiser to stay at home, but now they were in London, what he could do to lighten their exile, he did. He opened his doors wide to them, advised them, put them up at clubs, introduced them to dealers and colour men, was their guide to the beauty of London, which his studio windows first revealed to them.

They would stand staring out, as the twilight deepened and the searchlights played, all très émotionale, they would say. Later on, Emil Claus, asked by someone what impressed him most in London, the Tower? St. Paul's? Westminster? No, was his answer, he had seen nothing in London more wonderful than 'l'atelier de M. Joseph Pennell.' He treated them not as refugees to be kind to, but as friends, fellow artists with whom it was good to talk over his dinner table, as in France or Italy or their own Belgium he might have talked with them over coffee at the café. 

Gradually, they became interested in lithography, and the talk was of stone and paper, chalk and stump, transferring and printing. It led them back to work, and they his practical help. The only two artists who had done things for them as friends were Sargent and Pennell."

To be continued

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

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.) 

 

Joseph Pennell: The Bio of Whistler, Pt. 2

"By the Law Courts" by Joseph Pennell

"The British courts, like all others, take their time. The case against us did not come up until the July of 1907. In the meanwhile it was never out of Joseph Pennell's mind, day or night. It was not his habit to be beaten, no matter what the game, no matter what the fight. He let no idea, no argument escape him, tireless in his study of the situation by day, and I have known him to get up out of his bed to jot down a sudden suggestion, fearful lest otherwise it might be forgotten by morning. One comfort was that we could rely upon our three witnesses: Mrs. Whistler (Whistler's sister-in-law); Luke Ionides, one of his oldest friends; and W.E. Gray, the photographer well known to artists.

The trial began on July 2, 1907. Though we were defendants, because we claimed Whistler's authority, the onus of proving it rested with us. Pennell, nerves all on edge beforehand, was cool enough in the witness box, thankful that matters had come to a crisis, conscious that he was in the right, that he had done all he could to prove it, and that suspense would soon be over. 

The other side called in Mr. Montague Lush, whose reputation was to make things uncomfortable for witness in cross-examination. With an air of 'now I've got you,' Mr. Lush said, to some question of Whistler's nationality, 'Why, you know that Whistler was never even in America.' 'Never in America!' Pennell answered, quite in his Buckingham Street manner, 'Why, he was born there!' and the counsel, whose business was to confuse, was confused himself. Again he thought to score with the objection: 'But why should Whistler have asked you? You have never written a biography.' 'No, but my wife has,' came quick as a flash, and that point also was quickly disposed of.  

Things seemed to go better for us, though Mr. Justice Kekewich's manner was so much pleasanter to Miss Philip than to me that my heart sank. But it was plain that she had no case. The trial dragged on, till on the Tuesday, the ninth the case was 'dismissed with costs.' Whistler's authorization could not be denied. Our rights were vindicated, our authority proved. 'Now,' we were told, 'you can put 'The Authorized Life of Whistler' on the title page.' 

We felt it called for celebration. Our publisher and his two partners gave us a lunch at the Café Royal where Whistler loved to go. We drank the white Bordeaux-Podensac he loved to order. In the evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Sauter, falling among friends who rejoiced with us. A load was off our minds." 

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: The Bio of Whistler, Pt. 1

"Study of Joseph Pennell"
by James McNeill Whistler

"To the abundance of work Joseph Pennell was doing in 1906 and 1907, a burden of personal care and anxiety was added - the burden of a lawsuit, and it is hard to say whether it was worse in anticipation or when we were deep in the legal preparations for it. 'The Life of Whistler,' was the cause.

Whistler, after he asked us to write the book, spent many evenings with us, refreshing his memory of the past for our benefit, bore with patience the presence of a photographer in the studio getting special negatives for us, was as interested as Heinemann, his publisher and ourselves. His health, however, was breaking. He was much away and, towards the end, in no condition to be worried, 'to be made an Old Master before his time.' We continued to collect material during his last year and after his death.

We wrote to men and women associated with Whistler to ask for their reminiscences and impressions, and for permission to consult any letters they might have received from him. Among others we appealed to Marcus B. Huish of the Fine Art Society, who then submitted the letter to Miss Rosalind Birnie Philip, Whistler's executrix, who, for some reason was under the impression that Whistler had not asked us, and who objected to us as his biographers.

The result was that on the breakfast table the morning of November 28, 1906, we found two registered letters awaiting us, one at each place. They were warnings from Miss Philip's solicitors if within a week, they had not our assurance that we did not propose to write what purported to be a life authorized by Whistler, or to publish any of his letter, Miss Philip would take such measures as she was advised to - in a word, the usual lawyer's letter. We refused to give up doing what Whistler asked us to do, for we considered doing it a sacred obligation. Miss Philip immediately took the threatened measures."

To be continued

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

 

Joseph Pennell: Illustrated Travel Guides

"Right of Way" by Joseph Pennell

"During the Nineties the vogue for the illustrated travel book had become firmly established, the result largely of Pennell's influence - not the huge elaborate publications, but the idea now was a small volume convenient for the traveler to carry, well made, well written, well illustrated, and issued for a reasonable sum. The Macmillans' Highways and Byways Series was a success from the start. It was continued with one or two volumes every year. To the English publisher of Henry James's 'Little Tour in France,' Pennell suggested: Why not an illustrated edition? 'The Best Guide Book ever written. I know because I illustrated it,' is his inscription in Mr. Edward L. Tinker's copy.

In the spring of 1899 the Little Tour took him and his bicycle over a route part of which he knew by heart, while the other part he had long been meaning to get to know as well. His Highways and Byways book for the year was also in France, 'Normandy' by the Reverend Percy Dearmer.  

Twice he interrupted the journeys. On the second he crossed from London with Lavery, each bringing a bicycle, arrived in time for the opening of the Van Dyck Exhibition with which the ceremonies closed. The collection impressed him, he must write this article himself, and we sat up till all hours, he dictating, I writing in the old fashion. The first  thing in the morning, the three of us were off on our bicycles, riding along the Belgian and French coast, Lavery as far as Calais, I as far as Dieppe, Pennell as far as Mont St. Michel, where he proposed an article to the Century and wrote to me to return to France as fast as possible. Familiarly as he knew France, his love of the beauty of 'the French scene' had not lost its ardour. 

1900 called him away on fewer long journeys, a good thing, so often did the Paris Exposition lure him across the Channel. One journey was to illustrate 'East Anglia,' a Highways and Byways book. Another in the summer was for his own amusement, though it was the prelude to a later article, 'In the Alps on a Motor Bicycle.' His love of cycling had not swindled, nor his spirit of adventure cooled. Now he was the first to put the motor bicycle to the test. He chose the London streets to begin on, not the wisest choice, and a story lingers of the machine getting away with him one day as he turned from the Marble ARch into Park Lane and met a detachment of the Black Watch. Right into the bagpipes he charged, scattering apologies right and left - 'Awfully sorry but I don't know how to stop the thing!' He escaped unhurt before they recovered from their surprise and tried to resume the swagger of their march." 

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers

"The Trains That Come and Go" by Joseph Pennell

"To all he was doing in the Nineties, Pennell, towards the end of that crowded period, added an interest which proved anything but a sinecure. Early in the winter of 1898, after Whistler's nomination as chairman, he was elected to the Executive Council of the recently organized International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, which existed until its dissolution in 1925.

During his fourteen years in London, Pennell had watched many fruitless movements against the Royal Academy and Academic convention. The idea of the International originated with Francis Howard, who was young, had studied in Paris, taken to art criticism in London, and had the intelligence to associate with him at the start John Lavery and E.A. Walton, the leaders of the Glasgow School, and Georges Sauter, a distinguished German artist living in London. Whistler accepted the leadership of this group of independents who scoffed, as he did, at the British belief in a national art with zealously guarded frontiers.

The first meeting was held in December, 1897. At the third Whistler was elected chairman, then president. The Society was to be like no other; a self-elected Executive Council in sole charge of its affairs; exhibitors responsible for nothing save the quality of their work; a company to manage its finances; its exhibitions to be as international as its name. 

The first exhibition was held in May, 1898, in the Skating Rink at Knightsbridge, transformed temporarily into three large and two small galleries, in which Whistler's scheme of decoration, his velarium and method of hanging were adopted. Pennell arranged his journey to Wales for the late spring, to the Italian Lakes for the summer, so as to be free for his work on the Selecting and Hanging committees. His section must uphold magnificently his claims for Black-and-White. He toiled like a galley slave. If distinguished black-and-white men did not submit work he thought worthy, he hurried to their studios to commandeer their best. He did not rest until the most distinguished French, German, Italian lithographers and etchers were included. 

And it was not enough to show good work, it must be shown beautifully. He was an artist in hanging - and most artists are not. A gallery arranged by him had an air of distinction. He knew where everything ought to go, hung the collection on the floor, to quote his words, rarely making any change when he transferred it to the walls. Lunch and dinner were nothing to him. He would rather go hungry than stop at a critical stage in the hanging."

To be continued

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

 

Joseph Pennell: Making Sure of Quality

"On the River" by Joseph Pennell

"Five books came out in the autumn of 1897: the third edition of 'Pen Drawing,' the second edition of 'Makers of Modern Rome,' 'Aquitane,' 'Cornwall and Devon,' and 'Charles Keene.' Hitherto his chance to see his books through the press was small as most of them were issued in America. But these new books were manufactured under his eyes with a friend as publisher, he looked for greater things. He seldom went out of town in the winter, he could watch them through their every stage. No detail escaped him. Paper, ink, type, illustrations, reproductions, copyright were passed by him, and he directed the distribution of the book, the places where it should be sold, the newspapers which should have it for review.

He sent old printing and publishing traditions flying. 'To me,' he said, 'the matter of trade and taste are of small moment in comparison with the making of a decent-appearing book.' If printers refused to understand his edicts conveyed by post, he would descend upon the printing works and deliver them in person. When they objected, he asked, 'Is it a crime for me to be interested enough in my own books to want to get them decent?' When he was admitted, if the printing had begun and he did not approve, it had to be begun over again. He would not stand the ink and paper chosen if cheap in quality or inappropriate. 

He would take no responsibility for mistakes. Nothing would induce him to pay for revision. He was not one of those authors who fail to read the publisher's agreement through and are appalled when they find what the unread clause on the subject lets them in for.

But if for certain additions for which he was responsible, the publisher refused to pay, he would settle the bill. He spent liberally in order to include the artists he thought should be included in 'Lithography and Lithographers.' He wrote to Fisher Unwin, 'I have got both Strang and Legros. The former wants 10 guineas and the latter 20. I am perfectly prepared to pay... and as I have now got all the big English lithographers, I may through Lemercier, make a try for two or three Frenchmen. Of course, I shall pay for them myself.' The book was ready in March and, thanks to his care, more satisfactory than he supposed possible."

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: Paris and Whistler

"Le Stryge" by Joseph Pennell

"At the end of the winter of 1893, the large London Exhibitions disposed of, Joseph Pennell set off early in May on his summer's wanderings. I went with him as far as Paris, in company with the usual group of London critics, artists and writers who made the journey together for several years: Bob [R.A.M.] Stevenson, D.S. MacColl, Charles Whibley, Charles Furse, Henry Harland, Robert Ross, Beardsley - everyone of them disposed to discuss, to argue, to wrangle over every picture of promise of accomplishment in the two Salons. All the way along the Quais, or in the bâteau-mouche, to the Champ-de-Mars, it was talk. In front of every painting, every sculpture, every drawing that attracted their attention, it was talk, their best apéritif before the midday breakfast.

The history should be written of the Paris of the Nineties, so much more alive than London, so quivering with experiment, so rich in production. And talk was renewed over the good dinner, over the gay visits to the Chat Noir, Mirliton, the Tréteaux de Tabarin, the Moulin Rouge, with the famous La Goulue or the Scala with Yvette Guilbert and her long black gloves. 

The spring of 1893 contributed a new delight, our friendship with Whistler at last established on a solid basis. We breakfasted and dined with him in the Rue du Bac, climbed the stairs to his high studio in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Whistler asked him to come and help bite and print plates that were waiting, an invitation much to Pennell's fancy. He was hours with Whistler in the garden of the Rue du Bac biting plates, hours in the studio at the press. He got out his own plates, etched the large 'Stryge' and the series of little gardens, cafés, streets, brasseries. He was glad to find relief from easier problems than the cathedral drawings gave him, and rest his eyes in the study of simpler, less exacting details, by a light not quite so religious and dim.

He suggested an article to Robert Johnson at the 'Century': 

'What do you say to my staying here all the time save August when I shall do Laon - and making a series of little etchings in the streets of Paris like the James article on London. The place interests me enormously - and I should like to do it. Again Whistler is very chummy just now - and I am going to work in his studio and help print - and he has offered to help me bite my plates and I think I could get him to let you have one or two of his. Really I could get some stunning stuff here - and its quite new and fresh for me... Mrs. Pennell could write the article - or someone else. Please let me do it?' 

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: "The French Cathedrals"

"The Cathedral of Le Puy from the North"
by Joseph Pennell

"Joseph Pennell, who had just finished a series on the English cathedrals for 'The Century Magazine,' was asked to begin a second of the great church of France. The work, before it came to an end, carried us north and south, east and west, from one cathedral town to another. It kept us in each sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. It spread over eighteen years, so that we got to know them all with an intimacy that visiting them for pleasure alone could never have given us.

Our choice of cathedrals and the order of our visiting them depended upon a scheme carefully prepared, though not by ourselves.  Mrs. Van Rensselaer, who had written a book on the English cathedrals, planned this second one on the French, with reference entirely to her own interest in the subject and the value of the examples she selected in the history of architecture. After the first few chapters, however, she abandoned the work, and as I had been to the cathedrals with Joseph, who was making the drawings in the order she suggested, I undertook it in her place. As it was planned according to architectural history, it was the cause of our seeing a great deal more of France and learning a great deal more about its cathedrals than we might had we followed the more direct lines of travel."

It is interesting to note that the change of writers for this book was actually due to a disagreement between author and illustrator. "Early on in the project Mrs. Van Rensselaer had written to W. Lewis Fraser of the 'Century' art department, reviewing Pennell's drawings. While on the whole she was pleased, she found problems with the cathedrals in Angoulême and Périgueux and the St. Sernin church in Toulouse.

Pennell had not supplied exterior views of any of the three that she found acceptable. Of St. Sernin she wrote 'In some way or the other I must have at least one picture of the exterior of the church; if not from Mr. Pennell, then drawn by someone else from a photo.' In other cases Pennell had supplied views she hadn’t asked for; several of these she had turned down as 'entirely useless for my purpose.'

In Pennell’s letters back, he referred to his practice of using shading and other effects to ameliorate the problems posed by unsympathetic restoration and unfinished repairs, provocatively referring to this process as 'cooking.' Van Rensselaer responded by observing that he had been 'engaged to illustrate what he saw, not to make fancy sketches.'  Pennell defended 'my cooking or faking … [of] these drawings [by asserting] when I come to one of these old churches … and find, instead of beautiful stained glass which ought to be there, blank white windows, or windows at times which are even yet unfinished … I have got to intensify, for example, my lights and shadows and try to give some sort of pictorial effect which really is not there.' Pennell concluded his reply with the statement that 'I never should think of criticizing Mrs. Van Rensselaer’s scheme or methods, but I cannot help repeating that she ought to bear in mind that I cannot draw the ideas of the old men when their work is not visible.'" 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "French Cathedrals, Monasteries and Abbeys, and Sacred Sites of France" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell and "Correspondence Sheds Light on Illustrations for Articles by Landscape Design Critic Mariana Van Resselaer." 

 

Joseph Pennell: Pen Drawings

Edwin Austin Abbey

"Joseph Pennell's chief literary preoccupation during 1888 was his book, 'Pen Drawing.' In his introduction to the book, he laid out three primary reasons for its creation: 

'I believe that, just as none but the physician is allowed to speak with authority on medicine, none but the scientist on science, so only the man who has made and carefully studied pen drawings should have the right to speak authoritatively of them. Only the writing on art by one who has technical knowledge of it is of practical value.'

'Today pen drawing is not only an art in itself, but one which, as well as painting in oils, requires its own technical perfection.'

'For examples, I have selected the best work, so far as I have been able to find it, of all schools, and not merely of one narrow French, English, Italian, German, Spanish, or American method, the merits or shortcomings of which one would be unable to point out without using this comparative plan.'  But I am not without hope that the pen drawings published here will show many, who are pleased to call themselves pen draughtsmen, that they are without the faintest idea of the aims, objects and limitations of the art.'

Every day taught him more of his subject, and he tore up old chapters and wrote new ones in their place. Richmond Seeley was bent upon issuing the book but also afraid of it, uncertain how far and into what expense Pennell's enthusiasm would carry him. Finally he said it would be easy to find another publisher for such a book. 'Then find him,' was Pennell's ultimatum. And Seeley found the Macmillans and this was the beginning of a long and close relationship with the firm, and friendship with Mr. Frederick Macmillan. He was no less an enthusiast than Pennell and the book was under his personal supervision. He decided that to ensure its success - and a profit - it must be brought out on an elaborate scale at a large price.

Sure now of his publishers' active sympathy, Pennell's interest redoubled. If he wanted to reproduce drawings that had to be paid for and the publishers hesitated, he paid for them himself. He gathered pen drawings of the best quality for his book. He appealed to the 'Century' and the editors presented him with examples of Blum, Brennan, Farney, Lungren, and Birch. He was able to get original drawings of the 'Men of the Sixties.' He called on 'Punch,' and Menzels and Chodowieckis were brought out. He went to Paris and obtained pen drawings from Vierge, Rico and Casanova. He could not forget the debt he owed to the Spaniards, upon whose style his own was originally based, and found them not merely willing but eager to work with and for him. 

To the thinking public the book was a revelation. Few before thought of pen drawing as an art apart; few could deny its claim when confronted with so fine a series of examples. Artists like Edwin Austen Abbey and Parsons liked it well enough to buy it, which was to Pennell a great satisfaction."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters of Joseph Pennell" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell and from "Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen" by Joseph Pennell.) 

 

Joseph Pennell: Art Critic

"Bow Bells, Cheapside"
by Joseph Pennell

"At that time younger art critics, with the daring to think for themselves, began to be heard from. R.A.M. Stevenson, trained as an artist, was art critic for the 'Saturday Review' but abandoned it for the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' Charles Whibley, always volcanic, was writing for the 'Scots Observer.' Joseph Pennel on the 'Star was a third - a powerful third. He went into the work as he went into everything, heart and soul, determined to do his best. 

In art criticism, as in all other matters, that 'eighty obligation' which was Pennell's Quaker inheritance, forced him to speak the truth without fear or hesitation. He spoke the truth on what to him was the most serious thing in life and, in speaking it, he was trespassing on Academic preserves, regardless of the warning to keep off at the risk of Academic displeasure. To defy the Academy was to be cast into outer darkness, a rank outsider. Because of his art criticism he gradually became unpopular with the public and artists alike. 

Pennell did not mind. There were things he was determined to say because he felt they ought to be said. At times the editors grew nervous and used the editorial blue pencil. Once Marie Bashkirtseff's relations, wrathful I do not recall over what, made the Law Courts seem an imminent probability, but their wrath went no farther than threats. Once artist Walter Crane lost his temper, thinking qualified praise of the first Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts an insult, and in a newspaper letter waved a big stick at Pennell. But his temper, after blazing for a day, burned itself out, and the two men, really in sympathy, were on the best of terms until Crane's death. Some friends, it is true, dropped away, but friends of that kind were not worth keeping. 

The objection of a few was that his work as critic must interfere with his work as artist. On the contrary, as he never could be idle, never sit with hands folded. To the larger shows he would have gone in any case through interest. How little of a brake criticism was can be judged by the number and distinction of his illustrations during those years. He completed the Westminster Abbey drawings, large important architectural studies. Also a series on London, 'From Charing Cross to St. Paul's,' for Seeley. Henry James' wrote an article requiring more illustrations of London and inspired Pennell to get out his copper plates. Work for books were also a pleasant diversion: 'A Summer Voyage on the River Saône,' 'Our Sentimental Journey,' 'Christopher Plantin and the Plantin Museum,' and 'Old Chelsea,' brought out by the 'Century.' But his chief literary preoccupation was his 'Pen Drawing.'"

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: The Cathedrals

"St. Paul's from Cheapside"
by Joseph Pennell

In 1892 author Mrs. Schuler Van Rensselaer wrote: "Some years ago I was asked to write descriptions of twelve of the English cathedrals for 'The Century Magazine,' and was promised the invaluable help of Mr. Pennell's drawings. A summer in England was the immediate result, and the final result is this book." Twelve of Pennell's illustrations in her series of magazine articles had grown to one hundred and fifty-four for her book, and he spent far longer than 'a summer in England' to produce his beautiful pictures.

"The difficulty of illustrating these magnificent buildings well was teaching Pennell a great deal, and his drawings were growing more elaborate, more learned, more impressive. As his interest increased, he rebelled against the tedium of struggling with architectural perspective. His concern was the beauty of the architecture, not its technical problems, And yet, he believed that to express this beauty the technical problems must be mastered according to technical rules. 

But from the beginning, coming to Gothic fresh from the comparative simplicity of Colonial architecture, he was afraid to trust his extraordinary powers of observation. He turned to photographs and abandoned them promptly. They were of so little use that he gave them up altogether, except as notes or reminders, and then he did not trust them too confidently. He knew that Abbey relied upon architectural draughtsmen, he had heard that this was Doré's method also, and Alma Tadema's for his classical perspectives. 

A young architect, Charles Edward Mallows, proved to be his man. He had met him in his travels, had watched him at work, realized his ability, asked if he had time to spare. Mallows did and was glad to give it. Pennell would select his point of view, Mallows would prepare the perspective, and the drawing could be made without the preliminary mechanical labour that has little to do with the interpretation of beauty. Later Pennell wrote that if Mallows helped him with architecture, then 'I taught him how to draw it,' and in Mallows' large drawings of architecture Pennell's influence is unmistakable. Mallows was his first student and, like all his intelligent students, was devoted."

To be continued

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

 

Joseph Pennell: A Canterbury Pilgrimage

Joseph and Elizabeth Pennell had returned to London from Italy to propose an idea for a book to be entitled, "A Canterbury Pilgrimage." As the first paragraph of their story explained: "It was towards the end of August, when a hot sun was softening the asphalt in the dusty streets of London, and ripening the hops in the pleasant land of Kent, that we went on pilgrimage to Canterbury. Ours was no ordinary journey by rail, which is the way latter-day pilgrims mostly travel. No. What we wanted was in all reverence to follow, as far as it was possible, the road taken by the famous company of bygone days, setting out from the hostelrie where these lordings lay one night and held counsel, making stations by the way at the few places they mention by name, and ending it, as they did, at the shrine of the 'holy, blissful martyr,' in the Canterbury Cathedral. How better could this be done than by riding over the ground made sacred by them on our tricycle?"

The 'Century' hesitated to accept it because so much Pennell material was already on hand or ordered. The 'English Illustrated' also refused, but Richard Seely, of Seeley & Company Publishers, was of another mind. He liked the drawings, said he would read the manuscript, and agreed to let us have his decision promptly. Within a fortnight we had it. 

He would bring out the 'Pilgrimage' as a book in a paper cover for a shilling, would have it on all the railway book stalls, would deluge England with it. Better still, he would bring it out immediately. Our excitement was great. Pennell spent hours in the British Museum studying old manuscripts, hunting up appropriate motives for cover design and chapter headings. He would not leave town until the proofs were passed.  By the thirty-first proofs of 'A Canterbury Pilgrimage' were passed for press. 

"A Canterbury Pilgrimage' was published while we were in Winchester, and in Salisbury we got our first notice the first morning when we opened the 'Daily News' and saw the headline, 'The Most Wonderful Shilling's Worth Modern Literature has to Offer.' If 'A Canterbury Pilgrimage' was an immediate success, as it was, this headline undoubtedly  helped to make it one. It appealed to two publics: to the cycling public at a period when cycling was the popular sport; to the scholarly public as a tribute to Chaucer and his Pilgrims. Moreover, paper covers were not as common in England as in France, and these, together with the unusual proportions and design of the book, made it conspicuous on railway bookstalls and in bookshop windows. The price, one shilling, attracted a larger public. Letters poured in upon us, from friends and strangers alike. We made a hit, no mistake, and it was great fun."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters fo Joseph Pennell" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.) 

 

Joseph Pennell: Cycling through Italy

Pennell's Drawing of Their Humber Tandem Tricycle

"The rainy season in England had set in - if there is any other sort of season in that rain-swept land - and so we started from London on the journey which was the immediate reason for our marriage. Luck was with us. The journey from the start was as perfect as Pennell had promised. His delight in getting back to Italy and sharing its loveliness with me was something to remember. We were awake early the second morning, from the train watched daybreak in the Apennines, looked out upon Pistoia as we circled round it, saw its picturesqueness come out of the mist, in Florence we dropped off our luggage, and, without pause, walked out to the places Pennell had longed to show me. 

Before leaving London we had purchased a Humber Tandem Tricycle and had brought it with us. Nothing marred the pleasure of the ride, the joy of seeing 'Italy from a Tricycle.' The roads were good and the names of the towns through which we wheeled and where we stayed were guarantees of beauty - Empoli, Siena, Monte Oliveto, Civita Castellana. The weather was beyond reproach, day after day of cool October sunshine. It was the most successful of the many beautiful journeys we were to take together. 

Idling was unknown - text and drawings for the story of our ride had to be finished, articles on the Christmas festivities in the Aracoeli and the Piazza Navona for 'St. Nicholas,' and our impressions of 'The Stones of Rome' for the 'Portfolio' had to be written and newspaper letters on whatever subjects presented themselves. No idling indeed - all that winter we worked hard by day. But when late afternoon came we took long prowls through the streets, into churches and galleries, out to the Compagna if the light lasted. When an article was finished, text and drawings posted to New York or London, or when the post brought us the November 'Century' with the first of Howells' 'Tuscan Cities' in it or of my biography on 'Mary Wollstonecraft,' we would eat the best lunch we could order and see the many sights in Rome we wanted to see. 

'Harper's" had approved an article on 'Venetian Fishing Boats.' The commission had us stay two long months. In the evenings, the artists' gathered around the dinner table at the shabby, noisy Antica Panada, where coffee was a few centessimi cheaper than on the Piazza. The centre of these gatherings was Frank Duveneck, in danger of being ruined as an artist by the charm of Venice, which had him in thrall. He had grown quite content to live in his attic at the Casa Kirsch, doing as little work as possible during the day, spending the evening with his 'boys' or their successors, and adding little save his smile to the talk. 

Torcello was a wilderness of flowers when reluctantly, we left Venice in May. We had been married all but a year, we had carried out many of our schemes, and success had been our portion."

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: Working Schedule

"Chelsea Rectory" by Joseph Pennell

"A late afternoon arrival in Liverpool; a journey by night to Chester; one day in the town to see the Cathedral in anticipation of the Cathedral Series; one evening with a group of Philadelphia artists arrived there before us - Stephen Parrish, his wife, his son Fred who was to become known as Maxfield Parrish, Miss Margaret Lesley; the day after, straight to London lodging at Number 36 Bedford Place, Bloomsbury; and, for the first time, I began to understand how Joseph Pennell worked.

His most urgent commission was the article, which expanded into two, on old Chelsea. The author was away when we got to London, but Pennell could not wait for his author, could not wait until we were settled in lodgings, but was off the next morning, discovering Chelsea for himself, bringing his first drawing back in the late afternoon. It was the same, day after day. No lingering at the breakfast table or over the morning paper. Breakfast eaten, he gather up portfolio, T-square, camp stool, and was gone, seldom to get back until the dinner hour, if then. He scorned an eight-hour day, had no patience with a time limit on any kind of labour, from art to street cleaning. 

When conditions permitted, his drawing was begun and finished on the spot, to preserve its accuracy, its freshness, its spontaneity. But the sun will not stand still for the most untiring artist. The light and effects will change and sometimes drawings, when little remained to be done, were finished at home or carried to the same spot at the same hour the following day. 

It was a good thing for my nerves that I realized only gradually the risk he ran when he worked out of doors in town. A man who draws in the street collects a crowd as surely as the man who digs a hole, and often Pennell's method of getting rid of people who bothered him was as irritating as effective. His pen, dipped into the bottle hanging from a buttonhole of his coat, could with an innocent flourish scatter the gaping crowd. He had at his command the answer that does not turn away wrath. When an Englishman, who had long looked over his shoulder asked what he was doing, received the answer 'Minding my business. Don't you think it about time for you to mind yours?' His tactics were more apt to lead to trouble on the Continent, where tempers are quicker, and in Italy, France and Spain I had reason to tremble. But he would allow nothing to interfere."

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: Sealing the Deal

"The Tower of London" by Joseph Pennell

"In July 1883 Joseph Pennell left Italy for Edinburgh. The contrast was bewildering, incredible. The Venetian sunlight, not yet washed out of his eyes, could not blind him to the picturesqueness of the sombre northern town with the stern castle on the hill and the thick grey mist. Wash seemed the appropriate medium for a series of commissions in this part of the world before he sailed back home. 

He was in his very best form upon his return, full of what he had seen, what he had done, what he had felt, what was to come of it. His energy was irresistible. Again, he was eager to collaborate with me in his hours of work eager to have me as a companion in his hours of play. 

Thanks to him, I became a fully accredited art critic on not only the 'American' but the 'Press.' When an important exhibition opened in New York, we would run over together. He would guide me through the gallery to such good purpose that, we could also take in the opera or theatre after lunch and, coming back on the train, I would write away for dear life, he at my elbow in case of need, and my article would get to the office in time to appear in the next morning's paper. 

Early in 1884 they asked him as a special favour to run down to Washington, another illustrator having failed them. It happened that I was called to Baltimore for a day and to Washington for another, and we planned to make the journey together as far as Baltimore and together return from Washington. In the Pullman he began at once on a favourite subject - the beauty of Italy, the absolute necessity of my spending the following summer there. He would get me articles to do that would pay my way. If prudish Philadelphia would stand our journeys to New York and Baltimore, why wouldn't they stand a journey to Italy? In his determination to take me there, he suggested a life partnership which would enable us henceforward to share not simply Italy's, but the world's beauty, at no risk of criticism or gossip. And, with his genius for success, he succeeded in settling the matter. The wedding ceremony was performed in the front parlor of Number 1110, Spruce Street, Philadelphia. 

On the last Saturday in June, with a promise of return tickets from the 'Century,' and a letter of credit for eighteen hundred dollars, we sailed on the 'Oregon' for Liverpool." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The lIfe and Letters of Joseph Pennell" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)  

 

Joseph Pennell: Italy

"Porto Romano, Florence"
by Joseph Pennell

"The immediate outcome of the 'Century's' satisfaction with Joseph Pennell's work was another more important commission for ten etchings to illustrate a series of articles on Tuscan cities by William Dean Howells, whose fame was in its full glory. It may be worth recording that for these ten etchings Pennell was offered five hundred dollars, together with his steamer ticket going and coming, nor was he to make any use of the prints until after their publication. He accepted, because the work would take him to countries it was his desire to see, also because he knew that if he made good plates, he would be amply repaid later on in reputation, if not in money. Besides, he who found work everywhere, would find other things to do along the way. In fact the 'Century' added one additional illustration of Edinburgh and twelve of the English Cathedrals. And while in London he approached the editors of the 'Portfolio,' 'Magazine of Art' and 'Art Journal, and got them to promise at least to look at any drawings he might send from Italy.

He made straight for Florence and Howells, but felt far more at home there with a little English group whom he got to know almost immediately, much to his surprise. He had been hardly any time in Florence before he was on intimate terms with Mary Robinson, to whom a first volume of poems had brought fame; Vernon Lee who had begun to write her learned and flamboyant essays on art; Evelyn Pickering, re-echoing the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in her paintings and another and very different set - 'the Duveneck Boys.' Duveneck was off in Venice but four or five of the 'Boys' lingered in Florence, met with Pennell of an evening in the little hole of a trattoria where, for the sake of good company and cheapness, they dined together.

The story is in his letters to me, the story of the American youth for the first time under the spell of an Italy which was not yet a hopeless prey to tourists and progress - the youth with eyes wide open to beauty, with no ambition save to capture that beauty and imprison it on paper or copper plate, with the keen journalistic instinct that made him discover articles wherever he went, with a tendency to black despair when work did not go right, to bubbling over with high spirits when it did. 

By July Pennell's illustrations for 'Century,' Howell's 'Florentine Mosaic,' were finished. In addition, he managed to send to London illustrations for three articles by Vernon Lee: 'The Youth of Raphael,' published in the 'Art Journal,' 'North Tuscan Cities' in the 'Magazine of Art,' and 'San Gimignano of Many Towers' in the 'Portfolio.' In Venice he made not only a series of etchings but drawings to illustrate three articles on 'The Artist in Venice' by Julia Cartwright. He could start north with an easy conscience. He had put his best into his etchings and he knew they were good."

 To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: Introducing Elizabeth Robins

Sketch of Elizabeth Robins Pennell
by Joseph Pennell

"'Scribner's' could not have enough of the new artist, Joseph Pennell, on its staff. Commissions tumbled over each other. But one commission of 1881 I cannot dismiss as lightly because of its influence in shaping Joseph Pennell's life and mine, though at the time we had never as much as heard of each other.

On May 3, 1881, Drake wrote: 'Will you please send me, say - eight of your very best etchings of old Historical Buildings about Philadelphia with notes of description. It is possible that a short article on them may be worked up for 'Scribner's. These were accepted and a writer sought to work up the story. My uncle Charles Leland was asked, but too busy at the time, he proposed me. My first appearance in print had been in the 'Atlantic' a few months before. They agreed and my uncle and I made an appointment to meet Pennell. 

After all these years, I still wonder which amazed me most, the artist or the studio. I knew no artists, had never been inside a studio. I am not sure what I expected but I fancy something Oidaesque. We read Ouida in those remote days, also newspaper stories of princely British and French painters working in palatial studios. What I found was a large bare room, a dusty floor without carpet, a high ceiling, a large uncurtained window. The chairs were few and either broken or littered up with odds and ends. 

The artist waiting for us was young, tall, exceedingly thin, with brown hair, brown moustache and shortish brown beard, deep-set grey-green eyes, intent and serious beyond his years, holding one's attention at once. I remember thinking him a strange combination of shyness and self-possession. He was shy in meeting Leland whose reputation as a writer was greater than it is now and who looked the prophet. And the youth who was 'afraid of girls' may have found me terrifying. But when our preliminary talk brought us to the proposed article, Pennell's shyness vanished. 

Wholly self-reliant where his art was concerned, he stood in fear of neither man nor woman. And as he talked he fired one with the flame of his enthusiasm. Even Leland, who preferred to hold the floor himself, could not resist, was forced into silence... Before we left the studio Pennell arranged to give me a list of his subjects or better, to show them to me so as the more lucidly to explain them and the impression he wished to convey in his prints, and we started on our walks within the next few days."

To be continued

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

Joseph Pennell: Illustrator

"At the Sign of the Plow"
by Joseph Pennell

"If Joseph Pennell did not grow famous over night, he came very near it. In less than two years after his reckless shaking of business from off his feet, his drawings were appearing in 'Scribner's Magazine' and, sure sign of success in the eyes of his family, he was making a good income.

He deserved to succeed. His crowning pleasure never ceased to be work. With that nothing could interfere. He never wavered in his determination to become an illustrator nor in his belief in his own ability. He had the advantage of being at the dawn of 'The Golden Age of Illustration in America.' Artists were appearing among the illustrators of the younger generation - Abbey, Pyle, Rogers, Reinhart in 'Harper's.' Farney, Blum, Brennan, Lungren in 'Scribner's.' Joseph Pennell, his portfolio under his arm, began his siege of the publishers' offices. 

It was largely to chance he owed his first commission. F.D. Stone, librarian of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, had for a few years been the Pennells' neighbour. He was a fairly keen collector of prints and in his house the boy had spent many evenings poring over his portfolios. Among Stone's other visitors was Townsend Ward, who was adding a record of Germantown Road for the Pennsylvania Historical Society's 'Magazine of History and Biography. He asked Pennell to illustrate the articles. The result was Pennell's first series of etchings, small plates of places he either knew or could copy from old prints. In all the rendering was sincere, the picturesqueness of his subjects was expressed picturesquely, and already he revealed his never-failing sense of the right point of view. 

Before the plates were all bitten, he was planning, scheming, besieging editors. He ran to fires. He wrote and illustrated accounts of cycling tours, he suggested the illustration of Edgar Allen Poe's works, and explored a marshy stretch of ground in South Philadelphia called 'The Mash' and induced a writer he knew to outline the text of an article which he then submitted to 'Scribner's' with his work. The drawings were liked and Pennell was sent home to finish the series. When Pennell made his second journey to New York, it was with finished drawings. They were accepted and paid for on the spot. They were even sent to the next exhibition of the Salmagundi Club. The supreme moment was when he went straight to his mother's room, took his pay out of his pocket and threw it, note by note, on her bed. It was his vindication - and after this, work streamed in of itself."

To be continued

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

 

 

Joseph Pennell: A Life-long Regret

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

Joseph Pennell was not entirely happy at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art. "He objected to some of the teachers as 'too much mechanical and too little industrial art,' and stayed away from their classes. His fellow students began to follow suit, he was unwittingly inciting rebellion, and when the secretary wrote asking an excuse for his non-attendance, he neglected to answer. After a reasonable interval a second letter from the secretary informed him that 'his name was stricken from the roll of scholars.' 

One of the staff promptly induced the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to look again at Pennell's drawings. This time he was not rejected, and at last convinced that selling coal was a sheer waste of his talent, he threw business to the winds and settled down to hard work in the Academy School. Hardly had he left the office, as if in justification of his new adventure, he received his first serious commission - and then another, and another! Great was the amazement of Pennell's family and friends to find that he could earn more from art in two days than in two weeks from business. 

At the Academy he started in the night Antique Class, which was in charge of the type of master who dispenses criticism with a sneer. For Pennell, ultra-sensitive, a sneer was no stimulant. He shrank from it, escaped by absenting himself from the classroom at the hour of the master's visit, and as his time was at last entirely his own, joined the day Antique Class under one of the best professors who ever taught at the Academy. 

Thomas Eakins was interested in him and soon promoted him to Life Class. Eakins did not sneer but he could be brutal. Pennell was determined to work in his own way for the end he had set himself. He did the unheard of and drew the model on a large scale in pen and ink. Eakins was indignant, would not stand that sort of originality and said so brutally. The student once more dispensed with the master's criticism. He gave Eakins no chance to be brutal again, a mistake he regretted as the years went on. 

His months of study taught him at least that art knows no short cut, that technique cannot be mastered save by diligent application, and it was good for him just to breathe the atmosphere of the Academy, to make friends with artists, to talk of the things he cared for with those who also cared. Pennell got out of the Academy not all it might have given had he been less sensitive, but enough to repay him, even if he did deprive himself of the criticism supposed to be the chief advantage of study in an art school. When commissions quickly multiplied for the work it was his ambition to do, he left the Academy and took a studio, sharing it with his friend Harry Poore, and having for neighbours Cecilia Beaux and Stephen Parrish. By the end of 1880 he was well launched.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters fo Joseph Pennell" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)  

Joseph Pennell: Influencers

"The Bridge Across Market Street from 
Broad Street Station" by Joseph Pennell

"Joseph Pennell made friends among the students at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, the friendship lasting through life with H.F. Stratton, in his turn a master at the school, and G. Dinsmore Gideon, who exchanged art for publishing. They and other students, who were in earnest, formed a class within the class, wandered all over town in search of subjects to sketch, with Pennell the coal clerk somehow managing to get days off to go along. On Sunday, they would have a model or carry their sketchbooks down by the river. They drew illustrations, one of the group suggesting the subject each week. 

Mr. Stratton remembers that Pennell's first etching, on glass, of 'Dingman's Ferry' was shown at the Academy, the year 1879. It was banished to the top line. 'Never mind,' said Pennell, 'my things will be hung lower next year.' 'And,' Mr. Stratton adds, 'they were.'

About this period it was Pennell's good fortune to run across young Gerome Ferris, through whom he got to know Stephen Ferris the father, an important factor in Pennell's development. Ferris helped to found the New York Etching Club and the Philadelphia Society of Etchers. He was an accomplished technician, and always willing to admit intelligent students into the studio and let them watch him at work. It was he who inspired Pennell to substitute copper for glass, and he was also responsible for the first phase of Pennell's style as illustrator. 

Ferris had discovered modern Spanish art, been thrilled by the discovery, owned Fortuny etchings and reproductions of Rico, Casanova, and Fabrès. It was a pleasure to show prints to so responsive a youth and to take him to see the paintings by Fortuny and Rico in the Gibson and Johnson collections. Through Ferris, the Spanish was the strongest influence revealed not merely in Pennell's early drawings by in American illustration at its best. Blum, Brennan and Lungren, who had studied in the Pennsylvania Academy, also met Ferris, were invited to his studio, and profited by their visits."

To be continued

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