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.)