What’s in a Name? A Case of Mistaken Identity, Part II

Sue Slick, Collection Information Specialist

It might be 4^th down or maybe there was an interception – either way there’s a guy with a football racing through our Karl S. and Ella L. Bolander Gallery! 

Since he is without a helmet or padding, it’s safe to say he is not playing for the NFL or a modern-day college team. He is fleet of foot, though, with the ball tucked snugly to his left side and right arm outthrust fending away any opposing players. He was made in 1898 by Jonathan Scott Hartley (1845-1912) and cast at the Henry Bonnard Bronze Co. Founders in Manhattan, “the most productive and expert bronze foundry in America during the last 15 years of the nineteenth century.” 

I mentioned our Football Player a few months ago in a post about our Hunting Nymph (Nymphe Chasseresse) who, in the mist of time, was misidentified as Diana. Likewise, our dashing wide receiver was also misidentified when we purchased him in 1976 from a collector. The title given by the artist, Mr. Hartley, is Nearing the Goal.  

Hartley was born in Albany, New York and began his sculpting training at the Albany Academy, funding his studies by working as an assistant to self-taught Albany sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer and as a tombstone carver in a local stone yard. This latter skill helped fund further studies at the Royal Academy, London. After London he spent a year of study in Berlin before returning to the United States. Back home, he set up a studio in New York. Hartley’s place at 596 Broadway became a hang-out for other young, New York artists who called their group The New York Sketch Class and gathered for “mutual improvement” and to draw and fraternize. In 1877, at Hartley’s suggestion, the club was renamed the Salmagundi Club, a word borrowed from Washington Irving’s popular writings of the day. 

Hartley continued to refine his work and learning, returning to Europe to study in Rome and Paris. By the mid-1870s he was becoming known for his portrait busts, many depicting popular actors in their best-known roles. Other famous men he depicted in bust form were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, all of whom make up part of the pantheon of famous men of letters on the façade of the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress. 

It was a female figure in swirling drapery that earned Hartley both notoriety and criticism in 1878 when he entered The Whirlwind, below, at the National Academy of Design. The bronze sculpture portrays a vigorous swirl of fabric and nude female form in motion – its originality inspired some critics while others found it offensive. Acerbic art and culture critic Clarence Cook called it “a poor portrayal of a woman trapped in a waterspout”. 

Hartley’s interest in the human body in motion is apparent in both sculptures, proving that the formal bust was not his only focus. Hartley also portrayed figures at play and in motion; for example, at least two sculptures, The Baseball Player (1886) and a child playing with a pet rabbit, Joy of Life (1910) captured the dynamism of the human body. His deep knowledge of human anatomy was shared with the Art Students League, an organization he helped found and where he served as lecturer in anatomy and modeling from 1877 to 1884. He also authored the treatise, Anatomy in Art, in 1891, a widely respected reference. He taught artistic anatomy at the National Academy of Design from 1897 until 1908. 

A form of The Whirlwind – Hartley reworked the sculpture in 1896 and it was recast in 1906 – was shown with Nearing the Goal and a couple of other Hartley works at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1910. The exhibit, organized by the National Sculpture Society, New York, was titled Exhibition of Small Bronzes by American Sculptors. Hartley died just a couple of years later at the age of 67 on December 6, 1912. 

Fun Fact! Hartley was the son-in-law of iconic American landscape painter George Inness (1825-1894). Incidentally, Inness was also a favorite target of critic Clarence Cook’s vitriol! 

Hartley married Inness’ daughter, Rose Bonheur Inness, in 1879. Tragically, Rose died in childbirth in 1880 when their daughter, Rose, was born. Hartley then married Helen Inness, the youngest child of George and Elizabeth Inness. They had four children together. 

And our Hunting Nymphe, if you recall, has gone off to be conserved. Though we do miss her, we’d like to think she is enjoying her sabbatical from the autumn hunt and is having a spa-like respite while she is away from FWMoA.

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References 

19^th-century Sculpture, H. W. Janson, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1985. 

George Inness, Nicolai Cikovsky, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1993. 

Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company, Gilcrease Museum, The Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, https://collections.gilcrease.org/creator/henry-bonnard-bronze-company  

Jonathan Scott Hartley: ANA 1879; NA 1891, National Academy of Design, https://nationalacademy.emuseum.com/people/460/jonathan-scott-hartley  

The Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition of Small Bronzes by American Sculptors: February Eight to Twenty-Seventh Nineteen Hundred and Ten, Organized by the National Sculpture Society, New York, exhibition catalogue, 1910. 

The Salmagundi Club, being a history of its beginning as a sketch class, its public service as the Black and White Society, and its career as a club from MDCCCLXXI to MCMXVIII, William Henry Shelton, 1918.