Abbott Thayer Paintings- Ideal Figures/ Portraits and Self Portraits

Ideal Figures

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/thayer/index.html

Thayer's angels are his best-known paintings. An art critic mused: "They come near to us, there is a lovely hint of the human and intimate in them, yet they are not of the earth; they have a mystic air, and a glance that fathoms the beyond." Thayer did not try to explain these paintings, saying only that the wings were meant to lift the figure out of the commonplace. He employed unusual means to bring expressive power to these figures: he manipulated the paint with brooms, scrapers, his fingers, and even the paint tube.

For Thayer, these winged figures had personal meaning. The first angel was a portrait of his daughter Mary and was painted, possibly as a symbol of hope, at the time of his first wife's mental illness. His later winged figures become figures hovering over a landscape, perhaps protecting the forests of Mount Monadnock he so loved. 
Half-Draped Figure
ca. 1885
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23934
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/thayer/thayer-paintings-pg-1.html
oil
181.3 x 121.3 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
Like many artists trained in the tradition of the French school, Thayer used the nude figure to evoke the golden age of the classical past. Here, the brushed-in beginnings of a lyre suggest that the figure is Erato, the muse of lyric poetry.
Minerva in a Chariot
ca. 1894
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23938
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/thayer/thayer-paintings-pg-1.html
oil
96.7 x 136.4 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
Thayer worked on three mural commissions in 1894 and 1895. Only one, Florence Protecting the Arts, at Bowdoin College in Maine, was completed. For both the Boston Public Library and the Library of Congress he proposed depicting Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts. Seen horizontally, this painting was probably a study for the Boston mural. Seen vertically, the angel-like figure underneath Minerva was likely a study for the Washington panel.
In 1894, Abbott Thayer won a commission to create a large mosaic panel of the goddess Minerva for the Library of Congress, and he painted this oil sketch before executing the final version in glass. He was to receive $4000 for the completed project, but engineers and architects at the library quickly grew frustrated with Thayer’s unwillingness to comply with their instructions. After years of argument, the commission was given to another prominent muralist, Elihu Vedder. His Minerva now presides over the landing of what was once the library’s main staircase. (Cartwright, “Reading Rooms: Interpreting the American Public Library Mural, 1890-1930,” PhD diss., Univ. Michigan, 1994)

Angel
1887
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23922oil
92 x 71.5 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
The first and best-known of Thayer's angel paintings, it is at once a portrait and an allegory of hope and spirituality. As his daughter Mary posed for the figure at the age of eleven, her mother was exhibiting the first signs of mental illness. The Renaissance-inspired frame, called a "tabernacle" type, was designed by the American architect Stanford White especially for this painting


Critics considered Thayer's Angel an image of “spotless innocence and aspiration” in an age of materialism. They did not know that the figure was Thayer's personal allegory of hope and spirituality, created after two of his children had died and he had lost his wife to mental illness. While painting it, Thayer wrote, “Yesterday I found the head so on the right track at last that I had an inspired moment partly aided by that strange summoning of clear sight, and when I looked at it I saw at a glance my best thing. I am blissful.” Angel is set like a jewel in a gilded wood frame designed by architect Stanford White
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/thayer/
(this next link is optional, but it's nice...)
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/wings/
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19931227,00.html
Please read this article, or at least look at the frame:
 http://eyelevel.si.edu/2009/12/over-the-edge-with-martin-kotler.html

Virgin Enthroned
1891
oil
184.3 x 133.2 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
Thayer used his children—Mary in the center, Gerald and Gladys at her sides—as models for this painting. Its composition is based on the Renaissance type called a "sacred conversation," in which donors and saints are depicted on either side of the Virgin Mary. Contemporary critics hailed it as a masterpiece of religious painting; few understood that the painting represented Thayer's children.
Thayer's children served as models for this reinterpretation of a Renaissance Madonna. Critics hailed it as a masterpiece of religious painting. Although it appears to be painted casually, the faces are carefully described. When asked about his idealized figures, Thayer said, “Few people understand what they should mean by idealization. What makes a work of art [is] this mark of sacrificing the realness of certain details to that of the loved one's. It goes far to describe art to say it is a record of worship, alias love.”
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23957

Stevenson Memorial 
1903
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23951oil
207.2 x 52.6 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
Thayer's most enigmatic painting is his tribute to the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). The author's name and coat of arms originally appeared across the top, but Thayer later painted them out, leaving only the mysterious word VAEA, which refers to the mountain in Samoa where Stevenson was buried. The bright, winged figure seated against a dark background evokes angelic goodness surrounded by the shadows of evil and death, dualities that Stevenson explored in his writing.

Stevenson Memorial carries a hidden story.

Underneath this image is an earlier composition, a portrait of Thayer's three children that he had painted as a tribute to Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. But Thayer painted over this with the figure of an angel to convey a more encompassing, personal grief. The artist's wife had died in 1891, and his many paintings of angels created thereafter suggest the mysteries of life, death, and the fate of the spirit.

The luminous angel shown here, seated at Stevenson's tomb, is an emblem of memory, a light against oblivion. Just as Thayer's love for his wife survived in the image of their children, Stevenson's fame would live on in his works.
This enigmatic painting is Thayer's tribute to the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who married an American and traveled extensively in the United States, befriending many artists. He eventually moved to Samoa, where he died in 1894 and was buried on Mount Vaea. Stevenson's name and coat of arms originally appeared across the top of the canvas, but Thayer painted them out, leaving only the word VAEA on the rock to identify the subject. The angel, poised somewhat nonchalantly, recalls the angels who stood guard over Christ's tomb before His resurrection.
http://eyelevel.si.edu/2009/12/the-best-of-ask-joan-of-art-thayers-stevenson-memorial.html

Boy and Angel
1918, 1919 and 1920
oil on wood
157.6 x 125.6 cm
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Knox and Clifton Funds, 1925
Thayer acutely felt the loss of young men and women from World War I and the influenza pandemic that was brought back by soldiers who had survived. In this painting he provides solace in both figures: the boy seeking a brighter future and the angel leaning over him as the protector of unspoiled youth. The painting is signed and dated three times: 1918, which marked the end of World War I; 1919, the year Thayer exhibited it at his retrospective exhibition at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh; and April 2, 1920, identifying it as one of Thayer's last works.

Monadnock Angel
1920-1921
oil
233.6 x 153.8 cm
Philips Academy, Addison Gallery of American Art, Gift of anonymous donor
Thayer produced late in his career several large paintings of an angel hovering over scenic areas and wildlife refuges Thayer sought to protect. Mount Monadnock had been threatened with commercial development, and the preservation of its forests became a personal cause for the artist.

My Children (Mary, Gerald, and Gladys Thayer)
1893–1897
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23939oil
219.1 x 155.1 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
My Children is the first version of a memorial to the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Thayer posed his children as he had in Virgin Enthroned. Mary holds a wreath, the traditional symbol for fame. Although the painting may appear to be unfinished, Thayer signed it and inscribed it "never to be retouched, not one pinpoint."

Portraits and Self-Portraits

Thayer was much sought after for his portraits. His visual vocabulary from the 1880s referred to earlier American portraits, including those by the eighteenth-century Bostonian, John Singleton Copley. During this period, Thayer posed young women in light dresses against dramatic, dark backgrounds. Over time, his portraits evolved from depictions of an individual into character studies. The titles of these works rarely included the name of the sitter.

Thayer also made numerous self-portraits. Early examples show him as elegant and self-confident. After his first wife's death in 1891, he began to probe his own personality and mental states. Late in his career, he worked on a series of stark self-portraits, in which the balding, sometimes haggard artist presents himself full-face, devoid of any softening distractions.

Portrait of a Woman (Miss Gertrude Bloede)

ca. 1881http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23941oil on canvas16 5/8 x 14 in. (42.2 x 35.7 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John Gellatly“About her head or floating feet/No halo’s starry gleam/Still dark and swift uprising, like/A bubble in a stream.” Stuart Sterne, “My Father’s Child,” reprinted in Stedman, ed., An American Anthology, 1787–1900, 1900Gertrude Bloede was the sister of Abbott Thayer’s first wife, Kate. The Bloedes were German immigrants who lived in Brooklyn and regularly entertained a circle of intellectuals. Both daughters were highly creative and independent: Kate was an artist, and Gertrude was a noted writer who published her romantic poetry under the pseudonym Stuart Sterne. In this portrait sketch, Thayer gave his sister-in-law a faraway look, as though she were lost in thought, perhaps composing a poem.

Brother and Sister (Mary and Gerald Thayer)
1889
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23926oil 
92 x 71.9 cm

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly

This portrait shows Thayer's children one year after their mother was hospitalized for extreme depression, or "melancholia".Mary had posed two years before for the first and most famous angel painting. Her brother Gerald (born 1883) became his father's assistant and, like his father, an ornithologist.
Kate Thayer became physically ill while hospitalized, and Thayer wrote to a friend that her physical deterioration would not be so horrible "were her soul visible" (Anderson, Abbott Handerson Thayer, 1982). Thayer captured the sadness and worry of this difficult period in Mary's heavy-lidded, watery eyes and in Gerald’s searching expression. They look like a modern-day Madonna and Child. Their mother would live for two more years, but in this portrait it is as if Mary has already taken on her mother's role in the family. After Kate died, Thayer clung to his children as an emotional anchor, and he often depicted them as sacred figures
 Please listen to this podcast

http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfm?key=372&artistmedia=0&object=343&subkey=79

A Bride
about 1895
oil
21 x 17 1/8 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly 
This painting was a preparatory sketch for a larger, more detailed portrait of Alice Maude Allen Atwater of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on the occasion of her wedding. While this study emphasizes the bride's likeness and pose, the finished painting devotes more attention to the Japanese gold cloth of her wedding gown, with its ornamented bodice of Belgian rose-point lace.
Abbott Thayer painted this study for a large society portrait of Alice Maude Allen Atwater of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He sketched her from life and focused on the details of her face and her general pose. But in the finished version, which he made in his studio, he lavished attention on the bride's gown of Japanese gold cloth with a Belgian rose-point lace bodice. Years later the dress remained in his mind, but when asked who the bride was, he had trouble remembering. (Prelinger, American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000)
PLease listen to this podcast
http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfm?key=372&artistmedia=0&object=23&subkey=1045

Portrait of Bessie Price
1897
oil 
71.7 x 50 cm
Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. Clark

In 1896, Bessie Price joined other members of her Irish family working in the Thayer household. She became a model for several of Thayer's best-known paintings—A Young Woman(1898) and the Stevenson Memorial(1903)—both in this exhibition. This first portrait of her, reminiscent of Italian Renaissance examples, won the prestigious Thomas B. Clarke prize at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1898.

Portrait of a Lady (Mrs. William B. Cabot)

1900-1902http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23940oil on canvas39 x 32 3/8 in. (99.1 x 82.3 cm)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John GellatlyThis is a portrait of the wife of William Brooks Cabot, an accomplished civil engineer in Boston and a close friend of the artist’s. Abbott Thayer began working on Mrs. Cabot’s portrait when he was preparing to depart for Cornwall, England. He not only carried the canvas abroad with him, but also took Mrs. Cabot’s dress so he could refer to it as he completed the painting. Thayer exhibited the finished work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1900; two years later, he showed it in Philadelphia with some alterations, about which he wrote to his wife, “I feel that the new hands and right arm I put on . . . at the end made Mrs. C.” (Hobbs, unpublished catalogue entry, SAAM curatorial files, 1978) please listen to this recording:http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfmkey=372&artistmedia=0&object=1821&subkey=1065

Girl Arranging Her Hair

1918-1919http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23933oil on canvas25 5/8 x 24 1/4 in. (65.1 x 61.5 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of John Gellatly

Alma Wollerman Thayer was the wife of Abbott Thayer's son, Gerald, and mother of Thayer's grandchildren. She was one of his favorite models, and he spoke of his obsession with her sensual features. He created multiple versions of this composition, but claimed that he had never painted anything to compare with this Botticelli-like Alma head (Prelinger, American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).
This painting is one of several studies Thayer made of Alma Wollerman. Hired by the artist as a model, she later married his son Gerald and bore him two sons. Thayer painted portraits on commission at the beginning of his career, but later preferred to choose the sitters himself, painting members of his family and close circle of friends.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/abbott-handerson-thayer-and-thayer-family-papers-7440/more

Townsend Bradley Martin

1919http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23936oil on canvas27 5/8 x 21 3/4 in. (70.1 x 55.2 cm.)Smithsonian American Art MuseumGift of Mrs. Grosvenor BackusTownsend Bradley Martin was the grandson of Henry Phipps, the business partner of steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. In this portrait sketch of the young boy in a garden, Townsend’s shirt nearly disappears in the foliage. Abbott Thayer was fascinated with natural history, and he developed a theory of natural camouflage that is obvious in his paintings of animals but often creeps into his portraits as well. (Nemerov, “Vanishing Americans: Abbott Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Attraction of Camouflage,” American Art, Summer 1997) Please look at the different postings in the Luce center, just in case. Thank you. http://americanart.si.edu/luce/lightbox.cfm?showinfo=allsearchtype=advancedsearch_artist=Abbott%20Handerson+Thayer