Walter Elmer SchofieldROIRBA (September 10, 1866[a] – March 1, 1944) was an American Impressionist landscape and marine painter. Although he never lived in New Hope or Bucks County, Schofield is regarded as one of the Pennsylvania Impressionists.[2]
His body of work includes autumnal landscapes and snow scenes of Pennsylvania and New England, and summery landscapes and marine paintings of England and France.[3] Late in his career, he painted vividly-colored landscapes of the American Southwest.[4]: 495
Schofield returned to Philadelphia at the end of 1894.[9]Robert Henri, a friend and fellow PAFA alumnus, was then teaching at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.[11] Schofield was among a group of Philadelphia artists – William Glackens, Edward Willis Redfield, John French Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks, James Moore Preston, Edward Davis, Charles Grafly, Stirling Calder, Hugh Breckenridge – who would meet at Henri's studio on Tuesday nights to discuss art and aesthetics.[b] Schofield, Henri, Glackens, Grafly and artist Augustus Koopman sailed for France together in June 1895.[13][c] Schofield, Henri and Glackens were fascinated by the subtle atmospheric effects of Dutch Old Master painters,[8] and the trio made a bicycle tour through Belgium and the Netherlands, visiting churches and museums along the way.[d] Schofield was also influenced by Les Nabis, "a group of French painters whose work emphasized bright colors, flattened forms and decorative patterning."[16]
Bust of W. Elmer Schofield (1905), by Charles Grafly, National Academy of Design
Schofield returned to Philadelphia in Fall 1895, and worked in his father's textile business for a short time.[1]: 92 He met Muriel Redmayne, an English visitor to the city. They married on October 7, 1896 in Ormskirk, Lancashire (near Liverpool).[1]: 93 The newlyweds returned to Philadelphia, and lived with his parents in Cheltenham Township, just north of the city.[1]: 93 They bought a house in the Oak Lane section of Philadelphia.[1]: 93 Schofield had early professional success with restrained Pennsylvania winter landscapes,[e] painted in a Tonalist style "characterized by muted colors and soft, flowing brushwork".[18] In 1899, he and his pregnant wife moved to Southport, North West England, and lived with her parents.[1]: 93 The couple had two sons, Seymour and Sydney. The family lived for a time in Brittany,[5]: 286 and from 1903 to 1907 in the coastal town of St. Ives, Cornwall.[5]: 286 Schofield would spend half of the year in Philadelphia, painting his signature autumn and winter scenes, while his wife and sons remained in England.[8] He maintained this routine from 1902 to 1937, except during World War I.[18]
After his parents' deaths, Schofield would stay with his brother Albert[f] and family in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of the city.[21] This was a short walk from the Valley Green section of Fairmount Park, and the picturesque Wissahickon Creek became the subject of a number of his paintings.[21]
Zero weather, rain, falling snow, wind—all these things to contend with only make the open-air painter love the fight. — W. Elmer Schofield[5]
Schofield had roomed with Edward Redfield in France, and the two enjoyed a friendly rivalry.[1]: 92 Both worked en plein air even in the coldest weather, both favored large canvases and preferred to finish a work in a single day, and the pair sometimes painted together.[g] Observing Redfield, Schofield gradually abandoned his Tonalist technique in favor of a more dynamic style "of expressionistic brushwork and a greater sense of form, structure and patterning that itself border[ed] on Post-Impressionism."[18] Redfield and Schofield had a major falling out in 1904, that developed into a lifelong feud.[h] Art historian Thomas Folk suspects that Schofield never painted in New Hope again.[i] Painter Emile Gruppe witnessed the results of Schofield's transformation in the first decade of the 20th century: "I can still remember the great National Academy shows. Three painters dominated the walls: Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber and Elmer Schofield. They all worked boldly and with wonderful color – and you never critically compared them, for you loved each one when you stood in front of his canvas."[24]
Schofield painted in a brighter palette after World War I, applying this new approach to snow scenes, to coastal scenes of Cornwall, and to landscapes of California, New Mexico and Arizona.[18]
Schofield especially liked to paint on sunny days. Even in canvases where sunlight isn't a tangible presence, it often might as well be, because the brightness of the colors and the clean delineations between objects give the illusion of light even when it's not really there. As one of Schofield's contemporaries put it, "He is an open-air man, wholesome, healthy, and his art, sane and straightforward, reflects his temperament."
Schofield took great joy in what he saw. His trees, for example, are sinuous, sensuous, dancing entities, full of rhythm and life. He could transform an ordinary English village into an organized yet delightful casual conglomeration of lines, angles, planes, and shapes. He saw nature in bright colors—light greens, pale blues, intense whites dappled with gray shadows—and he never lost his sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world. As he put it, "Nature is always vital, even in her implicit moods, and never denies a vision to the real lover."[2]
World War II ended Schofield's annual trips to the United States.[18] He spent his last years living and painting in Cornwall.[18]
Personal
"Godolphin House." Schofield and his family owned the property from 1937 to 2007.
Schofield was close friends with Pennsylvania Impressionist painter Walter Emerson Baum, who named one of his sons Elmer Schofield Baum.[1]: 79
In July 1915, at age 48, Schofield enlisted as a private in the British Army during World War I.[j] Three months later, he accepted a commission as 2nd lieutenant in the Cornwall Garrison of the Royal Artillery.[1]: 105 He rose to the rank of captain, and was discharged as a major.[k]
After the war, Schofield and his wife lived in Perranporth, Cornwall for several years, and in Otley, Suffolk from 1925 to 1937.[4]: 495 In September 1937, they purchased "Godolphin House," a 17th-century manor in Breage, Cornwall, which was restored by their architect son, Sydney Elmer Schofield (1901–1983).[9] Many of Schofield's late paintings depict the manor and its gardens. The couple moved to the smaller "Gwedna House" on the same property in 1941, and gave the manor house to Sydney and his bride.[22]
Walter Elmer Schofield died of a heart attack at "Gwedna House" on March 1, 1944.[10] His body was temporarily buried in England, and after World War II was exhumed and reburied in Philadelphia, at the Church of St. James the Less.[8] His wife Muriel, who survived him by 16 years, was buried beside him. Sydney designed their gravestone.[1]: 121 In addition to being an architect, Sydney was a portrait painter.[26] Sydney's widow sold "Godolphin House" to the National Trust in 2007.[27][28]
The Hill Country (c.1913), Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia. Winner of PAFA's 1914 Temple Gold Medal
Schofield exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts most years from 1891 to 1937, and posthumously in 1946.[32] PAFA awarded him its 1903 Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal (best landscape painting exhibited by an American artist) for Breezy Day, Early Autumn; and its 1914 Temple Gold Medal (best oil painting exhibited by an American artist) for The Hill Country.[33] He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design in New York City. NAD awarded him its 1901 First Hallgarten Prize for Winter Evening; its 1911 Inness Gold Medal for February Morning; and its 1920 Altman Prize for The Rapids.[34] The Society of American Artists awarded him its 1900 Webb Prize of $300 (best landscape exhibited by an American artist under 40) for Autumn in Brittany.[35] The Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh awarded him its 1900 honorable mention (4th prize) for January Woods;[36] and its 1904 gold medal and $1,500 prize for Across the River.[34] He was one of several American artists invited to exhibit at the 1906 (New) Paris Salon.[37] The St. Louis Art Museum hosted a one-man show of his paintings in 1912.[1]: 102 The National Arts Club in New York City awarded him its 1913 gold medal and $1,000 prize for The Spring Thaw.[34] The Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York hosted a one-man-show of his paintings in February and March 1915.[38] Schofield visited the exhibition, and painted two works during his stay, both of which are now in the gallery's collection.[39] The Art Institute of Chicago hosted a one-man-show of his paintings in 1920,[40] and awarded him its 1921 Spalding $1,000 Prize for Morning Light.[34] The Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. hosted 3 one-man-shows of Schofield's paintings – in 1912, 1920 and 1932 – and awarded him its 1926 silver medal and $1,500 Clark Prize for Cliff Shadows.[41] Schofield also exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.[9]: 281
The National Academy of Design mounted a memorial exhibition of his work in 1945,[4]: 495 as did the Woodmere Art Museum that same year.[21] The Brandywine River Museum mounted a 1983 retrospective exhibition: Walter Elmer Schofield, Bold Impressionist.[44] The Payne Gallery at Moravian College mounted a 1988 retrospective exhibition: W. Elmer Schofield: Proud Painter of Modest Lands.[45] The Woodmere Art Museum mounted a 2014 retrospective exhibition – Schofield, International Impressionist – that focused on his career on both sides of the Atlantic;[21] and a small 2017 exhibition of recent gifts from the artist's descendants.[21] The Trout Gallery at Dickinson College mounted a 2015 exhibition, Schofield: Impressionist Landscapes.[46]
Selected works
Sand Dunes near Lelant, Cornwall (1905), Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe Rapids (c.1914), Smithsonian American Art Museum. Winner of the National Academy of Design's 1920 Altman PrizeMining Village in Cornwall (c.1920), Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Montmartre (c.1896), Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia.
Winter (1899), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.[47]
Autumn in Brittany (c.1900), Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.[49] Awarded the Society of American Artists' 1900 Webb Prize, and a silver medal at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.
Breezy Day, Early Autumn (c.1902), Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.[50][51] Awarded PAFA's 1903 Sesnan Gold Medal.
Morning After Snow (1903), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Across the River (c.1904), Carnegie Art Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania[52][53] Awarded the Carnegie Institute's 1904 gold medal.
Sand Dunes near Lelant, Cornwall (1905), Metropolitan Museum of Art[54]
Winter in Picardy (1907), Philadelphia Museum of Art[55]
Evening along the Shore, St. Ives (c.1907), National Academy of Design, New York City[4]: 495
Winter Landscape (1909), private collection. Sold at Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers, Milford, CT, October 25, 2018, Lot 45. Realized $75,000 plus buyer's premium.[61]
The First Days of Spring (c.1910), Juan Manuel Blanes Museum, Montevideo, Uruguay.[5]: 281 Awarded a gold medal at the 1910 Exposición Internacional del Centenario in Buenos Aires.
Ebb Tide (c.1912), National Arts Club, New York City[18]
Covered Bridge on the Schuylkill (The Red Bridge) (c.1912), Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania[62][63]
Frosty Morning (1913),[64] Avery Galleries, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.[65] Ex collection: Montclair Art Museum[m]
The Hill Country (c.1913), Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia.[68] Awarded PAFA's 1914 Temple Gold Medal.
Tujunga Canyon (c.1934-35), Los Angeles County Museum of Art[88]
Rapids in Winter (c.1936), private collection.[89] Sold at Sotheby's NY, December 1, 2004, realized $456,000 (auction record).
Montmartre (c.1896), Woodmere Art Museum
Morning After Snow (1903), Corcoran Gallery of Art
Across the River (1904) Carnegie Museum of Art. Winner of the 1904 Carnegie Prize
Winter in Picardy (1907), Philadelphia Museum of Art
On the Canal, Bruges (1908), private collection
Winter Landscape (1909), private collection
Old Mills on the Somme (c.1909), Indianapolis Museum of Art
Frosty Morning (1913), Ex collection: Montclair Art Museum
The Little Harbor (c.1925), private collection. Silver medal at the 1926 Sesqui-centennial Exposition
Tujunga Canyon (c.1934-35), Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Notes
^Although Schofield's gravestone reads "W. Elmer Schofield N.A. / 1867–1944," the artist's great-grandson and biographer, James D. W. Church, states that Schofield's passport and military records listed his birth year as 1866. Valerio, pp. 91, 121.
^"Henri played host to regular artists' gatherings at his studio, occasions to socialize, drink, sketch, talk about art, and give artistic criticism of one another's work. Henri urged the young men he brought together to read Whitman and Emerson, William Morris Hunt's Talks on Art and George Moore's Modern Painting, and to think about the need to create a vigorous new American art that spoke to their time and experience. These gatherings were the inspirational beginning of what became known as the Ashcan school of American art."[12]
^Schofield, Henri and Koopman had trained in Paris, this was Glackens's first visit. They came to study the French Impressionists, to paint, and to each develop his own style.[13] Grafy was on his honeymoon, and had taken a sabbatical from teaching at PAFA to work on a major anti-war sculpture, that became The Vultures of War.[14] Schofield painted in Paris, Brittany and Fontainebleau.[9]
^"We had a good voyage, Glack, Schofield and I, after seeing the [Paris] Salons, for about ten days went on a bike trip to Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Harlem & Hague. Great trip, beautiful scenery. Passed through the Champagne district of France. Such wine! So cheap and so much of it! Ooh, la! la!" — Robert Henri to John Sloan, July 1895.[15]
^"January Evening and Winter, snow studies in the woods, deserve particular attention; for they are by a young painter, W. Elmer Schofield, a pupil of the Pennsylvania Academy, who has recently returned from supplementing his studies in France. They recall no one else's treatment of snow subjects. Nature has evidently been his inspiration; he has studied her sincerely, with much feeling for her color and spaciousness, and expressed what he has found in a vigorous and simple way, without any attempt to display what he could have done with it had he been so minded. In this way, he has secured both individuality and sentiment."[17]
^Albert was president of the Delph Spinning Company,[19] which made cotton yarn for knitting hosiery and underwear.[20] Schofield, Albert and their unmarried sister Alice each inherited a one-third interest in the company from their father. Valerio, p. 39.
^"I went to see Redfield, spent two nights there and did a lot of camping. It really does one good to get a chance to see other men's work and mentally take notes." — Schofield to his wife Mary, February 1902.[22]
^The Carnegie Museum of Art awarded Schofield its 1904 gold medal for Across the River. Redfield served on the Carnegie's art jury that year, but was outvoted by the other jurors. In a 1963 interview, Redfield, age 93, claimed that the painting depicted a site that he had shown to Schofield, who then returned to England and reproduced the scene from memory.[23] Art historian Thomas Folk discovered the likely reason for the intensity of Redfield's anger toward Schofield: Across the River depicted the Delaware River from the front yard of Redfield's own house.[22]
^Folk owns a recording of Redfield's 1963 interview. In it Redfield recounted confronting Schofield: "You, keep out of my front yard after this." "You paint your own subjects."[16]
^"At my time of life one does not as a rule take up the soldier's profession but it was not my love of it that forced me on—but the strong desire to do what I could to prevent Germany goose-stepping over the world and help force her out of France." — Schofield to Robert Henri, 18 November 1915, quoted in Folk 1983, p. 22.
^"The 'Welcome Home' Exhibition of W. Elmer Schofield at the Macbeth Gallery was the first in New York for nearly ten years. His war activities as a captain in the British Army naturally interrupted his art output, but evidently sent him back to his easel with a vigor which fully equals anything he did in the old American days. His work seems rather to have been enriched by his absence from his palette, to have fulfilled itself. Mr. Schofield is a vigorous painter with a feeling for wide spaces and the genial, handsome face of nature. It is good to have him back again."[25]
^Schofield often lodged at the National Art Club when in New York City.[18]
^Frosty Morning was deaccessioned by the Montclair Art Museum in 2009, and auctioned at Christie's NY, 20 May 2009.[66] It sold for $30,000 plus buyer's premium.[67]
^The Brooklyn Museum hosted the National Academy of Design's 1920 Spring Exhibition. NAD purchased The Rapids at the exhibition, and placed the painting on long-term loan to the museum as a token of thanks.[73] It was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1954.[1]
References
^ abcdefghijklmnoWilliam R. Valerio, et al., Schofield, International Impressionist (Woodmere Art Museum, 2014), pp. 149, 159.
^ abcBrian H. Peterson, "The Painterly Voice," in William H. Gerdts, et al., Pennsylvania Impressionism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 34-35.
^ abcdefgDavid B. Dearinger, Paintings and Sculpture at the National Academy of Design, Volume 1: 1826–1925 (National Academy of Design, Hudson Hills Press, 2004).[1]
^ abcdeC. Lewis Hind, "An American Landscape Painter: W. Elmer Schofield," The International Studio, vol. 48, no. 191 (January 1912), pp. 280–89.[2]
^Edwin Troxwell Freedly, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures (Philadelphia: Edward Young, 1859), p. 261.[3]
^ abcdStephanie L. Herdrich, "Walter Elmer Schofield," in Helene Barbara Weinberg, American Impressionism and Realism: A Landmark Exhibition from the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), p. 310.[4]
^ abcdefgDavid Tovey, Creating A Splash - The St. Ives Society of Artists - The First 25 Years (1927–1952) (Hilmarton Manor Press, 2003).
^Constance Kimmerle, Edward Redfield: Just Values and Fine Seeing (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), pp. 22–23.
^William H. Gerdts, William Glackens, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996), p. 13.
^ abIra Glackens, William Glackens and the Eight: The Artists Who Freed American Art (New York: Horizon Press, 1984), pp. 69–70.
^Susan James-Gadzinski and Mary Mullen Cunningham, "Charles Grafly, 1862–1929," in American Sculpture in the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA, 1997), pp. 118–19.
^Bennard B. Perlman, Revolutionaries of Realism: The Letters of John Sloan and Robert Henri (Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 14.
^ abThomas Folk, The Pennsylvania School of Landscape Painting - An Original American Impressionism, exhibition catalogue, (Allentown Art Museum, 1984), p. 47.
^The Artist: An Illustrated Monthly Record of Arts, Crafts and Industries, vol. 24, no. 230 (February 1899), New York: Truslove, Hanson & Comba, 1899, p. xxviii.
^ abcdefghCarol Lowrey, A Legacy of Art: Paintings and Sculptures by Artist Life Members of the National Arts Club (National Arts Club, Hudson Hills Press, 2007), pp. 172-73.
^Textile World Record, vol. 27, no. 1 (April 1904), Lord & Nagel Company, p. 172.
^American Wool and Cotton Reporter, December 28, 1922, p. 48.
^The Artist: An Illustrated Monthly Record of Arts, Crafts and Industries, vol. 28, no. 246 (July 1900), New York: Truslove, Hanson & Comba, p. x.
^Catalogue of the Exhibition of Fine Arts: Pan-American Exposition (Buffalo, 1901), pp. 33, 42, 56.
^Exposición Internacional de Bellas Artes: Catálogo Oficial Ilustrado (Moneda esquina San Antonio, 1910), p. 62.
^Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 2, 1876-1913 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989), p. 428.
^Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 3, 1914-1968 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989), p. 415.
^Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events (D. Appleton & Company, 1901), p. 231.
^The Sketch Book, vol. 5, no. 2 (October 1905), Chicago & New York, pp. 98-99.[5]
^"Exhibits Paris Salons: The American Artists' Display," Fine Arts Journal, vol. 17, no. 9 (September 1906), p. 578.
^Exhibition of Paintings by W. Elmer Schofield and a Collection of Paintings Representative of The Modern Movement in American Art. The Memorial Art Gallery. February 16 to March 7, 1915.
^ abcd"W. Elmer Schofield," Seven Special Exhibitions, from December 17, 1920 to January 18, 1921 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1920), p. 4.
^ abDorothy W. Phillips, A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Volume 2 (Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1973), p. 72.
