George Hitchcock

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait of George Hitchcock, detail from a watercolor by his friend John Singer Sargent , around 1900

George Herbert Hitchcock (born September 29, 1850 in Providence , Rhode Island , † August 2, 1913 in Marken , Province of Noord-Holland ) was an American painter . He is considered to be the founder of the Egmond School .

Life

Hitchcock (second from right) and his friend Gari Melchers (first from right) in a garden in Egmond , photo around 1895

Hitchcock was the second son of the portrait painter Charles Hitchcock (1823-1858) and his wife Olivia G. (nee Cowell, 1828-1865). First he studied law at Brown University in his hometown until 1872 , then at the Harvard Law School of Harvard University in Cambridge , Massachusetts . After graduating in 1874, he worked as a lawyer in Providence and New York City for some time . In 1877 he decided to become a painter. He opened a studio in Chicago , but failed there trying to make a living from selling watercolors. In 1879 he moved to London , where he deepened watercolor painting at Heatherley's School , then to Paris , where he attended the Académie Julian under Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger . In 1880 he became a student of Hendrik Willem Mesdag in The Hague . In 1881 he exhibited at the New York Water Color Society , and in 1885 at the National Academy of Design . In 1881 Hitchcock married Henrietta (née Richardson, later Mrs. Lewis-Hind) and settled with her in a house on the dunes near Egmond aan den Hoef (today Bergen in North Holland ), where from 1884 his friend Gari Melchers temporarily lived and shared the studio with Hitchcock. In the school year 1884 he went to the Düsseldorf Art Academy for two months . There was Hugo Crola his teacher. In September 1884 the Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary visited the Hotel Zeezicht in Egmont and purchased a painting by Hitchcock. In 1887 he was given an honorable mention in the Salon de Paris . Between 1890 and 1900 he won numerous other awards at exhibitions in Europe.

In 1890 he founded the Art Summer School with Gari Melchers in Egmond , which lasted until 1905. He gave it up when he and his second wife, the British Cecil Jay (1883–1954), who was married in 1905, decided to live permanently in Paris, where he had previously only spent the winters. The school in Huis Schuylenburgh attracted a large number of artists, including Karl Anderson , Paulus Adriaan Gildemeester, Heinrich Heimes , Hans Herrmann , Walter MacEwen, Heinrich Petersen-fishing , Alice Blair Ring, James Jebusa Shannon , Letta Crapo Smith, Fokko Tadama, Thamine Tadama-Groeneveld and Florence Kate Upton. The corresponding artistic milieu is known as the Egmondse School or the Egmond artist colony . Around 1895 his student James Jebusa Shannon made a portrait of Hitchcock there in oil.

Hitchcock died of heart disease on his boat in Marken Harbor at the age of 62. He was a member of the National Academy of Design in New York City ( associate , 1909), the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna , the Munich Secession and the French Legion of Honor . He was also an officer of the Franz Joseph Order .

Hitchcock had an older brother Charles Hitchcock (* 1848), who worked as a doctor in New York, and a younger sister Amelia Swift Hitchcock (* 1852), who married Herbert Maynard in 1884.

Works (selection)

Dutch bride , around 1890
The Annunciation , 1892
Calypso , around 1906

Hitchcock, attracted by the light and colors of the North Sea coast , was best known for his mostly color-intensive paintings of fields of flowers and female figures, which are assigned to the art of Impressionism and Art Nouveau . His work falls into a phase of increased interest in the American culture industry for the history and culture of the Netherlands, a period that dates from around 1880 to 1920 and is known as "Holland mania" (enthusiasm for Holland). As this phenomenon subsided, the artist and his work initially fell into oblivion. After art-historical research had re-examined the artist, his work and its context at the end of the 1990s, interest rose sharply again. In 1999 Bill Gates bought a Hitchcock factory in the UK for about £ 600,000. In 2011 the sale of a painting generated proceeds of approximately $ 1.7 million.

literature

  • George Hitchcock . In: The Art Amateur . tape 22 , no. 3 , 1890, ISSN  2151-8246 , p. 54-55 , JSTOR : 25692507 .
  • Lionel G. Robinson: Mr. George Hitchcock and American Art. In: Art Journal. October 1891, pp. 289-295.
  • Arthur Fish: George Hitchcock: Painter. In: Magazine of Art. 22, 1898, pp. 577-583.
  • Christian Brinton: George Hitchcock - Painter of Sunlight. In: International Studio. 26, 1905, pp. I-VI.
  • Guy Pène Du Bois: George Hitchcock: Painter of Holland. In: Arts and Decoration. 3, 1913, pp. 401-404.
  • Hitchcock, George . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 17 : Heubel – Hubard . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1924, p. 150-151 .
  • JA Barter, K. Rhodes, SA Thayer: American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago. From Colonial Times to World War I. Chicago / New York 1998, pp. 265-267.
  • Annette Stott: Holland Mania: The Unknown Dutch Period in American Art and Culture. The Overlook Press, Woodstock / NY 1998.
  • Peter JH van den Berg: De uitdaging van het licht. George Hitchcock (1850-1913). A kroniek in beelden en teksten over de Egmondse kunstenaarskolonie. Bahlmond Publishers, Egmond-Binnen 2009, ISBN 978-90-78837-12-1 .
  • Peter JH van den Berg: De Egmondse School. George Hitchcock en zijn Art Summer School, 1890–1905. Kunstdrukkerij Mercurius, Westzaan 2010.

Web links

Commons : George Hitchcock  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituary - George Hitchcock . In: American Art News . tape 11 , no. 36 , August 16, 1913, ISSN  1944-0227 , p. 4 , JSTOR : 25591063 .
  2. ↑ Lee M. Edwards (eds.), Jan Seidler Ramirez, Timothy Anglin Burgard (contributions): Domestic Bliss. Family Life in American Painting 1840-1910. The Hudson River Museum of Westchester, Yonkers / NY 1986, p. 44 ( books.google.de ).
  3. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel, Sabine Schroyen, Lydia Immerheiser, Sabine Teichgröb: Directory of foreign artists. Nationality, residence and studies in Düsseldorf. In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 1, p. 423.
  4. ↑ Egmondse School in het museum van Katwijk . Article from March 12, 2015 in the rodi.nl portal , accessed on January 9, 2016
  5. ↑ Lezing Goerge Hitchcock - De Egmonds School (1890–1905) ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website in the portal stedelijkmuseumalkmaar.nl , accessed on January 9, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / stedelijkmuseumalkmaar.nl
  6. ↑ David B. Dearinger (Ed.): Paintings and Sculpture in the National Academy of Design . Volume I: 1826-1925, Hudson Hills Press, Manchester / VT 2004, ISBN 1-55595-029-9 , pp. 316-317 (reading sample, books.google.de ).
  7. ↑ Hollis Koons McCullough (Ed.): Telfair Museum of Art. Collection Highlights . Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah / GA 2005, ISBN 0-933075-04-9 , p. 134 ( books.google.de ).
  8. ^ Doreen Bolger Burke: American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Volume III: A Catalog of Works by Artists Born between 1846 and 1864. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City 1980, ISBN 0-87099-244-9 , p 113 ( books.google.de ).
  9. ↑ Abby Isabel (Brown) Bulkley: The Chad Browne memorial, consisting of genealogical memoirs of a portion of the descendants of Chad and Elizabeth Browne… Brooklin 1888, p. 110 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).
personal data
SURNAME Hitchcock, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hitchcock, George Herbert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Providence , Rhode Island
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1913
Place of death on Marken , Province of North Holland