Reviews of New Art and Antiques Books

by M.A.D. Staff

These are brief reviews of books recently sent to us. We have included ordering information for publishers that accept mail, phone, or on-line orders. For other publishers, your local bookstore or mail-order house is the place to look.

Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting by Erica E. Hirshler (MFA Publications, 2009, 262 pp., hardbound, $29.95 plus S/H from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, [www.mfa.org/publications] or [617] 369-3575).

There's no sugar sprinkled over John Singer Sargent's grand painting of the four Boit daughters that hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Both a quadruple portrait and a genre scene of a kind, the nearly 7' x 7' oil on canvas prompted one critic to write flatly of the unsmiling girls in their white pinafores: "They disturb me…Each girl plays on her own." While willing to accept grudgingly their seeming solitariness, what the writer thoroughly disdained was the diffused light of the setting-a Paris apartment's interior-which "[did] not relate at all to the crude dry colors that define the clothes or flesh."

Another critic declared the painting "bizarre." As he interpreted it in 1883, the year after Sargent painted it, the young expatriate Bostonians weren't playing but "doing penance" in what he construed as "an overly large hall." A third member of the press dismissed it as "four corners and a void."

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is, of course, recognized today as a Sargent masterpiece, having accrued a timeless significance that has little to do with the setting, the sitters' identities, or even their mood. Yet we are curious about those details. Besides appreciating the painting for its aesthetic qualities, especially the interplay of light and dark, we also wonder, like common people watchers, about the real lives of these girls. Exactly who were they? How did they come to be painted by Sargent? What happened to them after they grew up? Erica E. Hirshler in Sargent's Daughters answers those questions and many more.

Before genius sets to work, it picks a great subject, then finds the right form for its expression. Like Sargent, the MFA curator has done that, using the history of the painting as her plotline, from its creation to its eventual adulation in our time. Like him, she has also created a hybrid. The book is a group biography and a brilliant work of criticism, without a word of jargon in it.

The girls' ages ranged from four to 14 when Sargent painted them. The last one died in 1969, aged 91. None married. (Neither did Sargent, who painted the girls' portrait in 45 days when he was 26.) None of the girls left a diary either, but a male relative did, and it supplied Hirshler with numerous details about this rich and well-connected late Victorian family whose social circle included not only Sargent but such personages as Henry James and Henry Cabot Lodge.

One thing the dissenting critics did get right was that the painting's austerity was at odds with its subjects' lavish lifestyle, but its somberness accurately reflects certain chapters of their story. Their money failed to protect them from period-typical tragedies. An older brother died in infancy, and another lived most of his 23 years in an institution for the "feeble-minded." One Boit daughter suffered a nervous breakdown in adolescence and never quite recovered. The mother of these children died at age 48. In his late 50's Mr. Boit caused a scandal by taking a new wife, barely 20. She bore a son in 1900, then two years later another son; two weeks later, she died.

The story of the painting itself is happier. It played an important role in establishing Sargent's international fame, being among the works he displayed in early exhibitions, including his first solo show, in Boston in 1888. True, Sargent did fall out of favor after the onset of Modernism, but that was followed by the Sargent revival of the late 20th century. By then, MFA had owned the work for decades, having received it as a gift from the daughters in 1919.

The colossal blue-and-white Japanese vases in the picture—the only Boit family furnishings that survive—were donated to the museum too. They came from the daughters of Edward Darley Boit's grand-niece Julia Overing Blake Beals in 1986 as a loan, then in 1997 as a gift. Hirshler tells what the museum found inside before the pair was put on display in the gallery with the painting: "a cigar stub, a paper airplane, a pink ribbon, a tennis ball, sheets of geography lessons, a letter about the repeal of Prohibition, an Arrow shirt collar, an old doughnut, an admission card to a dance at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead, Massachusetts, three badminton shuttlecocks, many coins, and a feather."

Facts pump blood into the veins of any narrative, but they can obscure a work of art. The beauty of this book, and its greatest achievement, is that Hirshler has made the opposite happen. While our curiosity about certain aspects of this painting has been satisfied, its essential mysteriousness remains, and our fascination with it has only deepened.

Jeanne Schinto

American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915, edited by H. Barbara Weinberg and Carrie Rebora Barratt (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2009, 222 pp., softbound, $40, hardbound, $60, plus S/H from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, [www.metmuseum.org] or [800] 468-7386).

Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name that premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, American Stories chronicles American life from pre-Revolutionary times to the advent of World War I, providing insight into how artists interpreted the lifestyles, events, and milieu in which many classes of citizens lived during these eras.

The scholarly interpretative text, accompanied by full-color illustrations, explores historical and sociological implications in masterpieces by important artists and their lesser-known colleagues. Over 100 reproductions of American art by such notables as John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, William Sidney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, Winslow Homer, John Sloan, George Bellows, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Remington, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, William Glackens, and Everett Shin embellish this volume, creating a veritable treasure chest of who was who in American art for the eras.

Following the exhibit's chronological organization, the book covers four concepts in as many chapters. The first chapter, "Inventing American Stories, 1765-1830" by Carrie Rebora Barratt, focuses on portraiture as narrative, celebrating individual accomplishment, moral values (including redemption), domestic life (including status), and parlor behavior along with business anecdotes, celebrations, and festivities. The role of exhibitions in furthering art and securing clients is discussed, as is the frequent collaboration between the artist and client.

The second chapter, "Stories for the Public, 1830-1860" by Bruce Robertson, encompasses artistic interpretation of the growing country, the transition from rural to urban life, the emergence of genre painting, domestic situations, frontier life and its dangers, scenes from literature, depictions of the family and courting, city life (including its deprivations), immigrant life, and race relations. The chapter also examines the role of organizations such as the National Academy of Design and the American Art-Union, as well as the growth of illustration art and lithography in bringing art into American homes.

The third chapter, "Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860-1877" by Margaret C. Conrads, deals with the transformation of the nation and the challenges it faced, including concerns about national identity, the plight of the Black population, changes in rural life, and expanded activities for women. Artists depicted the Civil War and army life, the family in Victorian America, and Americans at work and at play in countryside and interior scenes.

The fourth chapter, "Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877-1915" by H. Barbara Weinberg, covers a wide range of subjects, including Americans abroad. Works from the late 1870's by expatriate artists such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Henry Bacon, and John Singer Sargent "embody the cosmopolitan subjects, varied styles, and preference for candor and narrative ambiguity that marked late nineteenth-century art." The artists' travels resulted in depictions of shipboard life, the urban scene abroad, interior scenes in lavish European surroundings, and the foreign countryside. At home, American art depicted wealthy citizens' pursuits and working-class occupations such as ironworkers and longshoremen.

Along with exploring the foundations of artistic subjects depicted by American artists between 1765 and 1915 and discussing changes in their techniques over this time, American Stories includes an excellent bibliography, referencing authorities and resources.

The exhibit is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through January 24. It then travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February 28 to May 23.

Rose Safran

WH Cabinetmaker: A Southern Mystery Solved by Thomas R.J. Newbern and James R. Melchor (Legacy Ink Publishing, 2009, 224 pp., softbound, $59.99 plus S/H from Old Salem, [www.oldsalem.com] or [877] 652-7253, or from Historic Hope, 132 Hope House Rd., Windsor, NC 27983, [252] 794-3140).

In the January 1972 issue of The Magazine Antiques, Frank L. Horton wrote about the "anonymous Carolina cabinetmaker" known as the WH cabinetmaker. Sixteen years later, in The Furniture of Coastal North Carolina 1700-1820, John Bivins Jr. offered three possibilities about the identity of the WH cabinetmaker. Bivins favored the theory that "WH" represented the cabinetmaker's initials. Thomas Newbern and James Melchor have been studying southern material culture and the WH pieces for years. They believe that they have now solved the mystery of who the WH cabinetmaker was, and they share their findings in this book.

With support provided by Historic Hope Plantation and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), Newbern and Melchor carefully examined WH pieces in private and museum collections, studied files at MESDA, Colonial Williamsburg, and other institutions, and searched through court and family records. They identify the mystery builder as William Seay, a cabinetmaker and house joiner from Roxobel, North Carolina, and they assert that the initials WH belonged to one of his patrons.

In supporting their theory, Newbern and Melchor present 428 illustrations. Included are photos of furniture and houses that William Seay built, as well as pieces by other tradesmen who worked with Seay or were influenced by him. Numerous closeups show details of construction. This attractively presented book offers an interesting look at an early southern cabinetmaker and how he lived and worked.

Laura Woodward: The Artist Behind the Innovator Who Developed Palm Beach by Deborah C. Pollack (Blue Heron Press, in association with the Historical Society of Palm Beach County, 2009, 264 pp., hardbound, $39.99 from Blue Heron Press, PO Box 2553, Palm Beach, FL 33480; [www.laurawoodwardartist.com/wood wardbook.html]; include $6 S/H, Florida residents add $2.60 sales tax).

Before the state was crowded and built up, Florida's natural beauty captivated Laura Woodward (1834-1926), a sensitive and accomplished artist who left a legacy that went largely unremarked after her death. This book seeks to redress that neglect.

During her long life, Woodward delicately portrayed landscapes and flowers. She began, after waiting out the Civil War in her native Mount Hope, New York, by moving to New York City. She painted in the Northeast with the Hudson River school artists. As the author reiterates, Woodward had to remain single to become a professional artist and had to overcome bias against women in her chosen field.

Having painted the iconic places in the Northeast, Woodward traveled to Florida. By 1890 "she had joined the St. Augustine society of artists at their new studios…completed by [Henry M.] Flagler," a partner of John D. Rockefeller and a major real estate developer. Then Woodward went to Palm Beach. The second half of the book covers her life and work there.

The author, who is a well-known gallery owner in Palm Beach, has gathered an impressive amount of material to complete this life history of Laura Woodward and to reestablish Woodward's reputation as a prominent artist of Florida. Incidentally, in her preface the author writes that she discovered a Woodward watercolor of Florida at a New York antiques show in 1995, which inspired her to begin her diligent research for this well-illustrated, well-annotated, and informative book.

A.C.V.

The Cranberry: Hard Work and Holiday Sauce by Stephen Cole and Lindy Gifford (Tilbury House Publishers, 2009, 224 pp., softbound, $20 from Tilbury House Publishers, [www.tilburyhouse.com] or [800] 582-1899).

The Ocean Spray Web site may tell us, "Legend has it that the Pilgrims served cranberries at the first Thanksgiving," but Stephen Cole and Lindy Gifford set the record straight. "The truth is that if the cranberry made an appearance at all" at that feast in Plymouth, "it did so as a minor ingredient in stuffing for the roast birds."

Cole and Gifford's history of the berry that Roger Williams in 1643 called a "sharp, cooling Fruit" spans the 1600's to modern times and examines how cranberries have been cultivated, harvested, and marketed over the years. They tell many stories of the people who have grown the berries and worked in the fields and bogs.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's many of those workers came from the Cape Verde Islands, west of Senegal, and some of them settled permanently in southeastern Massachusetts. Another wave of immigrant cranberry bog workers came from Finland. Interviews with Cape Verdean and Finn families offer an eye-opening look at agricultural work and issues of immigration and assimilation. The book's text is enhanced by numerous archival photographs, many of them showing people at various phases of cranberry harvesting and processing.

The sections on marketing and promotion are enlightening. We learn, for example, that a "Chicken 'n Cranberry wedding" was staged as part of a widespread 1948 effort to promote cranberry consumption. And in 1959, while on the campaign trail, both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon ate cranberry products in an effort to allay public fears over cranberries that had been found contaminated with a weed killer.

Commercial cranberry growing has never been an easy living. Growers today must cope with rapid changes in the physical and social environment as they struggle to find the balance between continuity and change. Learning more about this berry over the years means that you won't look at next year's Thanksgiving side dishes quite the same way.

Maine in the World: Stories of Some of Those from Here Who Went Away by Neil Rolde (Tilbury House Publishers, 2009, 340 pp., softbound, $20 from Tilbury House Publishers, [www.tilbury house.com] or [800] 582-1899).

Author Neil Rolde has once again crafted a book of Maine history that draws in and satisfies the reader. He tells of Mainers who are well recorded in historical works and of some whose names are less familiar, each of whom left a distinct mark far outside the state's boundaries.

Rolde begins with the legendary Gluskabe (Glooskap), the creator of the Wabanaki native peoples. Lore has it that he roamed great distances from the Northeast. Rolde includes the stories of poets, politicians, missionaries, an engineer, a knight, an opera singer, a pirate, a Hollywood director, and a ten-year-old diplomat named Samantha Smith.

The book is arranged chronologically and includes contemporary examples of those who have made an impact far from the Pine Tree State. It also contains a bibliography and is well indexed.

Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide 2010 by Terry Kovel and Kim Kovel (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2009, 800 pp., softbound, $27.95).

This edition, the 42nd in the series, continues the format changes adopted two years ago. We like the page layout with the photos along the outer columns enclosing the list of prices, and the tips and facts highlighted by colored boxes, including one that reminds us to "Trim shrubs near the house so they don't hide burglars…." One major change is in authorship. Terry and Ralph Kovel's daughter Kim has contributed to this edition, bringing another generation's perspective.

This edition is dedicated to Ralph, who died in 2008. The introduction addresses the economy of the last 18 months and its effect on prices, along with other changes in the marketplace. With over 2500 photographs and 47,000 prices, this latest guide has much to offer collectors.

The Bears in My Life: A Collection by Jon Henri McCracken (Bennett & Hastings Publishing, 2009, 192 pp., hardbound, $49.95).

The author became intrigued with bears at an early age when his mother gave him a Black Forest bear carving that had been his grandmother's. His collection of mostly Black Forest bears is the highlight of this beautiful book that, by the author's own admission, is not a price guide or an academic work, nor is it an "attempt to define" art. He admits that in some cases he has guessed at the origins and dates of his carvings.

McCracken's purpose may be summarized by this paragraph. "Bear is his own bear. He does not need us to define his existence, yet man has found it hard to let him go about his business of being Bear. Our association with him and how we have dealt with his appearance and disappearance continues to be reflected in our artistic carvings of his spirit, written language and illustration; a hand mirror to our history."

This book is a celebration of the bear and the role and symbolism of bears in the history of cultures where bears have walked, and it is a call to protect the bear. The carvings and discussion are grouped by region, and the last chapter discusses and illustrates the bear in print. The color photographs do not have captions (it is the spirit of the bear McCracken allows to speak), but there is a photo index and bibliography.

L.M.

Holidays and Other Weird Events by Irwin Richman (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2009, 144 pp., softbound, $24.99 from Schiffer Publishing, [www.schifferbooks.com] or [610] 593-1777).

Weird is wonderful in this book that celebrates everything that is weird and wonderful about American holidays. Images of postcards from the "golden age of postcards," a "time before images would inundate us," include some from private collections, but most come from a collection gathered by Nettie May Landis and now owned by the Landis Valley Museum in Manheim Township, Pennsylvania. Nettie, a sister of the museum's founders, sent thousands of postcards during the early part of the 20th century and would ask the recipients to send postcard replies.

Richman briefly discusses major holidays, from New Year's Day to Christmas, and explains how they were developed and how some incorporate pagan traditions. The captions point out the symbolism (and often silliness) in the images. Among the stranger examples is one titled "Easter Greetings" showing elves tormenting a large egg with a child's face. Another has a donkey or ass with the phrase "Xmas Greetings from One to Another." The final chapter highlights other strange ways that postcards depicted tragic and happy events, or were simply humorous, and discusses their use as souvenirs.

L.M.

The Story of the Winchester 1 of 1000 and 1 of 100 Rifles by Edmund E. Lewis, M.D. (Mowbray Publishing, 2009, 176 pp., hardbound, $49.99 from Mowbray Publishing, [www.gunandswordcollector.com] or [800] 999-4697).

Over the 18 months that M.A.D. offered a firearms column, we learned to view the collecting of firearms as an aspect of history. Winchesters have been called the rifles that won the West, and this book reveals the historical details of a special aspect of American firearms collecting, the Winchester 1 of 1000 and 1 of 100 rifles. The 1 of 1000's are set apart from standard production sporting rifles by their superior construction and accuracy and are engraved as such. They are highly prized and sell for extraordinary prices.

This book gives readers the reasons why and introduces some of the men who have owned one. Ample illustrations of prized rifles, nearly all in color, make this a special book, one that is thoroughly researched and beautifully presented.

A.C.V.

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