Dwight William Tryon (1849-1925) was a noted American landscape painter whose painting style is associated with American tonalism. His paintings gained international recognition from the 1880s through the 1920s. Charles Lang Freer was his primary patron. Tryon taught art at Smith College and became head of the Art Department. The Tryon papers, dating from circa 1872 to 1930, document Tryon's professional and personal life and include correspondence, photographs, a sketchbook, and newspaper clippings.
Scope and Contents:
The Dwight William Tryon papers span circa 1872 to 1930 and measure .5 linear feet. The collection contains: nineteen photographs, a sketchbook, a letter, and five newspaper clippings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 4 series: Series 1: Photographs, circa 1872 - 1915, no date, Series 2: Sketchbook, 1887-1888, no date, Series 3: Correspondence, June 17, 1895, Series 4: Newspaper Clippings, 1923, 1925, 1930, no date
Biographical / Historical:
American landscape painter Dwight William Tryon was born in Hartford, CT on August 13, 1849. When Tryon was about 2 years old, his father Anson Tryon was killed in a hunting accident and he was raised at his maternal grandparents' home. At the age of fourteen, Tryon began work as a machinist at Colt's Firearms Factory in Hartford to support his mother and himself. He enrolled in evening classes at Hannum's Business School and developed calligraphic skills which supplemented his income.
In 1864 Tryon became a bookkeeper and clerk at Brown and Gross, the finest booksellers in Hartford and a gathering place for local literary people such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain. During his ten-year appointment there, Tryon self-studied art using the bookstore's large stock in art books and made weekend sketching trips to the Connecticut River. In 1872 Tryon was appointed Secretary of the Hartford Art Association and began exhibiting his works. In 1873 he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York. In that year he married Alice Hepzibah Belden whom he had met in the bookstore.
In December, 1876, the Tryon family moved to Paris, France to pursue art with financial support from the Cheney family, wealthy silk manufacturers in South Manchester, CT. Tryon received formal training under Jacquesson de la Chevreuse, a Barbizon painter Charles-Francois Daubigny, and others. He also attended the École des Beaux-Arts.
On returning to the United States in 1881, Tryon took a studio in New York and taught for several years. In the following year, he became a member of the Society of American Artists. Throughout the 1880s when the Barbizon paintings were highly regarded, Tryon's French-inspired American landscape paintings received international as well as national acclaim, winning him numerous medals and awards. In 1899, Tryon was awarded the Webb prize by the Society of American Artists for The First Leaves, a recognition given annually to the best landscape painting by a young American artist. In the same year, Tryon sold his first painting to Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), a Detroit industrialist and collector, who became Tryon's principal patron.
From 1886 to 1923, Tryon taught at Smith College, MA, as Professor of Art and took charge of the Art Department. He advised on the college's art collection and acted as the department's representative in the New York art world. Tryon resigned from the College in May 1923, and in June of the same year he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Smith College.
In 1887, the Tryon family built a house ("The Cottage") in Padanaram, a coastal village in South Dartmouth, MA, where they would spend every year from spring to autumn until his death. In Padanaram, Tryon made sketches which he developed into paintings in his New York apartment during the winter months. Tryon also took immense pleasure in fishing and sailing in Padanaram.
In 1904, the Montross Gallery in New York held a one-man show on Tryon's painting, and in 1913 they launched Tryon's Retrospective Exhibition. In 1923, the Freer Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D. C., including a permanent collection of Tryon's paintings.
Tryon died of cancer at his summer house on July 1, 1925, at the age of 75. Upon his death, Tryon bequeathed a large number of his works to Smith College. In September of the following year, the Tryon Gallery at Smith College opened.
1849, August 1st -- Born, Hartford, CT. Son of Anson Tryon and Delia O. Roberts Tryon
[1851-1852] -- Anson Tryon is killed in a hunting accident
1863 -- Machinist at Colt's Firearms Factory, Hartford
1864 -- Begins work as a bookkeeper and clerk at Brown and Gross, Hartford
1872 -- Appointed Secretary of the Hartford Art Association
1873 -- Exhibits at the National Academy of Design
1873 -- Marries Alice Hepzibah Belden
1876-1881 -- Studies art in Paris with Jacquesson de la Chevreuse, Charles-Francois Daubigny, and at the École des Beaux-Arts
1881 -- Returns to the United States and settles in New York
1882 -- Becomes a Member of the Society of American Artists
1886-1923 -- Professor of art at Smith College, Northampton, MA
1889 -- Awarded the Webb Prize for The First Trees by the Society of American Artists
1889 -- Sells his first painting to Charles Lang Freer
1891 -- Elected Associate of the National Academy of Design
1913 -- Retrospective Exhibition
1923 -- Freer Gallery of Art opens, including a permanent collection of Tryon's paintings
1923 -- Retires from Smith College and is conferred an Honorary degree of M.A.
1925, July 1st -- Dies at his summer house in South Dartmouth, MA
1926 -- The Tryon Gallery at Smith College opens
Related Material:
Charles Lang Freer papers housed in the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives include Tryon's correspondence.
Nelson and Henry C. White research material housed in the Archives of American Art include Tryon's correspondence, notes, and photographs.
Alfred Vance Churchill Papers housed in Smith College Archives include Tryon's correspondence.
The Freer Gallery of Art and Smith College Museum of Art are major repositories that house Tryon's work.
Provenance:
An anonymous donor and Linda Merrill donated Tryon's papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1989.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Dwight William Tryon papers, FSA.A1989.02. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of an anonymous donor and Linda Merrill, 1989.
3 versions of Alexander P. Rogers' typescript "John Rogers - The Man," and correspondence with magazines regarding it's publication, 1950; typescripts "Recollections of my father, John Rogers (sculptor)," and "Recollections of my mother, Harriet Frances Rogers (1841-1927)," 1940; a handwritten list of John Rogers' finished and unfinished bronzes in the studio at New Canaan, Conn.; clippings on Rogers, 1920-1966; a 1939 wall calendar with prints of Rogers' sculptures; family photographs and a carte-de-visite of John Rogers in his studio; a list of family photographs collected by Alexander P. Rogers which were presented in his memory to the New York Historical Society, and correspondence regarding the NYHS donation.
Biographical / Historical:
Son of American sculptor John Rogers, best known for his popular statuary groups.
Provenance:
Transferred from the National Museum of Art Library, 1990, which purchased the papers along with books on Rogers from Mary Hamilton, of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, The L. J. West Collection of Early African American Photography, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
A collection of a variety of legal documents that relate to slavery and African-Americans.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists mainly of a wide vareity of court and legal documents such as, bills of sale, warrants, a manumission document, a certificate of free birth, and documents concerning debt, property, and legal obligations. The documents originated in four states: Alabama, the Carolina colony, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. They span the greatest portion of the era of slavery within what is now the United States. Most of the documents are from Lawrence County, Alabama and may have at one time been created or used as evidence in either an orphans court or civil court case. The documents are arranged in one series in chronological order.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into 1 series:
Series 1: Legal Documents Concerning Slavery, 1710-1865, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Up until the Emancipation Proclamation and the subsequent victory of the Union forces in the Civil War, slaves were considered chattel, property that could be bought and sold. Slaves were a commodity that could be attached for non-payment of debt, used as collateral, given as bequests in a will, and were considered assets of a deceased's estate. As such, they engendered legal battles and the need for a variety of legal documents asserting one's freedom or manumission.
Provenance:
Bill of Sale of "one Negro girl named Nancy, about three years old, from Thomas Maynard to John Stephen Hale, for the sum of 30 pounds, Frederick County, Maryland, June 13, 1796." 2002 acquisition: "Receipt for a slave named Wilson", January 19, 1863, and two carte-de-visite portraits: W.B. Mitchell, July 1880, and Pleasant A. Mitchell, undated. Gifts of Julie Clark, 2008 addendum.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
50 Stereographs (circa 50 printed stereographs, halftone and color halftone)
1,000 Stereographs (circa, albumen and silver gelatin (some tinted))
239 Prints (circa 239 mounted and unmounted prints, albumen (including cartes de visite, imperial cards, cabinet cards, and one tinted print) and silver gelatin (some modern copies))
96 Prints (Album :, silver gelatin)
21 Postcards (silver gelatin, collotype, color halftone, and halftone)
Photographs relating to Native Americans or frontier themes, including portraits, expedition photographs, landscapes, and other images of dwellings, transportation, totem poles, ceremonies, infants and children in cradleboards, camps and towns, hunting and fishing, wild west shows, food preparation, funeral customs, the US Army and army posts, cliff dwellings, and grave mounds and excavations. The collection also includes images of prisoners at Fort Marion in 1875, Sioux Indians involved in the Great Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, the Fort Laramie Peace Commission of 1868, Sitting Bull and his followers after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
There are studio portraits of well-known Native Americans, including American Horse, Big Bow, Four Bears, Iron Bull, Ouray, Red Cloud, Red Dog, Red Shirt, Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Three Bears, and Two Guns White Calf. Depicted delegations include a Sauk and Fox meeting in Washington, DC, with Lewis V. Bogy and Charles E. Mix in 1867; Kiowas and Cheyennes at the White House in 1863; and Dakotas and Crows who visited President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Images of schools show Worcester Academy in Vinita, Oklahoma; Chilocco Indian School; Carlisle Indian Industrial School; Haskell Instittue, and Albuquerque Indian School.
Some photographs relate to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876; World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893; Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, 1903; and Centennial Exposition of the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod, 1876. Expedition photographs show the Crook expedition of 1876, the Sanderson expedition to the Custer Battlefield in 1877, the Wheeler Survey of the 1870s, Powell's surveys of the Rocky Mountain region during the 1860s and 1870s, and the Hayden Surveys.
Outstanding single views include the party of Zuni group led to the sea by Frank Hamilton Cushing; Episcopal Church Rectory and School Building, Yankton Agency; Matilda Coxe Stevenson and a companion taking a photographs of a Zuni ceremony; John Moran sketching at Acoma; Ben H. Gurnsey's studio with Indian patrons; Quapaw Mission; baptism of a group of Paiutes at Coeur d'Alene Mission; court-martial commission involved in the trial of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, 1877; President Harding at Sitka, Alaska; Walter Hough at Hopi in 1902; and Mrs. Jesse Walter Fewkes at Hopi in 1897.
Biographical/Historical note:
George V. Allen was an attorney in Lawrence, Kansas and an early member of the National Stereoscope Association. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Allen made an extensive collection of photographs of the American West, mostly in stereographs, but also including cartes-de-visite and other styles of mounted prints, photogravures, lantern slides, autochromes, and glass negatives.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Citation:
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Papers document General William Babcock Hazen's military career, primarily through correspondence, photographs, and publications.
Scope and Contents:
The General William Babcock Hazen Collection, 1856-1905, consists of approximately four cubic feet of material. Collection materials include biographical, correspondence (military and family), documents on the Greely Arctic Expedition, photographs, stereographs, and material on General Hazen's book, A Narrative of Military Service.
Arrangement:
This collection is divided into six series.
Series 1, Biographical Materials, 1885-1867
Series 2, Correspondence and Military Forms 1856-1886 and undated
Series 3, Correspondence to General William Babcock Hazen, 1861-1887
Series 4, Correspondence of Hazen Family, 1858-1909
Series 5, Photographs, 1864-1881
Series 6, Publications, 1865-1886
Biographical / Historical:
General William Babcock Hazen was born September 27, 1830 in West Hartford, Vermont. Four years later, the family moved to a farm outside Hiram, Portage County, Ohio where he attended school with James A. Garfield. Hazen's goal was service in the Army, and he wrote his congressman for admission to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Hazen graduated in 1855, twenty-eighth out of a class of thirty-four.
After graduation, General Hazen was assigned as Brevet Second Lieutenant, Company D, Fourth Infantry, Redding, California. After arriving in California, he was ordered to Fort Lane in the Oregon Territory. Lieutenant Hazen was authorized to establish a command at Grand Ronde and build a blockhouse that became the post Fort Yamhill, located west of Portland, Oregon. On April 20, 1857, he was transferred to Fort Jones, California, and then ordered to join the Eighth Infantry, Fort Davis, Texas. Hazen was transferred to Fort Inge, Texas, to protect a road from San Antonio to Eagle Pass. During a chase, Hazen was wounded by a bullet that was not removed. The lingering effect of the bullet wound would cause him frequent pain.
During the period of service in Texas, Hazen reportedly gained leadership experience, practical military knowledge, and considerable confidence in his own abilities. Following twelve months of convalescence, Hazen was nominated assistant instructor of military tactics at West Point on January 28, 1861. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on April 1861 and captain on May 14, 1861. Colonel James A. Garfield influenced the appointment of Hazen as colonel in command of the newly organized forty-first Ohio Volunteer Regiment. Hazen quickly transformed the regiment's inexperienced personnel into a firmly disciplined body. The intensive training paid large dividends later in the war, and he always held the regiment in high regard.
As brigade and division commander, General Hazen led troops in many important battles and campaigns: Shiloh (Place of Peace), Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, Resaca, Picketts Mill, Jonesboro, Fort McAllister, and Bentonville. On December 13, 1864, Hazen was appointed a major general of volunteers in recognition of long and faithful service and the capture of Fort McAllister. It was after the performance of his troops at Fort McAllister that a friendly relationship developed with General William T. Sherman. With the capitulation of the Confederate armies in spring of 1865, Hazen's division and the Army of the Tennessee left North Carolina where they saw their last fighting. The destination was Washington, D.C., site of a two-day grand review of the victorious Union Armies. On May 19, 1865 Hazen was elevated to commander of the Fifteenth Corps. After a thirty day furlough, he held command of the District of Middle Tennessee until the following summer. In July 1866, Hazen returned west.
In August 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant granted Hazen indefinite leave to observe the Franco-Prussian War. He viewed several battles and personally interviewed Otto von Bismarck and General Helmut von Moltke. Observations and research convinced Hazen that the United States Army was mismanaged and lacked tactical and logistical organization.
Before returning to the Sixth Infantry command, Hazen married Mildred McLean, the twenty-one year-old daughter of prominent Cincinnati Enquirer owner Washington McLean. A son John was born in 1876, but died at the age of twenty-two in 1898.
In June 1877, Hazen was appointed military attaché to the United States Legation in Vienna, Austria, and assigned as military observer of the Russo-Turkish War that had started in April 1877.
In 1878 Colonel Stanley accused Colonel Hazen of perjury and cowardice in the Civil War and requested a court-martial. Colonel Hazen retaliated by formally requesting that Stanley be arraigned by a court-martial on charges of publishing and circulating libelous material against him. On March 19, 1879, General Sherman reluctantly recommended that both generals be arraigned by the same court-martial. The New York Tribune reported "inasmuch as by the decisions of the court-martial Hazen has secured a substantial vindication." Hazen returned to Fort Buford.
While on detached service in Washington, D.C., Hazen actively campaigned for James A. Garfield for president. On August 24, 1880, General Albert James Myer, Chief of the Army Signal Corps, died, opening up a staff position subject to presidential appointment. President Rutherford B. Hayes, after consulting with President-elect Garfield, announced the promotion of Hazen to the rank of brigadier general and appointment as chief signal officer. One of Hazen's lasting legacies in this new role was advancing the development of meteorological science in the Army Signal Corps.
In May 1880, Lady Franklin Bay in northern Canada was chosen as the site for a signal service polar station, one of several conducted by eleven nations for the first International Polar Year (1882-1883). The initial two-year expedition set out in 1881 under the command of Regular Army First Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greely, a Civil War veteran from Massachusetts. The twenty-five man party did not get relief from the long winter in 1882, and a second rescue attempt was disrupted by ice. In September 1883, Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, decided it was too late to send another relief party and they were left to spend a third winter in the Arctic. The demoralized party was forced to march south in search of supplies and landed at Cape Sabine, spending the next eight months in desperate circumstances. In June 1884, rescuers finally reached them and found only Greely and seven others alive. The remaining expedition members froze or starved to death.
Hazen never forgave Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln for his inaction with the Greely Arctic Expedition, and in 1884 Lincoln censured Hazen for his criticism. Hazen replied to Lincoln by letter, which was returned with a warning to keep the matter private. Hazen went to the press and stated in a published account that he wrote such a letter. He immediately found himself ordered before another court-martial, resulting in a reprimand by President Chester A. Arthur for "unwarranted and captious criticism." Greely supported Hazen's position. In 1885, Hazen produced A Narrative of Military Service, a report devoted to the defense of his Civil War record and personal reputation.
Health problems-diabetes and recurring pain from his bullet wound-forced Hazen to obtain a 12-month leave of absence from his military service. On January 13, 1887, he attended a White House reception where he caught a cold. He died on January 16, 1887, at the age of fifty-six.
Provenance:
In 1985, the Smithsonian received from the Estate of Fredrick McLean Bugher, grandnephew of General Hazen's wife Mildred McLean Hazen, manuscripts and letters concerning General Hazen. Part of the collection was rescued by a private individual from a Lorton, Virginia land fill and sold to the Smithsonian in 1987 in two sections. The first section contained material about the career of General William Babcock Hazen as chief signal officer of the United States Army. The second section contained manuscript materials related to Hazen's duties on the frontier and Indian tribes covering the period of 1855 to 1860, and from 1866 to 1880. Also included are family letters and land holdings in the Midwest.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Rights situation uncertain, but most of the collection is probably in the public domain due to its age.
Topic:
Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration -- 1880-1890 Search this
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
George Leslie Stout papers, 1855, 1897-1978. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided in part by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Walton Family Foundation, and private donors.
