The papers of New Hampshire landscape painter William Preston Phelps and his daughter, artist Ina Phelps Hayward, measure 1.1 linear feet and date from 1849-2001, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1890s to the 1920s. Papers include letters from Phelps, and correspondence regarding Ina Phelps Hayward's involvement in her father's 1917 estate sale; sales and legal records related to the Phelps estate; a scrapbook and printed material about William Preston Phelps; a sketchbook of sketches attributed to Phelps; sketches by Ina Phelps Hayward and her husband Roger Hayward; photographs of Phelps, his home and studio in Chesham, New Hampshire, and his artwork; and glass plate negatives, including two of Phelps and thirty-six of his artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New Hampshire landscape painter William Preston Phelps and his daughter, artist Ina Phelps Hayward, measure 1.1 linear feet and date from 1849-2001, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1890s to the 1920s. Papers include letters from Phelps, and correspondence regarding Ina Phelps Hayward's involvement in her father's 1917 estate sale; sales and legal records related to the Phelps estate; a scrapbook and printed material about William Preston Phelps; a sketchbook of sketches attributed to Phelps; sketches by Ina Phelps Hayward and her husband Roger Hayward; photographs of Phelps, his home and studio in Chesham, New Hampshire, and his artwork; and glass plate negatives, including two of Phelps and thirty-six of his artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as one series.
Series 1: William Preston and Ina Phelps Hayward Papers, 1849-2001 (1.3 linear feet; Box 1, OV 2, Boxes 3-4)
Biographical / Historical:
William Preston Phelps (1843-1923) was known as "the painter of Monadnock," for his paintings of his native New Hampshire and the state's most prominent peak.
Phelps grew up working on his family's farm in Chesham, New Hampshire, and by his early twenties owned his own sign business in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, his first exhibition of paintings in Lowell, Massachusetts, attracted the attention of some local businessmen who funded an education for Phelps in Europe. During the late-1870s to the mid-1880s, Phelps studied in Munich and Paris with William Merritt Chase and others. Upon returning to the United States via England and Scotland, Phelps set up a studio in Lowell and then traveled west in 1886 where he painted a notable series of western landscapes, with subjects including the Grand Canyon. Following his father's death, Phelps took over and settled on the family farm, and painted the New Hampshire landscapes for which he is best known.
Following his son's death in an accident in 1901, and his wife's death six months later, Phelps's financial situation began to unravel and his health entered a steady decline. In 1914 he turned over his estate to an auctioneering firm, J. E. Conant & Co., from which he had borrowed money for a number of years. Phelps's daughter, Ina Phelps Hayward, herself an artist, attempted to ensure that her father's property was handled fairly in the estate sale, but much of his property and paintings, including some of his best known pictures, were sold for very little or disappeared with no record of provenance. Phelps, who was in the Concord State Hospital at the time, died five years later and his daughter's attempts to pursue J. E. Conant & Co. through the courts, were unsuccessful.
Phelps's paintings can be found in the collections of the William Benton Museum of Art, the New Hampshire Historical Society, the Shelburne Museum, and others.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 647) including a notebook kept by Ina Hayward containing notes on her father, William Preston Phelps, in preparation for a book on Phelps (never written). The notebook includes biographical information, data on a few of his paintings, and notes about his study in Munich, Germany. Her daughter, Hilda Hayward Parker, later added additional biographical data, and a description of the Phelps' homestead and family life in Chesham, New Hampshire. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Peter Hayward, grandson of Phelps, donated the collection to the Archives of American Art in 1969. Hilda Hayward Parker, Phelps' granddaughter, lent a notebook for microfilming in 1973. Karl Gabosh, an art dealer who purchased the papers from the estate, donated additional material in 2009.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
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.
