The papers of Hudson River School painter Jervis McEntee measure 1.6 linear feet and date from 1796 and 1848 to 1905. Letters from close friends and family members to McEntee include many from his mentor Frederic Edwin Church, and fellow artists Samuel Putnam Avery, George Henry Boughton, Sanford Gifford, Richard Henry, Eastman Johnson, Elizabeth B. Stoddard, John Ferguson Weir, Worthington Whittredge, and others. Papers relating to the McEntee family include obituaries, a family genealogy, and letters from and regarding family members. There are also papers relating to the Vaux family (McEntee's brother-in-law's family) and American architect and landscape artist Calvert Vaux, who designed a studio for McEntee. Of special significance are five volumes of diaries dating from 1872 through 1890 which provide a detailed depiction of the American art world in the 1870s and 1880s.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Hudson River School painter Jervis McEntee measure 1.6 linear feet and date from 1796 and 1850 to 1905. Letters from close friends and family members to McEntee include many from his mentor Frederic Edwin Church, and fellow artists Samuel Putnam Avery, George Henry Boughton, Sanford Gifford, Richard Henry, Eastman Johnson, Elizabeth B. Stoddard, John Ferguson Weir, Worthington Whittredge, and others. Papers relating to the McEntee family include obituaries, a family genealogy, and letters from and regarding family members. There are also papers relating to the Vaux family (McEntee's brother-in-law's family) and American architect and landscape artist Calvert Vaux, who designed a studio for McEntee. Of special significance are five volumes of diaries dating from 1872 through 1890 which provide a detailed depiction of the American art world in the 1870s and 1880s.
Arrangement:
The Jervis McEntee papers have been arranged into five series, based on material type.
Missing Title
Series 1: Letters, 1850-1905, undated (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Vaux Family Letters and Correspondence, 1850-1890, undated (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Third Party Letters, 1861-1873, undated (Box 2; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 4: Miscellany, 1796, 1848-1895, undated (Box 2; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Diaries, 1872-1890 (Box 3-4; 0.6 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Jervis McEntee was born in Rondout, New York, July 14, 1828. He had early literary and artistic aspirations and studied under Frederic E. Church, who had himself studied under the Hudson River School master, Thomas Cole. McEntee was to maintain a close relationship with Church for the rest of his life. After an unsuccessful stint as a businessman, McEntee settled in New York in 1857 as one of the charter residents of Richard Morris Hunt's Tenth Street Studio Building. Since many of the other occupants were either bachelors or commuters, and since Mrs. McEntee was a lively, sympathetic hostess, the couple became the center of a spontaneous salon frequented by some of the best-known artists, writers, and actors of the time. After his wife died in 1878, McEntee stayed on, an increasingly neglected widower until his death in 1891.
McEntee was identified with the Hudson River School and an accomplished and sensitive painter of autumnal landscapes. He wrote in 1874, "Perhaps what would mark my work among that of my brother artists is a preference for the soberer phases Nature, the gray days of November and its leafless trees." McEntee stood at the center of the interlocking directorate formed by the National Academy of Design, the Century Club, and the Tenth Street Studio Building. In the latter part of the 19th century, these formed a supreme art establishment whose membership was composed of the old guard American artists, such as McEntee's close friends Eastman Johnson, Sanford Gifford, John Ferguson Weir, Worthington Whittredge, and Church, who were fighting an ultimately futile battle against the encroachment of European influences among both artists and collectors.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel D9) including a diary dated June 12, 1851-August 17, 1851. This material was returned to the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Adirondack Museum lent one diary for microfilming in 1964. The rest of the collection was acquired from several donors between 1959 and 1997. The noted collector Charles E. Feinberg donated letters in 1959 and, Mrs. Helen S. McEntee, who married the nephew of Jervis McEntee, donated the five volumes of diaries in 1964. William Gaffken, director of the insurance company that acquired the McEntee family insurance business, donated the remaining papers in 1997.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires and 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.
Topic:
Artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Landscape painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Hudson River school of landscape painting Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Letters and documents of 19th century Americans, outstanding in literature and the arts.
Correspondents include: Washington Allston, Alexander Anderson, John Audubon, Samuel P. Avery, John Warner Barber, Mathew B. Brady, John Casilear, Vincent Colyer, Christopher P. Cranch, Felix O. C. Darley, Daniel P. Huntington, Washington Irving, James J. Jarves, Charles Lanman, Charles Leslie,Benjamin Lossing, Samuel F. B. Morse, Rembrandt Peale, Thomas B. Read, Thomas A. Richards, Thomas B. Thorpe, William D. Washington, and Benjamin West.
Biographical / Historical:
Editor; New York City. Edited, with his brother George, Literary World, 1847, and published a journal with him, 1848-1853. Also, edited CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1855.
Provenance:
Microfilmed 1956 by the Archives of American Art with other art-related papers in the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library. Included in the microfilming project were selected papers of the Art Division and the Prints Division.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Correspondence, including two letters to engraver and landscape painter John Frederick Kensett, 1832-1833, four to his son, John W. Casilear, Jr. 1891-1892; typed excerpts from a diary kept by Kensett, 1840-1841; genealogical and biographical material including family documents, articles and publication extracts about Casilear, compiled and/or annotated by Grace Casilear Burr, John W. Casilear, Jr., and historian Foster Wild Rice; five original Casilear engravings; reproductions of art works; lists of art work; and family photographs, including a daguerreotype of Casilear, and two unidentified ambrotypes.
Biographical / Historical:
Engraver, painter. The Casilear family were engravers of bank notes. In 1840, Casilear along with friends John Frederick Kensett, Asher B. Durand and others, went to Europe to study art.
Provenance:
Donated by Lawrence Fleischman, who received them from Foster Wild Rice, 1962. Rice, the great-grandson of bank note engraver Nathaniel Jocelyn, wrote a brief history of the Jocelyn family of engravers, The Jocelyn Engravers (1948), with whom Casilear was associated in the bank note engraving business. He acquired the papers from Grace Casilear Burr (d. 1906), and Miss Elinor Woolson, Casilear descendents.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition : comprising a description of a tour through Texas, and across the great southwestern prairies, the Camanche and Caygüa hunting-grounds : with an account of the sufferings from want of food, losses from hostile Indians, and final capture of the Texans, and their march, as prisoners, to the city of Mexico / by Geo. Wilkins Kendall
Title:
Kendall's Santa Fé Expedition
Texan Santa Fé Expedition
Author:
Kendall, Geo. Wilkins (George Wilkins) 1809-1867 Search this
