GENERAL DESCRIPTION
John White Alexander was a truly cosmopolitan painter, whose mature career is a synthesis of the major stylistic trends affecting late 19th-century American art. In 1874, eighteen-year-old John White Alexander moved to New York City and found an illustrator job at Harper's Weekly. Like so many young Americans after the Civil War, Alexander traveled to Paris in pursuit of formal art training, but he quickly moved to Germany. He joined the smaller number of students residing in Munich, where painting from life, directly onto the canvas was emphasized instead of the preparatory drawing of the French school. Alexander became one of “Duveneck’s boys,” the group of devoted pupils of Cincinnati-born Frank Duveneck, who with William Merritt Chase was one of the earliest adherents of the Munich school—and whose return to the U.S. in the late 1870s revolutionized art making and instruction for a generation. After his encounter and subsequent friendship with James Abbott McNeill Whistler during a trip to Venice, Alexander's style shifted to include elements of Aestheticism in addition to Munich-trained realism. The heavy brushwork of the Munich artists emphasized the outer world by laying down paint to build forms, but Whistler encouraged Alexander to soften his technique, attenuating figures to suggest mood, not matter.
Although a leading muralist and illustrator in his day, Alexander is best-known as a portraitist. This painting of Dorothy Roosevelt was executed in 1901-1902, at the moment Alexander returned to the United States from his most recent ten year European stay. The sitter was the first cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt and married Langdon Geer in 1907. The work effortlessly demonstrates all the qualities that put Alexander in demand. The simple composition—a solitary seated figure accompanied by a dog—allows for a focus on Miss Roosevelt, whose grace is emphasized by the sweeping brushwork that defines her tall, elegant figure. Yet the oblique gaze and profile view remove this painting from the straightforward depiction of a particular sitter and position it as a study in reverie. Here it joins such mood pictures as the artist’s Repose (1895, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Indeed, his works hold their own against his contemporaries, particularly John Singer Sargent. If Sargent’s paintings are the exuberant, emphatic articulation of self in the crucible of the modern age, Alexander’s by contrast offer the reverse side of the coin—the looking inward while the outside world marches on.
Adapted from
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (2007.36), December 2007.
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA Acquisition proposal (2007.36), May 2007.
NOTES
Added 2012 Guide text to TMS.
Adding "draft" tag back to note, Dec 19, 2016, as part of the revised harvest/route procedure. This note will be pulled into GDrive and manually moved to Queta's folders for final review. Update- January 18, 2017- Adding #routed tag so that I can easily keep track of this note in Evernote to confirm that it is eventually pushed into GDrive. As of January 18, 2017 the content is in Brain but not in GDrive so I am unable to finish revisions and mark it complete in Evernote or move the GDoc to Queta's folder.
Add to artist in TMS:
Trained in Paris
Trained in Munich
John White Alexander traveled to Munich in 1877 and enrolled in the Royal Art Academy (Kunstakademie). He was in Munich less than a year before moving to Polling, Germany.
Trained in Polling (Bavaria, Germany)
1878-1881, Trained with Frank Duveneck. Acquainted with William Merritt Chase and J. Frank Currier while in Polling.
Worked in: New York City
1874-1877, illustrator for Harper's Weekly, 1881-1890, working as an illustrator and portraitist, and then 1901-1915, working as a portraitist, muralist, and president of the National Academy of Design 1909-1913.
Worked in: Paris, 1890-1900
Artist born Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh, PA)
October 7, 1856- May 31, 1915
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
New York City
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Until d.1925: Mrs. Hilborne Louis Roosevelt (nee Kate Shippen 1849-1925), the sitter's mother, purchased from the artist
From 1925: Mrs. Dorothy Roosevelt Geer (1884-1978), by descent
Until about 1970: Kermit Roosevelt, New York
Until 2007: Private Collection
From 2007: Dallas Museum of Art, purchased through Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY
Notes: The main source for this provenance is the 2007 documentation from Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc.
AUDIO ASSETS
Emily Schiller, gallery talk, 8/12/2015.
251965412: UMO
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- John White Alexander, Repose (1895)~See an earlier, more provocative, portrait by this artist.
- Americans in Paris, 1860-1900~Read H. Barbara Weinberg's essay about this group of expatriate artists on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- The chair shown in this painting is an Empire style chair that John White Alexander kept in his studio and often used in his commissioned portraits.
- Upon her marriage to Lagdon Geer in 1907, Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt was featured in numerous fashion and "society" articles in the New York Times.
- John White Alexander was accepted as a member of the National Academy of Design in 1902 and was its president from 1909 to 1915.
- At the time he painted portraits of women sitting calmly in interior settings, this activity (or lack of activity) was prescribed as an antidote for the psychological condition neurasthenia. The diagnosis was extremely common for wealthy Americans in the Northeast, including John White Alexander. Neurasthenia, also commonly known as nervousness, was associated with the heightened pace and pressures of modernity and was thought to explain a person's intense anxiety and exhaustion.
- This is one of several American paintings at the DMA believed to have its original frame. In the case the frame is doubly significant because it was most likely designed by Stanford White, a leading Beaux-Arts architect and partner in the firm McKim, Mead & White. Stanford White designed the triumphal arch in Washington Square Park (1899, New York City), the Boston Public Library (1895), as well as pedestals for Augustus Saint-Gaudens' sculptures. The style of frame seen here became known as Stanford White frames.
- Stanford White, the American architect who likely designed the frame for this portrait, was also an avid art and antiques collector. At the time of his death in 1906, his collection included another DMA work, Gustave Courbet's The Wave (c. 1869-1870; 1950.86).
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 2007.36
Category
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General Description
John White Alexander was a truly cosmopolitan painter, whose mature career is a synthesis of the major stylistic trends affecting late 19th-century American art. In 1874, eighteen-year-old John White Alexander moved to New York City and found an illustrator job at Harper's Weekly. Like so many young Americans after the Civil War, Alexander traveled to Paris in pursuit of formal art training, but he quickly moved to Germany. He joined the smaller number of students residing in Munich, where painting from life, directly onto the canvas was emphasized instead of the preparatory drawing of the French school. Alexander became one of “Duveneck’s boys,” the group of devoted pupils of Cincinnati-born Frank Duveneck, who with William Merritt Chase was one of the earliest adherents of the Munich school—and whose return to the U.S. in the late 1870s revolutionized art making and instruction for a generation. After his encounter and subsequent friendship with James Abbott McNeill Whistler during a trip to Venice, Alexander's style shifted to include elements of Aestheticism in addition to Munich-trained realism. The heavy brushwork of the Munich artists emphasized the outer world by laying down paint to build forms, but Whistler encouraged Alexander to soften his technique, attenuating figures to suggest mood, not matter.
Although a leading muralist and illustrator in his day, Alexander is best-known as a portraitist. This painting of Dorothy Roosevelt was executed in 1901-1902, at the moment Alexander returned to the United States from his most recent ten year European stay. The sitter was the first cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt and married Langdon Geer in 1907. The work effortlessly demonstrates all the qualities that put Alexander in demand. The simple composition—a solitary seated figure accompanied by a dog—allows for a focus on Miss Roosevelt, whose grace is emphasized by the sweeping brushwork that defines her tall, elegant figure. Yet the oblique gaze and profile view remove this painting from the straightforward depiction of a particular sitter and position it as a study in reverie. Here it joins such mood pictures as the artist’s Repose (1895, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Indeed, his works hold their own against his contemporaries, particularly John Singer Sargent. If Sargent’s paintings are the exuberant, emphatic articulation of self in the crucible of the modern age, Alexander’s by contrast offer the reverse side of the coin—the looking inward while the outside world marches on.
Adapted from
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (2007.36), December 2007.
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA Acquisition proposal (2007.36), May 2007.
Fun Facts
- The chair shown in this painting is an Empire style chair that John White Alexander kept in his studio and often used in his commissioned portraits.
- Upon her marriage to Lagdon Geer in 1907, Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt was featured in numerous fashion and "society" articles in the New York Times.
- John White Alexander was accepted as a member of the National Academy of Design in 1902 and was its president from 1909 to 1915.
- At the time he painted portraits of women sitting calmly in interior settings, this activity (or lack of activity) was prescribed as an antidote for the psychological condition neurasthenia. The diagnosis was extremely common for wealthy Americans in the Northeast, including John White Alexander. Neurasthenia, also commonly known as nervousness, was associated with the heightened pace and pressures of modernity and was thought to explain a person's intense anxiety and exhaustion.
- This is one of several American paintings at the DMA believed to have its original frame. In the case the frame is doubly significant because it was most likely designed by Stanford White, a leading Beaux-Arts architect and partner in the firm McKim, Mead & White. Stanford White designed the triumphal arch in Washington Square Park (1899, New York City), the Boston Public Library (1895), as well as pedestals for Augustus Saint-Gaudens' sculptures. The style of frame seen here became known as Stanford White frames.
- Stanford White, the American architect who likely designed the frame for this portrait, was also an avid art and antiques collector. At the time of his death in 1906, his collection included another DMA work, Gustave Courbet's The Wave (c. 1869-1870; 1950.86).
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- John White Alexander, Repose (1895)~See an earlier, more provocative, portrait by this artist.
- Americans in Paris, 1860-1900~Read H. Barbara Weinberg's essay about this group of expatriate artists on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
Notes
Added 2012 Guide text to TMS.
Adding "draft" tag back to note, Dec 19, 2016, as part of the revised harvest/route procedure. This note will be pulled into GDrive and manually moved to Queta's folders for final review. Update- January 18, 2017- Adding #routed tag so that I can easily keep track of this note in Evernote to confirm that it is eventually pushed into GDrive. As of January 18, 2017 the content is in Brain but not in GDrive so I am unable to finish revisions and mark it complete in Evernote or move the GDoc to Queta's folder.
Add to artist in TMS:
Trained in Paris
Trained in Munich
John White Alexander traveled to Munich in 1877 and enrolled in the Royal Art Academy (Kunstakademie). He was in Munich less than a year before moving to Polling, Germany.
Trained in Polling (Bavaria, Germany)
1878-1881, Trained with Frank Duveneck. Acquainted with William Merritt Chase and J. Frank Currier while in Polling.
Worked in: New York City
1874-1877, illustrator for Harper's Weekly, 1881-1890, working as an illustrator and portraitist, and then 1901-1915, working as a portraitist, muralist, and president of the National Academy of Design 1909-1913.
Worked in: Paris, 1890-1900
Artist born Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh, PA)
October 7, 1856- May 31, 1915
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
New York City
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Until d.1925: Mrs. Hilborne Louis Roosevelt (nee Kate Shippen 1849-1925), the sitter's mother, purchased from the artist
From 1925: Mrs. Dorothy Roosevelt Geer (1884-1978), by descent
Until about 1970: Kermit Roosevelt, New York
Until 2007: Private Collection
From 2007: Dallas Museum of Art, purchased through Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY
Notes: The main source for this provenance is the 2007 documentation from Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc.
AUDIO ASSETS
Emily Schiller, gallery talk, 8/12/2015.
251965412: UMO
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
Objects
number
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2007.36
source file
object_notes_3_c-0326.xml.nores