How do I find information on other artist?

When I first started surfing the net for art and artist, I had no idea where to start. As a result I started a Link Page of what I felt were the best of the best on the internet.

If you're looking for a specific artist, don't start with one of the major search engines, start with artcyclopedia.com. It has some of the best search results on some 6,000 artists

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Natasha, 

Im wondering if you could point me in the right direction.  I am looking for information on Leon Bakst.  He is a Russian costume designer/scene painter / graphic artist / painter... I absolutely have loved everything I have seen by the man, but unfortunately the web has come up short as far as images go.. I have laboriously used every link from your page ... which is fantastic by the way.. but sill have come up with only 3 images.  I have been looking for his head sketches.. the ones that are really detailed buy fade rather quickly into simple lines... They were just studies, but I found them to be most  remarkable.

thanks Peter

Haven't seen many head studies

Leon Bakst

I like your web site, well done! Perhaps you can help me with identifying a painting shown in a
Forbes article? Page 182 Feb 21 00 issue. "Yankee Doodles" is the article. I most definitely have several emotions about the painting, but I prefer to inform you of them if you know which painting I  speak of. 

It is a group portrait of young women wearing Paisley saris, (the term used in India), the women
appear European, which made me wonder if the painting was contemporary. 

What do you know of this painting? 
 

Thanks 

I haven't seen the mag. but will look for it when I go to the Library -- Nat

Steve found out that it is in fact Cashmere, by John Singer Sargent

I know of a charcoal sketch of Lady Antrobus hanging in a village hall in Amesbury.  Also I have a copy of a note from JSS to John William North ARA RWS congratulating him on his election to the Royal Academy.  Do you know of any correspondence from North to JSS?

Steve

From  Steve Milton
Date:  6 April  2000

Natasha

Here is the letter from JSS to John William North ARA RWS.  You might be more familiar with the handwriting but my translation goes:
 

My dear North

I congratulate the Academy on having kid-napped* you, and I congratulate you on a certain picture with a background of winter woods which I thought was most beautiful.

Yours sincerely

John S Sargent"

[* The hyphenated word kidnapped was identified by Michele Lener]

I'll try to get a digital photo of the charcoal sketch next time I am in Amesbury.

Steve

The-Idyllists
 
Steve Milton

Nat

From: Natasha
Date 4/14/00

Dear Steve,

To answer your question, I don’t know of any Catalogue of Sargent’s letters. I know there is some correspondence at the US Library of Congress, I found mention of it in a web-site search there but there isn’t anything online. 

Natasha

I am, in kindred heart, yours truly

Natasha Wallace

Dear Natasha,

I loved your study of one of my favorites, John Singer Sargent. I was wondering if you have ever heard of a painter by the name of E. Muth Barth who was supposedly a student of Sargents in Boston. I came across a lovely portrait of an Irish lass Barth had done, but trying to find any information on the artist has been painstakingly slow. Any info you could provide would be very much welcomed. Thank you

Sincerely,
Richard

I've checked but the name doesn't show up in either Charteris' book or Olsen's book.

Nat
 
 

Hello!

Thank you for your wonderfully informative website!  I send my students to your pages quite often, and they appreciate the extensive information you provide!

Do you have any resources--webpage, books, etc.--that provide what paintings were and were not exhibited at the various Paris salons? Thank you for any help you might be able to give me.

Sincerely,
Eleanor Schapa
Professor of Art and Architectural History
Santa Monica College

Thanks

What a great question. Since the Salon was run by the government up until Napoléon III made it independent, certainly there are records in France about the Salon. I don’t know of anything and would love to be able to get a hold of something like this myself – anyone else know?

Wow...what a great Sargent site you have...I am art historian and all my information is lying around on bits of paper...takes hours to find anything.

My area of interest is artist Evelyn Pickering De Morgan (1855-1919) whom I have been researching for 10 years now.  In the 1880s she was friendly with Vernon Lee.  In her letters (Lee's) she mentions Sargent and Evelyn in various social contexts but I cannot really tell whether they ever met through Lee.  Would you have anything on that or a suggestion where I might look...his letters I guess??  I have looked through several Sargent bios and never found Evelyn indexed but that is not unusual since she is not as prominent as his other contacts.

Thanks for any help you may be willing to offer.

Cheers,

Judy Oberhausen
Burlingame, CA
 

I've looked in everything I've got and can't find anything, yet. I'll keep my eyes open. I love how these artists sort of cross over each other.

Jump to painting
 

"Three Dancing Girls"
Charles S. Hopkinson

Hi Natasha:

This may really sound off-the-wall at first, but I recently became interested in genealogy and am trying to track down my ggrandfather.  He was born in London the same year as your Sargent, married an Alice Sweet in the Lambeth district of London in 1884, had 6 or 8 kids and was also an Artist.  There must have been a big family falling out (I suspect over his art and probable lifestyle) as his wife and kids all moved to the US (one at a time it seems around the turn of the century) leaving poor James Thomas Platt alone in London!!! His sons (that I know of) never spoke of him or of their life in London thereafter!  One of his grandsons made two trips over there trying to find any traces of him - and now one of his great grandsons (a distant cousin) and myself are trying to find out whatever happened to James Thomas and his art.  I heard that a very elderly aunt in Mass is in possession of a few of his paintings but have yet been able to contact her and am unable to get to the east coast for now.  I am more than a little curious to see those paintings and to find out how she ever acquired them!!!

I know that this is a mighty LONG shot - but - both of them being Londoners, Artists, of the same age, in the same years!!!........... Have you ever, in your studies of John Singer Sargent come across the name of James Thomas Platt???????  It is highly probable that they were at least acquainted, if only casually - and Sargent's work may have influenced and even impassioned JT, who must have be em mighty stubborn about leaving London and his art!!!  I know this is all wild speculation, but when you are grasping for straws.........:o) Still some strange coincidents.........

Thanks for your time!

Geneva Pepper
 

I was just about to write you a dear Geneva letter, or is that a dear John letter? Anyway, I wasn't giving it much hope. I looked and didn't run across a James Thomas Platt, but I did run across a Frederick Summer Platt in Olson's book. P. 130 it quotes: " ‘Always use a full brush and a larger one than necessary,' John told Frederick Summer Platt, the collector and amateur painter in August 1890 . . . "

The footnote says:
 

Frederick Summer Platt, "J.S. Sargent (his views)", unpublished memoir, written after meeting Sargent in Worcester, Mass August 1890, PC; quoted in Susan E. Strickler, "John Singer Sargent and Worcester", Worcester Art Museum Journal (1982-3), p. 26 I am grateful to Miss Strickler for this reference and Platt's other memories of Sargent

You might check with the Royal Academy records of painters. I don;t know how to go about doing that, but if he was an associate member of full member they would have records of him. Anyway, good luck.

Nat

I am trying to find more information on the painter Carl Welsch.  I noticed on your Sargent site that you have a birth date for Welsch and no death date. Could you please direct me to any references or worthwile sources for information on Welsch?  From my preliminary research, I believe his name was Theodore Charles Welsch.  Charles being Carl in German.  Carl Welsch was active in Italy ca. 1866, and he exhibited at the Paris Salons and the National Academy of Design with some frequency between 1850-1866.  Any information you have would be useful. . .

Sincerely,
 

Parker C. Agelasto
Curatorial Program Assistant
Smithsonian American Art Museum
750 9th Street NW  Suite 9500
Washington, DC 20560-0970
202-275-1457  phone
202-275-1420  fax
Ag ela  stoP@saam.si.edu
 

From: Natasha
Date: Thurs, 11 Apr 2002

Dear Parker, 

I'm having the same problems you are. I pulled in all the "usual suspects" of the places I go to on the net with no luck. In books I ran across two references and I will quote both in full: 

1) Hon. Evan Charteris, K.C., "John Sargent"; Benjamin Blom, Inc., NY, 1972, p. 10 
 

The winter of 1868-69 was spent in Rome, on Trinità dei Monti, and here the momentous decision was made as to Sargent's future. Every day that passed had emphasized his affinity with art. In Rome a German-American landscape painter, Carl Welsch, long since forgotten, took an interest in the boy and noted his aptitude for drawing. He invited him to come and work in his studio, and Sargent used to spend the mornings in copying the water-colours of Welsch.

Welsch remains a sort of figure who gives a biographer nightmares. Very little is known about him; there is no proof that Sargent actually did know him, and that he did instruct the thirteen-year-old Sargent as Charteris claims in his biography (p.10): "Sargent used to spend mornings in copying the water-colours of Welsch." Welsch was in Rome that winter, but if he did offer to teach John it was probably later, in Florence. Charteris did get his information from Emily, but after the biography appeared she complained to her sister of numerous errors.

Charles Feodor Welsch (nè Karl Friedrich Christian Welsch) was born in Wesel, 1828, the son of a painter and restorer and a brother of a muralist. He was first trained at home by his father, then in Brussels, The Hague, and in Paris under Ziem and Calamè. He went to America for eight years, and settled in Rome from 1866 to 1874. His subsequent itinerary covered Egypt, Venice, Paris, Karlsruhe, Baden Baden, Frankfurt and Dresden, where he died in 1904. He illustrated books and exhibited twice at the Royal Academy, in 1871 and 1873. He and John did go on a walking tour of the Tyrol in the summer of 1871. FitzWilliam's few references to him call him either an "Artist friend from Rome" or a "German landscape painter of reputation", but never by name.

Hello Natasha,

     I recently came across an oil painting while visiting friends in Columbia County, NY.  It is an oil, large bouquet floral in a chinoiserie vase signed G.R.Barse 1921.  I had never heard of Barse associated with florals.  Am I wrong?

Could this possible be a genuine Barse or have they been hoodwinked?  They tell me they bought it several years ago from a dealer in Hudson, NY who claimed it is a genuine Barse.  I would be interested to hear your opinion. 

Thank you, 

Catherine Grant 

It seems to me that I've run across a floral painting by Barse before, but I am, in no way, an expert on the artist, by any elaborate stretch of the imagination!

Let's see if someone else can shed a light or two.

On one of your pages you mention Chrissie Sheridan and include a wonderful color version of her dance. 

(Editor's Note - that would be at La Carmencita)

Is it possible I could get a copy of this for a performance I hope to do in 2005. The performance is about my father a music hall comedian, who also played dame, and spoke of seeing Chrissie Sheridan and I'd like to include an image of her in the performance.

I have recently retired as Director of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and was glad to see the link to Lavery, whose wife appeared on our currency until we went Euro. Sir William Orpen (Irish) too was deeply influenced by Sargent - destroyed by him perhaps.
 

 Many thanks
 Noel Sheridan