User:Detert/Eugene Ullman

Eugene Paul Ullman, American painter, born in New York on March 27, 1877; died in Paris, France, on April 26, 1953. His father, Sigmund, was an important manufacturer of printing ink, the first in the United States to make colored ink for glossy paper. His firm also made a lithographer’s proof ink of unusually high quality. Sigmund Ullman’s interest in chemistry was not only related to the production of ink but to its artistic use. As an admirer of Renaissance art, he believed Italians to be especially gifted in understanding color gradations and hence favored immigrants from that country when in need of employees. Of his four sons, one became a chemist but died in his early twenties and two others took over the management of the Sigmund Ullman Printing Ink Company. Eugene was one of the best pupils in the Columbia University Grammar School (the Normal School Training Department), winning prizes for Latin, German, and drawing. In the latter he displayed his artistic talent. His mother encouraged him to follow his inclination and had the painter Walter Griffin give him drawing lessons. Nevertheless his father insisted that, like his brothers, he should attend Packard’s business school for one year and then spend another year learning the ropes in the ink factory. After this experience he enrolled in William Merritt Chase’s school, and ultimately taught in his teacher’s New York School of Art as well as at Shinnecock. In the 1897 photograph of Chase’s class, Ullman is shown in the center, immediately behind Chase and to his left. In the photograph of Chase’s class taken in Haarlem in 1903, Ullman, now no longer a student, stands in the back row. By this time he had traveled to Spain to copy Velázquez’s works in the Prado, and to France as well, where he underwent the influence of the Impressionists, and especially Cézanne’s.

It was in Haarlem that he did Chase’s portrait, later bought by the French government and now in the Museum of Franco-American Cooperation in Blérancourt. Also owned by this museum is a painting of wounded Zouaves at the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly, where the artist volunteered as a carpenter and handyman in World War I, as well as a painting by his son Paul, who served in the American Field Service in 1939-40 and in 1944 with the Office of Strategic Services. At least one historian of American art considers Ullman’s to be the best portrait of Chase—not counting the self-portraits; and the French minister responsible for its purchase was quoted as saying that it was as good as any comparable portraits by Whistler.

Chase, in turn, did a portrait of Ullman and gave him one of his daughter Alice. Both works are reproduced in Ronald Pisano’s catalogue raisonné of Chase’s œuvre. Ullman was a rising star in the first decade of the twentieth century. His first award was a bronze medal at the Saint Louis World’s Fair in 1904. In 1905 he was awarded a first-class medal at the Exposition of the City of Orléans. It was followed the next year by the Pennsylvania Academy’s annual Temple Gold Medal for his portrait of Mrs. Fisher, in the dark Munich style, owned by the Indianapolis Art Museum. His portrait of the Arnold Bennetts at home, with the famous writer in the background playing the piano while his wife reads a book in the foreground, was reproduced in the fourth volume of the novelist’s letters. Lady at the Buffet graced the cover of The Atlantic Daily News, distributed to every transatlantic passenger. Articles about him appeared in newspapers, in The McIntosh Monthly, and in The Craftsman, which reproduced, among other paintings, his portrait of Mrs. Booth Tarkington. Her father-in-law had been a justice of the Indiana Supreme Court; so had the artist’s father-in-law.

It was in France where he decided to settle, relying on a generous allowance from his father. The Beaux-Arts bestowed on him an associate membership, which he resigned in 1923, perhaps in protest for the Beaux-Arts rejection of avant-garde artists. This action seems to have alienated him from official circles and won him no allies. Bennett mentions in his Journals the news of Eugene’s marriage to Alice Woods, daughter of Judge William Allen Woods of the Seventh District Court, novelist, short-story writer, and a student of Chase’s. It was through her literary connections that he got to know the Bennetts and Margaret Cravens, who in 1911 commissioned him to do Ezra Pound’s portrait. He then did hers, offered as a gift. Among the artist’s correspondence and photographs of his paintings, now in the Kellen Archives of the Parsons School of Design, is the one of Cravens’s portrait, but not that of Pound. Indeed, when he spoke about the poet, he never mentioned that he had painted his portrait; he may well have ripped up its photograph. The two portraits are now in a private collection. His portrait of Gertrude Stein, which he gave her, has apparently disappeared.

In a letter to Cravens, Pound compares his poetics to a remark of Ullman’s about green undertones of human flesh. It is possible that the painter was thinking of his painting of the Japanese actress Madame Hanako (ca. 1908), now owned by the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, but in three pictures created about this time there are small swaths of pure green to render the flesh, as if he were undergoing the influence of the Fauves. The one that can be most accurately dated is that of his son Paul, born in 1906, showing a boy between 6 and 8 years old. (The portrait of Paul’s brother Allen, born in 1905, showing a child about 4 years old, is in the old style.) The other one is of a French woman, owned by Auburn University’s [http://jcsm.auburn.edu/|J. C. Smith Art Museum]. A nude from the waist up with a turban (the model was probably an Azerbaijani refugee from the Russian Revolution) shows the same treatment. There is also a still life with red apples casting green shadows on a white surface. '''

First and Second Styles
''' Let us say that in his first style Ullman was an epigone of Chase. Indeed, one critic calls him an understudy of his master, and it is likely that Sadakichi Hartmann mentions him with this in mind in the 6th impression of his History of American Art. His second style would be a colorful one including the possible Fauve influence and the Zouaves in the Blérancourt museum. He received a silver medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, but the style of the painting he exhibited has not been determined.

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Third Style
''' The third style, dating mostly from the twenties, after his divorce from Alice, is characterized by broader brush strokes in pale landscapes and portraits, sometimes with subdued yellows and browns. Several of these were exhibited in the Milch Gallery in 1924. Girl with a Cat, now in the Heckscher Museum, was reproduced in the New York Herald. The Morning Bath, which he gave to the Brooklyn Museum, was reproduced in The New York Times Magazine and The New York Evening Post’s art page, as well as in The Spur, where his work received an excellent review from Lula Merrick. The greatest praise bestowed on him in those days came from B. J. Kospoth in the Sunday June 9, 1929 Chicago Tribune European Edition, which reproduced the Portrait of Mrs. E. P. Ullman, and Femme lisant sur une chaise longue.

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Fourth Style
''' The fourth style began in the early thirties after his move from Nice to Marseilles, where he paints the old port, then to Lourmarin, where he does landscapes with its château and of the Vallée de la Fausse Monnaie. He then takes his second wife, Suzanne Lioni, whom he had married in 1928, and their young son to Belgium, where he paints the ruined mediæval tower at Sichem and the hotel where they lived. In these works the foliage is greener and more detailed, and objects are more delineated. This style is maintained after his move to Paris in 1935, with summers spent in Savoy and Brittany, where the family remains for the rest of the year after Paris is evacuated. A few of those paintings are reproduced in the French newspapers. Royal Cortissoz had very kind words for him as well in the April 11, 1943 New York Herald Tribune, which reproduced Ullman’s view of Douarnenez at low tide, painted in 1937.

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Fifth Style
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The fifth style takes shape on his return to the United States in 1940 after the Germans took France. After spending two years in New York City, with summer visits to his son Paul’s farm in Stonington, Connecticut, the family moved to Ridgefield, in a rented house close to his brother George’s property. Typical of this style, which is really a continuation of the fourth, are two large landscapes, one of a field on the farm of James Alden Weir—inherited by his daughter Dorothy and occupied by her and her husband the sculptor Mahonri Young; it is now a national park. This landscape was bought by the widow of Arthur Garfield Hays. Three others look out on the back of his brother George’s property. The best one shows people playing croquet behind the house, the original part of which had been an inn in Colonial times. The other two were painted from the window of the studio that George had created for him on the second floor of the garage by having the chauffeur’s apartment wrecked. One of these is a winter scene, bought by the French government, which later sold it at auction.

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Later Life
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In 1944 the news of his son Paul’s capture and execution by the French Sûreté—under German command—after parachuting into France before the Normandy invasion was a severe blow to his father, for Paul, a gifted painter and etcher, was his disciple and favorite son. When the war ended, Ullman moved to Westport, where he bought a modernized saltbox built in 1714 and had a studio built on the property. At this point his work betrays signs of age, although the winter landscape painted through his studio window—reproduced on the cover of his last exhibit catalogue and now owned by Auburn’s J. C. Smith Museum—still displays considerable talent. When Suzanne died in 1950 he decided to pass his last years in France despite the advice of good friends who advised him against it. France was no longer the same land he had known in his youth. When he died in 1953, the only persons present at his funeral were his two best friends, the sculptor Ary Bitter and the painter Louis Degallaix, and his youngest son.

Ullman was active in societies of expatriate American artists, becoming president of two of them. In 1941, with the Canadian-American sculptor Cecil Howard, he founded the Four Arts Aid Society—of which he was elected Honorary President—to provide aid to French artists living under the German occupation and in Vichy France.

Bennett mentions in his Journals that at one time Ullman owned a Tissot, but he must have sold it before the Depression. Before moving back to France he owned a Molinar (from which a conservator unintentionally removed the signature during cleaning), three Chases, a small Daubigny, a very early Monet, four landscapes by Georges Michel, a small landscape with horses by John Lewis Brown, a beachscape by Guillemet, a painting of Géricault’s death mask and a small landscape by Cals, a small genre painting by Bonvin showing a boy holding a pheasant (which once belonged to Alexandre Dumas fils), a studio painting by Maurer when he was a student, three canvases by his friend Degallaix, and two by Chantal Quenneville. He and Suzanne were given watercolors by the French illustrator Dignimont. He also had watercolors from the illustrator Charles-Auguste Edelmann, and drawings by Charles Jacques, Bonvin, Steinlen, Guy Pène Du Bois, Ary Bitter, Hermine David, and the Swiss sculptor Marguerite-Anne Blonay. He bought several small ceramic statuettes from Ary Bitter, who gave him the original clay sculpture of Dalou’s medallion of Corneille at the Comédie Française and an original defective cast of Houdon’s Frileuse, both obtained from their founder.

Besides Ullman’s son Paul, there were and are other artists and artistically inclined individuals in the family. His son Allen was a sculptor and painter. Their mother illustrated her own novels. His great-uncle, Adolph Steiner, was chief draftsman of the Central Pacific. His niece Charlotte was a gifted painter. His first cousin, Eleanor Modrakowska, was a painter and etcher. Allen’s granddaughter, Alice, is a painter; Paul’s son, Jacques, is an architect whose wife is a watercolorist.

Paintings in Museums
Brooklyn Museum: After the Bath (1924). Musée National de la Coopération Franco-Américaine, Blérancourt: Portrait of Wm. Merritt Chase (1903), Wounded Zouaves in the American Ambulance Hospital (1915). Tampa Art Museum: Nude before Antique Screen (1938?); painting reproduced in the Edouard-Joseph. Indianapolis Art Museum: Portrait of Mrs. Fisher (1906) [awarded Temple Gold Medal of the Pennsylvania Academy], The Sea (1909). University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Art Collection: Lady at the Buffet (1906), Portrait of Mrs. Tertia Kennerley (sister of Arnold Bennett), Portrait of Louis Degallaix, The End of the Carnival, Lady with a Walking Stick, and several other works. Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY: Portrait of the Japanese Actress Hanako San (ca. 1908). The Newark Museum: Portrait of Abraham Walkowitz (1943). The Heckscher Museum: Girl With Cat and Provence Landscape. The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art, Auburn University, Early Winter, Westport; Portrait of a French Woman.

PAINTINGS WIDELY REPRODUCED

The Arnold Bennetts at Home in Fontainebleau (1903), owned by PLU. Portraits of Ezra Pound and Margaret Cravens (1911), owned by Ms. Jennifer Wilson. Lady at the Buffet (1906). Portrait of Mrs. Booth Tarkington (1906), whereabouts unknown.

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Honors
Bronze Medal, St. Louis Exposition, 1904. Second Prize, Worcester Art Museum, 1905. First Class Medal, Orléans (1905). Temple Gold Medal, 1906. Silver Medal, Panama Canal Exposition, San Francisco (1915). E. P. Ullman also received the honor of associate membership in the Société des Beaux-Arts, unusual for a foreigner. Nevertheless, he later resigned in protest of their policy toward the avant-garde artists of the younger generation.

Arhives
Ullman’s papers, correspondence received, and sketches, as well as the exhibition catalogues, newspaper clippings pertinent to his work, and photographs of his paintings, are in the Kellen Archives of the Parsons School of Design of The New School University. His letters to Gertrude Stein are at the Beineke Library of Yale University.

Painting and Sculpture Formerly Owned by Eugene Paul Ullman
All art works in his collection not done by EPU are without provenance except for the four Georges Michel landscapes, in which case there is a receipt for payment. We should not expect proof of provenance for works given to him by fellow artists, often in exchange, or bought to help penurious artists. The reputation of an expert, the least likely he will be to stick his neck out by making a positive judgment on the authenticity of a work by a famous artist. He risks nothing by making a negative judgment if the work does not closely resemble the style of well-known works by the artist. This is definitely the case with the painting signed “Vincent” the disposition of its patterns is remindful of some known Van Gogh landscapes and which is probably transitional between the early Van Goghs, inspired by Israels, and the wildly colorful famous ones.

Tissot mentioned in Arnold Bennett’s Journal, p. 214 (Sunday, April 9). Not owned by EPU at his death unless it is one of the unsigned works mentioned below. Molinar, Scene in street or courtyard with man facing a wall, probably urinating. It bore a signature until, according to EPU, a careless restorer unintentionally removed it during cleaning. Sold when EPU sold his Westport house in 1952. Monet painting of apples, very early, signed, with palette knife marks [if I remember correctly]. Likewise sold in 1952. Buyers went around asking dealers if it was genuine and were told that it was not. They believed the dealers and complained. John Lewis Brown (French school), small oil painting of horses, probably racing, likewise sold in 1952. Wm. Merritt Chase, Portrait of Alice, reproduced in Ronald Pisano, William Merritt Chase, Portraits in Oil (New Haven: Yale UP, 2003), p. 181, OP. 353. Wm. Merritt Chase, Portrait of Eugene Paul Ullman, reproduced in ibid., p. 141, OP. 263. Conservation work by Mr. Keith Raddatz. Wm. Merritt Chase, Brooklyn Riverfront, (small landscape bought for $75.00 from Mrs. Story of the American-British Art Center, where EPU had exhibited and a posthumous exhibit of Paul Ullman’s work had taken place). Conservation work by Mr. Raddatz. Georges Michel, four oil landscapes, three on paper glued to canvas and one on paper glued to wood panel, bought in Paris in 1937 from a dealer. The three had conservation work done by Mr. Raddatz. The fourth, in bad condition, given by PLU to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art Museum (no longer in existence), has not been restored. Receipt and photocopies are extant. Alfred Maurer, early painting done in Chase’s studio, given to Arthur Hammer in bad condition by PLU & acquired by Pensler Galleries, Washington, D.C. Alson Clarke, small oil painting on board, of a bridge, probably in Venice, with dedication to Mr. & Mrs. [Alice Woods] Ullman, given by PLU to UWM Art Museum. Leon Dabo, small early still life, oil on canvas, given by PLU to Ronald Pisano. A. F. Cals (1810-1880), Death Mask of Géricault, given by PLU to UWM Art Museum. A. F. Cals, Outskirts of a French Village, small oil on paper formerly mounted on pulp board and remounted by Mr. Raddatz as part of conservation work. Phillip Ayers Sawyer [his wife’s name was Marie], very small painting of American soldiers and French sailors in Brest in 1919. Daubigny, small landscape on board, cleaned by Mr. Raddatz. Bonvin, oil on canvas of boy or small man with pheasant, once belonging to Alexandre Dumas fils, unrecognizable when inherited by PLU, restored by Mr. Raddatz. Bonvin, small painting under glass of standing woman reading and another figure sitting at a desk or table bearing a globe of the earth. Bonvin drawing of boy’s head. Charles Jacques drawing of horses at trough with a chicken in foreground, a figure, and an arched doorway in background. Van Gogh landscape, oil on canvas, signed “Vincent,” bought from the Galerie Chéron (which launched Foujita), probably in 1929 at the time he exhibited there. Mr. Chéron was reported by EPU to have told him that he knew it was a Van Gogh but could not prove it. Guillemet, beachscape, perhaps of Algeria. Anonymous, oil on paper on canvas, man at a window, formerly under glass, perhaps a nineteenth-century imitation of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. Guy Pène Du Bois, sketch books of drawings on which some of his paintings are based; some reproduced in Betsy Fahlman, Guy Pène Du Bois, Painter of Modern Life (New York: James Graham & Sons, 2004). Marguerite de Blonay. Sketchbook. A sketchbook by someone whose name is illegible but who lived on rue Dauphine. Eugène Boudin [?] Drawing, stamped in red “E.B.”  People gathered in front of beach cabins. Chantal Quenneville, Oil painting of boy at piano from the back. Green background. Chantal Quenneville. Small head of woman. Charles Edelmann. Humorous watercolors done in 1939. Dignimont. Watercolor portrait of Suzanne Ullman. Hermine David. Large drawing of street with church tower. André Hambourg, oil painting of Algerian sitting in the street.. Louis Favre. One large colorful print of fruit and/or vegetables, with written dedication. Three oil paintings: one of street corner with cylindrical metal urinal, one of a village street; one of four onions and two French turnips. Pascin. Small fanciful color print with five figures, including a black servant with a tray standing beside a white woman in a hammock. Stamped “Ateliers Pascin.” Céria. Drawing of a medieval tower in a wood, with dedication, “Céria à Ullman.” An aquatint by Boudin very similar to one of his beach paintings. Three anonymous small paintings: feminine figure in a forest (possibly by Alice Woods); a landscape, perhaps of Spain (possibly by EPU); street with horse cart beside sidewalk. Anonymous French landscape with somewhat stylized cloud (at UWM Art Museum). Ary Bitter: Several fired clay glazed statuettes and other small sculptures. Anonymous. Bronze cast of a clumsily sculpted horse. Paul Ullman. Paintings and drawings. [Etchings were given to PLU by Paul’s widow, Babette]. Allen Ullman. Bust of Martha as a young child. Dalou. Original fired clay high relief portrait of Corneille whose bronze cast is in medallion at the Comédie Française. Anonymous. A few miniatures. Cecil Howard. Bronze cast of bust of Suzanne Ullman exhibited at 1943 Artists for Victory exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. Anonymous. Plaster cast of bust of EPU (from which bronze cast was made in 2007). It could be by either Ary Bitter or Cecil Howard.