User:Dunkirkart/sandbox

George William Eggers (January 31, 1883, Dunkirk, New York - 1958, New York City, New York) was an American artist, educator, painter, illustrator, designer and lithographer, art curator, museum director. He graduated from the Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, NY. He was the head of the Department of Graphic Art at the Chicago Normal College, Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, Denver Museum of Art, and the Worcester Art Museum. Joined the faculty of City College of New York as Professor and Chairman of the Art Department in 1930 and served until retirement in 1948 at which time he served at Professor Emeritus of Art at City College until his death. Listed in Who's Who in America 1940 - 1941.

Early Years (1883 - 1900) George W. Eggers was born in Dunkirk, New York, an industrial city on the shores of Lake Erie. George's father, George Anthony Eggers, was a well-known photographer who taught his son the business of photography and the love of art. As a student Eggers was classically educated by, the locally respected teacher Ms. Maude Andrews. Both his parents and educators noted his aptitude for art early. In 1898 and 1899, while still a teenager, he became a drawing instructor at the Chautauqua Institution, often traveling there by bicycle over unpaved roads for 30 miles. He graduated from Dunkirk High School in 1900 and moved to New York City to attend Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, NY.

Pratt Institute of Art (1900 - 1903) While attending Pratt Institute in New York he worked as an illustrator for the local newspapers and magazines to pay for his tuition. He also studied with individual artists such as L. Birge Harrison, sculptors Herbert Adams and Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Arthur Wesley Dow, and Hermann Dudley Murphy. He became friends with a fellow student, future Hudson School painter Victor C. Anderson. Anderson painted a portrait of Eggers, currently held by a private collector and on load to the Dunkirk Historical Society in Dunkirk, NY. After graduation in 1903, he returned to Chautauqua Institute to teach art and then returned to Pratt as an instructor. During this time, he became acquainted with the Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, NY, and artist Bolton Coit Brown. In 1904 Eggers built an oak chest with painted panels at Byrdcliffe. The piece is entitled "Chest with Winter Landscape". The chest is still at Byrdcliffe on display by the Byrdcliffe Art Colony of the Woodstock Guild.

He also supplemented his income by lecturing and teaching at Chautauqua Institute's School of Art. In June of 1905 he was teaching a 6 week courses in Illustration, Drawing and Water Color, In 1906 he returned to teach (Chautauquan, 1906) Portrait and Cast Drawing, and Outdoor Sketching. He continued to teach art, lecture and judge in juried art showed each summer at Chautauqua throughout his life. In 1910, he returned to the Chautauqua School of Arts and Crafts to teach for the summer (Manual Training Magazine, volume 11, 1910). In 1911, the Chautauquan published his article "Art Aspects of Chautauqua" which was an abridgement of the longer article in the School Arts Book. In 1916, he was teaching Decorative Pictorial Composition (School Art Magazine, volume 15 in 1916). In 1942, he gave a lecture on "Art Values for Chautauqua", (The Daily Republican for Monongahela, PA, August 12, 1942). He continued to teach art, lecture and judge in juried art shows each summer at Chautauqua throughout his life. In 1917 he taught at the Chicago School of Industrial Art, Summer Session July 9 to August 11. This was a program to teach other teachers not the students. (School Art Magazine, volume 16, 1917)

In 1906, he left Pratt Institute to take a position at the Chicago Normal College. Walter Scott Perry, then Director of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts sent Eggers a letter noting not only his disappointment felt by the loss, but also that of the President of Pratt, Mr. Frederic B. Pratt, and expressing his hope that the move would be reconsidered.

Chicago Normal College (1906 -1916) At 23 years of age, Eggers was now the Head of the Department of Graphics Art at the Chicago Normal College (now Chicago State University). He held this position for 10 years from 1906 - 1916. During this time, he took his first trip to Europe. He attended the annual convention of the National Education Association in Cleveland, Ohio in 1908 to present a paper on the importance of art education in public schools. In it, he argued that art education would help us become a more efficient nation. In 1912, he attended the International Congress for Art Education, Drawing and Art Applied to Industries in Dresden, Germany, as a guest lecturer, delivering his address in German. He wrote for the School Arts Magazine a series of articles called "Just How to Do It." These explained how to create a watercolor wash, the use of color scales and how to draw trees. Additional articles taught the process of planning and mounting an art exhibition and even explained how to decorate a Christmas tree using it as a problem in applied design. From 1907 to 1914, he was a regular contributor to the Art and Manual Training/Manual Arts magazines. He wrote the art definition of Art Terms for the Children's Encyclopedia in Chicago. From 1908 to 1916, he wrote articles for the Educational Bi-monthly magazine in Chicago and the School Art magazine in Worcester, MA.

In 1910 he wrote an article titled, "Some Modern Development of Industrial Education, Particularly as Related to General Education", presented to the Chicago Literary Club on 30 May 1910 and published in the book "Chicago Literary Club: A History of its First Fifty Years" by Frederick William Gookin in 1926. Eggers was a member of the Chicago Literary Club from 18 May 1908 to September 30, 1915.

In 1916, he left the College to become the Director at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Art Institute of Chicago (1916-1921) From 1916 to 1921, he was the Director of the Art Institute of Chicago where he became a champion of the Ashcan Artists movement. Sponsoring such artists as Archibald Motley, George Bellows and paying premium salaries enabled him to attract the best artists of the day to the Institute to either teach or exhibit. He oversaw the reorganization of the Institute, created the Extension Program, inaugurated international watercolor exhibitions and the first permanent installation of works from the museum's own collection. He organized and brought to the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY a major exhibition of American sculpture. The Institute continues to maintain an archive of materials from his tenure as Director including documentation on museum acquisitions, lecture programs, exhibition arrangements, and correspondence with donors, art dealers, educators, art scholars, and staff from other art institutions. He was the editor of the Art Institute Bulletin from 1916 to 1921. Even after leaving the Institute, he continued to return as a lecturer through 1928.

Denver Art Museum (1921-1926) He joined the Denver Art Museum as Director in 1921. While in Denver, he served on the Denver Board of Education as advisor on Art and Architecture, The Denver Municipal Art Commission as President, and as the Art Critic for the Denver Rocky Mountain News. He found time to serve as the art editor for the Webster International Dictionary. He was acquainted with Anne Evans, the daughter of Governor John Evans, sculptor Robert Garrison, and photographer Laura Gilpin. He traveled extensively in the western United States and developed a deep appreciation for the Native American arts known as Santos and Retablos. During this time, he drew the picture "Rain over Evans Ranch". He worked with the commission on the "City Beautiful Movement" started by Denver Mayor Robert Speer, (1904-1912 and 1916-1918). Eggers used his position as President of the Denver Municipal Art Commission to recommend that local sculptor Robert Garrison and others create sculptures to grace the new Denver Civic Center Park and Plaza. He suggested the design for the John H. P. Voorhies Memorial Seal Pond in the Civic Park and Plaza.

Laura Gilpin, master of the platinum printing process, took a series of photographs of Eggers, now owned by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, TX, and currently on display at Metropolitan Museum of Art. As well as lecturing at the Salm Foundation (Colorado College) and the Cooke-Daniels Foundation (Denver) Eggers continued to travel each year to Europe touring museums, purchasing art, giving lectures, and working on his own art. He gave speeches in 1923 at Estes Park, CO, Eggers wrote the foreword for a monograph of the work of Denver architects, William Ellsworth Fisher and Arthur Addison Fisher. He wrote the foreword to poet Vachel Lindsay's Art of the Moving Picture (second ed.) published by MacMillan in 1922. In 1923, he co-authored the book "Teaching of Industrial Arts" with C.A. and O.L. McMurry, published by MacMillan.