American Art-Union
Encyclopedia
The American Art-Union was a subscription-based organization founded in 1840, whose goal was to enlighten and educate an American public to a national art, while providing a support system for the viewing and sales of art “executed by (A)rtists in the United States or by American (A)rtists abroad." The idea of an art union had been a popular one since the early 19th century in Europe. They first appeared in Switzerland, gaining great popularity in both Germany and the United Kingdom
in the 1830s. It was the UK's version — Art-Union of London (AUL) — that was used as a model for the American Art-Union (AAU).
, the members also received a ticket in a lottery to win an original piece of art from within the collection.
was keen to pursue scientific, artistic and leisure activities which they had been unable to pursue or afford in the past. A new generation of businessmen were desirous of surrounding themselves with all the appearances and habits of their more wealthy counterparts.
The numbers of newspapers and periodicals were growing dramatically and the desire for images with print was preferred. The global popularity of science and art, as well as an interest in “exotic people and places” could be accessed through lectures, subscriptions to special interest groups
and such diverse venues as P.T. Barnum's, Brady's Daguerrean Miniature Gallery and Peale's Gallery of Fine Arts. The business of advertising was in its infancy and the companies could provide consumers with commodities at their own postal box within shrinking delivery schedules due in large to a growing rail system
.
The U.S. Congress
was promoting westward advancement, communication and Indian resettlement. Further, emigrants from the plains were pushing the agenda of Manifest Destiny. They would become some of the first to help settle what was perceived as America's Manifest Destiny
.
and its themes. The second, was to provide a venue for the exhibition and sale of art from contemporary and emerging American artists within its “Perpetual Free Gallery” (free to members, nominal charge to non-members).
The AA-U's management were among the wealthiest,(six of the ten most wealthy in the city), conservative and well connected men in New York City. They were mostly first, (at most second) generation wealth and had close ties in business, political and social endeavors. There were only five presidents in the thirteen years and of the 211 possible choices of individuals for office, the duties were performed by eighty-two. The following men were elected:
The Committee of Management in 1839
From a patriarchal position, the Committee deemed itself best able to choose both the artists, select the art work that would be chosen as part of the AA-U's permanent collection and choose the pieces or pieces to be engraved and published. Further, as “merchant amateurs” they would be the best suited to manage and the Art-Union, “just like a good merchant”. Their goal, pointedly was “to establish a National School of Art,” one which was originally American—illustrative of American scenery and American manners”.
The Artists (in part):
George Caleb Bingham
Thomas Cole
Jasper Francis Cropsey
Francis D’Avignon
Thomas Doney
Asher Brown Durand
Daniel Huntington
John Frederick Kensett
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze
William Sidney Mount
James Smillie
Although there would be other art-unions in the US, “none would achieve the popularity or influence of the American Art-Union. The art-union concept fell out of favor however, it is curious, the number of reasons that have been attributed to the AAU's demise. The lottery and other managerial weaknesses, competition and pride have all been blamed.
The concept of “amateur merchant” as the appropriate guardian of the American Art-Union is ironic. Certainly, they were cavalier in their tone and bearing, which would have inspired the ire of some. Competition, is seems, did create some doubt within the organization.
The only art union with which the AAU did not maintain friendly relations was the International Art-Union. One artist, Thomas Whitley, whose work was not accepted, expressed his complaints to the New York Herald
. James Gordan Bennett, editor, printed his complaints and those of others. He had his own complaints about the new-comer newspaper, The New York Times
, with whom the AAU was working closely. A discounted rate of a penny a copy, as opposed to two-penny, didn’t make the other newspapers happy either.
A protracted public discourse over the course of two years along with unfair business practices
and the New York Assembly's investigation into gaming practices piled on the negative discourse regarding the American Art-Union. Their reputation suffered as did their egos.
It has been suggested that hubris was the AAU's downfall. This may well be bourne out as all of the art in their collection was sold at the final auction on December 15–17, 1852. Although the American Art-Union was the brunt of ‘high brow’ art and artists of the day, it was their choices that informed a keen new audience of art aficionados.
As the country endeavored to define whom it was at mid-century, so did the American Art-Union codify and define what the Art of America was to be—it was proud, defiant, confident and quintessentially American. These character qualities were required in the landscapes, the genre painting
and the historical imagery if they were to be chosen by the AAU. Artists, like Leutze, would paint “Westward the Coarse of Empire Takes its Way” to emphasize the vastness of possibilities in the American future and paint “Washington Crossing the Delaware”(to inspire the reformers in Europe). George Caleb Bingham would reflect the tension of the unknown and the excitement of the West in, “The Concealed Enemy”(1845) as well as the independent and optimistic spirit in his “The Jolly Flatboatmen”(1846). And, Thomas Cole's “Arcadia” and “Youth” would lend a comforting, moralizing tone to the landscapes that inspired two generations of artists.
History would support the American Art-Union's choices. Many of the paintings are hanging in the Halls of Congress, within the White House
, in the Metropolitan and the Boston Museum of Art. In the New York Times article, "Memorial of the Committee of Management", the President of the American Art-Union reported that “the Memorialists felt deeply injured...the extensive circulation of engraved copies... of American genius, thus affording the surest means for educating the public taste...thus keeping alive and extending a knowledge of the progress and condition of the arts". This was their goal and would be their legacy.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in the 1830s. It was the UK's version — Art-Union of London (AUL) — that was used as a model for the American Art-Union (AAU).
Description
For five dollars a year, the members of the AAU would receive a copy of the minutes from the annual meeting, free admission to the Gallery, at least one original engraving published by the Union from an original piece of art by a contemporary American artist, and in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the members also received a ticket in a lottery to win an original piece of art from within the collection.
Impact
Within its short thirteen years, the American Art-Union would become the largest in America. It made a significant impact on the art literacy of Americans, developed a taste for an American kind of art which was largely nationalistic, and supported the custom of artists and museums. From 1839 until 1851, New York City's population would not hit the 400,000 point, but it is estimated that over three million guests attended the Gallery. The organization grew exponentially from 814 subscriptions, in 1840, with art valued at $4,145 to 18,960 subscriptions, values in excess of $100,000.Possible social causes
The timing for the American Art-Union could not have been better. The American public, providers and politics would conspire for a meteoric rise in the popularity of the AAU. The burgeoning interests of a growing, literate, middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
was keen to pursue scientific, artistic and leisure activities which they had been unable to pursue or afford in the past. A new generation of businessmen were desirous of surrounding themselves with all the appearances and habits of their more wealthy counterparts.
The numbers of newspapers and periodicals were growing dramatically and the desire for images with print was preferred. The global popularity of science and art, as well as an interest in “exotic people and places” could be accessed through lectures, subscriptions to special interest groups
Special Interest Group
A Special Interest Group is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences...
and such diverse venues as P.T. Barnum's, Brady's Daguerrean Miniature Gallery and Peale's Gallery of Fine Arts. The business of advertising was in its infancy and the companies could provide consumers with commodities at their own postal box within shrinking delivery schedules due in large to a growing rail system
Rail tracks
The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...
.
The U.S. Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
was promoting westward advancement, communication and Indian resettlement. Further, emigrants from the plains were pushing the agenda of Manifest Destiny. They would become some of the first to help settle what was perceived as America's Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
.
Apollo Gallery
Businessman James Herring opened the Apollo Gallery in New York City in 1838, to provide a place for American artist's to exhibit and sell their art. The Apollo Gallery was the first gallery open at night; from nine a.m. and “every fair evening until nine o’clock” with the use of gas lamps. It was at this time that he received an analysis of the second year experiment from “The Edinburgh Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Scotland”. Thus inspired, he encouraged a group of other prominent New York City businessmen to develop the concept using the Apollo Gallery as their venue for America's first art union. Although the concept was very popular, it was not sufficient to remunerate Herring. However, he would stay active with the group, becoming the first Corresponding Secretary on the Committee of Management and the only artist.Creation
A new venue and a new name—the American Art-Union—set itself to a double task within its Charter, dated May 7, 1840. The first was a moral task of developing the taste of the middling classes towards (what was in the AAU's estimation) the best kind of American artVisual arts of the United States
American art encompasses the history of painting and visual art in the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement,...
and its themes. The second, was to provide a venue for the exhibition and sale of art from contemporary and emerging American artists within its “Perpetual Free Gallery” (free to members, nominal charge to non-members).
The AA-U's management were among the wealthiest,(six of the ten most wealthy in the city), conservative and well connected men in New York City. They were mostly first, (at most second) generation wealth and had close ties in business, political and social endeavors. There were only five presidents in the thirteen years and of the 211 possible choices of individuals for office, the duties were performed by eighty-two. The following men were elected:
The Committee of Management in 1839
- John W. Francis, M.D., President
- Philip HonePhilip HonePhilip Hone was Mayor of New York from 1826 to 1827. He was most notable for a detailed diary he kept from 1828 until the time of his death in 1851. His recorded diary is said to be the most extensive and detailed of his time in 19th century America.Son of a German immigrant carpenter, Hone became...
, (banker, politician, etc.) - J. Watson Webb (newspaper editorEditingEditing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
) - John P. Ridner (mahogany merchant)
- John L. Morton (merchant?)
- Augustus Greele (paper merchant)
- James W. GerardJames W. GerardJames Watson Gerard was a U.S. lawyer and diplomat.-Biography:Gerard was born in Geneseo, N. Y. He graduated from Columbia in 1890 and from New York Law School. He was chairman of the Democratic campaign committee of New York County for four years, and served as major of the National Guard of the...
(lawyer, philannthropist) - William L. Morris (lawyer)
- William Kemble (merchant)
- T. N. Campbell (broker)
- Aaron R. Thompson (merchant)
- George Bruce (typefounder)
- Duncan C. Pell (auctioneer)
- Eleazar Parmly (dentist)
- F. W. Edmonds (Cashier of the L. M. Bank), Treasurer
- Benjamin Nathan (broker), Recording Secretary
- James Herring (gallery proprietor), Corresponding Secretary
From a patriarchal position, the Committee deemed itself best able to choose both the artists, select the art work that would be chosen as part of the AA-U's permanent collection and choose the pieces or pieces to be engraved and published. Further, as “merchant amateurs” they would be the best suited to manage and the Art-Union, “just like a good merchant”. Their goal, pointedly was “to establish a National School of Art,” one which was originally American—illustrative of American scenery and American manners”.
The Artists (in part):
George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham was an American artist whose paintings of American life in the frontier lands along the Missouri River exemplify the Luminist style. Left to languish in obscurity, Bingham's work was rediscovered in the 1930s...
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
Jasper Francis Cropsey
Jasper Francis Cropsey
Jasper Francis Cropsey was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School.-Biography:Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New York, the oldest of eight children. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring periods of poor health....
Francis D’Avignon
Thomas Doney
Asher Brown Durand
Asher Brown Durand
Asher Brown Durand was an American painter of the Hudson River School.-Early life:Durand was born in and eventually died in Maplewood, New Jersey , the eighth of eleven children; his father was a watchmaker and a silversmith.Durand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 to 1817, later entering...
Daniel Huntington
Daniel Huntington
Daniel Huntington , American artist, was born in New York City, New York, the son of Benjamin Huntington, Jr. and Faith Trumbull Huntington; his paternal grandfather was Benjamin Huntington, delegate at the Second Continental Congress and First U.S. Representative from Connecticut...
John Frederick Kensett
John Frederick Kensett
John Frederick Kensett was an American artist and engraver. He attended school at Cheshire Academy, and studied engraving with his immigrant father, Thomas Kensett, and later with his uncle, Alfred Dagget...
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze
Emanuel Leutze
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze was a German American history painter best known for his painting Washington Crossing the Delaware.-Philadelphia:...
William Sidney Mount
William Sidney Mount
William Sidney Mount was an American genre painter and contemporary of the Hudson River School.-Biography:...
James Smillie
James Smillie
James Smillie is a Scottish-born actor, known for his role in both British and Australian stage and television productions. Smillie emigrated from the Glasgow tenements, carving out a career in Australia before returning to the United Kingdom to appear in stage roles in London's West End. On...
Although there would be other art-unions in the US, “none would achieve the popularity or influence of the American Art-Union. The art-union concept fell out of favor however, it is curious, the number of reasons that have been attributed to the AAU's demise. The lottery and other managerial weaknesses, competition and pride have all been blamed.
Downfall
The lottery, although a creative and extremely popular incentive, was problematic by its nature, and was part of the AA-U's demise. Members would not buy their subscriptions until the collection had art ‘worth winning,’ but the AA-U could not purchase the art without the funds from the subscriptions. It led to what was described, in the final report from the Independent Committee of Investigation as, "accounts were kept and managed in a loose and unsatisfactory manner". Contributing to this conclusion, was a five per cent building fund, that was considered to have impaired the liquidity of the AAU. However, the personal fortunes of the individuals involved in the organization would belie that suggestion. The lack of consistency in the quality of the engravings and the prints sent to the subscribers was an issue as was the delinquent mailing of the prints, as late as twelve months.The concept of “amateur merchant” as the appropriate guardian of the American Art-Union is ironic. Certainly, they were cavalier in their tone and bearing, which would have inspired the ire of some. Competition, is seems, did create some doubt within the organization.
The only art union with which the AAU did not maintain friendly relations was the International Art-Union. One artist, Thomas Whitley, whose work was not accepted, expressed his complaints to the New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
. James Gordan Bennett, editor, printed his complaints and those of others. He had his own complaints about the new-comer newspaper, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, with whom the AAU was working closely. A discounted rate of a penny a copy, as opposed to two-penny, didn’t make the other newspapers happy either.
A protracted public discourse over the course of two years along with unfair business practices
Unfair business practices
Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers and are prohibited by law in many countries. For instance, in the European Union, each member state must regulate unfair business practices in...
and the New York Assembly's investigation into gaming practices piled on the negative discourse regarding the American Art-Union. Their reputation suffered as did their egos.
It has been suggested that hubris was the AAU's downfall. This may well be bourne out as all of the art in their collection was sold at the final auction on December 15–17, 1852. Although the American Art-Union was the brunt of ‘high brow’ art and artists of the day, it was their choices that informed a keen new audience of art aficionados.
As the country endeavored to define whom it was at mid-century, so did the American Art-Union codify and define what the Art of America was to be—it was proud, defiant, confident and quintessentially American. These character qualities were required in the landscapes, the genre painting
Genre painting
Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...
and the historical imagery if they were to be chosen by the AAU. Artists, like Leutze, would paint “Westward the Coarse of Empire Takes its Way” to emphasize the vastness of possibilities in the American future and paint “Washington Crossing the Delaware”(to inspire the reformers in Europe). George Caleb Bingham would reflect the tension of the unknown and the excitement of the West in, “The Concealed Enemy”(1845) as well as the independent and optimistic spirit in his “The Jolly Flatboatmen”(1846). And, Thomas Cole's “Arcadia” and “Youth” would lend a comforting, moralizing tone to the landscapes that inspired two generations of artists.
History would support the American Art-Union's choices. Many of the paintings are hanging in the Halls of Congress, within the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, in the Metropolitan and the Boston Museum of Art. In the New York Times article, "Memorial of the Committee of Management", the President of the American Art-Union reported that “the Memorialists felt deeply injured...the extensive circulation of engraved copies... of American genius, thus affording the surest means for educating the public taste...thus keeping alive and extending a knowledge of the progress and condition of the arts". This was their goal and would be their legacy.
External links
- American Art-Union Records, 1838-1860, New-York Historical SocietyNew-York Historical SocietyThe New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library located in New York City at the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. Founded in 1804 as New York's first museum, the New-York Historical Society presents exhibitions, public programs and research that...