Leopold Seyffert
Encyclopedia
Leopold Gould Seyffert (January 6, 1887-June 13, 1956) was an American artist. Born in California, Missourri and raised as a child in Colorado and then Pittsburgh, his career brought him eventually to New York, via Philadelphia and Chicago. In New York the dealer Macbeth established him as one of the leading portraitists of the 20th century and his over 500 portraits continue to decorate the galleries, rooms and halls of many of America’s museums and institutions.
, Fritz Kreisler
, Andrew Mellon, Elizabeth Arden
, Samuel Gompers
, John Graver Johnson, Charles Lindbergh
and David Sarnoff
were amongst them. In addition to the prestige of such commissions, Seyffert was recipient of a long string of prizes and honors given by the major American art organizations and museums, often for his non-commissioned work. In these paintings (like the paintings of children by his older contemporaries, Robert Henri
and George Bellows
, he painted with a vigorous brushwork and palette that sometimes took into consideration more modern color and other expressive choices.
As a young artist, Seyffert traveled three times to Europe in 1910, 1912, and 1914. Like many young artists he painted from Velasquez in the Prado and was influenced by Hals, Van Gogh and Goya. During these trips he used unique and different people as models and like Van Gogh he wanted ordinary people as subjects. Their unique faces and colorful costumes inspired some of his earliest works. Later his portraits, nudes and flower still lifes kept the lessons learned from these years while adding a more refined and simpler style.
Seyffert’s life and career spanned the first half of the 20th Century. He lived, taught and painted in several historic cities and many of his sitters played a significant role in American history, particularly during the roaring 20's.
region of Germany hailing from Zwikau, near Leipzig, Germany. His grandfather and father, Hermann (at age 4) arrived in New York in 1854. The family traveled to St. Louis and then went west settling with other German immigrants in Missouri.
Leopold was born in the town of California, Moniteau County in 1887, the second youngest of seven, to Hermann and Emma Tweihaus Seyffert. The following year his family moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado where they built a cabin in the foothills of the Cheyenne Mountains on the Cheyenne Creek, near what is today the Broadmoor Hotel
Resort. In 1890 his father died after falling off a roof, leaving all the family having to work or marry early. Leopold’s earliest art exposure came from his briefly studying with an artist named La Salle but also he painted cakes in the local bakery and glass eyes for a taxidermist. His older brother Lou moved to Pittsburgh and after getting a job in the office of Standard Oil geologist John Worthington, he sent for “Lee” and their mother to move east. In 1904, en route they visited the St. Louis World’s Fair where he saw his first painting exhibition. Once in Pittsburgh Leopold began working as an office boy for Worthington and his artistic talent came to the attention of his boss. For two years he studied at the Stevens Art School while living with the Worthington family and later was loaned the money to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
, a debt he paid off with many portraits of their family.
Starting in 1906 until 1913 he studied at the Academy with Thomas Pollock Anschutz, William Merritt Chase
, Cecilia Beaux
and Hugh H. Breckenridge. During these lean years he worked at the local boys club and as a semi-professional baseball player, while his commissions began. Thanks to the recommendations of William Merritt Chase he painted Chase’s lawyers daughter, Libby Deyoung, who later married Sylvan Levin
. Chase also bought a portrait he did of his wife Helen Fleck. He did many copies of works in the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia and these paintings, from 1905-1915 are little known and still hang in many spots in and around Philadelphia.
, Holland. During these years, he met Leopold Stokowski
, who became a close friend, and the resulting portrait (below) won the 1913 Fellowship Prize and the Popular Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy annual. Also that year, he won honorable mention at the Carnegie International Exhibition for a Volendam painting, "Tired Out", and was he was honored with a special section at Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. During the summer, he painted Robert Walton Goelet
’s wife, Elsie Whelen Goelet at Ochre Court
in Newport, Rhode Island
.
In 1914, he and Helen and their first child, Mary Louise, summered in Spain where he and friend Waldo Pierce visited Ignacio Zuloaga
, and painted colorful people in Segovia
, including Daniel Zuloaga. The same year, he was one of three artists in group exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery
, Rochester, where he exhibited some of his early masterworks, most of which are in museums today.
He continued his teaching in 1914-21 at another school, the School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) in Philadelphia, a school that at the time was managed largely by the Sartain family. In 1915 their second child, Richard (Leopold, Jr.), was born. That year he won the Gold Medal at the Philadelphia Art Club, and Silver Medal, Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco. In 1916 he was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design
, also winning the Beck Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy, for a portrait of the violinist Fritz Kreisler
, now in the National Portrait Gallery
. The same year he had solo exhibitions in Boston at St. Botolph Club and Copley Gallery. He summered in Seal Harbor, Maine, (photographed left) with group of Philadelphia artists and musicians where he began series of charcoal portraits of these personalities. He returned to Seal Harbor the following summer where his second son, Peter, was born. In the fall he moved to Chicago and began teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
(a post he continued to hold until 1927). In December he was in a group exhibit at the Detroit Museum of Art with Karl Anderson, Hayley Lever
and Ernest Lawson
.
In 1918 he won the Temple Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy, for Lacquer Screen, now in their collection, and also both the Altman and First Hallgarten Prizes at the National Academy of Design. Lacquer Screen is one of many nudes painted of his model and likely mistress at that time, Bobbi, and paintings of her are now in major museum collections, such as the Los Angeles County Museum
, Illinois State Museum
, High Museum of Art
and the New Orleans Museum of Art
. That year he had his second group exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. In 1921 he won the Thomas R. Proctor Prize
for portraiture, from the National Academy of Design. Also, his association with the Art Institute of Chicago expanded with his portraits of notable citizens of Chicago included in a circuit show which they organized and sent traveling. It included financiers, artists, musicians and writers living in Chicago at that time, such as Potter Palmer
Jr., Frederick Stock
, Albin Polasek, and Marshall Field
, Jr. In 1922 he had a solo exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts
. In 1923 he was a founding artist member of the Grand Central Art Galleries
in New York and he was chosen in its initial lottery offering with such artists as John Singer Sargent
. Soon after he began to maintain a studio in New York and in 1925 Grand Central began representing him in his portrait art.
It should be noted that Seyffert’s sense of humor and congenial manner came from his roots as an immigrant child. He was determined and thoroughly enjoyed the company of his sitters. Even if they were very rich, he was never intimidated. In 1923 he won the Palmer Gold Medal, Art Institute of Chicago and later that year summered in Switzerland where his boys were attending boarding school. In 1924 he won the Logan Gold Medal and Hearst Prize, both at the Art Institute of Chicago
and he had a solo exhibition at the Carnegie Institute
, Pittsburgh. That summer he visited with his family the home of Hans & Alice Kindler in Senlis
, France, where they were all photographed by Man Ray
.
He won the Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1925 and that same year had solo exhibitions at Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio and the Grand Central Art Galleries
, New York. He was elected to full membership to the National Academy of Design and he visited his family in Paris, where he painted My Family, Brooklyn Museum
. He served on the annual art jury at the National Academy for the following ten years.
By this point in his career he had averaged 25 paintings a year and many of his works were of those who had significant roles in American history. He was not a society portraitist though some of those who valued themselves were painted by him. More often however it was a group or company that commissioned a portrait for posterity and he painted some household names today like Heinz, Kraft, Taft, and Mellon. In 1926 he won the Stotesbury Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy, and Gold Medal, Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition
. He had a solo exhibition at Carson Pirie Scott
in Chicago previously managed by Erwin S. Barrie
and an article by Frederick Lowes appeared in All-Arts Magazine. In 1928 he moved to New York, where he acquired a studio at the Des Artistes, 1 W. 67th Street and during this period he developed a long time professional relationship with the American illustrators of the time, James Montgomery Flagg
and Howard Chandler Christie. His 1929 exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of the Arts and the Hackett Galleries, New York, brought him further commissions and he won the Lippincott Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy with an article by George W. Eggers in American Magazine of Art appearing the same year. In 1930 he and his wife Helen divorced and he married Grace J.Vernon ("Bobbi") who had been his model for over 15 years. He won the Popular Prize, Carnegie International Exhibition and had a solo exhibition of charcoal portraits at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
, Washington, D.C.
In 1931 he won the Isidor Medal at National Academy of Design and that summer he travelled to Hendaye
, France, spending time with his family, Maurice Speiser (a longtime friend from Philadelphia) and Ernest Hemingway
(right). In 1932 he had a solo exhibition at J.J. Gillespie & Company, Pittsburgh, and Robert C. Vose Galleries, Boston. His show in Boston led to him painting several Governors of Massachusetts and the biggest benefactor of the Boston Public Library, Mr. Deferrari. At the library’s entrance an entire room is devoted to this painting. Continuing his interest in painting unique and different people, in 1934 he traveled to Guatemala on a commission from the Grace Lines to paint the people of Antigua and Chichicastenango. The following year he had a solo exhibition at Vose Galleries, Boston. He bought a weekend house near Westport, Connecticut in 1936 and renovated the barn into a studio.
and also during his last years a new model and companion, Ramona, lived with and cared for him until his death from esophageal cancer in Bound Brook, New Jersey, in 1956.
Overview
Included in the many people that Seyffert painted were America's cultural, business and political elite and by the early 1940s Henry Clay FrickHenry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...
, Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
, Andrew Mellon, Elizabeth Arden
Elizabeth Arden
Florence Nightingale Graham , who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden, was a Canadian-American businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world.-Biography:Arden was born in 1884 at Woodbridge, Ontario,...
, Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
, John Graver Johnson, Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
and David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
were amongst them. In addition to the prestige of such commissions, Seyffert was recipient of a long string of prizes and honors given by the major American art organizations and museums, often for his non-commissioned work. In these paintings (like the paintings of children by his older contemporaries, Robert Henri
Robert Henri
Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...
and George Bellows
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
, he painted with a vigorous brushwork and palette that sometimes took into consideration more modern color and other expressive choices.
As a young artist, Seyffert traveled three times to Europe in 1910, 1912, and 1914. Like many young artists he painted from Velasquez in the Prado and was influenced by Hals, Van Gogh and Goya. During these trips he used unique and different people as models and like Van Gogh he wanted ordinary people as subjects. Their unique faces and colorful costumes inspired some of his earliest works. Later his portraits, nudes and flower still lifes kept the lessons learned from these years while adding a more refined and simpler style.
Seyffert’s life and career spanned the first half of the 20th Century. He lived, taught and painted in several historic cities and many of his sitters played a significant role in American history, particularly during the roaring 20's.
Growing up and Studies
Leopold Seyffert’s ancestors' origins were in the SaxonySaxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
region of Germany hailing from Zwikau, near Leipzig, Germany. His grandfather and father, Hermann (at age 4) arrived in New York in 1854. The family traveled to St. Louis and then went west settling with other German immigrants in Missouri.
Leopold was born in the town of California, Moniteau County in 1887, the second youngest of seven, to Hermann and Emma Tweihaus Seyffert. The following year his family moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado where they built a cabin in the foothills of the Cheyenne Mountains on the Cheyenne Creek, near what is today the Broadmoor Hotel
Broadmoor Hotel
The Broadmoor is a 5-star/5-diamond luxury hotel and resort, located in southwestern Colorado Springs, Colorado. Built in the early 20th century as the "Grand Dame of the Rockies", it was one of the finest resort destinations along the Rocky Mountains during the age of railroads. It continues to be...
Resort. In 1890 his father died after falling off a roof, leaving all the family having to work or marry early. Leopold’s earliest art exposure came from his briefly studying with an artist named La Salle but also he painted cakes in the local bakery and glass eyes for a taxidermist. His older brother Lou moved to Pittsburgh and after getting a job in the office of Standard Oil geologist John Worthington, he sent for “Lee” and their mother to move east. In 1904, en route they visited the St. Louis World’s Fair where he saw his first painting exhibition. Once in Pittsburgh Leopold began working as an office boy for Worthington and his artistic talent came to the attention of his boss. For two years he studied at the Stevens Art School while living with the Worthington family and later was loaned the money to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...
, a debt he paid off with many portraits of their family.
Starting in 1906 until 1913 he studied at the Academy with Thomas Pollock Anschutz, William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase was an American painter known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons The New School for Design.- Early life and training :He was born in Williamsburg , Indiana, to the family...
, Cecilia Beaux
Cecilia Beaux
Cecilia Beaux was an American society portraitist, in the manner of John Singer Sargent. She was a near contemporary of better-known American artist Mary Cassatt and also received her training in Philadelphia and France...
and Hugh H. Breckenridge. During these lean years he worked at the local boys club and as a semi-professional baseball player, while his commissions began. Thanks to the recommendations of William Merritt Chase he painted Chase’s lawyers daughter, Libby Deyoung, who later married Sylvan Levin
Sylvan Levin
Sylvan Levin was an American concert pianist and conductor. He notably served as the assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City Symphony under Leopold Stokowski for many years...
. Chase also bought a portrait he did of his wife Helen Fleck. He did many copies of works in the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia and these paintings, from 1905-1915 are little known and still hang in many spots in and around Philadelphia.
Teaching and Career
From 1909 to 1913, he taught at Graphic Sketch Club, Philadelphia, which now is the Samuel S. Fleisher Memorial. In 1910, he won the Cresson Traveling Scholarship, and went to Europe with his fiancée, the painter Helen Fleck, and her mother. In 1911 they married and in 1912, he again won the Cresson Scholarship, allowing them to travel and work in VolendamVolendam
Volendam is a town in North Holland in the Netherlands, in the municipality of Edam-Volendam. The town has about 22,000 inhabitants .- History :...
, Holland. During these years, he met Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
, who became a close friend, and the resulting portrait (below) won the 1913 Fellowship Prize and the Popular Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy annual. Also that year, he won honorable mention at the Carnegie International Exhibition for a Volendam painting, "Tired Out", and was he was honored with a special section at Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. During the summer, he painted Robert Walton Goelet
Robert Walton Goelet
Robert Walton Goelet was a financier and real estate developer in New York City, who, at the time of his death, was one of the largest property owners in the city...
’s wife, Elsie Whelen Goelet at Ochre Court
Ochre Court
Ochre Court is a large châteauesque mansion in Newport, Rhode Island.Commissioned by Ogden Goelet, it was built in 1892 and is one of the many famed mansions in Newport that served as summer residences for New York City's wealthy socialite class....
in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
.
In 1914, he and Helen and their first child, Mary Louise, summered in Spain where he and friend Waldo Pierce visited Ignacio Zuloaga
Ignacio Zuloaga
Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta was a Basque Spanish painter, born in Eibar, near the monastery of Loyola. He was the son of metalworker and damascener Plácido Zuloaga and grandson of the organizer and director of the royal armoury in Madrid.-Biography:In his youth, he drew and worked in his father's...
, and painted colorful people in Segovia
Segovia
Segovia is a city in Spain, the capital of Segovia Province in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is situated north of Madrid, 30 minutes by high speed train. The municipality counts some 55,500 inhabitants.-Etymology:...
, including Daniel Zuloaga. The same year, he was one of three artists in group exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery
Memorial Art Gallery
The Memorial Art Gallery is the civic art museum of Rochester, New York. Founded in 1913, it is part of the University of Rochester and occupies the southern half of the University's former Prince Street campus...
, Rochester, where he exhibited some of his early masterworks, most of which are in museums today.
He continued his teaching in 1914-21 at another school, the School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) in Philadelphia, a school that at the time was managed largely by the Sartain family. In 1915 their second child, Richard (Leopold, Jr.), was born. That year he won the Gold Medal at the Philadelphia Art Club, and Silver Medal, Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco. In 1916 he was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, also winning the Beck Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy, for a portrait of the violinist Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
, now in the National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
. The same year he had solo exhibitions in Boston at St. Botolph Club and Copley Gallery. He summered in Seal Harbor, Maine, (photographed left) with group of Philadelphia artists and musicians where he began series of charcoal portraits of these personalities. He returned to Seal Harbor the following summer where his second son, Peter, was born. In the fall he moved to Chicago and began teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
(a post he continued to hold until 1927). In December he was in a group exhibit at the Detroit Museum of Art with Karl Anderson, Hayley Lever
Hayley Lever
Hayley Lever was an Australian-American painter, etcher, lecturer and art teacher.-Life and work:Richard Hayley Lever was born in Australia on 28 September 1876...
and Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leaders Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens...
.
In 1918 he won the Temple Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy, for Lacquer Screen, now in their collection, and also both the Altman and First Hallgarten Prizes at the National Academy of Design. Lacquer Screen is one of many nudes painted of his model and likely mistress at that time, Bobbi, and paintings of her are now in major museum collections, such as the Los Angeles County Museum
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
, Illinois State Museum
Illinois State Museum
The Illinois State Museum is the official museum of the natural history of the U.S. state of Illinois. The headquarters museum is located on Spring and Edwards Streets, one block southwest of the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield, the state capital...
, High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art , located in Atlanta, is the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States and one of the most-visited art museums in the world. Located on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district, the High is a division of the Woodruff Arts Center.-History:The Museum was...
and the New Orleans Museum of Art
New Orleans Museum of Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the "Canal Street - City Park" streetcar line...
. That year he had his second group exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. In 1921 he won the Thomas R. Proctor Prize
Thomas R. Proctor Prize
The Thomas R. Proctor Prize is a set of awards given annually by the National Academy of Design in the United States. Protor prizes are awarded annually for sculpture and portraiture....
for portraiture, from the National Academy of Design. Also, his association with the Art Institute of Chicago expanded with his portraits of notable citizens of Chicago included in a circuit show which they organized and sent traveling. It included financiers, artists, musicians and writers living in Chicago at that time, such as Potter Palmer
Potter Palmer
Potter Palmer was an American businessman who was responsible for much of the development of State Street in Chicago.-Retailing career:...
Jr., Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...
, Albin Polasek, and Marshall Field
Marshall Field
Marshall Field was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.-Life and career:...
, Jr. In 1922 he had a solo exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
. In 1923 he was a founding artist member of the Grand Central Art Galleries
Grand Central Art Galleries
The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
in New York and he was chosen in its initial lottery offering with such artists as John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
. Soon after he began to maintain a studio in New York and in 1925 Grand Central began representing him in his portrait art.
It should be noted that Seyffert’s sense of humor and congenial manner came from his roots as an immigrant child. He was determined and thoroughly enjoyed the company of his sitters. Even if they were very rich, he was never intimidated. In 1923 he won the Palmer Gold Medal, Art Institute of Chicago and later that year summered in Switzerland where his boys were attending boarding school. In 1924 he won the Logan Gold Medal and Hearst Prize, both at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
and he had a solo exhibition at the Carnegie Institute
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh are four museums that are operated by the Carnegie Institute headquartered in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
, Pittsburgh. That summer he visited with his family the home of Hans & Alice Kindler in Senlis
Senlis, Oise
Senlis is a French commune located in the Oise department near Paris. It has a long and rich heritage, having traversed centuries of history. This medieval town has welcomed some of the most renowned figures in French history, including Hugh Capet, Louis IX, the Marshall of France, Anne of Kiev and...
, France, where they were all photographed by Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
.
He won the Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1925 and that same year had solo exhibitions at Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio and the Grand Central Art Galleries
Grand Central Art Galleries
The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
, New York. He was elected to full membership to the National Academy of Design and he visited his family in Paris, where he painted My Family, Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
. He served on the annual art jury at the National Academy for the following ten years.
By this point in his career he had averaged 25 paintings a year and many of his works were of those who had significant roles in American history. He was not a society portraitist though some of those who valued themselves were painted by him. More often however it was a group or company that commissioned a portrait for posterity and he painted some household names today like Heinz, Kraft, Taft, and Mellon. In 1926 he won the Stotesbury Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy, and Gold Medal, Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition
Sesquicentennial Exposition
The Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition of 1926 was a world's fair hosted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the 50th anniversary of the 1876 Centennial Exposition-History:The honor of hosting...
. He had a solo exhibition at Carson Pirie Scott
Carson Pirie Scott
Carson Pirie Scott & Co., known informally as Carson's, is an upscale chain of department stores that have been in business for over 150 years. Their product price points are targeted to the moderate-to-upscale shopper...
in Chicago previously managed by Erwin S. Barrie
Erwin S. Barrie
Erwin S. Barrie was an American businessman in the arts. He was most closely associated with New York City's Grand Central Art Galleries, which he managed from its founding in 1922 until he retired in 1975. Barrie, whose middle name was Seaver, was born in Canton, Ohio. He attended Cornell...
and an article by Frederick Lowes appeared in All-Arts Magazine. In 1928 he moved to New York, where he acquired a studio at the Des Artistes, 1 W. 67th Street and during this period he developed a long time professional relationship with the American illustrators of the time, James Montgomery Flagg
James Montgomery Flagg
James Montgomery Flagg was an American artist and illustrator. He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning, but is best remembered for his political posters....
and Howard Chandler Christie. His 1929 exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of the Arts and the Hackett Galleries, New York, brought him further commissions and he won the Lippincott Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy with an article by George W. Eggers in American Magazine of Art appearing the same year. In 1930 he and his wife Helen divorced and he married Grace J.Vernon ("Bobbi") who had been his model for over 15 years. He won the Popular Prize, Carnegie International Exhibition and had a solo exhibition of charcoal portraits at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
, Washington, D.C.
In 1931 he won the Isidor Medal at National Academy of Design and that summer he travelled to Hendaye
Hendaye
Hendaye is the most south-westerly town and commune in France, lying in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and located in the traditional province Lapurdi of the French Basque Country...
, France, spending time with his family, Maurice Speiser (a longtime friend from Philadelphia) and Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
(right). In 1932 he had a solo exhibition at J.J. Gillespie & Company, Pittsburgh, and Robert C. Vose Galleries, Boston. His show in Boston led to him painting several Governors of Massachusetts and the biggest benefactor of the Boston Public Library, Mr. Deferrari. At the library’s entrance an entire room is devoted to this painting. Continuing his interest in painting unique and different people, in 1934 he traveled to Guatemala on a commission from the Grace Lines to paint the people of Antigua and Chichicastenango. The following year he had a solo exhibition at Vose Galleries, Boston. He bought a weekend house near Westport, Connecticut in 1936 and renovated the barn into a studio.
Last Years
He became an avid gardener and began painting flower still lifes. For the following 10 years he spent time between his country home in Connecticut and New York. In 1946 he was honored with the Gold Medal of Honor at the Allied Artists Exhibition, New York. At this point in his life his health began to deteriorate from his smoking and drinking, though his commissions continued. In 1953 while he was painting two of the National Gallery’s (Washington, DC) founders, Rush and Samuel Kress, his wife Bobbi died. Both his boys, Peter and Richard (formerly Leopold, Jr.), were living in Peru. He painted his last portrait of Frank Porter GrahamFrank Porter Graham
Frank Porter Graham was a president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and, for a brief period, United States Senator.-Early life:...
and also during his last years a new model and companion, Ramona, lived with and cared for him until his death from esophageal cancer in Bound Brook, New Jersey, in 1956.
External links
- http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=22156 Self Portrait at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art
- http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/ggfound/ggfound-42119.0.html Samuel and Rush Kress, National Gallery Founders
- http://www.dalnet.lib.mi.us/dia/collections/dma_bulletins/12-6.pdf Self Portrait purchased by Detroit Institute 1918
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,727357,00.html TIME MAGAZINE Seyffert included in first thirty chosen lots at Grand Central Art GalleriesGrand Central Art GalleriesThe Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
founding