TitleJohn Jay Cunningham
Artist
Albert Herter
(1871 - 1950)
Daten.d.
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 30 1/8 × 25 in.
Framed: 36 7/8 × 31 1/2 × 1 7/8 in.
SignedSigned upper left: "[flower stencil] Albert Herter"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, 1943?
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number566-P
Label TextSurprised as Herter was to learn of his election to Academician, he was assiduous in observing the rules of qualification, leading to a lengthy correspondence with the Academy's secretary, Georg Lober, in 1943 and 1944. He initially believed a portrait of himself was required, recalling that some years earlier he had done one for "a young landscape painter at his request, [who had] just been made an associate and told me this was necessary if he should qualify as Academician." (He doubtless was remembering his portrait of Douglas Parshall.) As Herter had become an Associate by virtue of the Academy's merger with the Society of American Artists and thus had not been required to submit a portrait of himself, his confusion on this point is understandable.When he understood that a representative example of his work was expected, another difficulty presented itself. "Of recent years," Herter wrote Lober, "I have painted no so called 'pictures' (only small flower studies) [and] only portraits that are not available and large murals." Nonetheless, he sent a diploma presentation work-apparently without any formal identification-that the Council accepted at its first meeting in the autumn of 1944; the acknowledgment of acceptance mailed to Herter described it as a portrait "entitled 'Clarence Whiteman.'"
Herter was thrown into confusion. He replied that he had "sent in last June a portrait of John Cunningham of the prescribed size of 25 x 30" and although he had years earlier done a portrait of Whiteman, "as I remember it was much larger and a mate to one of his wife." He could not understand how the Whiteman likeness had gotten to the Academy. Lober answered that the identity of the sitter had been assumed from a penciled notation on the back of the frame. In his response, Herter, though continuing to express perplexity as to which and how many of his paintings were at the Academy, mentioned that John Cunningham was "late of Knoedler's."
There can be no question that only one portrait was delivered to the Academy, and that it came directly from Herter and was an image of John Cunningham. Frames are interchangeable and may carry markings irrelevant to the paintings they surround. Perhaps Herter had done a smaller study of Whiteman and exchanged its original frame for a work he retained. Since he had in his possession the portrait he presented to the Academy, it may be assumed it was not done as a commission. Presumably Cunningham was a personal acquaintance, and an associate of the old and distinguished Knoedler art-dealing firm. No information about this sitter has been located.
