William Page

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TitleWilliam Page

Artist William R. O'Donovan (1844 - 1920)

Date1877

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 24 3/4 × 14 × 10 1/2 in.

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, Gift of Friends of William Page, 1879

Object number87-S

Label TextDespite O'Donovan's problems with the older, more conservative members of the Academy during the 1870s, he managed to establish a long-lived mutual friendship with at least one Academician of the previous generation. That was the painter and former president of the Academy, William Page.
O'Donovan admired Page's humility as well as his spiritual beliefs. At the same time, Page likely felt a special kinship for the younger man during a decade which was one of struggle for O'Donovan. This relationship was mentioned by O'Donovan in a letter to his mother in 1875: "Mr. Page, who is still living, has enjoyed amongst the discriminating, throughout the world, for the last thirty years the very highest rank as an artist. But his portraits are so quiet; so much a matter of fact--things that could not be otherwise; that they are for the time passed by for the more brilliant and meretricious works of surface painters. He, of course, cares nothing for the popular applause, or indeed, I think for any kind of applause, other than his own conscience gives him when he feels he has done his best. And these are the kind of men whose works live, for they have been born of love and are part and parcel of their own beings; and of beings made lofty by a clear apprehension of spiritual truth."
O'Donovan modeled this bust of his elder friend in 1877. It was shown at the Academy's annual exhibition the following year and a writer for the Art Journal called it "a singularly interesting performance." O'Donovan may not have been pleased with the casting, however, for in April, 1878, while the bronze on still in the Academy's annual, it was replaced with a plaster version. In fact, O'Donovan had complained to his sister in the previous year of some dissatisfaction with a recent casting of an unnamed bust and he may have been referring to that of Page.
At any rate, several of Page's friends, led by Daniel Huntington, decided that the work should be put into bronze to honor the well-known painter and a subscription was raised for that purpose. The resulting bust was presented to the Academy and unveiled there on February 12, 1879. New York art collector Parke Godwin delivered the presentation speech which was quoted in full in the Art Journal. He congratulated the members of the Academy for "among you, in your hours of study, an image that may remind you that the highest aim of Art is not to do what others have done, and done better than you can do it, but to consult your own impressions and sentiments, and to bring out in the best way you can what is deepest and truest in your own souls."

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