TitleGeorge Inness
Artist
Jonathan Scott Hartley
(American, 1845 - 1912)
Date1891
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 14 1/2 × 10 3/4 × 6 1/2 in.
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, Gift of the artist, 1891
Object number46-S
Label TextOn April 23, 1879, Hartley married Rosa Bonheur Inness, daughter of the famous American painter George Inness, in a double ceremony, the other happy couple being George Inness, Jr., and Julia Smith. Marital bliss was cut short, however, when Rosa died the following year. That his association with the Inness family remained strong is evidenced by his marriage in 1888 to Rosa's sister Helen. With others of the Inness family, they made their home in Montclair, New Jersey.Hartley showed a portrait of the elder George Inness at the Academy as early as 1877, and it seems safe to assume that it was at least the prototype of the present image that he presented to the Academy. Inness had returned to the United States in 1875 following a five-year stay in Europe, and he probably met Hartley shortly thereafter. Hartley was to do several versions of Inness's bust as well as at least one other portrait, a medallion relief, an example of which is in the Academy collection.
Hartley presented the Inness bust to the Academy late in 1891. He had only shortly before submitted his diploma work, a plaster bust of Thomas Moran (now unlocated), to the Academy, and the addition of the Inness bust might be taken as an indication of his high regard for the organization. The inscription on front of the bust may refer to the year of casting, not to the year of original conception. If that is true, however, it seems likely that the sculptor made some adjustments or changes to the figure-aging the features, for example-before the Bonnard foundry cast this version. But it is also possible, considering Hartley's close family ties to Inness, that new sittings with his father-in-law had taken place. In 1892 a plaster version of this bust was shown at the Society of American Artists' fourteenth annual exhibition, and it was also included in the third annual exhibition of the National Sculpture Society in 1898.
When Inness died in 1894, the Academy offered its council room to the artist's family for visitation and for the funeral. Hartley's bust of his father-in-law was placed at the foot of the coffin. At the end of the year, the bust, decorated with palette, brushes, and smilax for the occasion, was shown at the American Fine Arts Society's memorial exhibition of Inness's paintings in New York.
Rosa Inness Hartley, the artist's daughter and subject's granddaughter, owned a version of the bust as late as 1925, when she lent it to an exhibition at the Macbeth Galleries, New York. A version owned by the New York collector William T. Evans was shown in the Academy's winter exhibition of 1909. It appears that, by the turn of the century, Hartley's portrait of Inness had become the standard sculptural image of the landscape painter.
Other casts of the Academy's version are in the collections of the Salmagundi Club, New York, New York University, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Collections
- Artist Portrait Highlights from the Collection
