American, 1819 - 1865
Few artists have left a more permanent visible impact on the National Academy than did James Suydam. Though his life was short, his generous bequest of a large number of paintings to the Academy in 1865 laid a strong foundation for the Academy's permanent collection and secured Suydam's place in the institution's history.
Suydam's career began in indecision. He studied at New York University, pursued medicine for a short time, and then turned to architecture. Interest in careers in these fields soon faded, however, and from 1842 to 1845 he traveled in Europe with his brother Mesier. He arrived in Florence in 1843 and soon met the painter Miner K. Kellogg, five years his senior. Kellogg became his friend, traveling companion, and first instructor in art. Some years later, Kellogg recalled the meeting:
[Suydam] was about 22 years of age and already possessed a handsome fortune. He had as yet no particular knowledge of Art, but was so appreciative of its beauties that I gladly accompanied him through the Galleries and Churches, and directed his special attention to those paintings best calculated to form a correct judgement in Art. At his Hotel I frequently passed a leisure hour in sketching from his windows those quaint old palaces on the opposite bank of the Arno. He took great interest in watching the growth of these slight pictures, and at length was encouraged to draw some simple objects such as the chimneys, windows, and towers which were visible form his apartments. In the delight derived from the exercise of a talent as yet unknown to its possessor was contained the seed which eventually fructified in the charming pictures he has left as a legacy to the arts of his country.
Suydam and Kellogg spent the remainder of 1843 on a tour of northern Italy, sketching "any noted or picturesque object by the way-side." They next sailed for Trieste where they spent some time exploring before Suydam turned back for Milan and Paris. They were reunited, however, in the following year when they traveled as fas as Constantinople together. In January 1845, they visited Malta after which Suydam went on to Naples and eventually back to America.
On his return to New York, Suydam, who was financially secure all of his life, joined his brother John in business which occupied him until 1854. Meanwhile, he continued to dabble in art and from 1847 to 1851 joined Kellogg, who was back in America by that time, on a number of sketching trips in the northeastern United States. When Kellogg again left America in 1851, Suydam became friends with several of New York's leading artist, among whom were John Kensett, Sanford Gifford and Worthington Whittredge. He also may have studied with Kensett and with Asher B. Durand but, in any event, these associations naturally led him to the National Academy where he began showing his own works in 1856. The titles of the paintings he exhibited there and at the Boston Athenaeum and the Brooklyn Art Association over the next decade reflect his major interest as an artist, that is, the production of landscapes in the vein of the Hudon River school. These pictures indicate that Suydam was spending much time in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in and around North Conway and on the shores of Rhode Island and Massachusetts and by the early 1850s probably considered himself to be a full-fledged artist. This seriousness of intent was recalled at his death by Daniel Huntington. "A thoroughly educated and accomplished man," Huntinton wrote, "with a fortune sufficient for his modest wishes, surrounded by a charming circle of relatives and friends, and with an inviting porspect of bright social enjoyments and success, he might naturally have been contented with a superficial cultivation of his tastes and talents for art. His earnest nature forbade this. He began at once to study in the fields with a care, fidelity and patience which proved him to be a true devotee."
Corroborating Huntington's opinion of Suydam's assiduity, Kellogg remembered that the younger artist had begun to experiment with watercolor in the late 1840s and in 1851 began painting out-of-doors with oil. His seriousness about art is given further proof by his occupation of rooms in the Tneth Street studio Building in new York from 1858 until his death.
Suydam remained an active member of the National Academy where he exhibited examples of his work in every year from 1856 to 1865. He was treasurer of the fellowship fund there and was a major force behind the raising of money for the construction of the Academy's new home at Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street. His role in that project led to his being named treasurer of the Academy in 1865 to replace the retiring Thomas S. Cummings but his term was cut short by his untimely and, for the New York art world, shocking death.
At the meeting of the Academy council on Cotober 9, 1865, resolutions honoring Suydam were submitted by John F. Kensett. They read in part as follows: "We deeply mourn the loss of one of our most valued members and efficient members and officers whose true love of art and zealous devotion to the interests of the Academy have been long and worthily proved. . . . we will ever cherish his name in our memoires as a precious example of a good and honorable man, a true artist, an accomplished gentleman and a faithful friend."
Suydam's last will and testement, written the day before he died, conveyed to the Academy a fund of $50,000 which allowed the Academy to develop and operate its school for many years. This was the first major gift received by the organization and it probably saved the Academy, which had over-extended itself in the financing of its new headquarters, from bankruptcy. The fund was accompanied by Suydam's large collection of paintings (see below) which the artist also bequeathed to the Academy. Repaying the artist's generosity, the Academy created the Suydam Medal in 1869 to be awarded annually to deserving students in the Academy school's life class.
The Suydam Collection
Besides his ability to create art, Suydam also had a great interest and talent for collecting it. The period of his major activities in this regard, sruing whish he acquired close to 100 paintings by both American and European artists, appears to have been from 1856 to 1865, the final decade of his life. He had only recenlty retired from the business world and had decided to devote his life wholly to art. Futher impetus for this burst of collecting may have come from the beneficence Suydam felt toward his fellow artists, an attribute which was noted by several of his contemporaries. Daniel Huntington, for example, recorded that Suydam's "charitites were enerous and his liberality often bestowed on struggling artists." Gifford recalled that "In his charities he was liberal and unostentatious, always glad of an opportunity to do a kind or useful action, and never desirous of the praise that belongs to it. . . . Art was of course the chief interest of his life, his love for it was of the broadest kind. He was always ready to recognize and acknowledge excellencies of whatever kind and whatever school."
This open-minded attitude was happily wed to a steady-- and evidently inherited--income with which Suydam could freely purchase the works of other artists. It would appear that most of the American paintings he owned were bought directly from the artists themselves. On the other hand, sources indicate that the European works in his collection were bought from American dealers or out of American exhibitions and were not purchased during his travels abroad in the 1840s. All of the identifiable artists whose work Suydam owned were his contemporaries, or at least were living when he bought their works, and most of the paintinings date from the second half of the 1850s. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider the Suydam collection, for its day, to be one of modern art.
The collection was a reflection of current tastes in art and, therefore, landscape and genre paintings dominated, with approximately 44 and 35 in each of these categories, respectively. A few portraits, possibly one still life, and about eight religious paintings by anonymous artists or copyists made up the balance of the collection. Sixty-five paintings were by American artist, eighteen by foreign artists, and nine of unknown authorship. Among the major landscapes were Kensett's Bash Bish Falls, Frederic E. Church's Scene on the Magdalene, and Aaron Shattuck's The FOrd. The European artists represented in the collection were artists whose works were popular with many of the American collectors of the day. Notable in this group are Andreas Achenbach and Edouard Fr‚re whose paintings were owned by major American collectors such as William T. Blodgett, A. T. Stewart, and William H. Webb. Leading off the Suydam Bequest was a portrait of the artist by his old friend and supportor Daniel Huntington.
Immediately following the acquiation of the collection by the Academy, it was shown in toto at the Academy in 1865 as part of the sixth annual Artists' Fund Society Exhibition Evidently, certain members of the Academy suggested that at least part of the collection be sold in 1881 but this scheme, thankfully, was never implemented.
Suydam's career began in indecision. He studied at New York University, pursued medicine for a short time, and then turned to architecture. Interest in careers in these fields soon faded, however, and from 1842 to 1845 he traveled in Europe with his brother Mesier. He arrived in Florence in 1843 and soon met the painter Miner K. Kellogg, five years his senior. Kellogg became his friend, traveling companion, and first instructor in art. Some years later, Kellogg recalled the meeting:
[Suydam] was about 22 years of age and already possessed a handsome fortune. He had as yet no particular knowledge of Art, but was so appreciative of its beauties that I gladly accompanied him through the Galleries and Churches, and directed his special attention to those paintings best calculated to form a correct judgement in Art. At his Hotel I frequently passed a leisure hour in sketching from his windows those quaint old palaces on the opposite bank of the Arno. He took great interest in watching the growth of these slight pictures, and at length was encouraged to draw some simple objects such as the chimneys, windows, and towers which were visible form his apartments. In the delight derived from the exercise of a talent as yet unknown to its possessor was contained the seed which eventually fructified in the charming pictures he has left as a legacy to the arts of his country.
Suydam and Kellogg spent the remainder of 1843 on a tour of northern Italy, sketching "any noted or picturesque object by the way-side." They next sailed for Trieste where they spent some time exploring before Suydam turned back for Milan and Paris. They were reunited, however, in the following year when they traveled as fas as Constantinople together. In January 1845, they visited Malta after which Suydam went on to Naples and eventually back to America.
On his return to New York, Suydam, who was financially secure all of his life, joined his brother John in business which occupied him until 1854. Meanwhile, he continued to dabble in art and from 1847 to 1851 joined Kellogg, who was back in America by that time, on a number of sketching trips in the northeastern United States. When Kellogg again left America in 1851, Suydam became friends with several of New York's leading artist, among whom were John Kensett, Sanford Gifford and Worthington Whittredge. He also may have studied with Kensett and with Asher B. Durand but, in any event, these associations naturally led him to the National Academy where he began showing his own works in 1856. The titles of the paintings he exhibited there and at the Boston Athenaeum and the Brooklyn Art Association over the next decade reflect his major interest as an artist, that is, the production of landscapes in the vein of the Hudon River school. These pictures indicate that Suydam was spending much time in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in and around North Conway and on the shores of Rhode Island and Massachusetts and by the early 1850s probably considered himself to be a full-fledged artist. This seriousness of intent was recalled at his death by Daniel Huntington. "A thoroughly educated and accomplished man," Huntinton wrote, "with a fortune sufficient for his modest wishes, surrounded by a charming circle of relatives and friends, and with an inviting porspect of bright social enjoyments and success, he might naturally have been contented with a superficial cultivation of his tastes and talents for art. His earnest nature forbade this. He began at once to study in the fields with a care, fidelity and patience which proved him to be a true devotee."
Corroborating Huntington's opinion of Suydam's assiduity, Kellogg remembered that the younger artist had begun to experiment with watercolor in the late 1840s and in 1851 began painting out-of-doors with oil. His seriousness about art is given further proof by his occupation of rooms in the Tneth Street studio Building in new York from 1858 until his death.
Suydam remained an active member of the National Academy where he exhibited examples of his work in every year from 1856 to 1865. He was treasurer of the fellowship fund there and was a major force behind the raising of money for the construction of the Academy's new home at Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street. His role in that project led to his being named treasurer of the Academy in 1865 to replace the retiring Thomas S. Cummings but his term was cut short by his untimely and, for the New York art world, shocking death.
At the meeting of the Academy council on Cotober 9, 1865, resolutions honoring Suydam were submitted by John F. Kensett. They read in part as follows: "We deeply mourn the loss of one of our most valued members and efficient members and officers whose true love of art and zealous devotion to the interests of the Academy have been long and worthily proved. . . . we will ever cherish his name in our memoires as a precious example of a good and honorable man, a true artist, an accomplished gentleman and a faithful friend."
Suydam's last will and testement, written the day before he died, conveyed to the Academy a fund of $50,000 which allowed the Academy to develop and operate its school for many years. This was the first major gift received by the organization and it probably saved the Academy, which had over-extended itself in the financing of its new headquarters, from bankruptcy. The fund was accompanied by Suydam's large collection of paintings (see below) which the artist also bequeathed to the Academy. Repaying the artist's generosity, the Academy created the Suydam Medal in 1869 to be awarded annually to deserving students in the Academy school's life class.
The Suydam Collection
Besides his ability to create art, Suydam also had a great interest and talent for collecting it. The period of his major activities in this regard, sruing whish he acquired close to 100 paintings by both American and European artists, appears to have been from 1856 to 1865, the final decade of his life. He had only recenlty retired from the business world and had decided to devote his life wholly to art. Futher impetus for this burst of collecting may have come from the beneficence Suydam felt toward his fellow artists, an attribute which was noted by several of his contemporaries. Daniel Huntington, for example, recorded that Suydam's "charitites were enerous and his liberality often bestowed on struggling artists." Gifford recalled that "In his charities he was liberal and unostentatious, always glad of an opportunity to do a kind or useful action, and never desirous of the praise that belongs to it. . . . Art was of course the chief interest of his life, his love for it was of the broadest kind. He was always ready to recognize and acknowledge excellencies of whatever kind and whatever school."
This open-minded attitude was happily wed to a steady-- and evidently inherited--income with which Suydam could freely purchase the works of other artists. It would appear that most of the American paintings he owned were bought directly from the artists themselves. On the other hand, sources indicate that the European works in his collection were bought from American dealers or out of American exhibitions and were not purchased during his travels abroad in the 1840s. All of the identifiable artists whose work Suydam owned were his contemporaries, or at least were living when he bought their works, and most of the paintinings date from the second half of the 1850s. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider the Suydam collection, for its day, to be one of modern art.
The collection was a reflection of current tastes in art and, therefore, landscape and genre paintings dominated, with approximately 44 and 35 in each of these categories, respectively. A few portraits, possibly one still life, and about eight religious paintings by anonymous artists or copyists made up the balance of the collection. Sixty-five paintings were by American artist, eighteen by foreign artists, and nine of unknown authorship. Among the major landscapes were Kensett's Bash Bish Falls, Frederic E. Church's Scene on the Magdalene, and Aaron Shattuck's The FOrd. The European artists represented in the collection were artists whose works were popular with many of the American collectors of the day. Notable in this group are Andreas Achenbach and Edouard Fr‚re whose paintings were owned by major American collectors such as William T. Blodgett, A. T. Stewart, and William H. Webb. Leading off the Suydam Bequest was a portrait of the artist by his old friend and supportor Daniel Huntington.
Immediately following the acquiation of the collection by the Academy, it was shown in toto at the Academy in 1865 as part of the sixth annual Artists' Fund Society Exhibition Evidently, certain members of the Academy suggested that at least part of the collection be sold in 1881 but this scheme, thankfully, was never implemented.
