On November 10, 1938 Berenice Abbott captured the building -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York |
In the decade prior to the Civil War, the concept of American
art was preposterous to most collectors.
Haughty European art connoisseurs dismissed the idea, while snobbish American
collectors lined their picture galleries with imported antique works. It would not be until 1878, when an American
art section was included in the Paris Exposition, that the Continent took
notice. The New-York Tribune noted that
year, “It was the real initiation of the French people into a realization that
such a thing as American art existed.”
But in 1857 that realization was a long way off. So James Boorman Johnston’s idea that year of a studio
building solely for artists was remarkably forward-thinking.
Johnston was a well-to-do real estate speculator living at 56 West 10th Street in a fashionable neighborhood just north of
Washington Square. He understood the
plight of artists—they lived mostly in boarding houses and rented barely-serviceable
rooms with poor natural light as studios.
He envisioned a residential/studio building designed specifically for
artists with a large communal gallery for exhibiting their works.
Johnston sought out 30-year-old Richard Morris Hunt, an
architect who had just returned to America two years earlier. Hunt had distinguished himself as the first
American to study at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and had
supervised the renovation of the Louvre for Napoleon III.
Hunt was given the commission to design the 10th
Street Studios at 51 West 10th Street, across the street from Johnston’s residence.
Hunt’s Parisian schooling was evident. The Studio Building took the form of a
French-style hollow square. The brick-faced building was not showy—in fact
years later, in 1887, the New-York Tribune would say, “At a glance one might
almost take it for an average West Side primary or grammar school." Instead, the design focused on function. Expansive windows
flooded the studios with sunlight. The
inner openings looked out onto the glass roof of the gallery.
The decorative elements of the three-story façade were
accomplished by creative brickwork and a few touches of stone. The Crayon, in January 1858, lamented the
mediocre decoration. “The front of the
building is wholly constructed of brick; its ornamentation, such as the
window-mouldings, pilasters, cornices, etc., being developed in that
material. The opportunity does not
afford a chance to display the beauty of brick-work in all its fullness, but it
indicates use of brick which we hope will become more general.”
A photograph taken shortly after the building was completed looks amazingly like Abbott's shot 80 years later. |
“The north and south sides…have two sets of windows, inside
and outside,” reported The Sun. “The east and west tiers front only on the open
court. The north and south sides, alone,
are used for studios proper. The rest of
the building is given up to sleeping and living rooms.”
The twenty-five rooms were available in two sizes: 20-by-30 feet, and 20-by-15 feet. Each was provided with a coal-burning iron
stove and adjoining studios were connected by doors which could be thrown open
for individual showings.
The red brick building was highly anticipated and although
it was not completed until mid-1858, by January 1 of that year many of the
studios were already occupied. A rent
book documented the first tenants beginning on January 6, 1858—a list of
now-acclaimed artists: John LaFarge,
Frederick E. Church, J. F. Kensett, J. W. Casilear, Sanford R. Gifford, Jervis
McEntee and W. S. Haseltine. The men
paid an average rent of $200 per year – about $4,000 today (or $330 a month).
As the building was completed, the studios filled. “Nor was the building given over exclusively
to painters and sculptors,” noted The Sun years later. “In the fall of 1858 at the earnest
solicitation of several aspirants for architectural knowledge, Richard Morris
Hunt took one of the studios and fitted it up as an architectural atelier.” Hunt’s architectural school—the first in
America—began with four students and before long would list among its pupils
George B. Post, William R. Ware, Frank Furness, Henry Van Brunt and Charles D.
Gambrill.
Normally, on Saturday afternoons the studios were neatened
up and afternoon receptions were held from 1:00 to 5:00. Studio doors were thrown opened and the public was
invited to stroll through the building inspecting the paintings and sculptures. For the most part the visitors were stylishly
dressed society women who could afford art and had the leisure time for such
pursuits. The artists reportedly trimmed their beards and dressed for the
occasion.
When Frederick Church showed his masterful Heart of the
Andes here in 1859, crowds lined 10th Street waiting for their turn
to view it. Church exhibited the
painting in typical Victorian style, surrounded by potted palms and illuminated
by gas lamps.
Twice a year, formal exhibitions were staged in the grand,
glass-domed gallery. The 10th
Street Studio Building became the most prestigious address for
artists and the waiting list grew.
Through the 1860s and into the '70s artists like Winslow Homer, William
Bradford, W. H. Beard, Homer D. Martin, and Worthington Whittredge were added
to the tenant list. To accommodate the
demand for space, in 1872 an annex at 55 West 10th Street was
added to the original building.
Well-dressed ladies examine paintings at a reception in 1869 -- Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (copyright expired) |
In 1879, James Boorman Johnston conveyed the Studio Building
to his brother, John Taylor Johnston. The
artists could not have hoped for a better landlord. John Taylor Johnston was the
founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That same year, esteemed artist William
Merritt Chase returned from Europe and moved in. He initially occupied a small studio on the
ground floor, but he envisioned painting grand, oversized
paintings and needed more space. The
exhibition gallery was transformed for him into a spectacular, two-story
sky-lit studio.
Henry Rankin Poore later remembered, “I well remember how
Chase, small of stature and bristling with enthusiasm, had walked up and down
this sumptuous apartment declaring that he had secured a big place because he
wanted to do big compositions; but they never came. Chase was too much of a technician for big
enterprises.”
Whether those big enterprises came or not, the gallery was gone. The Sun would later remark, “the old
days were over and a new era began.” The
New-York Tribune bemoaned the loss:
The annual receptions formerly held by the artists in the Tenth Street Studio Building will be remembered as among the pleasantest occurrences of the art season. They were designed to afford opportunities to friends of the artists and other invited guests for a leisurely inspection of the pictures before they were sent to the Academy. The receptions were formerly held in the exhibition hall, on the first floor, now occupied by W. M. Chase as a studio.
Chase was undeniably eccentric, filling the studio with
thousands of items and decorating in lavish Victorian style. Henry Rankin Poore recalled visiting the
studio shortly after Chase moved in. “One’s
knock was then answered by a negro in a red fez; the door as it opened
automatically gave forth music from a stringed instrument which died away in
the screech of macaws and parrots; a greyhound stretched himself from a polar
rug; in each corner were canopied divans; the whole great apartment was a riot
of color.”
Chase's greyhound lounges at his feet in the sun-drenched studio -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York |
Interestingly, Chase used his studio as a subject or
background for at least a dozen paintings and it became known popularly as “Chase’s
Tenth Street Studio.” He quickly took the
lead among the artists and his studio became a gathering place. For a decade the meetings of the Society of
American Artists were held here, and The Art Club was organized that included
himself, Saint Gaudens, Church, and other eminent artists.
Chase's "The Tenth Street Studio" was one of about twelve paintings depicting the space -- the St. Louis Museum of Art |
The building was unquestionably the most famous studio
building in America. On October 10, 1887, The Evening World described it succinctly.
“The Studio Building, West Tenth street, is a painter's Bohemia. The studios are working places, without much
bric-a-brac, or tapestries, or old carved wood.”
By now rents had gone up.
That year, the New-York Tribune noted, “A good studio in West Tenth-st.,
twelve by sixteen feet, perhaps, rents for about $400 a year. Some go as high as $500. William M. Chase, who has a ground floor one
on the north side and the use, too, of the old skylight gallery, pays $1,000 a
year for both.”
Once in the building, artists were loath to leave. “J. G. Brown has been here over twenty years
and all the tenants, so the agents say, stick until they give up studios altogether,”
reported the Tribune. “The demand is
brisk for rooms here, many of them being now pledged several years in advance.”
In 1893, John Taylor Johnston died and the building passed to
his son, J. Herbert Johnston. Two years
later, William Merritt Chase decided to give up his famous studio
to travel to Madrid with students. He
held a farewell banquet for his friends in the studio, which was specially
decorated for the event, and then auctioned off his all his possessions. The Sun later wrote, “Almost the very plates
from which they ate were carried away to go under the hammer, but Chase’s
serene hospitality lasted until an unusually late hour—a courageous climax, an
undaunted, spirit.”
On January 6, 1896, The Sun reported on the auction. “William M. Chase, N. A., is pretty widely
known, not alone by his own works, which are many and interesting, nor by his
pupils only, but as much by reason of his having had for years, in the old
Tenth street studio building, the one conspicuous show studio of the town.”
For the auction, Chase's studio was recreated in the American Art Galleries on 23rd
Street. “The unconventional and
picturesque effect of his former workshop has been reproduced in a measure, and
the result is a public display that is not alone interesting to the connoisseur
and collection, but is important as affording opportunity to our public museums
to acquire some few worthy paintings and art objects,” said the newspaper. It listed some of the nearly 1,800 items in
the catalog, including 200 paintings, 600 finger rings (his collection of rings,
said The Sun, was “not unknown to fame”), 40 Russian samovars, “a hundred or
more brass candlesticks of very early patterns, besides copper pots and
kettles, and an infinite variety of other objects.”
The Sun listed antique glassware, lanterns and
lamps, old Spanish and Italian locks, “curiously bound books,” musical
instruments, tapestries, draperies, rugs, old furniture and clocks. The article summed it all up saying “But it
is a hopeless task to undertake to describe in detail so various an aggregation
of artistical junk.”
If Chase never produced “big enterprises,” the next tenant
surely would. The studio was taken over
by sculptor Stirling Calder. Henry
Rankin Poore, visiting Calder in the same studio he had spent time with Chase,
noted, “To-day it was difficult to realize that one stood at the same threshold…But
the West Tenth Street studio was destined in time to bring forth great
compositions, all of Calder’s conceptions of heroic size for the San Francisco
Exposition being designed here.”
The building was essentially unchanged in 1914 -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York |
Artists brought, for the most part, positive attention to
the 10th Street Studio Building, but one would be an exception. During World War I, etcher William J. Quinlan
had his studio here. A mute since
childhood, he drew the attention of military sentinels when he was discovered
sketching the approaches to the tunnel to New Jersey on April 4, 1917, just two days before the United States officially entered World War I.
“The soldiers rushed their prize to the Union Hill police
station,” reported The Sun the following day.
“He will probably be taken early this morning to Governors Island.” The newspaper warned, “Painters and
etchers, famous and otherwise, would do well these plotting and spying days to
choose with skill and care the spots where they set their easels”
In 1920, near panic broke out in the building when it was
learned that J. Herbert Johnston planned to sell the property. The Sun and the New York Herald reported on
June 20, “When the rumor began to percolate through the labyrinthine corridors
of the Tenth Street Studios that the famous old structure was about to go on
the market it is said that ancient tenants appeared in the hallways who had not
been seen for decades and whose existence was known only to the rent collector,
and that one of the younger artists who had never been known to wear any other costume
than smock and sandals was so galvanized into action as actually to appear in a
business suit.”
The artists joined together to form The Tenth Street Studios,
Inc. and purchased the building. The
New-York Tribune happily reported, “the property will be retained in its present
form and used for artists’ studios.”
In 1947 Josephine Barry sketched a portion of the facade -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York |
The reprieve would last for another thirty years. On May 23, 1952, The New York Times casually
remarked that, “A Greenwich Village landmark has passed to new control as the
result of the sale stock controlling the studio building at 51 West Tenth
Street.”
Three years later, on November 3, 1955, the same newspaper
reported, “Buyers of the old Tenth Street Studio Building, a Greenwich Village
landmark for almost a century, announced yesterday the letting of a contract
for demolition of the building. The razing
is to start next Monday. A ten-story and penthouse
apartment building for ninety-three families will be erected on the site.”
Within the Tenth Street Studio Building many of the Hudson
River School paintings had been executed. Here
John La Farge, who moved in “before the plaster was dry,” according to The Sun
decades earlier, worked for over half a century until his death. Frederick McMonnies, Winslow Homer and Albert
Bierstadt were among the dozens of influential artists who lived and worked
here.
The venerable building, one of the first American structures
by Richard Morris Hunt and home to some of Americans most celebrated artists,
was demolished with little notice.
many thanks to reader Pam Barkentin for suggesting this post
A mid-century apartment building replaced the Studio Building. The old Greek Revival house next door still survives. photo by the author |
many thanks to reader Pam Barkentin for suggesting this post
wow your blog serve as a virtually library for art and architect enthusiasts alike
ReplyDeletethanks. I've always admired your photographic work.
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