The Charcoal Club has been an arts club in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, United States, on an intermittent basis since 1883.
History
Started as the Sketch Club in 1883 by a group of male artists in Baltimore who "desired to draw and paint from life" (meaning nude models), the Charcoal Club was incorporated in 1885. The founding officers included
Adalbert J. Volck
Adalbert J. Volck (1828–1912) was a dentist, political cartoonist, and caricaturist born in Augsburg Bavaria, who resided for most of his life in Baltimore, Maryland. A dentist by profession, Volck is best known for his support of the Confede ...
.
Joseph Evans Sperry
Joseph Evans Sperry (1854–1930) was an American architect, noted for designing buildings in Baltimore. He was born in Georgetown, South Carolina and later relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, where he partnered with James Bosley Noel Wyatt to fo ...
, Alfred Winfield Strahan, and
Lee Woodward Zeigler
Lee Woodward Zeigler, also known as Albert Lee Zeigler, (May 7, 1868—June 16, 1952) was an American artist who began his career as an illustrator and later worked as a muralist.
Early life and education
Born Albert Lee Zeigler, on May 7, 1 ...
. The Club held exhibitions of local and national artists and its "annual juried exhibition of contemporary American art
as..from 1911 to 1926...the high point of Baltimore's brief art season".
The club was also known for its wild annual "Bal des Arts", and in the 1920s many New York City-based artist would attend.
In 1991, the Charcoal Club decided to allow the admission of women artists to the club.
The club is known for a focus on traditional art techniques and
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
.
References
Further reading
*
{{coord missing, MarylandExternal links
Charcoal Club records, 1885-1988 from
Archives of American Art
The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...
,
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
Art museums and galleries in Maryland
Culture of Baltimore
1883 establishments in Maryland