Charles Sydney Hopkinson (July 27, 1869 – October 16, 1962) was an American portrait

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

ist. He maintained a studio in the

Fenway Studios The Fenway Studios are artists' studios located at 30 Ipswich Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The studios were built after a disastrous 1904 fire at Harcourt Studios in which many artists lost their homes, studios, and work. Business and civic lea ...

building in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

from 1906 to 1962. He painted over 800 portraits in a direct style with a palette gradually lightening through his career. Many of his paintings were commissioned by U. S. East Coast institutions, especially

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he acted as house portraitist. Among his sitters were Oliver Wendell Holmes,

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...

Lewis Perry Lewis Perry (January 3, 1877 – January 27, 1970) was an American educator and the eighth principal of Phillips Exeter Academy. Lewis Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts on January 3, 1877, to Arthur Latham Perry, a prominent economist, ...

and

John Masefield John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967. Among his best known works are the children's novels ''The Midnight Folk'' and ''The Box of Delights'', and the poem ...

Early life

Born in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, he graduated the Hopkinson School started by his father. He began to draw for the ''

Harvard Lampoon ''The Harvard Lampoon'' is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Overview The ''Harvard Lampoon'' publication was founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates ...

'' upon his entrance to Harvard in 1888, and in 1891, he moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to study at the Art Students' League where he worked with

John Henry Twachtman John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impr ...

and

H. Siddons Mowbray Harry Siddons Mowbray (August 5, 1858 – 1928) was an American artist. He executed various painting commissions for J.P. Morgan, F.W. Vanderbilt, and other clients. He served as director of the American Academy in Rome from 1902–1904. Biog ...

. Hopkinson studied at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

with

Edmond Aman-Jean Edmond Aman-Jean (13 January 1858, Chevry-Cossigny – 25 January 1936, Paris) was a French symbolist painter, who co-founded the Salon des Tuileries in 1923. Life His father was the owner and operator of an industrial lime kiln. He had hi ...

, traveled to

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

, and exhibited in the 1895 Paris Salon.

Career

In the late 1890s he worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts and showed his paintings in New York at the

Society of American Artists The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative. The group began meeting in 1874 at the home of ...

and also in Boston. He was a Member of the

Boston Art Club The Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts, serves to help its members, as well as non-members, to access the world of fine art. It currently has more than 250 members. History The Boston Art Club was first conceived in Boston in 1854 with the co ...

and was involved in the promotion of Modern Art in Boston and Cambridge. He returned to Europe in 1901, where he visited

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

to study the painting of Velázquez and

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

and traveled through Brittany, and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

to see portraits by his "heroes",

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group ...

and

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

. Hopkinson then began a lucrative career as a portrait painter in Cambridge winning awards like the

Logan Medal of the arts The Logan Medal of the Arts was an arts prize initiated in 1907 and associated with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frank G Logan family and the Society for Sanity in Art. From 1917 through 1940, 270 awards were given for contributions to Amer ...

(1926), and soon his first commission being a baby portrait in 1896 of poet

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

, a work that is in the

Massachusetts Historical Society The Massachusetts Historical Society is a major historical archive specializing in early American, Massachusetts, and New England history. The Massachusetts Historical Society was established in 1791 and is located at 1154 Boylston Street in Bost ...

. Adopting the colour theories of his former neighbour

Denman Ross Denman Waldo Ross (1853–1935) was an American painter, art collector, and scholar of art history and theory. He was a professor of art at Harvard University and a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Early life Denman Waldo Ross was born ...

, who had become a prominent collector and a teacher at Harvard, Hopkinson later used the results of Carl Cutler's experiments with a spinning disk to study the color spectrum. He exhibited regularly in the national annuals and at several Boston and New York galleries. His watercolors were described as "modern" in the press and he exhibited three oils in the 1913 Armory Show. Instead of allying himself with the local established painters, Hopkinson showed his work with the "Boston Five", a group of young watercolorists though he continued to paint in oil for an elite clientele. In 1919 the

National Art Commission National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

selected him to paint some of the participants of the Peace Conference at

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

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. In 1927 he was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1929. In the mid-1920s, Hopkinson took on a young Boston painter Pietro Pezzati as his assistant, who worked with him at his Fenway studio. Hopkinson would pass on his studio to Pezzati when he died in October 1962, in

Beverly, Massachusetts Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, and a suburb of Boston. The population was 42,670 at the time of the 2020 United States Census. A resort, residential, and manufacturing community on the Massachusetts North Shore, Beverly incl ...

References

*Staff report (October 17, 1962). Charles Hopkinson Dies at 93; Portraitist Painted Presidents. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

External links

Boston Art Club Charles S. Hopkinson Virtual Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkinson, Charles 1869 births 1962 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters American portrait painters The Harvard Lampoon alumni Académie Julian alumni 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters