Frederick Keppel (1845–1912) was an American art dealer, scholar, writer, owner and founder of Frederick Keppel & Company. Keppel came to America in 1864 and became a print dealer in 1868. He was a patron and promoter of the

Etching Revival The etching revival was the re-emergence and invigoration of etching as an original form of printmaking during the period approximately from 1850 to 1930. The main centres were France, Britain and the United States, but other countries, such as t ...

and etchers including Whistler, Zorn, Buhot and Pennell. He gave Félix-Hilaire Buhot his first one-man show in 1888, and about the same time started to buy and sell a large number of Whistler's prints.

Early life

Keppel was born in Tullow in County Carlow in Ireland in 1845. Keppel was educated at Wesley College in Dublin. His family left Ireland when he was a teenager, going first to Ontario, ultimately settling in New York in 1864. He began his career as a bookseller. He became interested in prints after being introduced to John S. Philips, a major Philadelphia collector of European prints and drawings.

Frederick Keppel & Company

Keppel established his firm, Frederick Keppel & Company at 20 E 16th Street in 1868. There he sold etchings and engravings by the Old Masters and works by Modern artists, such as

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...

Félix Buhot Félix Hilaire Buhot (July 9, 1847 - April 26, 1898) was a French painter and illustrator. Biography Félix Buhot is the son of Florentin Louis Buhot and of Anne Appoline Buhot, born Jobelin. With his wife Henriette Johnston, they are the par ...

James McNeil Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

, Edith Loring Getchell and

Joseph Pennell Joseph Pennell (July 4, 1857 – April 23, 1926) was an American draftsman, etcher, lithographer and illustrator for books and magazines. A prolific artist, he spent most of his working life in Europe, and is known for his interest in landmarks, l ...

. In 1905, Keppel & Company moved uptown to 4 E. 39th Street. The firm moved again in the 1920s to 16 E. 57th Street. Keppel was known throughout his career for his personal relationships with artists. His friendships with artists such as

and Jean-François Millet. Keppel sold prints to major New York collectors such as Samuel P. Avery and Mary Jane Morgan. After his death in 1912, Keppel's son David Keppel (1877–1956) inherited the business, acting as its president until 1940. In 1940, Keppel & Co. merged with Arthur Harlow & Co. to form Harlow, Keppel & Co. located at 670 5th Avenue.

Legacy

William Macbeth started his career Frederick Keppel & Co., eventually becoming a partner. He left in 1892 to establish the Macbeth Gallery, which specialized in American Art.

Carl Zigrosser Carl Zigrosser (1891–1975) was an art dealer best known for founding and running the New York Weyhe Gallery in the 1920s and 1930s, and as Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art between 1940 and 1963. In the 1910s, ...

, who became the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

Curator of Drawings, was first employed by Frederick Keppel & Co.

Scholarship

Keppel published essays in exhibition catalogs and gave lectures on the topic of prints and print collecting. Keppel was also the author of several works on etching. In 1886 he published American etchers. Reprinted from the ''Century Magazine'' for February, 1883, with a brief additional chapter reprinted in part from the New York Star, by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. To which is added an account of Méryon and his work, by Frederick Keppel, New York 1886. In the following year he translated Alfred Lebrun's catalogue of the etchings, heliographs, lithographs, and woodcuts done by Jean François Millet, New York 1887. He wrote ''Modern Disciples of Rembrandt'', ''A Sketch of Contemporary Etching, New York,'' 1890. Exhibitions of Whistler's work included catalogue of an exhibition of etchings and drypoints by Whistler, New York 1907. In 1910 many of his articles and lectures were compiled into his book: The Golden Age of Engraving: A Specialists Story about Fine Prints. He wrote articles and pamphlets to accompany exhibitions at his gallery, and often gave lectures on subjects related to prints. Keppel co-founded the '' Print Collector’s Quarterly'' in 1911, a publication devoted entirely to the subject of print collecting. He was involved in the

movement.

References

External links

Bibliography at U Penn
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keppel, Frederick 1845 births 1912 deaths American art dealers 19th-century American businesspeople