Joseph Rodefer DeCamp (November 5, 1858February 11, 1923) was an American painter and educator.

Biography

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied with

Frank Duveneck Frank Duveneck (né Decker; October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter. Early life Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernhard Decker. Decker died in a cholera epidemic whe ...

. In the second half of the 1870s he went with Duveneck and fellow students to the

Royal Academy of Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

. He then spent time in Florence, Italy, returning to Boston in 1883. DeCamp became known as a member of the Boston School led by

Edmund C. Tarbell Edmund Charles Tarbell (April 26, 1862August 1, 1938) was an American Impressionist painter. A member of the Ten American Painters, his work hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithson ...

and Emil Otto Grundmann, focusing on figure painting, and in the 1890s adopting the style of

Tonalism Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often domina ...

. At the age of 12, he began to draw crayon interpretations of published drawings. He was a founder of the

Ten American Painters The Ten American Painters (also known as The Ten) was an artists' group formed in 1898 to exhibit their work as a unified group. John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and Childe Hassam were the driving forces behind the organization. Dissatisfie ...

, a group of

American Impressionist American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose b ...

s, in 1897. Following

Thomas Hovenden Thomas Hovenden (December 28, 1840 – August 14, 1895), was an Irish artist and teacher who spent much of his life in the United States. He painted realistic quiet family scenes, narrative subjects and often depicted African Americans. Biog ...

's sudden death in 1895, DeCamp was hired to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but resigned after one year because of ill health. From 1903 until his death in 1923, he was a faculty member at Massachusetts Normal Art School, now Massachusetts College of Art and Design, teaching painting from the living model and portraiture. He also taught painting classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Among his pupils was Gertrude Nason. In 1891, he married Edith Franklin Baker (1868–1955). They had four children: Sarah "Sally" (1892–1973), Theodore "Ted" (1894–1955), Lydia (1896–1974), and Pauline (1899–). Family members served as models for a number of his paintings. A 1904 fire in his Boston studio destroyed several hundred of his early paintings, including nearly all of his landscapes. He died in Boca Grande, Florida.

Honors

He was awarded the 1899 Temple Gold Medal (for ''Woman Drying Her Hair''), the 1912 Beck Gold Medal (for ''Portrait of Francis I. Amory''), and the 1920 Lippincott Prize (for ''The Red Kimono'') by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He received an honorable mention at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris (for ''Woman Drying Her Hair''). His exhibit at the 1904

St. Louis World's Fair The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds totaling $15 milli ...

— ''Reading'' – ''The Sea Wall'' – ''Portrait of Arthur P. DeCamp'' — was awarded a gold medal. He was awarded the 1909 Clarke Silver Medal by the Corcoran Gallery of Art (for ''The Guitar Player''). He was awarded the 1915 gold medal by the Philadelphia Art Club (for ''The Silver Waist''). In 1902, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.

Selected works

* ''The Hammock - Portrait of the Artist's Wife and Children'' (ca. 1895),

Terra Foundation for American Art The Terra Foundation for American Art is a privately operated nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of American art exhibitions, projects, academic research, and publications worldwide. Its goal is to promote a greater understanding and a ...

, Chicago, Illinois. * ''Woman Drying Her Hair'' (ca. 1899), Cincinnati Art Museum. * ''Arthur P. DeCamp - Portrait of the Artist's Brother'' (ca. 1900), Longyear Historical Society & Museum, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. * ''Farewell'' (ca. 1900-02), private collection. Set an auction record for a work by DeCamp – Christie's NY, 5 December 2013, $821,000. * ''Portrait of Dr. Horace Howard Furness'' (1906), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. * ''Sally - Portrait of the Artist's Daughter'' (1907), Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts. * ''Portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt'' (1908),

Memorial Hall A memorial hall is a hall built to commemorate an individual or group; most commonly those who have died in war. Most are intended for public use and are sometimes described as ''utilitarian memorials''. History of the Memorial Hall In the aft ...

, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * ''The Cellist'' (1908), Cincinnati Art Museum. * ''The Guitar Player'' (1908),

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

. * ''Portrait of Francis I. Amory'' (1909), private collection. * ''Three Friends - Portrait of Isaac H. Clothier, His Son and Grandson'' (1912), private collection. The title has a double meaning, the Clothiers were Quakers, members of the Society of Friends. * ''The Seamstress'' (1916), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. * ''The Steward - Portrait of George Washington Lewis'' (1919), Porcellian Club, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lewis was steward of the Harvard final club for more than 45 years. * ''Portrait of Edward Tuck'' (1919),

Hood Museum of Art The Hood Museum of Art is owned and operated by Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. The first reference to the development of an art collection at Dartmouth dates to 1772, making the collection among the o ...

, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. * ''The Red Kimono'' (1920), Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida.''The Red Kimono''
, from SIRIS. * ''The Blue Mandarin Coat'' (1922), High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. DeCamp's final painting.

Gallery

File:Sally, circa 1907, by Joseph DeCamp (1858-1923) - Worcester Art Museum - IMG 7587.JPG, ''Sally'' (1907), Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts. File:DeCamp Joseph The Cellist.jpg, ''The Cellist'' (1908), Cincinnati Art Museum. File:Joseph DeCamp The Guitar Player 1908.jpg, ''The Guitar Player'' (1908), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. File:DeCamp Joseph The Blue Cup.jpg, ''The Blue Cup'' (1909), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. File:DeCamp Joseph The Kreutzer Sonata.jpg, ''The Kreutzer Sonata'' (1912), private collection. File:DeCamp Joseph The Seamstress.jpg, ''The Seamstress'' (1916), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. File:DeCamp Joseph The Steward.jpg, ''The Steward'' (1919), Porcellian Club, Harvard University. File:Joseph DeCamp The Blue Mandarin Coat 1922.jpg, ''The Blue Mandarin Coat'' (1922), High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia.

References

Sources

* Laurene Buckley, ''Joseph DeCamp: The Boston Technician'' (Prestel Publishing, 1995) * William Howe Downes
"Joseph De Camp and His Work,"
''Art and Progress Magazine'', vol. 4, no. 6 (April 1913), pp. 919–25.

External links

from Artcyclopedia.
Joseph Rodefer DeCamp
from The Athenaeum. {{DEFAULTSORT:Decamp, Joseph 1858 births 1923 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters American Impressionist painters Tonalism Artists from Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts faculty Boston School (painting) 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters