Louis Michel Eilshemius (February 4, 1864 – December 29, 1941) was an American
painter, primarily of
landscapes and
nudes. He also wrote musical compositions, verse, novels, short stories, and published periodicals.
[Donald Goddard, ''Louis M. Eilshemius (1864 - 1941) : An Independent Spirit'']
at New York Art World
Biography
Eilshemius was the son of a Dutch father and a Swiss mother.
[Louis Michel Eilshemius]
at Memorial Art Gallery His wealthy family lived near
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.[Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...]
before beginning his art studies at the
Art Students League of New York. He also studied privately with the American landscape painter
Robert Crannell Minor (1839-1904). He subsequently studied under
Bouguereau at the
Académie Julian in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...
and traveled widely in Europe, Africa and the South Seas, returning to the family brownstone in New York City where he was to live for the rest of his life.
His early landscapes, which show the influence of the
Barbizon School
The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name ...
and of
Corot
CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly th ...
,
George Inness
George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter.
Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...
and
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
gained him little recognition from critics or the public. Around 1910, the element of fantasy in his work became more pronounced and his technique became coarser; henceforth, he often painted on cardboard instead of canvas.
[Karlstrom, 1978, p. 96.] As his works became more idiosyncratic, so did his behavior, and he developed an unsettling habit of visiting galleries and loudly condemning the works on display.
[
His later, visionary works depicting moonlit landscapes populated with voluptuous ]nymph
A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label= Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...
s caused his contemporaries particular consternation, due to their crudely rendered and often extravagantly smiling nudes. These are shown frolicking in forests or waterfalls, either alone or in groups, sometimes defying gravity by floating through the air. His paintings of New York rooftops are as lyrical as his pastoral scenes, and like them are often bounded by sinuous "frames" he painted onto his pictures.
Eilshemius also wrote verse and prose, composed music, painted, philosophized and became notorious for his numerous, often vitriolic, letters-to-the-editor of various New York City publications. His lack of public acclaim led him to desperate measures: suspecting that the length of his name was responsible for his neglect, in about 1890 he began signing his paintings "Elshemus" (he reverted to the original spelling in 1913). On letterheads and in hyperbolic, self-published flyers he would proclaim his accomplishments: "Educator, Ex-actor, Amateur All-around Doctor, Mesmerist
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all livi ...
-Prophet and Mystic, Reader of Hands and Faces, Linguist of 5 languages", as well as world-class athlete and marksman, "Spirit-Painter Supreme", and musician whose improvisations rivaled the compositions of Chopin. All of this only reinforced the impression, already suggested by the peculiar imagery in many of his paintings, that he was either mad or a charlatan.
He was not without supporters, however. Eilshemius was championed by Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
, who discovered Eilshemius in 1917 and invited him to exhibit with him in Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...
that year. Joseph Stella was an admirer and drew a particularly fine silverpoint portrait of him. His work was generally well received by French viewers and critics; his admirers included Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
. Duchamp subsequently helped to arrange Eilshemius's first solo exhibition in 1920, at the Société Anonyme in New York City. The hostile critical reception to this exhibition, however, finally drove him to give up painting entirely in 1921, although there is a single known painting dated 1937. The remainder of his life was dedicated to self-promotion, and in 1931 he took to referring to himself as "Mahatma."[ Victor Ganz started collecting art in his teenage years with the purchases of watercolors by Louis Eilshemius and ]Jules Pascin
Julius Mordecai Pincas (March 31, 1885 – June 5, 1930), known as Pascin (; erroneously or ), Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse", was a Bulgarian artist known for his paintings and drawings. He later became an American citizen ...
and an oil painting by Raphael Soyer
Raphael Zalman Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men ...
.
Injured in an automobile accident in 1932, he became increasingly reclusive. His health in decline and his family fortune spent, his mental stability deteriorated in his final year and he died in the psychopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital
Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States ...
in 1941.[
]
Posthumous recognition
Since his death, Eilshemius's work has found a wider audience. One of the artist's few consistent patrons, Roy Neuberger, donated a large body of Eilshemius' work to the Neuberger Museum of Art
Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites o ...
located at SUNY Purchase College in New York State.
According to Stefan Banz, there is no evidence that Eilshemius was a grandson of Swiss painter Louis Léopold Robert
Louis Léopold Robert (13 May 1794 – 20 March 1835) was a Swiss painter.
Biography
He was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds ( Neuchâtel) in Switzerland, but left his native place with the engraver Jean Girardet at the age of sixteen for Paris.
He ...
as some sources report.
Notes
References
*Karlstrom, P. J. (1978). ''Louis M. Eilshemius: selections from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden''. Washington, D.C.: Published for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service by the Smithsonian Institution Press.
*Schack, William (1939). ''And he sat among the ashes''. New York: American Artists Group.
*Neuburger, Katharina (2015). "''No Jersey Blues" In: The Shadow of the Avant-garde: Rousseau and the Forgotten Masters.'' Edited by Kasper König and Falk Wolf. Berlin: Hatje Cantz. ISBN 978-3-77574-059-3.
* Stefan Banz (2015). ''Eilshemius: Peer of Poet-Painters''. Edited by KMD - Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp , The Forestay Museum of Art, published by JRP, Ringier.
* Stefan Banz (2016). ''Louis Michel Eilshemius und sein Einfluss auf Marcel Duchamp''. Edited by KMD - Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp , The Forestay Museum of Art, published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Vienna.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eilshemius, Louis
1864 births
1941 deaths
19th-century American painters
American male painters
American male composers
American male poets
20th-century American painters
Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery
Cornell University alumni
Modern painters
Artists from Newark, New Jersey
19th-century American male artists
20th-century American male artists