Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-current, 1913-02-28
GEnReE L0EU1E 5RONzT

Vt HE recent exhibition at the IK
Art Institute in Chicago of III
II the portraits of the late IL
E George Peter Alexander \
N l. T. Healy, who, although a ma
w tive of Boston, afterward be-
~ g. came a resident of Chicago,
S@ and really quite ito the
manner born" in spite of his
birth and his subsequent residence abroad for so
many years, created more than a ripple in the
art world, and showed again what a strong and
representative man of his era he was. 1t may
be said truthfully of him that he was a most
conspicuous figure in the latter part of the sec
ond era Of the art of portraiture in America, as
Gilbert Stuart was of the first era.
Aside from the strong merits of the portraits
seen at the Art Institute, their exhibition recalls
to the writer a story told him many years ago by
a boyish boon companion of Mr.. Healy, the late
George Loring Brown, so famous for his studies
of atmosphere and poetical distance in landscape
and still marines as seen under the skies OF
sunny Italy. Mr.. Healy, at the time of which l
speak, was about twenty years of age, and Mr..
Brown a year younger. Mr.. Healy had been
studying art in a somewhat desultory manner
about the only way in which art could be stud
led in the New England city at that early day,
and was making preparations to, go abroad to
enter upon his studies in an earnest way. He
had attracted the attention of Mrs. Harrison
Gray Otis the year before, that lady then being
the queen of society in Boston. He had gone to
her with a letter of introduction, when she asked
the shy boy what she could do for him, and his
reply was, oh, sit for me, Madame! l so want
to paint a beautiful woman!" She did SO, and
the portrait made quite a local reputation for the
boy, upon which he made arrangements to go
abroad.
Mr.. Brown, the constant companion of Mr..
Healy, was born in Boston, February 2, 1914, and
began to draw when eight years old, His father
used to encourage the boy to make caricatures
of people whom he did not like, and got the boy
into many a scrape. If he drew the caricatures,
as he told me once, he had trouble with the peo-
pie thus travestied, and, If he did not, his father
made it very uncomfortable for him, sending him
out on the Back Bay in winter to cut holes in the
ice, and fish for cells and other Inhabitants of
mud and water, among other things. But the boy
survived it all, and finally went to the Franklin
school, where he won the silver medal, and at
twelve years of age was apprenticed to the ia
nous engraver, Peter Farley, where he learned
the art of drawing thoroughly, which stood him
in such stead in his later career.
While with Farley. who, it may be remembered,
was the wood engraver who illustrated so many
of the school books of a century ago, the boy
experimental with colors, and when not at work
at his engraving was Xperimentin constantly
with colors, with the result that he attracted the
attention of Isaac Rich, a wealthy merchant of
that day, who one day asked him banteringly
how much he wanted to go to Europe.
"One hundred dollars!" he replied enthusiast
tically, displaying a wonderful ignorance of the
world.
But Mr.. Rich advanced him the hundred dol
lars. and the boy began making preparations to
go.
1t was about this time that the two boys began
to see the world opening its doors to them, and
in honor of this event, young Brown invested a
dollar or two in beer and something eatable ION
the side"-the beer portion of the menu being
considered as something almost criminal in Bos-
ton in those days-and the boys made a night of
it in honor of their early Q6Darture for Europe,
and the taking up of their life work in earnest,
The beer had a good deal of head on it, and
it gave a good deal of head" to the boys, with
the result that the two future great artists soon
began to imagine themselves great already, and
boosted of what they would do.
Il will paint pictures Of Italian scenery" de-
clared Brown, land have my pictures in all the
castles of Europe"
And l." said Healy, will paint the kings and
other notables of Europe, and have them in the
castles side by side with yours"
l did not know Mr.. Healy personally, but was
acquainted intimately with Mr.. Brown for many
years, and have heard him many times tell how
he finally got away to Europe. He went down to
the wharves, and inquired around until he found
a vessel that was ready to sail for Europe. He
did not stop to ask what part of Europe, thinking
that once the other side of the water he would
find everything easy. A married sister gave him
a mattress, and he marched down State street to
Long Wharf with the mattress on his back, hav-
ing taken steerage passage. He found, after the
boat set sail, that her destination was Antwerp,
almost as far from Italy as Boston itself. When
he landed there he had twenty-five dollars left.
But he had made a friend of the captain of the
vessel, who lent him fifteen more, and with this
amount he managed to get to London, where he
was befriended by Mr.. Cheney, the American
engraver, and he began at once his studies of
Italian landscape, living almost on the verge of
starvation for nearly a year, at the end of which
time he sent a picture home to Mr.. Rich, who
sent him more money. and he continued his
studies.
As an evidence of his conscientiousness in