The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-10-27
Painters Portrait
By GEORGE GORDON.

BY GEORGE GOKDON.
CPEAKING at dinner in London al
y most thirty years ago, John Singer
Sargent said. "After all, Frank Duveneck
is the greatest talent of the brush Of this
generation" 1t is, as you know, not pos
sible to prove such statement. And yet
if you are Of an open mind, your prefer
nco not already given to Zuloaga, Max
Leberrnann or Anders Zorn, you will be
convinced Of the truth Of Sargent's state
ment when you have carefully studied
Duveneek's work. Indeed that judgment,
deliberately given by the man whom art
lists and laymen alike regard as technically
the most brilliant Of painters, never has
aroused any contradiction among artists;
and it received final sanction when at the
Panama. Pacific Exposition, San Fran
cisco, 1915, the foreign members of the
jury, Endorsed by the entire American
jury, recommended that in addition to all
other various and regular awards won by
Duyeneck on account of his exhibited work
in oils, etching and sculpture, special
medal Of honor be struck and presented to
him as "some special recognition of his
distinguished contribution to American
art"
Born in 1s4s at Covington, KY, across
the Ohio River from Cincinnati, where
he has lived for the past twenty years
teaching and directing for the Cincinnati
Museum las permanent representation Of
an artist the museum collection Of Owen
eck's, for the most part his own gift to the
city, is unique), Duveneck has spent his
life for America, and his work has been
vital to our native art. As early as 1877
the sensation Of the National Academy
Exhibition was his Turkish Page (now
owned by the Pennsylvania Academy OF
Fine Arts), and his portraits were hailed
at that time as "an earnest of the day
when our artists shall be bred as well as
born at home and the seal Of foreign
school, the approval Of foreign master,
shall no longer be necessary to give an
American a position among his country
men" You would say that no man could
fulfill the promise of such precocity; yet
when later his etchings Of Venice were
shown at the Hanover Galleries in London
in 1881 several members of the Society of
Painter Etchers believed them to be the
work of Whistler under a nom de plume.
and YOU must remember that Whistler is
the greatest etcher since Rembrandt and
that this was Duveneck's first work in
etching. 1t may seem impossible to our
more informed Judgment that such mis-
take could have been made, for Duveneck's
work differs radically In tone and tenn
permanent from Whistler's, but even the
suspicion of such "joke"-not beyond
the gentle artist making enemies
proof of Duvenecks complete mastery Of
his medium.
But until Norbert Heermann's mono
graph was published by Houghton Milf
lin Company last month no just and full
appreciation of Duveneek had appeared.
This volume is therefore doubly welcome
both on account of the interest attaching to
Duvencck and the clear, honest criticism Of
his work twenty reproductions Of the
more important eanvases appear IS Illus
trations) presented by Professor Heer-
mann. Art criticism is not as q rule of
great interest to the layman, but this book
deals not only with great artist, but with
great man, one Of the foremost of living
Americans. DC. .~..
FRANK DJTVENECK. By NORBERT HEER-