The Florence Griswold Museum

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A CORNER IN AN ETCHER'S STUDIO: American Etchings from the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection
January 17 through May 30, 2004

Krieble Gallery

In 2001, the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company donated 190 works of art to the Florence Griswold Museum. This extraordinary gift includes twenty etchings and drypoints by J. Alden Weir, Philip Kappel, and Kerr Eby that form the core of this exhibition. These prints, in conjunction with paintings from the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection, other prints and materials from the Museum’s collection, and selected loans, are the basis of A Corner in an Etcher’s Studio.

The etching revival began in England and then France, where artists such as Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) and Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817-1878) were among the first to explore the artistic possibilities of etching. The painter-etcher movement gained currency in the United States in the late 1870s and the 1880s. The establishment of the New York Etching Club in 1877 and publication of the first issue in 1879 of the short-lived American Art Review helped spur interest in the movement.

The American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was particularly influential. Whistler’s penchant for unorthodox compositions and his very individual approach to tone and expression were important, but so was his practice of using antique papers for his prints. J. Alden Weir’s work shows Whistler’s impact.

Although the American etching revival lasted only a short period of time, the movement set the stage for later artists, such as Kerr Eby (1889-1946) and Philip Kappel (1901-1981), who saw themselves as printmakers first and foremost.

Platt Charles Adams Platt, whose painting A Corner in an Etcher’s Studio gives the exhibition its name, was a leading figure in the group of artists who were both painters and etchers. These artists sought recognition for etchings as a self-sufficient art rather than as a means of reproducing images.

Platt painted several versions of this subject between 1885 and 1888, at times portraying himself among the tools and equipment of the etcher’s trade. This particular view of Platt’s studio does not include the etching press. It does, however, include an easel at the left, on which he might have dried an etching after it was printed, as well as etchings leaning against or pinned to the wall at the back of the studio. On the table at the right sits a shallow tray in which Platt would have bathed the copper etching plate in acid.

This exhibition is generously sponsored by The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company.

THE PROCESS

Etching
"To etch" derives from the same Greek root as "to eat."
Etchings are made using copper plates, wax, and a sharp needle or "point." The artist coats a flat, copper plate with wax, and then draws his composition in the wax with the needle, careful to cut through the wax and avoid scratching the plate itself. The plate is then immersed in a shallow pan of acid (an acid "bath"). The acid (or "mordant") bites or "eats" into the plate in the lines the artist has drawn, but does not affect the portions of the plate still covered by the wax. When the "biting" is finished, the wax is cleaned off the plate. To make a print, the entire surface of the plate is inked and then gently wiped so that the surface of the plate is clean, but the ink remains in the "bitten" lines. It is then printed on a roller-press, such as the one on display in this gallery.

Drypoint
In drypoint, a form of engraving, the artist scratches a line directly into the plate with a sharp point. The tool is held like a pencil and requires more force than etching, in which the artist is drawing in wax. The drypoint needle produces a "burr" or curl of excess metal, as it scrapes the metal plate. When the plate is printed, this burr holds excess ink around the carved lines, producing a velvety, fuzzy quality in the finished print. The burr is very fragile and, with repeated printings, will wear off the plate, changing the appearance of subsequent impressions.
Drypoint is often used in conjunction with etching. In the middle of the nineteenth century, drypoint became more popular when the introduction of steel-faced plates increased the number of prints that could be made from a single plate. An example of the steel-faced plate is in the case in this gallery.

THE ARTISTS

Charles Adams Platt (1861-1933)
Charles Adams Platt was an architect, etcher, and painter. In 1883, a writer for the Century Magazine noted that "Mr. Charles A. Platt is a very young man, and just beginning with energy and serious effort, his work in etching. … His taste is artistic, his individuality is visible, and his master [Stephen Parrish] is a good one."

Charles Adams Platt
Hartford, Connecticut, 1885
Oil on panel

Kerr Eby (1889-1946)
Kerr Eby was born in Tokyo and did not move to the United States until 1907. His maternal grandfather was the well-known print dealer Frederick Keppel (1845-1912). Eby studied at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League in New York City, and took a studio in Cos Cob, Connecticut, in about 1913. It was Eby who gave Childe Hassam technical advice and lent him his press, launching Hassam’s first serious foray into etching. (An etching by Hassam is on view in this gallery.) Eby is best known for his Connecticut landscapes, two of which are on view here, and for his realistic scenes of World War II.

Kerr Eby
Cattle Ford, 1924/1936
Etching and aquatint

Kerr Eby
Homestead from the Hill, n.d.
Etching and aquatint

Eby favored winter scenes, reveling in the opportunities to explore the play of a black line of ink against the white of a snowy field. Eby employed aquatint for the sky in this etching and in Cattle Ford, also on view in this gallery. Aquatint is a method of etching in tone rather than line. Instead of wax, a porous ground of finely powdered asphaltum or resin is used on the plate. This allows the acid to leach through to the copper plate, etching pits or small wells in the metal. The result is a grainy texture when the plate is printed that is exploited by the artist for aesthetic ends.

Philip Kappel (1901-1981)
Philip Kappel was born in Hartford, where he had the opportunity to visit the Wadsworth Atheneum and a local print shop. In high school, he worked as a staff artist for the Hartford Courant. Later, he moved to Salem, Massachusetts, where he met Frank Benson, among other artists, and became interested in Japanese prints. In Salem, he nurtured his love for the sea and for maritime subjects, which became his specialty. He traveled widely on steamer ships, making drypoints, which, unlike etchings, did not require the cumbersome use of acid on the plate.
The late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection prints were probably made, were particularly productive years for Kappel. He was exhibiting his prints and had been selected as the subject of a monograph in the prestigious American Etchers Series. In the 1930s, Kappel purchased a home in New Milford, Connecticut, and subsequently maintained a studio in Roxbury, Connecticut.

Everett L. Warner (1877-1963)
A painter and an etcher, Warner was born in Iowa, but moved to Washington, D.C. in 1891. There he studied at the Corcoran Art School and the Washington Art Students League and worked as an art critic for the Washington Evening Star. He moved to New York City in 1900, where he studied at the Art Students League. He traveled in Europe in 1903 and 1904, and again in 1907. In 1909, he made his first visit to Old Lyme. In 1924, he took a job at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he taught until 1945.

Early on in his career, Warner became interested in etching. His first etchings served as illustrations for his Evening Star reviews, but by the turn of the century, he was making etchings of scenes in Paris. In 1904 and 1905, he exhibited a group of etchings and oil paintings at the Paris Salon. While in Europe, Warner’s exploration of the etching process increased. He took down the names of various suppliers of materials and equipment and experimented with different inks, acids, and papers. He continued to experiment with etching and to exhibit his work when he returned to the United States. In 1931, after he took the job in Pittsburgh, he wrote an "Etcher’s Manual," on view in the case in this gallery.

J. Alden Weir (1852-1919)
J. Alden Weir owned a farm in Branchville, Connecticut (now known as Weir Farm). He was just turning to Impressionism in his painting when he began to etch in 1887. He experimented with etching in Branchville in 1888 and by the winter of 1890 had a press in New York City as well.
In the period from about 1887 to 1893, Weir devoted himself to etching and drypoint. At this time, he was exploring new mediums and means of expression and soon developed a love of the printmaker’s craft. Weir was probably introduced to etching by his father, Robert Weir, whose portrait hangs in this gallery. Robert Weir was himself an etcher and collected old master prints, as would his son. Other influences include James McNeill Whistler as well John H. Twachtman, who carried small plates and an etching needle with him on walks. Weir too etched directly from the landscape.

Weir described his attraction to etching in an interview in 1911: "For a period of about eight years I was deeply interested in etching and especially drypoint as it was so easy to carry about in one’s pocket a half-dozen plates which would fill up at odd moments. I gradually got so interested in a certain charm that etching only possess, [I] had my own press and would often pull prints to the early hours of the morning."

Vase
J. Alden Weir
A Vase of Roses, c. 1890
Pastel on paper

Weir
J. Alden Weir
Gyp and the Gipsy, unrecorded state
Drypoint

This drypoint by Weir shows the influence of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), one of the most influential artists of his time. Weir’s placement of the figure off to the left rather than in the center of the composition, as well as the generous expanse of empty space he left at the bottom are both characteristic of Whistler’s work. The little girl pictured is Caro, Weir’s daughter and, later, an etcher herself. Her work hangs in this gallery.

A "state" is a stage in the development of the composition. Each alteration of the printing plate after an impression has been made indicates a new state.