Portrait of John Severinus Conway, 1883
Oil on canvas, 45 x 35 1/8”
Signed and dated upper right
This portrait of a fellow American art student at the Académie Julian in Paris was in the Paris Salon of 1883 and made Vonnoh’s reputation when it was shown in his hometown of Boston the next year. At Julian’s he had to complete a study or a full-length figural piece each week, an exercise that may have helped him portray his friend with such fluency. One Boston writer saw a peculiarly American quality in the direct gaze and self-possessed pose: “A democratic frankness that challenges our attention.” The portrait won Vonnoh commissions and a teaching job at the Boston Museum School. He later returned to France and on that trip became an Impressionist landscapist. He spent summers in Old Lyme from 1905 to 1929.