ILLINOIS HISTORICAL ART PROJECT

CHAPTER1

The cradle of John Henry Vanderpoel (1857-1911) rocked in the land of windmills and tulips, but it was in the “City of Big Shoulders” where his great talent for art was nurtured and where he gained world-wide fame as instructor for the greatest art school in the Midwest, and as author of the most remarkable art book of its time.

 

Vanderpoel’s parents, John and Maria (nee van Nes), made their living in the flax business in Rijsoord (now Ridderkerk), near Amsterdam, Holland. When the flax crop failed, they moved with six children to Haarlemmermeer, on the outskirts of Haarlem, where John H. and three other siblings were born. After the death of his wife, Vanderpoel’s father, convinced by correspondence with friends of great opportunities in America, set sail aboard The New York, on June 11, 1868, with his ten children: Maria, Adrianus, Jan, Hendricka, William, Johanne (John H.), Elizabeth, Macheltje (Matilda), Cornelius, and Cornelia, plus Maria’s fiancée, Bastian Leenheer.[1]

 

Of limited means, steerage was their only option for travel. The money ran out in New York and funds had to be borrowed to complete the trip to Chicago. Vanderpoel’s father spent many sleepless nights before the family was on a firm financial footing.[2]

 

The family arrived in Chicago aboard a Lake Shore emigrant car on July 11, 1868. Because of language difficulties, the little group wandered a long time looking for their friend’s home. When they were settled in an area called Little Bohemia (now Pilsen), he would return home from his laborer’s job and walk the children to classes. He made sure they learned the language of their adopted country. Every Sunday, the Vanderpoels attended services at the Methodist Episcopal Church on Halsted Street. They heard sermons which shaped their character and they sang with a caring congregation from hymnals printed in Dutch on one page and English on the other.[3]

 

Young John’s love of art had blossomed since age nine when he took his first freehand drawing lessons at the little polytechnic school in Kruisdorp, Holland. His father brought home an architect of Dutch lineage and Bohemian background to teach drawing to the children in their new Chicago home. John and his younger sister Matilda showed great talent.[4] John sought instruction in art wherever he could. In the public schools his blackboard drawings astonished schoolmates.[5] He attended Sunday afternoon classes conducted at Turner Hall in downtown Chicago, sponsored by the Chicago Turngemeinde.[6]

 

Herman Hanstein, who taught in the public schools,[7] and Christian F. Schwerdt, a professor at the Chicago Academy of Design, recognized Vanderpoel’s talents. They helped him obtain a scholarship given by Uranus Crosby of the Crosby Opera House to attend the Academy of Design, of which Crosby was secretary.[8] Vanderpoel then studied with Lawrence Carmichael Earle[9], Schwerdt[10], James Farrington Gookins[11] and Henry Fenton Spread.

 

Spread made the biggest impression on young Vanderpoel. Born in Kinsale, Ireland, he was a man of culture, broad experience and social charm. He insisted on “method” drawing and could be described as severe, but would often gather the students around himself for impromptu talks.[12] His dreams fired the pupil’s imaginations and his eccentricities endeared him to them.[13]

 

The Academy of Design was reorganized as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in May 1879. Spread and Earle were professors of Drawing and Painting; Vanderpoel became an Assistant Professor of Drawing and Newton H. Carpenter was Instructor in Perspective.[14] Vanderpoel was an Instructor in Drawing by 1880.[15]

 

Noted Chicago artist Adam Emory Albright, opened his first paint box in Vanderpoel’s still life class. Albright had responded to a circular advertising a day and night school of modest tuition that promised help in finding room and board for out of state students. Albright later described Vanderpoel as a natural born teacher.[16]

 

Early in his career Vanderpoel joined ranks with contemporaries for the advancement of art in Chicago. In February 1880, he and thirteen other young students formed the Chicago Art League. By 1882, they were exhibiting at O’Brien’s Gallery and in 1883, and years following, at the Art Institute of Chicago.[17]

 

Vanderpoel began painting outdoors early in his career. In July 1881, the Academy sponsored a sketching excursion to the Natural Bridge, Virginia. While there the party of about thirty from six Western states, were saddened to hear of President Cleveland’s assassination but taken by the beautiful scenery.[18] In 1882-83, when the Academy became the Art Institute of Chicago, Vanderpoel taught Still Life in Oil.

 

In the Summer 1883, Vanderpoel spent over a month with the Eliphalet Wickes Blatchford family in Colorado Springs. Blatchford had been vice president of the Academy. Vanderpoel sketched mountain scenery and with Blatchford’s daughters, Amy and Fanny, made sketches at Queen Cañon and visited the “Garden of the Gods.”[19] Later that school year and next, he taught drawing from the antique.

 

In the Summer 1885, the school sponsored a Canadian sketching party of fifty who stayed about twenty days in Rosseau, Ontario, Vanderpoel and Alex Schilling were the teachers; old friends, they had studied together, shared a studio, and helped found the Chicago Art League.[20] Chicago artist Minerva Josephine Chapman, featured with an essay in this book, was one of the students. [21]

 

Vanderpoel earned a traveling scholarship to attend the Académie Julian in 1885. It was the fulfillment of a dream and although very accomplished by now, he said that up to this time, “he had seen but not really known.”[22]

 

Rodolphe Julian, founder of the Académie, earned the Legion d’Honneur in 1881. His disciplined methods were highly respected and approximated those of the Ecole des Beaux-arts.[23] He was also described as a crafty, clever man of the world.[24] Perhaps his studios were unkempt and airless,[25] but there was no shortage of models. An artist in Paris at that time would often spend nerve-wracking time searching for the right model. Earlier at the Art Institute, the pupils had posed for each other. Amateurs at best, they lacked concentration to hold a pose for long. Vanderpoel’s solution was to disregard the amateurs and concentrate on the best of the most ideal, Venus de Milo. Vanderpoel would later propose to the School of the Art Institute a method for training models. The plan was thought unfeasible because untrained models were thought more likely to present natural poses.[26]

 

Vanderpoel so distinguished himself under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph LeFebvre that his work was hung on the walls of the Académie, an honor granted to only four American students attending at that time.[27]Classmate Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922) recorded his Paris days, saying he was happy with the highly specialized routine at Académie Julian which enabled a student to sketch a whole figure in one hour, but unhappy with Paris itself which he considered a “wicked city,” besides being “ravaged by cholera” and “politically unstable.” Vanderpoel is photographed with him in the group of Les Anglais.[28]

 

During his first of many trips abroad, Vanderpoel visited both Munich and Italy. He took American students and a few others to Rijsoord, Holland, during the summer. A cousin provided lodging for the ladies of the group in that Summer of 1888. Walter Gilman Page told of the “Latin Quarter Gang” to whom was shown a wonderful summer at Rijsoord.[29]

 

It was a magical time at the Art Institute when Vanderpoel returned from Paris in 1888. He was appointed chief instructor and lecturer in drawing and construction of the figure, a position he maintained for twenty-two years.[30] He and his colleagues seemed touched by a spark which spread to the students. Only a decade later it was said that: “The Art Institute and J. H. Vanderpoel are so closely identified that to speak of one without the other would be almost impossible.”[31]

 

William Merchant Richardson French waved the wand as Director of the School from 1879 until his death in 1914, he was brother to the sculptor, Daniel Chester French. French came to Chicago as a civil engineer but his office was consumed by the 1871 fire, and his business suffered financial failure during the economic panic of 1873. A Harvard graduate trained in the classics, he began lecturing and writing about art, then devoted his full time to art after his connection with the Academy of Design in 1878.[32]

 

Vanderpoel returned to Rijsoord during the summer 1889, where he showed several male students a “great summer.”[33] They probably lodged at the Hotel Warrendorp.

 

Aiming to outdo the Paris Exposition of 1889, the White City arose miraculously out of the dirt and depression which had marked Chicago, to draw the whole world to the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Vanderpoel was given an exceedingly great honor to serve on the International Committee of Judges for Fine Arts.[34] Additionally, he was named vice chairman of the World Congress of Painters during the Exposition. He exhibited five pictures in the Art Palace, three of which are pictured in the contemporary book, Revisiting the White City.[35]

 

The exhibit of the School of Art Institute showed the remarkable success of its students. Both the museum and school came into possession of the building used for the World’s Congress of Religions at the close of the fair. The fair had a very strong impact on the minds of people artistically inclined; this in addition to the new expanded space served to almost triple attendance at the school.[36]

 

Plein-air painting was encouraged by the Art Institute. Riverside, a suburb west of Chicago was a favorite spot for Vanderpoel who took students there daily in 1890.[37] The hundreds of pictures done along the Des Plaines River evoked poetry on canvas.[38]

 

In summer 1890, Charles Boutwood and Vanderpoel sketched for a month in St. Joseph, Michigan. It was called the Coney Island of the Midwest and attracted vacationers from Chicago who traveled straight across Lake Michigan on the daily schooners. During the next summer, the St. Joseph Herald noted the professors were back and they had brought with them a group of twenty Art Institute Students.[39] St. Joseph boasted a moving sidewalk, a grand hotel and activities around the clock. It must have proven too distracting. The summer in 1891 also saw Boutwood and Vanderpoel exploring Oregon and Dixon, Illinois.[40] Lorado Taft soon established his Eagles Nest Colony at Oregon. Vanderpoel’s bride, Jessie Humphreys, accompanied him on this trip. He and Jessie had been married on December 23, 1890.[41] There had been a rash of romance at the Art Institute that year. Four of the professors, director French and even the librarian married. An alumnus of the Art Institute revealed Vanderpoel wooed Jessie in the presence of his students, much to their delight. Often, he would sit on a stool and read poetry to her with such feeling that the class almost forgot to draw at all.[42] On recommendation of Mr. French, the newlyweds moved to the Washington Heights neighborhood (now known as the Beverly Hills neighborhood in Chicago) just a block away from the French home.

 

One of Vanderpoel and Boutwood’s students, Adolph Shulz, recommended his home town of Delavan, Wisconsin, for summer sketching in 1891. This became their summer home of classes for about fifteen years.[43] Students from the Art Institute, many of them city dwellers, delighted in the scenery. [44] One student “felt the spirit of Corot among the cool shadows of the willows, Daubigny speaking from the valley of forest trees, Inness down the dusty road and even Theodore Robinson out of the purple shadows.”[45] When weather was foul, they enjoyed painting in a studio provided by the City of Delavan on the small Lake Comus.[46] Critic Louise Riedel had this to say about the area:

 

“Nature was in a lavish mood when she molded the hills and hollows of Delavan. She bestowed beauties with a free hand upon this Wisconsin resort, and the observant eye can find charming bits in quick succession. The succession of hill upon hill, the moody lake with its purple shadows at evening, and its rank growth of lilies, rushes and sedges, the small stream winding through the valley, past willows and grassy banks, almost lost to sight at times, but persistently reappearing – these are a few of the charms that never weary… The work of the week usually includes painting from a model posed outdoors during one-half of the day, when a subject is chosen which suggests open-air occupation… The other half of the day is devoted to landscape.”[47]

 

Adolph and his wife Ada, (also a student of Vanderpoel at the Art Institute) assumed the role of hosts for the students.[48] They not only opened their home for social activities but often counseled the distressed and provided financial aid for those who needed it. Many student works were sold in front of the Shulz homestead.[49]

 

In addition to summers in Delavan, Vanderpoel and Boutwood made side trips to Burlington, Wisconsin. Martha Susan Baker (1871-1911) and Anna Lee Stacey (1865-1943) were among twenty-two artists on the trip.[50] Still seeking the ideal locale, Vanderpoel conducted outdoor classes at the Presbyterian Mission Farm in Petoskey, Michigan, in 1894, but they returned again to Delavan.[51]

 

During the summers from 1898 to 1902, Vanderpoel and Boutwood were assisted by Delavan native, Frank Phoenix. He was the grandson of town founder, Samuel F. Phoenix. Frank had been encouraged to paint when the two teachers started the summer classes. He became so enamoured with art that he sold his wallpaper business and enrolled at the Art Institute in 1894. He attended the Académie Julian in Paris in 1898, and upon his return, became an instructor at the Art Institute until 1912.[52]

 

At a meeting held in the town opera house in 1899, Vanderpoel encouraged town officials to make Delavan the most beautiful and artistic city in Wisconsin. He recommended the creation of a Board of Park Commissioners; Shulz and Phoenix’s brother, John J., were appointed.[53] A blotch in the idyllic picture were the cows that terrorized the feminine students, devoured the landscape and ultimately led to the exodus of several artists to Brown County, Indiana.[54] Even Vanderpoel was intimidated by the bovines and suggested a new site, devoid of cows, would be preferred. The last summer Vanderpoel taught in Delavan appears to be 1909, although announcement was made of lessons to be given in 1910.[55]

 

Vanderpoel’s expertise as a teacher during the regular school year was often recognized by the press. A writer was enthralled watching him down in the basement of the Art Institute with two skeletons on either side of him, his words flowing along “quiet and clear as a meadow brook” and also his drawing flowing “as if his very fingers thought.”[56] Another stated “Mr. Vanderpoel is unexcelled as a teacher and the students under his care reflect his superiority in the quality of their work.”[57] However it was soon recognized by the press that Vanderpoel’s teaching duties were severely limiting his output of paintings, a fact reflected today in the small number of works that in retrospect can be counted.[58]

 

A central figure at the Art Institute and winner of Chicago’s most important art prize, Vanderpoel became active in the various art organizations that were forming as the art community matured.[59] He was a counselor for the Central Art Association, organized in 1894, “for the dispersion of good art among the people.” [60] Its goal was to promote painting throughout the Midwest. The association sent traveling art exhibits (often hung in hotel lobbies or vacant storefronts) to other Midwestern towns. They published a program of art study held at the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology) as well as a magazine, The Arts, later renamed Arts for America.[61] At a festival held in the Art Institute, he helped plan an exhibition of 16th century Dutch and Flemish art.[62]

 

The Arché club was organized in 1889 by twenty ladies for the purpose of studying art. Vanderpoel lectured to the club and when they opened a salon for local artists in 1896, he won $100 for his Ready for the Question, and became an honorary member.[63] The club later purchased his watercolor, Threading the Needle.[64]

 

The Society of Western Artists was formed in 1896, and received much of Vanderpoel’s attention. Organized “with the purpose of bringing the artists west of the Alleghenies in closer fraternal communication and their works before a larger public,” its membership extended beyond Chicago to Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Toledo and St. Louis.[65] Vanderpoel was a regular exhibitor at these annual shows. His paintings were described as low in tone, but full of sympathy and tender sentiment.[66]

 

[1]Letter from H. M. Visser-Prins, Gemeentearchief, Harlemmermeer, 10/30/1991.

[2]Recollections of John Vanderpoel, Sr., 12/6/1907, Ruth Vanderpoel Papers. See also: Chicago Inter Ocean, 7/30/1909, p.7. Death notice of John Vanderpoel, Sr. at age 82 stated he was still employed in the Recorder's Office of Cook County where he was the oldest employee in service. He had also held the office of Chief Clerk of Probate Court, where he was known as “Uncle John.”

[3]“Reminisciences of our early Chicago Experiences,” Speech by William Vanderpoel, (John H.'s brother), 3/23/1908, given on occasion of their father’s 80th birthday, Ruth Vanderpoel Papers.

[4]“In Chicago’s Studios,” Chicago Evening Post, 1/30/1891 in Art Institute of Chicago scrapbooks, vol. 5. [A search for this paper on microfilm at four different libraries revealed a gap from 1/23 to 4/30/1891, hence no page number is given]. Matilda graduated from the School of the Art Institute in 1891 and taught there from 1901 to 1931. She helpred found the Saturday juvenile school and became principal of the Winnetka, Illinois, branch of the junior school.

[5]“Art Notes,” The Graphic, 1/23/1892, p. 64.

[6]A group of Germans known for their admirable ideals of a healthy mind in a healthy body. Illinois Staatszeituing, 5/12/1871, p.3, advertised the Sunday school at 257-259 Clark Street, charged children $2 for instruction in drawing and penmanship. Vanderpoel mentions the Turner Hall in op. cit., Chicago Evening Post, 1/30/1891.

[7]“Art Notes,” The Graphic, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1/23/1892, p.64.

[8]Fred W. Sandberg, “Chicago Art Colony to Lose J. H. Vanderpoel,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 6/26/1910, part II, p.7.

[9]William H. Gerdts, Art Across America, Vol. 2, p. 248.

[10]Alfred Theodore Andreas, History of Chicago from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Vol. 3, (Chicago: 1886), p.421 states that Schwerdt was born in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, and was a prosperous portrait painter. He came to Chicago in 1869.

[11]Gookins is referred to as “Chicago’s first art teacher.” He opened his first Chicago studio in 1865. See: Ruby Bradford Murphy, “Works of City’s ‘Forgotten’ Artist Are Discovered,” Chicago Tribune, 10/3/1966, Sec. 1B, p. 1. See also, Wilbur D. Peat, Pioneer Painters of Indiana, (Indianapolis: Art Association of Indianapolis, 1954), p. 43.

[12]“He is considered a rather sever teacher, rigid in his exactions, but the pupil who finishes under him has learned a lesson he will not forget.” “Students At The Art Institute,” Times-Herald, 6/2/1895, n.p., Art Institute of Chicago scrapbooks, Vol. 5 or 6., p.48.

[13]“Art Notes,” The Graphic, 9/19/1890, p.707. He was said to have done more than any other person of his time to awaken a genuine love of art in Chicago, see: Chicago Times, 11/17/1887, p.11. Spread held that the vast majority of students were not serious enough and he sought to cure that by only taking students for an entire term, refusing to bend from the progression of drawing to painting, see: “Art Taste In Chicago,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 1/20/1889, p.1. A much later commentary on Spread said, “…the art development of Chicago was largely identical with that of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the beginnings of this period center much around H. F. Spread, the leading instructor. A true artist, educator and citizen, his enthusiasm incited students to zealous activity, see: Ralph Clarkson, “Art Makes Great Strides Despite The City’s Newness,” Chicago Daily News, 6/17/1929, p.15.

[14]Circular of the School of Instruction, Academy of Fine Arts at SW corner of State and Monroe Streets, Chicago, (Chicago: Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, 1879), Chicago Historical Society.

[15]Circular of School of Instruction, Drawing and Painting, 1880-1881, (Chicago: Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, 1880), Chicago Historical Society.

[16]Adam E. Albright, For Art's Sake, (Chicago: privately published, 1953), p. 58.

[17]Invitation for Exhibit 2/25-3/9/1882, Chicago Historical Society, Chicago Art League Pamphlet File. See also: Year Book of the Chicago Society of Artists, 1910, p. 2, Chicago Historical Society. In 1888, the year of Vanderpoel’s return from Paris, the Chicago Society of Artists superseded the Chicago Art League, with Spread as President. Its objective was, “The Advancement of Art in Chicago, and the cultivation of social relations among its members.” Vanderpoel served as president three times: 1891-1892;1895 and 1910.

[18]“Art Notes,” The Chicago Tribune, 7/17/1881, p.10.

[19]Letters to Paul Blatchford from Eliphalet Blatchford, 7/6/1883 and 8/31/1883, Eliphalet Wickes Blatchford correspondence, Newberry Library, Chicago. Blatchford later became the First President of the Newberry Library Board of Trustees, Chicago.

[20]Royal Cortissoz, et al., The Book of Alexander Shilling, (New York: Paisley Press, 1937), p.51.

[21]Paul J. Staiti and P. Hastings Falk, Minerva J. Chapman, (Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, 1986), photo on p. 9, shows Chapman, Vanderpoel and Schilling. Chapman is featured with an essay in this book, also written by Peter Hastings Falk.

[22]Op. cit., Sandberg, Chicago Sunday Tribune, 6/26/1910, part II, p.7.

[23]John Milner, The Studios of Paris--The Capital of Art in the Late 19th Century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 12.

[24]George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man, (London: Sonnenschein, Lowery & Co., 1888), p.22. Moore, an Irish novelist, poet and playwright, went to Paris with a valet, intent on studying privately with LeFebvre who suggested he enroll at Julian’s where he taught once a week. Moore treated Julian to dinners and theatre; Julian threw open a door of Parisian life to him.

[25]George Biddle, An American Artist’s Story, (Boston: Biddle, Brown & Co., 1939), p. 125. The author describes Julian’s as “a cold, filthy, uninviting firetrap” where the models often fainted from lack of fresh air; “But, G_d knows, I was happy that year in the Latin Quarter.”

[26]Op. cit., Sandberg, Chicago Tribune, 6/26/1910, Section 2, p. 7. See also “School for Models,” Chicago Evening Post, 11/21/1896, p.4.

[27]“Art Notes,” The Graphic, 1/23/1892, p.64.

[28]Frederick C. Moffatt, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922), (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977), p. 25, fig. 13. Vanderpoel is in the front row with a mustache at the far right.

[29]Letter to Matilda Vanderpoel from Walter G. Page, John H. Vanderpoel Art Association archives, 11/24/1928. The rest of the group included fellow students Arthur Frank Matthews and Philip Leslie Hale.

[30]Op. cit., Sandberg , Chicago Sunday Tribune, 6/26/1910, p.7. Oliver Dennett Grover (1860-1927) was the co-head of the department with Vanderpoel until leaving the school in 1892. See also Harriet Hayden Hayes, “Chicago Artists and Their Works,” The National Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 1, April 1897, pp.54-55: “[Vanderpoel] is called one of the most successful teachers in the world.”

[31]Blanche M. Howard, “Society Of Western Artists. Chicago Group,” Arts For America, Vol. 7, No. 7, March 1898, p.407.

[32]Roger Gilmore, editor, Over a Century: A History of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1866-1981, (Chicago: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1982), p.70. 

[33]Op. cit., Letter to Alexander Schilling. Minverva Josephine Chapman (1858-1947) was among his guests, see: Letter from John H. Vanderpoel, 8/12/1889, Vanderpoel Art Association archives. Vanderpoel was in Holland again in 1892. “Current Art,” Chicago Tribune, 10/23/1892, p.39.

[34]The Book of the Fair, Vol. 4, (Chicago: Blakely Printing Co., 1893), p.960, shows Vanderpoel seated on the steps of the Fine Arts Building with other distinguished Members of the International Committee of Judges for Fine Arts.

[35]Robert W. Rydell and Carolyn Kinder Carr, Revisiting The White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair, (Washington, D.C., National Museum of American Art, 1993), p. 335.

[36]Op. cit., Roger Gilmore, p. 69.

[37]“Among the Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/28/1890, p.8.

[38]“Was an Art Center,” Riverside News, 10/17/1912, p.1.

[39]Op. cit., Chicago Evening Post, 5/28/1890, p.8 and “Personals,” The Herald, 6/14/1890, p.1. The artists had their studio in the east part of town, in a picturesque orchard overlooking the harbor and the river. Excursion boats brought visitors in the thousands over the weekend.

[40]“Art Notes,” The Graphic, 6/13/1891, p.383.

[41]“The Fine Arts,” Chicago Tribune, 12/28/90, p. 7.

[42]Maude Maple Miles reminescences, written for an Art Institute alumni meeting, November, 1922, Robert Harshe files, Ryerson Library archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[43]“Delavan’s Adolph Shulz Becomes Prominent Artist,” Delavan Enterprise, 2/10/1972, p.3B. [This is one of several articles published about Delavan famous citizens in commemoration of the town’s Diamond Jubilee].

[44]John H. Vanderpoel, “Sketching from Nature,” The Sketch Book, Vol. 3, June 1904, No. 10, pp.309-310.

[45]Gertrude Stiles, Art Interchange, 9/9/1897, pp.55-56.

[46]Louise Riedel, “Student Life at Delavan,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 1898, pp.116-117.

[47]Op. cit., Riedel, Brush and Pencil, June 1898, pp.115-116.

[48]Ada’s autobiography, written for the Janesville Art League, 1908, states she entered the Art Institute under Vanderpoel in 1889. When she attended the Académie Vitti in Paris, she learned to appreciate Mr. Vanderpoel’s teaching, for “all the girls who had studied under him did the best drawing in the Academie.”

[49]Op. cit., Delavan Enterprise, 2/10/1972, p.3B.

[50]The Burlington Budget, announced the arrival and activities of the artists, see for example 6/3/1893, 6/10/1893 and 6/17/1893.

[51]“Back to the Studios,” Chicago Tribune, 11/4/1894, p.25.

[52]Teaching dates courtesy of the Illinois Historical Art Project and Ryerson Library archives, Art Institute of Chicago. See also: Biographical file at Aram Library, Delavan, Wisconsin.

[53]Delavan Enterprise, 8/31/1899, article provided by W. Gordon Yadon, Delavan Historic Presentation Society, Inc.

[54]Op. cit., Delavan Enterprise, 2/10/1972, p.4B.

[55]Evelyn Marie Stuart, “Summer Vacation Classes in Art,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 22, No. 6, June 1910.

[56]“Art Institute Lessons,” The Sunday Chronicle, 12/15/1895, p.35. Mr Vanderpoel’s illustrations of the head and eye were printed.

[57]Fred W. Sandberg, “It Required Seven Large Rooms for Students’ Exhibit: Critique of a Meritorious and Comprehensive Display,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 6/19/1910, part II, p.5.

[58]“Chicago Art and Artists,” Sunday Inter Ocean, 5/9/1897, col. 1, p.35.

[59]Vanderpoel won a second prize of $200, given by philanthropist Charles T. Yerkes, for his oil painting, Twilight Reverie, at the fourth annual Chicago Society of Artists exhibit in 1892. At the time, the Yerkes prize was the only prize in Chicago. Now in its 111th year, the CSA is one of the oldest, most continuous art organization in the country; its members are distinguished local artists. For reference to the prize see the following: “Some Fine Pictures,” Chicago Evening Post, 5/27/1892, p.5; “A Conquest in Art,” Daily Inter Ocean, 5/28/1892, p.5; “The Society of Artists,” Chicago Times, 5/29/1892, p. 10; “The Fine Arts,” Chicago Tribune, 5/29/1892, p.6; “Local Art Conquers, Daily Inter Ocean, 6/5/1892, p.7 and “The Fine Arts,” Chicago Tribune, 6/12/1892, p.7. Vanderpoel and his wife then visited France and Holland for the Summer. See also: “Art and Artists,” The Graphic, 7/11/1892, p. 436 and 7/18/1892, p. 451.

[60]“Art Editorials,” Arts for America, June 1896, Vol. 5, No. 5, p.200.

[61]Information courtesy of the Illinois Historical Art Project.

[62]Charles A. L. Morse, “Artists’ Festival,” Arts for America, March 1897, Vol. 6, No. 7, pp.214-16.

[63]The painting is illustrated in “Arché Salon,” Arts For America, Central Art Association, Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1896, p.47.

[64]History of Arché Club, Gift of the Arché Society, 10/1/1941, Chicago Historical Society. Vanderpoel’s popular work was also owned by the West End Woman’s Club, who awarded him a purchase prize at the Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists, in 1898. The painting Winter Planting, was illustrated in Brush and Pencil, Vol. 1, No. 6, March 1898, p.187.

[65]John H. Vanderpoel, “The Society of Western Artists,” Brush and Pencil, Vol. 1, No. 6, March 1898, pp.153-164.

[66]Op. cit., Howard, Arts For America, March 1898, p.407.