Essay
Provenance
By descent in the artist’s family
Richard York Gallery, New York
Private collection, New York
Sale, Christie’s, New York, September 27, 2004, lot 6
Brock & Co., Carlisle, Massachusetts
Exhibited
Possibly National Academy of Design, New York, 1874, no. 149 (as Landscape, Lake George) Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York, The Collector’s Eye: American Landscape Paintings from Long Island Collectors, October 12–December 1, 1996
Literature
Possibly Maria Naylor, The National Academy of Design Exhibition Record, 1861– 1900 (New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1973), vol. 1, p. 465.
Erin Budis Coe and Gwendolyn Owens, Painting Lake George, 1774–1900 (Glens Falls, N.Y.: Hyde Collection, 2005), p. 79.
Richard William Hubbard was a primary figure of the Hudson River School, yet his place in the narrative of American art history is often minimized. Like many of his colleagues, Hubbard was at the center of the New York art world; he rented a space in the Tenth Street Studio Building for thirty years and frequently enjoyed the camaraderie of its other boarders, including Jervis McEntee, Sanford Robinson Gifford, and T. Worthington Whittredge.[1] Hubbard was also a friend of Asher B. Durand, with whom he traveled throughout the Hudson River Valley in search of fresh summer vistas.
Hubbard was rewarded with critical success. Art historian Henry T. Tuckerman lavished great praise upon him in his Book of the Artists (1867), stating that in Hubbard’s works “a remarkable harmony of tone, conscientious devotion to truth, simplicity of aim, and a quiet but serious feeling, combine to claim attention and excite interest.”[2] A critic at Harper’s Weekly succinctly noted of the artist, “He is recognized as one of the most careful and successful landscape artists of the country,” while the New York Times stated, “Mr. Hubbard has strong sympathies, and his brush tells it feelingly.”[3]
The critical assessment of Hubbard’s work as harmonious and of fervent yet subtlety expressed emotions aligned with his stated purpose. In a letter from 1857 the artist outlined his thoughts on what constituted an ideal landscape painting,. listing, among other details, the want of a “view of forested mountain slopes in shadow, their terminations undistinguishable amid the wooded champaign, itself interspersed with lakes and lost in a filmy distance, the sky paled to a delicate grey by the overpowering sunlight, and the shadows of mountains and forest heightened thereby as to lose all abruptness between shadow and light— producing thereby a dreaminess of effect highly practical.” This composition and its light would, according to the artist, allow for “a modesty of colour transcendentally beautiful.”[4]
Given his search for transcendental nature, it is not surprising that Hubbard frequented the environs of Lake George, painting its calm, seamless waters at least fourteen times. Arranged with a cohesive palette of muted greens and blues, Lake George visually manifests his written description of the ideal landscape. It includes each prescribed detail, from the forested slopes at back to the otherworldly haze that envelops the scene. Claudian trees surrounded by meticulously detailed layers of earth and stone invite the viewer into the composition, leading the eye to the silvery plane of water at the center. A small, gently gliding skiff offers the only sign of momentary motion in this peaceful American Eden. Skillfully transcribed with Hubbard’s conscientious care, Lake George represents a culmination of his artistic goals, offering “gems of quiet beauty wherein some of the least obtrusive but most winsome effects of nature, have been tenderly conserved.”[5]
JLW
Lake George likely was included in the 1874 annual at the National Academy of Design, where Hubbard was elected an Associate and an Academician. He was also president of the Artists’ Fund Society and the Brooklyn Art Association. Today, his work is featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
[1]. For a list of artists who maintained spaces in the Tenth Street Studio Building, see Annette Blaugrund, “The Tenth Street Studio Building: A Roster, 1857–1895,” American Art Journal 14, no. 2 (Spring 1982): 64–71. Hubbard’s friendships are documented throughout the diary of Jervis McEntee. See Jervis McEntee Papers, 1796, 1848–1905, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/mcenjerv/index.cfm.
[2]. Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the artists: American artist life comprising biographical and critical sketches of American artists, preceded by an historical account of the rise & progress of art in America (New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1867; reprint, New York: James F. Carr, 1966), p. 522.
[3]. “American Artists,” Harper’s Weekly May 23, 1868; “The Fine Arts,” New York Times, October 2, 1870.
[4]. Richard William Hubbard to unidentified recipient, February 26, 1857, Charles Henry Hart autograph collection, 1731–1912, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, available online at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections.
[5]. Tuckerman, Book of the artists, p. 522.