Marcus Waterman
Marcus Waterman | |
---|---|
Maderno, Italy | |
Education | Thomas Hill and William Morris Hunt |
Known for | Painter |
Movement | Orientalist |
Marcus ("Mark") Waterman (1 September 1834 – 2 April 1914) was an American painter, mainly of landscapes[1] and Orientalist subjects.[2]
Life
Waterman was born in
In 1874, Waterman accompanied a group of painters including Hunt on a sketching trip along the
At some point early in his tenure in Boston, Waterman began a romantic relationship with artist's model, costumer and Italian language teacher, Marietta Ambrosi, that lasted the rest of his life. Maria “Marietta” Giacinta Massimigliana Ambrosi was born in 1852 in the northeastern Italian city of Rovereto, which at that time was a municipality in the County of Tyrol in the Austrian Empire.[7][8] Her father was born in Brescia, Italy, but her mother was from Dorchester, Massachusetts.[9] She immigrated to Boston in 1871.[10] She returned to Europe for extended periods in 1878 and 1882,[8] and in Paris, she reportedly “became very popular among the big artists as a model. She was an especial favorite with Falero, the Spanish painter.”[6] Back in Boston in 1884, she set up shop as teacher and translator of Italian and French in the same building as Waterman[11] and soon became “a good deal of a pet among the artists [...] Her naturalness – her genuineness – appealed to Mark Waterman from the beginning [...] And there is no doubt but she brought a great deal of sunshine into the life of this quiet man years before they were married. She was the one person who understood him.”[6] Ambrosi posed for at least four extant Waterman paintings in the 1880s and 90s – Portrait of a Young Woman, Spanish Toreador, Yasemeen, and Portrait of the Artist’s Wife. Waterman and Ambrosi eventually married in Boston in 1908.[12][6] Waterman reportedly “wanted to marry Marietta years before, but his mother did not desire that he should, and out of his deep love for his aged mother he put off the marriage until she died” in 1907.[6][3]
In spring 1909, Waterman attended an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish artist
Waterman was described after his death as a man of broad intellect and a deep thinker, something of a philosopher; he was said to hold the average American art buyer in contempt, and was well-off enough to enjoy the art of painting for itself, rather than for any pecuniary reasons.
Mark Waterman was a proud man and considerable of a recluse […] Yet, though dignified and reserved to strangers, [… he] was always cheerful, companionable and helpful to those who knew him well and had his confidence. Many artists when sorely troubled in their work benefited by his sympathetic and helpful advice and by the free-will offering of the results of his own studies and experiences.[6]
He was a member of the Paint and Clay Club of Boston, of the American Watercolor Society, and the Artists Fund Society.[1]
Career
Though Waterman was primarily a painter of landscapes, he turned his hand to other genres at times during his career. An early attempt was a self-portrait of 1861, presented to the National Academy of Design upon presentation of his diploma the following year. He bore no fondness for the work, and a 1906 letter detailing his opinions of the painting survives:[1]
I regret to confess that I am the guilty party who painted the frightful portrait in question. I never saw it but once since I did it & it filled me with horror & remorse. If there is any survivor of the scores of painters who were friends of mine in New York some fifty years ago, he will oblige me by taking the said painting & giving it a good glaze of ivory black, wiping out a spot somewhere & thus converting it into a Whistler. I was a boy in my twenties when I did it & had never painted a head before. I hope I may be forgiven.
The self-portrait, too, survives, in the academy's collection.[1]
Waterman turned to Orientalist subjects after his visits to Algiers, and his paintings in this arena have been described as "rather literary"; many of them depict scenes from
Besides the National Academy, museums which include work by Waterman in their collections include the
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55595-029-3.
- ^ ISBN 978-2-86770-078-1.
- ^ a b Jacobus, Donald Lines (1939). The Waterman Family, Volume 1, Descendants of Robert Waterman. New Haven, CT: Edgar F. Waterman. p. 101. Retrieved 17 March 2022 – via Archive.org.
- ^ a b c The Brown Alumni Monthly. Brown University. 1914. pp. 277–.
- ^ The Boston Directory, 1877 - 1909. Boston, MA: Sampson, Davenport & Co. and Sampson, Murdock & Co. Digital images from "U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995". AncestryLibrary.com. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ ProQuest 502572566.
- ^ Baptism, San Marco Evangelista, Rovereto, Trento, Italia, p. 86. Archdiocesi di Trento. Transcribed record from "Italia, Trento, Diocesi di Trento, Registri Parrocchiali, 1548-1937". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ a b ’’Passport Application, Massachusetts, United States, certificate #96970. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Digital image from "United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Ambrosi, Marietta (1892). Italian Child-Life. Boston, MA: D. Lothrop Company. p. 8. Retrieved 17 March 2022 – via Archive.org. A second edition of Ambrosi’s account of her childhood and teenage years, retitled When I was a girl in Italy, was published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Boston, MA,1906.
- ^ Immigration, ship David Bugbee. National Archives and Records Administration, 1969. Digital image from "Massachusetts, Index to Boston Passenger Lists, 1848-1891". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ The Boston Directory, 1884 - 1906. Boston, MA: Sampson, Davenport & Co. and Sampson, Murdock & Co. Digital images from "U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995". AncestryLibrary.com. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Marriages Registered in the City of Boston for the Year 1908, vol. 581, p. 193, no. 4424. Massachusetts State Archives. Digital image from "Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Cremazioni Exeguite nel Cimitero di Brescia, no. 89.
- ^ Registro dei Tumulati nel Campo Santo d Brescia, Anno 1921, Mese Giugno, no. 31.
- ^ "Hillside in Autumn". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Wood Interior". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Interior of a Wood: The Past and the Present". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Phillips Academy - Addison Gallery of American Art - Marcus Waterman, Landscape".
- ^ "Worcester Art Museum". pair.com. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Marcus Waterman – Fine Art Museums for Marcus A. (Mark) Waterman". askart.com. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Indiana University Art Museum: The Grand Tour: Image Details". iub.edu. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
External links
- Review of Waterman's work in the Magazine of Art (1895).
- Cenotaph for Marcus Waterman at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island.