Edwin Blashfield

Edwin Howland Blashfield (December 5, 1848 – October 12, 1936) was an American painter and muralist.

Biography

Blashfield studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts after initial coursework in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He moved to Europe in 1867 to study with Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat in Paris and remained abroad until 1881, traveling, painting, and exhibiting his work in salon shows. His academic background in painting and extensive travels in Italy to study fresco painting melded in work marked by delicacy and beauty of coloring. Following his early success as a genre painter, Blashfield became a widely admired muralist whose work ornamented the dome of the Manufacturers' and Liberal Arts building at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, in Chicago, several state capitols, and the central dome of the Library of Congress. He was a member of numerous arts organizations, including the National Academy of Design, the National Society of Mural Painters in which he served as President from 1909 to 1914.[1] American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Blashfield served, from 1920–26, as President of the National Academy of Design. Among his many honors, Blashfield was awarded a Gold Medal by the National Academy of Design in 1934, an honorary membership in the American Institute of Architects, and an honorary doctorate of fine arts by New York University in 1926. He served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1912–16. His circle of friends included sculptor Daniel Chester French, painters John Singer Sargent and Maxfield Parrish, and architect Cass Gilbert.[2] His style was influenced by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Paul Baudry. With his wife he wrote Italian Cities (1900) and translated Vasari's Lives of the Painters (4 vols., 1897), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He became president of the Society of Mural Painters, and of the Society of American Artists.

DETAIL OF THE ANTHONY DREXEL MEMORIAL CHANCEL, by E. H. Blashfield.

In the Church of the Savior, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hellenica World, Paintings, Drawings

Selected commissions

in Atlanta, Georgia
a mural of the Good Shepherd St. Luke's Episcopal Church
in Chicago
a dome in the manufacturer's building at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition
the Elks National Veterans Memorial
in Washington D.C.
the dome of the Main Reading Room of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress
the mosaic of Saint Matthew in St. Matthew's Cathedral
the Iowa State Capitol at Des Moines, Iowa
the Minnesota State Capitol at St. Paul, Minnesota
the Governor's office in Pierre, South Dakota
the Wisconsin State Capitol at Madison, Wisconsin
the federal courthouse in Baltimore
the Mahoning County Court House, Youngstown, Ohio
the Detroit Public Library
in New York City
Appellate courthouse
the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
the Lawyers' Club[3][4]
the Great Hall of City College of New York, "The Graduate" mural,[5]
the residences of WK Vanderbilt and Collis P. Huntington
the National Academy of Design, "Saint Michael".
in Philadelphia
the residence of George W. Drexel (son of Anthony J. Drexel)
the chancel dome of the Cathedral Church of the Savior
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Many paintings by the artist are present, including "North Wall Alma Mater", "South Wall Right Panel Humanity", "North Wall Left Panel Angels in Trees", et al., all painted 1923-1930.
in Mercersburg Academy, Pennsylvania

A mural by him is located in the Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse, Cleveland, Ohio
Notes

http://nationalsocietyofmuralpainters.com
Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 540.
"Panel in Lawyer's Club, Equitable Building, New York City", 1895, Smithsonian Institution. The Lawyers' Club had been in the old Equitable Building which was destroyed by fire in 1912. This mural by Blashfield was from that building. The new location of The Lawyers' Club was at 115 Broadway in the United States Realty Building.
Lawyers' Club's Sumptous [sic] New Home Ready This Week", New York Times, September 15, 1912, Sunday.

"New Book on Edwin Blashfield features CCNY Mural", Press Release, City College of New York, Thursday, Sep 17, 2009

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Blashfield, Edwin Howland". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Gilman, D. C.; Thurston, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1900). "Blashfield, Edwin Howland". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
Cortissoz, Royal, introduction, The Works of Edwin Howland Blashfield, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1937
The Works of Edwin Howland Blashfield", Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.