Arts and Letters

From the time of Benjamin West until John S. Sargent, there has always been a considerable number of self-expatriated American artists who have given renown to American art in Europe. Edwin Austin Abbey was unquestionably one of the most illustrious of this number. He was born in Philadelphia, April 1, 1852, a grandson of Roswell Abbey, a prosperous merchant, who was also an inventor of type-foundry appliances and a man of decided artistic temperament. He was the son of William Maxwell Abbey, who was likewise a Philadelphia merchant, and something of an amateur artist.

In 1866, when only fourteen years of age, Abbey published his first drawings in Oliver Optic's paper, Our Boys and Girls. During the early years of his life he was a student in the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Coming to New York at the age of twenty, he quickly developed, and was soon after employed by Harper's Magazine. Here he acquired a remarkable facility as a draftsman in black and white. His distinguished work as an illustrator gave him at an unusually early age a wide and popular reputation. Even at this time Old-World legends had a potent influence upon his character and the general direction of his work. In his portrayal of old songs and ballads, as well as in his illustrations of historic characters, he seemed to bring to life and to make real the finest fancies of English literature. She Stoops to Conquer, The Deserted Village, Herrick's poems, and Shakespeare's plays, were brought into a new light by the facile pen of the young artist. It was perhaps this special interest in English literature that, in 1883, influenced him to make his residence in England.

At frequent intervals his work, more especially his drawings, pastels, and water-colors, has been shown both here and abroad at the exhibitions of the numerous societies to which he belonged. It always attracted the admiration of a large and appreciative audience. It was not until 1895, through the influence of Charles F. McKim, that he was commissioned to paint his first important decoration, the well-known series of panels, The Holy Grail, for the Boston Public Library, which, with Sargent's notable decorations in the same building, have become renowned as perhaps the most remarkable mural decorations ever painted by American artists. Not only did he show in this comparatively new undertaking his great ability as a painter, but he fulfilled to the utmost what his earlier work had promised—a studious conscientiousness in all matters of detail, with a remarkable capacity for research into the costumes and customs of past ages.

In 1890 he married Gertrude Mead of New York, and for many years they lived in Fairford, Gloucestershire, England, surrounded by a most artistic atmosphere.

In 1901 he was commissioned by King Edward VII to paint for Buckingham Palace the official picture of the coronation. From that time the greater part of his life was devoted to painting, his last and most recent work being three important decorative panels for the State House at Harrisburg, in his native State. Unfortunately, he did not live to see this work completed.

In this country many honors and university degrees were conferred upon him, and he was the recipient of many foreign decorations, and in 1898 he was made a Royal Academician. His last year was the sixtieth of his life, and judging from the progressive excellence of his work and the vitality and enthusiasm of the man, there was every promise of even greater and finer results if he had lived longer to reap more fully the benefits of experience and his constant and untiring habits of work.