BCMA Acquires Rare Photograph of Artist John LaFarge

It is relatively rare to find photographs of American artists at work during the nineteenth century. It is especially rare to locate photographs of artists of that period completing an artwork that is now in the collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.  Recently one such photograph was identified and acquired by the BCMA.

This photograph features artist John La Farge (American, 1835-1910) at his New York studio at work on his mural Athens (1898), now on permanent view in the BCMA’s Rotunda. Though La Farge was one of the most well-respected artists working in New York during the latter half of the nineteenth century, very few photographs of him exist. This unique print is the only known image of him at work.

A leading mural painter, La Farge was commissioned in 1893 to create a lunette mural for the Rotunda in the newly completed Walker Art Building at Bowdoin College. Meant to complement three adjoining murals that celebrate historic artistic centers in Europe, La Farge’s mural depicts at left the figure of Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and the arts and the patron and protectress of the city of Athens. Wearing a helmet and a full-length gown, she creates a drawing of a semi-clothed female model standing at center, who is meant to personify Nature. A third figure meant to personify the city of Athens sits at right looking at the scene.

Of note, an essay from 2021 by art historian Eve Kahn has identified Hettie Anderson, a mixed-race woman from Columbia, South Carolina, and one of the leading artistic models in fin de siècle New York, as the model for La Farge’s figure of Nature. Though Anderson is not visible in this photograph, La Farge sits immediately before the figure of Nature. He holds his palette in his left hand and a paint brush in his right. Various artistic tools and supplies rest on a table in front of him.

First exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Society of American Artists in New York in the spring of 1898, the painting was shipped and installed in the Walker Art Building later that year. It has been on view there ever since then.

Over many years, the BCMA has prioritized collecting preparatory studies of its four Rotunda murals. The collection has several drawings and oil studies related to Elihu Vedder’s Rome (1894) and Kenyon Cox’s Venice (1894). The Museum holds one preparatory drawing of Abbott Thayer’s Florence (1894), and one preparatory drawing of La Farge’s Athens, recently acquired in 2022.

The addition of this photograph allows the BCMA to tell a fuller history of La Farge’s famous mural and allows one to gain new insight into La Farge’s mural practice. As the only known copy of this photograph, the BCMA is excited to add it to its collection.