Marine paintings at the New York Yacht Club - Cover Story

Magazine Antiques, July, 1999 by Robert B. Mackay

Not surprisingly, the prolific New York marine artists James Edward Buttersworth and Frederic Schiller Cozzens are well represented in the collection. Of half a dozen Buttersworths three stand out. A small but typically well-composed panorama (Pl. IV) on panel, once installed in the cabin of the schooner Sybil, depicts five of the earliest yachts on the clubs roster - Sybil, Spray, Cornelia, Ultra, and Una - rounding a mark in a race of the early 1850s. Visual interest is heightened by having the contestants converge on different tacks, while gathering storm clouds in the distance add a sense of drama. A master of atmospheric conditions and the action of waves, Buttersworth was adept at using sea and sky to frame the subject and focus the viewers attention. In a much larger canvas (Pl. VI) of the schooner Columbia, the pitching committee boat discharging its cannon, the heel of the yachts, and the flapping canvas suggest the force of the breeze and the strain on the rigging. In the background is Staten Island, a reminder that the boroughs industrial waterfront was once called the Cowes of America and was dotted with country houses and yacht club outposts, including the New York Yacht Clubs depicted on the pier. The artist painted the famous ocean racing schooner Dauntless (Pl. VII) off the Needles, the familiar landmark rocks at the end of the Isle of Wight. The picture exhibits another of his favorite techniques - the reflection of the sails on the rolling sea coupled with the scudding clouds, which lend a powerful sense of motion to the vessel.

Six of more than a dozen watercolors by Cozzens were commissioned to adorn the saloon of the schooner Nettie. Three of these show the yacht in various seas and a fourth - a rarity - depicts it in winter quarters (Pl. VIII). The masterpieces of the series are two panoramas of New York Harbor (Pls. XI, XIII).

Some of the lesser known paintings in the collection are among my favorites. They include works by Archibald Cary Smith, whose love for the sea led to three distinct careers - shipwright, marine artist, and yacht designer. His large painting of Wanderer (Pl. XII) shows the schooner on stormy seas. There is the suggestion of danger, uncontrolled elements, and the immense solitude of the dark ocean - all familiar elements of romanticism often invoked by nineteenth-century marine artists. The painting was presented to the club by the banker James Stillman (1850-1918), the yacht's owner, and Smiths presumed patron, perhaps in recollection of a stormy passage.

Elisha Taylor Baker and Conrad Freitag are each represented by a single noteworthy painting. Baker's dramatic view of Puritan (Pl. IX), the 1885 America's Cup defender, breaks with the usual conventions of showing a ship from the side to capture the vessel bow on. An intimate knowledge of how sails worked was necessary to present this unusual perspective convincingly.

Freitag's portrait of the schooner Mohawk (Pl. X) is painted in the hazy style that the artist applied to the depictions of pilot boats for which he is best known. Mohawk was the largest schooner in the clubs squadron in 1875. With an overall length of 141 feet yet drawing only 6 feet, she was considered an extreme design. On a perfect day in July 1876 her owner, William T. Garner, the clubs vice commodore, his wife, and friends boarded the ship at her anchorage off Staten Island for an afternoon's sail. They had only been aboard for a short time and were below deck in the saloon when a fast-moving squall caught the vessel with all sails set and sheeted down, almost ready to get under way but still on her anchor chain. Knocked down by the storm, water poured through her hatches and Garner drowned in a vain attempt to save his wife.(3)