The Tile Club

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2000 by Ronald G. Pisano

(4.) For a list of the nicknames see Ronald G. Pisano, The Tile club and the Aesthetic Movement in America (Harry N. Abrams. New York. 1999). P. 103.

(5.) letter from Abbey to Will H. Low, 1908, quoted in E. V. Lucas, Edwin Austin Abbey, Royal Academician: The Record of his Life and Work (C. Scribner's Sons, New York, 1921), vol. 1, p. 47.

(6.) Laffan. "The Tile Club at Work," p. 402.

(7.) Details about the artist' techniques have been gathered from ibid: an examination of surviving tiles; and Anthea Callen. Women Artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, 1870--1914 (Pantheon, New York, 1979), p. 56.

(8.) For an illustration of the other surviving fireplace surround by Homer, see Pisano, The Tile Club, p. 26. For illustrations of fireplace surrounds by Abbey and Smith see Laffan, "The Tile Club at Work,: pp. 401--402.

(9.) For a Discussion of the importance of Cranc, see Voorsanger, "Dictionary," pp. 416--417.

(10.) The very porous tiles demanded the rapid execution of decoration. Professional artists like the members of the Tile Club could achieve modeling and chiaroscuro, whereas amateurs depended on strong outlines and bold massing to achieve their designs.

(11.) William Mackay Laffan and Edward strahan [Earl Shinn], "The Tile Club at Play," Scribner's Monthly, vol. 17, no. 4 (February 1879), pp. 457--478.

(12.) Ibid, p. 473. Other reference of an Anglophile nature include a reference to one of the artists working "with severe minutences, in the pro-Raphaelitc way" (p. 465); and "cup-boards filled with genuine Derby and Worcester" )p. 466).

(13.) Ibid., p. 476.

(14.) Ibid.

(15.) William Mackay Laffan and Edward Strahan [Earl Shinn] "The Tile Club Afloat," Scribner's Monthly, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1880), pp. 641--671.

(16.) Ibid.

(17.) William Laffan, "The Tile Club," Harper's Weekly, vol.24, no. 1205 (January 31, 1880), p. 75.

(18.) Lucas, Edwin Austin Abbey, pp.98, 120.

(19.) William Mackay Laffan, "The Tile Club Ashore," Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol, 23, no. 4 (February 1882), pp. 481--498.

(20.) The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1958), vol. 2, p.20.

(21.) Lucas, Edwin Austin Abbey, p. 120

(22.) Marc Simpson, "Francis Davis Millet" in American Paintings from the Manoogian Collection (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1989), p. 146.

(23.) The letter, dated October 1, 1883, is equoted in Regina Soria, Elihu Vedder. An American Visionary Artist in Rome (1836-1923) (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Rutherford, New Jersey, 1970), p. 174.

(24.) For more about the Kinsmen, see ibid., p. 268, n. 13.

(25.) Richard Kenin, Return to Albion: Americans in England, 1760-1940 (National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1979), p. 112.

(26.) For an extensive discussion of this art colony see ibid., pp. 106-138; Stanley Olsen, Warren Adelson, and Richard Ormond, Sargent at Broadway: The Impressionist Years (Universe Books, New York, and John Murray, London, 1986); and Joyce A. Sharpey-Schafer, Soldier of Fortune: F. D. Millet, 1846-1912 (privately printed, Utica, New York, 1984).