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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Reproduction in Edgar French, "An American Portrait Painter of Three Historical Epochs," World's Work (December 1906)
31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men

When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.

He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH

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Hills no. 31.1.17
Edwin Booth
Alternate titles: possibly Portrait of the Late Edwin Booth; Portrait of Edwin Booth
c.1884
Oil
[dimensions unknown]
Provenance
Possibly Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman, daughter of the sitter, by 1895
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1884b Century Association
Century Association, New York, May 3, 1884, [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
1884 Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, November 13, 1884, no. 42, [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
1895 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, Loan Exhibition of Portraits for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital, October 13–December 7, 1895. (NAD 1895), no. 176, [possibly, as Edwin Booth, lent by Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman].
1900a Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, American Paintings, January 11–13, 1900, no. 12, [possibly, as Portrait of the Late Edwin Booth].
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
References
NAD 1895
Loan Exhibition of Portraits for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital. New York: National Academy of Design, 1895. Exhibition catalogue (1895 NAD), p. 33, no. 176 [possibly, as Edwin Booth, lent by Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman].
New-York Daily Tribune 1895
"Portraits by the Score: Second Annual Loan Exhibition Opens this Afternoon. List of Some of the More Notable Ones to be Shown at the National Academy for the Benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopedic Hospital." New-York Daily Tribune (New York), October 30, 1895, [possibly this version]: "Eastman Johnson's portrait of Edwin Booth, lent by Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman…[is] also hung in this [south] gallery."
French 1906
French, Edgar. "An American Portrait Painter of Three Historical Epochs." World's Work 13, no. 2 (December 1906), p. 8310, illus.
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 11, addendum "Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Edwin Booth].
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Booth, Edwin
Biography:

Edwin Booth (1833–1893). Celebrated Shakespearean actor and brother of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865).

White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.

Booth, Edwin
Keywords
Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Edwin Booth, c.1884 (Hills no. 31.1.17)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1253 (accessed on March 29, 2024).