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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: Courtesy of Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
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. 31.1.32
Baur no. 166
Grover Cleveland
c.1884
Oil on canvas
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
Initialed lower right: E. J.
Provenance
Alexander Smith Cochran, until 1929 (possibly by purchase from Mrs. Johnson)
American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, 1929 (by bequest)
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site, Yonkers, New York, 1972 (by transfer)
References
Walton 1906
Walton, William. "Eastman Johnson, Painter." Scribner's Magazine 40 (September 1906), p. 273.
ASHPS 1917
American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. Twenty-Second Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, 1917. Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon Company, Printers, 1917, p. 119, no. 49, as Grover Cleveland.
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 Grover Cleveland].
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 67, no. 166, as Grover Cleveland.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Cleveland, Stephen Grover
Biography:

Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837–1908). Twenty-second president of the United States, 1885–1889, and twenty-fourth president of the United States, 1893–1897.

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

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Cleveland, Stephen Grover
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Keywords
Record last updated January 13, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Grover Cleveland, c.1884 (Hills no. 31.1.32)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=528 (accessed on March 29, 2024).