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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: © President and Fellows of Harvard College
[ 31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men ]info
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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. 31.1.77
Baur no. 187
William Hayes Fogg
Harvard Art Museums title: William Hayes Fogg (1817–1884)
Alternate title: William H. Fogg
1887
Oil on canvas
61 1/4 x 42 3/8 in. (155.6 x 107.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson 1887
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, William M. Prichard Memorial Fund and through the generosity of an anonymous donor (1982.49)
Provenance
Elizabeth Perkins (Mrs. William Hayes) Fogg, 1887 (by commission)
Chamber of Commerce, State of New York, likely 1887 (by gift)
Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1887 New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry
New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New York, [Permanent exhibition], January 1, 1887–September 1, 1982.
References
Wilson 1890
Wilson, George, ed. Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New-York: Catalogue and Biographical Sketches. New York: Press of the Chamber of Commerce, 1890, no. 22.
New York Chamber of Commerce 1924
Catalogue of Portraits in the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. New York: New York Chamber of Commerce, 1924, p. 18, no. 35, as William H. Fogg.
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. 68, no. 187, as William H. Fogg.
Orcutt 2006
Orcutt, Kimberly. "Personal Collecting Meets Institutional Vision: The Origins of Harvard's Fogg Art Museum." Journal of the History of Collections 18, no. 2 (2006), p. 268, fig. 2.
Kusserow 2013
Kusserow, Karl. Picturing Power: Portraiture and Its Uses in the New York Chamber of Commerce. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013, p. 287.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): Yes
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Fogg, William Hayes
Biography:

William Hayes Fogg (1817–1884). Businessman in the China trade whose company was known as the China and Japan Trading Co. Served as member of the Chamber (1858–1884), chairman of Executive Committee (1880–1882), and vice president of the Chamber of Commerce (1882–1884).

Catalogue of Portraits in the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. New York: New York Chamber of Commerce, 1924.

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. "William Hayes Fogg, 1887 (Hills no. 31.1.77)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=553 (accessed on April 26, 2024).