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Photo: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Photograph of Johnson working on portrait of Parke Godwin
Photo: Reproduction in Edgar French, "An American Portrait Painter of Three Historical Epochs," World's Work, Dec. 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. 31.1.88
Baur no. 191
Parke Godwin
Alternate titles: A Recollection (Parke Godwin); Portrait of Park Godwin [sic]; Portrait of Parke Godwin; Portrait of Parke Godwin, Esq.
c.1880
Oil on canvas
40 x 33 in. (101.6 x 83.8 cm)
Signed lower left: E. Johnson
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Exhibitions
Century Association, New York, February 1, 1896, as
A Recollection (Parke Godwin).
Century Association, New York, January 10, 1903, as
Parke Godwin.
Century Association, New York, January 9, 1904, as
Parke Godwin.
M. Knoedler & Co, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson, January 7–26, 1946. (Exhibition catalogue: M. Knoedler & Co. 1946), no. 3, as
Portrait of Parke Godwin. Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
References
Catalogue of the Twenty-Third Exhibition. New York:
Society of American Artists,
1901.
Exhibition catalogue (1901 Society of American Artists), p. 43, no. 216, as
Portrait of Parke Godwin, Esq.
French, Edgar. "An American Portrait Painter of Three Historical Epochs." World's Work (December 1906), p. 8321, illus.
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," as
Parke Godwin.
Catalogue of Modern and Antique Oil Paintings and Water Colors including the Works of Mr. Gino Albieri. New York:
Silo's,
March 18–19, 1927.
Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 402
.
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. 191, as
Parke Godwin.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Godwin, Parke
Biography: Parke Godwin (February 25, 1816–January 7, 1904). Editor of The New York Evening Post, author, and notable New York City intellectual. Wrote on political and historical subjects, as well as Shakespeare’s sonnets, and was a patron of the arts. Son of Abraham and Martha (Parke) Godwin; married Frances (m. 1842), daughter of William Cullen Bryant; father of seven children.
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
Keywords
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Record last updated March 24, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Parke Godwin, c.1880 (Hills no. 31.1.88)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=560 (accessed on December 2, 2024).
