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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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[ 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. 31.1.128
Baur no. 226
Thomas Masters Markoe
Alternate titles: Dr. Markoe; Thomas Masters Markoe, M.D.
1890
Oil
30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center
Provenance
New York Hospital, New York (by commission)
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, 1978 (by transfer)
Exhibitions
1893a Century Association
Century Association, New York, January 14, 1893, as Dr. Markoe.
1921 Attending Physicians and Surgeons of the Society of the New York Hospital
Attending Physicians and Surgeons of the Society of the New York Hospital, In Celebration of Its 150th Anniversary, New York Public Library, New York, Exhibition of Portraits of the Presidents, November–December 1921, no. 31.
References
Society of the New York Hospital 1909
Biographical Catalogue Descriptive of the Portraits Belonging to the Society of the New York Hospital. New York: Society of the New York Hospital, 1909.
New York Public Library 1921
Exhibition of Portraits of the Presidents, Attending Physicians, and Surgeons of the Society of the New York Hospital, In Celebration of Its 150th Anniversary. New York: New York Public Library, 1921, p. 44, no. 31.
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. 70, no. 226, as Thomas Masters Markoe, M.D.
Douglass 1999
Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In Eastman Johnson: Painting America, by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue, p. 265, as Dr. Markoe.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Markoe, Thomas Masters, M.D.
Biography:

Thomas Masters Markoe (1819–1901). New York surgeon. Son of Francis and Sarah (Caldwell) Markoe. Married Charlotte A. How (m. 1850); father of four children.

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

Keywords
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. "Thomas Masters Markoe, 1890 (Hills no. 31.1.128)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=593 (accessed on April 25, 2024).