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The Irish born Thomas Hovenden (1840-1895) is among the earliest
painters of American genre scenes. He came to New York from Cork
at the age of 23 where he studied at the National Academy of
Design, and found work as an illustrator for Harper’s
Magazine. In 1880, after a six year sojourn to France where
he studied mostly under the tutelage of Alexandre Cabanel, as
well as at the art colony of Pont-Aven in Brittany, he returned
to the United States, where the subject matter and overall tone
of his works took on a decidedly democratic nature- one which
expressed an interest in the lives and portrayal of everyday,
middle class people, and of African Americans in particular.
Hovenden’s approach established him as a contemporary among
America’s great realists painters, including Robert Henri,
one of his pupils at the Pennsylvania Academy, and Thomas Eakins,
his predecessor as a professor of Painting and Drawing at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a position which Hovenden
took over in 1886.
Throughout his life Hovenden enjoyed a reputation as an established
artist. He was also somewhat of a social activist, whose beliefs
were articulated most clearly through his work, and good deeds.
He held a keen interest in the portrayal of the lives of post-Civil
War African Americans, and the house he shared with this wife,
Helen Corson, was part of the underground railroad. Tragically,
his life was cut short at the age of 45 in an attempt to rescue
a young girl who stood in front of an oncoming train.
The "Profile of a Young Man" bears a certain resemblance
to the central figure in Hovenden’s most famous work "Breaking
Home Ties" of 1890, which won instant critical acclaim at
its unveiling at both the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in
1891, and later at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago
in 1893, mostly for its significance as an emblem for the contemporary,
social, and developing stylistic issues at the time.
Perhaps as an attempt to compete with the rapidly popularizing
medium of photography, the sitter is rendered in a realistic
portrait style similar to that of a photograph: seated in profile,
and shown from the shoulder up. Hovenden’s rendering of
the sitter is sympathetic yet unidealized.
The condition of Hovenden’s waterolor is excellent for
its age. It is elaborately housed, with an ivory toned mat, elaborate
gilded frame, encased in a red crimson- lined mahogany box, covered
by uv glass. |
