Artist Georgina A Davis' Exclusive First Published Image of "Baby Ruth" Cleveland - Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly March 1893

Duluth Evening Herald 4 Mar 1893



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The Art(ist) of the Deal of Bullsh*t - Donald Trump

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The (Benyon) Family - Brighton Massachusetts - Auburndale Mansion - 1872 - Artist George Henry Story

The Family - by George Henry Story
(Public Domain)

The great 19^th century successful American Middle Class grand family portrait painting – “The Family” by Artist George Henry Story is said to be of the Boston banker Abner Ingalls Benyon's family, and said to be painted in 1872 in the Benyon Mansion in Auburndale Massachusetts.

Public records show the Benyon family situated in Brighton Mass. where all their children were born.

The year 1872 seems to be highpoint in Abner Ingalls Benyon’s banking career with a listing at the National Exchange Bank as both president and a director in 1872, having working his way up through the ranks first as a Paying Teller in 1856 at this same bank and along the way working as a Cashier, next step up in the banking business, in 1862 at the Brighton Market Bank in Brighton Mass..

The year 1872 saw Abner Benyon named as Vice President of a new Homoeopathic Medical School also operating as the Medical Department of Boston College. This alongside his other duties as one time Treasurer and long term Trustee of same college / university 1872-1883.

Abner Benyon, with a middle name of Ingalls that matches a middle name of the brother in law of the artist, Hannibal Ingalls Kimball, the commission for the painting may have come through a family connection.

Mr. Benyon was all the talk of the east coast in 1882 when he quickly migrated to Canada and Mexico and back to Canada after indictments of embezzlement against him were about to be delivered on him in his then position as president of the Pacific National Bank Boston.

Abner Ingalls Benyon born 1832, died in Toronto in 1888 and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery Cambridge Mass..

Historical Brighton – Volume 2 - 1902

In Brighton –

Abner Ingalls  Benyon married to Ruthanna J Towne

Children:

George Henry Benyon  1857-1926

Carrie L Benyon  Dec 4 1860 – Apr 5 1866

Arthur Ingalls Benyon  Mar 17 1863 - 1903

John W Benyon – dates ?

Elizabeth Benyon – dates ?

Luther Benyon – dates ?

Abner Benyon – dates ?

Presumed Tags to Figures in Painting Above:

1 - George Henry Benyon

2 - Abner Ingalls Benyon 

3 - Arthur Ingalls Benyon

4 - John W Benyon

5 - Ruthanna J Benyon

6 - Baby Abner Benyon (?)

7 - Elizabeth Benyon

8 - Luther Benyon (?)

9 – Unidentified Relative

10- Unidentified Relative

11- (Presumed) Grandmother Towne (?) or Benyon (?)

12- (Presumed) Carrie L Benyon Dec 4 1860 – Apr 5 1866

January 6, 2018

Suggested name tags per e-mail:

George Henry Story - American Artist (1835-1922)

George Henry Story - Self Portrait 1902 - Gift to Metropolitan Museum of Art by Mrs. George Henry Story 1906

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_the_Artist_by_George_Henry_Story,_1902.JPG

George Henry Story. Born Fair Haven, New Haven Conn. January 22, 1835, son of James Story, a sea captain and Clarissa Barnes Story. 

Died November 24, 1922, the Hubert Co-op Apartments 230 West 59^th Street New York City.

Started his career apprenticed as a wood carver for three years 1849-1852 to a Mr. Northrop. Studied art under Charles Hines 1852-1855.  Then studied art in Europe for one year.

Set up a portrait studio in rented space in a corner of the photographer M.B. Brady’s business space in Washington DC in 1860 and 1861. Was subsequently asked as a favor by Brady’s assistant to help pose president-elect Abraham Lincoln for a photograph. 

From there he gained access to White House for several days to sit in on Lincoln at work to make pencil sketches which later were worked into his famous series of Lincoln portraits over the years, some 12 or so in total, one of which is now in the Oval Office, West Wing of the White House. He also painted a portrait of Lincoln's Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase.

Abraham Lincoln by George Henry Story

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_by_George_H_Story_c1915.jpg

Married Eunice Berry Emerson Kimball June 5, 1856 in New Haven Conn.. Eunice, born June 9, 1835, daughter of Peter Kimball, a carriage maker in Norway Maine and Betsey Emerson, first cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Died Jan 14, 1908.

- Eunice was sister to a whole family of brothers, carriage makers including C.P. Kimball of Chicago and Hannibal Ingalls Kimball, the “recreator of Atlanta” in post-civil war Georgia.

- Father of adopted son Paul Story Kimball born January 28, 1872 in Newtown Mass., a nephew of wife Eunice and original child of George Franklin Kimball, a carriage maker of Boston Mass. and Lucretia J. (Wright) Morton Kimball. Died June 20, 1896, aged 24. Was model for Story painting "Dutch Cavalier" and or "Cavalier" at the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford.

Exhibited at 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia received a – Gold Medal – for his showing of three paintings, “The Young Mother” (a first version, lost, as opposed to a later 1881 version at the Wadsworth), “The Young Student” (then owned by Wall Street broker financier David Groesbeck), and “Echoes of the Sea”.

Curator of Painting at Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC 1889-1906, Acting Director of same museum 1904-1905, Curator Emeritus after 1906.

Curator of Painting at Wadsworth Athenaeum Hartford Conn. 1899-1922.

Buried in Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn with wife Eunice and son Paul.

Story Family Plot Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn New York
(Photo by Bob Collins)

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=58039388

April 21, 2014 - Many Thanks to Bob Collins who has provided Inscription below of above stone, a presumed final statement of love by husband George Henry Story :

Green-Wood Cemetery
Section 145, Lot 29429.
----INSCRIPTION, top and front:'

This memorial was erected to perpetuate the grateful sense of pleasure I had in the conversation of an accomplished woman, a sincere friend, and an agreeable companion.


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The Passion Series – American Artist F. Douglas Blanchard

15. Jesus Dies

In this strange latter day obese America chowing down on hate election season, I ran into a modern version of the stations of the cross so to speak, 24 in total, in the “Passion Series” of New York artist F. Douglas Blanchard.

This modern Jesus is set against what appears to be the current high tech fascist state of the new global culture and says so much to me.

The Crucifixion image above struck me with thoughts of Matthew Shepard and Gay Hate.  This, even if it was not the artist’s original intention.  

More images and thoughts of the artist below.  Drink in the spirituality of the eternal story of Jesus.

The Passion Series

23. The Holy Spirit Arrives

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Penn State Mural – Michael Pilato Artist – Dora McQuaid Poet – Replaces You Know Who

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/artist-replaces-sandusky-image-penn-state-mural-16649325#.T-mYRLVfERE

The depiction of Jerry Sandusky on a well-known mural across the street from the Penn State campus has been replaced by an image of a poet and activist draped with a blue ribbon — a symbol for awareness of child sexual abuse.

It was artist Michael Pilato's latest step in erasing the image of the disgraced former assistant football coach following Sandusky's conviction last week on 45 counts at his child sex abuse trial.

Sandusky was removed from the mural days after his arrest in November. But Pilato returned to the work on Sunday, painting in Dora McQuaid, a Penn State graduate who is a poet and an advocate for domestic and sexual violence victims and issues. The blue ribbon was added on Monday.

Also replacing Sandusky were two red handprints — one belonging to Ann Van Kuren, one of the 12 jurors who convicted Sandusky, and the other belonging to a sexual abuse victim.

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NJ Catholic “Religious Liberty” Bigots wants to erase Thomas Nast from History books – anybody got a match?

The artist cartoonist Thomas Nast 1840-1902, who invented the images of Uncle Sam, Santa Claus, the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey and brought down the corrupt Boss Tweed NYC admin in the 1870s with his pen, is being dissed in his grave by a bunch of catholic “religious liberty” bigots who want to remove him from the New Jersey Hall of Fame.


This, in the new spirit of catholic "religious liberty" exceptionalism. All American Protestant Christian history not conforming to love of the RCC must be rewritten or drastically revised, if not outright totally destroyed.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/nj_lawmaker_wants_cartoonist_t.html

So typical of the catholic fascist bully mindset to want to tear pages out of history and art books for the sake of ethnic purity and cleansing.  Why not just burn down the whole public library state Reps. DeAngelo and Rible instead of just a few books that you and your papist masters don’t like?

Nast was the Main Stream Media back then.  To remove him is just more retro-GOP-revisionist history.

Of course then, in the spirit of the times back when, Nast did depict the Pope as some misogynist, money grubbing, territory stealing monarch.  The only thing left out of the papist Nast Cartoons was the pedophilia.  Art imitated reality a bit too accurately back then perhaps except for well kept secret crimes.

And some of my boot licking drunk Irish Catholic ancestors got depicted in Simian profile.  But hell, they did look like a bunch of my ancestors malnourished and working under paid in upstate Pennsylvania coal mines etc. from memory and old photos.

Like the Catholic Guinea ringleader of the Supreme Court says “Get over it!”

Get a life.  Get a hobby.  Get a heart. My God what a bunch of losers on the public dole these days in both parties!

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Diego Rivera – Artist - Birthday

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Rivera

Following Google main page meme - Diego Rivera, 125^th Birthday, Mexican Painter extraordinaire, 1886-1957.

“Man at the Crossroads” - In 1933 the Rockefellers commissioned Rivera to paint a mural for the lobby of the RCA building in Rockefeller Center. “Man at the Crossroads” was to depict the social, political, industrial, and scientific possibilities of the twentieth century. In the painting, Rivera included a scene of a giant May Day demonstration of workers marching with red banners. It was not the subject matter of the panel that made the Rockerfellers angry, but the clear portrait of Vladamir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary leader of the Soviet Union, leading the demonstration. When Rivera refused to remove the portrait, he was ordered to stop and the painting was destroyed. That same year, Rivera used the money from the Rockefellers to create a mural for the Independent Labor Institute that had Vladamir Lenin as its central figure.   http://readingworkbook.blogspot.com/

Myth, meme, urban legend has famous “destroyed” 30 Rock Lobby Rivera mural as hidden behind plaster wall (center left below). If still intact, the original 30 Rock Diego Rivera Mural would be worth an estimated $60-80 million. 

Otherwise, why would the crown jewel of Art Deco Architecture in America, 30 Rockefeller Center, have such a bland boring substitute mural (above)?

Irony is, few these days can even remember the first name of the Rockefeller who rejected his work.  That is why Diego Rivera's name is immortal. 

(John D. Rockefeller Jr. - Who?)

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Secular Saint - William Blake

To see a world in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

I am not certain what to say about William Blake as poet, painter, engraver and printmaker. He was in his own league in his lifetime 1757-1827, with idiosyncratic views, on everything from nature to religion. His lack of formal education did not stop his self-education from reading all his life. From a long line of dissenters, he was for the most part pro-bible and anti-Church of England.

It is perhaps because he did not have a formal educated cookie cutter view of the world, that he was able to expand and populate his own personal universe with things of his own importance – interpretation of the classics, religion, words and art.

I periodically run into him in an arts section of a newspaper announcing this or that exhibit. You are always bound to see a new picture book published of his curious etchings and then there is his poetry for which his fame truly lives on.

He seems to have one foot in the past. His etchings were thought by many to be old fashioned, same as those of his original teacher under whom he was an apprentice. He made a fairly good living for most of the stretch of his life. You would perhaps have to classify him as rising but modest middle class in that aristocratic hierarchy of British Pre-Victorian importance and view of the day.

He does not quite fit in with the Romanticism of the time. Though he lived as a contemporary of the Enlightenment, he no doubt had strong pro views on the American and French Revolutions, his opinions remained in the background of classical themes. His real world, lived most of his life, in a stinking crowded ever-growing London.

As I child he learned to draw from stone and plaster classical statues as subject matter. In fact, looking at some of his later works I see a movement and flow that rises right up out of classical scenes not unlike the friezes of the Parthenon that he would not have been familiar with.

What holds the body of Blake’s work together is his view of the world and no one else’s view. What he saw as a child, aged ten, in light reflecting in a tree were perhaps angels as he claimed or the delusions of a child in full imagination of self within his own small secure turf, a private piece of the universe. The words of his poetry or his religious beliefs are condiments like salt and pepper that flavor all the rest of the world’s basic parts of belief and language.

I see some of his art works as being ultra-modern or even having a strong touch of Art-Deco in them from the early twentieth century. He surely captured the classical theme and also too with his spin of Biblical and Christian myth. The experts are still dissecting and reconstructing their own spin on the spins of this or that decade ever since his demise. They did not give him much recognition in his lifetime. His fame is born of human hindsight. That and the commodity equation of the value of his works.

He left no diaries. His biographers dig through public records and pinpoint him on a historical timeline for a few brief seconds out of every year he lived. The rest is speculation, conjecture and third party gossip. Such is life. He lived grandly of mind within the realm of his life and only shards of that full life of an artist remain alive in the energy and forms of surviving work.

Because he disliked and distrusted religious dogma and stuck with a kind of cultural Christian adherence on the fringes of that once great religion, I dub him as a Secular Saint in the This Cultural Christian’s Hall of Fame.





The words to his poem Jerusalem are part the unofficial national anthem of England sung at many sporting events.

Imagine - John Lennon - 1940 / 1980

John Lennon

Poet

Artist

Visionary

Humanist

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