Tuesday, September 15, 2020 – YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT TO FIND TUCKED AWAY IN A BIOGRAPHY
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2020
The
157th Edition
From Our Archives
JOSEPH PINNELL
ARTIST WITH AN ASTERISK
Joseph Pennell at work in his studio at Aldephi Terrace, London, between 1910-1926, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0002045
Joseph Pennell
Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) was an American artist whose métier was etching and lithography, and who became one of the foremost book illustrators of his time. Judy asked me to write about him, first, because of his love for New York City. In the Preface to a collection of his etchings of New York City (New York Etchings, Dover Publications, 1980), the editor, Edward Bryant, writes, “Joseph Pennell loved New York City. For him, it was man’s greatest achievement… Here to be etched and drawn and painted was the embodiment of the modern spirit capable of creating a great age.” Pennell, Bryant continues, “compiled a remarkable record of New York City during the first quarter of the twentieth century… describing with amazing fidelity buildings and places.” But, second, Pennell was also the author of The Jew at Home, an account of his travels in Poland and Russia, a vicious attack on Jews he encountered there, illustrated with grotesque etchings of these people.
Pennell seems to have lived a nearly idyllic life. Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from Germantown Friends. (He seems to have been a Quaker.) After studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts he worked etching historic landmarks and illustrating travel articles and books for American publishers. In 1884 he moved to London and there produced numerous books, both as an author and as an illustrator. Many of these were prepared in collaboration with his wife, author Elizabeth Robins Pennell. His London friends included many of the most notable creative figures of the day, including George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Singer Sargent and his close friend James McNeill Whistler. (Pennell and his and wife wrote a famous biography of Whistler.) Pennell moved back to the United States during World War I and taught at the Art Students League of New York.
He traveled widely, producing etchings, pen-and-ink drawings and lithographs of cathedrals, plazas, street scenes, and palaces for publications such as Century, McClure’s and Harper’s. He also made panoramic views of massive construction and engineering projects, such as the Panama Canal and the locks at Niagara Falls. During World War I, he created a number of important poster designs as a part of Charles Dana Gibson’s Division of Pictorial Publicity of the Committee on Public Information, which was organized when the United States entered the war in 1917. Pennell won gold medals at the Exposition Universelle (1900), and 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He distinguished himself not only as one of America’s most talented etchers but also as a promotional genius who helped to spur the revival of printmaking and print collecting during the first two decades of the 20th century.
In the midst of all of this, he wrote and illustrated The Jew at Home: Impressions of a Summer and Autumn Spent with Him (D. Appleton: New York, 1892), a brutal attack on Polish and Russian Jews, based on his travels in Eastern Europe in 1890.
Anti-semitism in this era came in several distinct streams. One was the fear of Jewish wealth and influence, of rich and powerful Jews controlling every deed and event. Another was the dread of Jewish masses, swarming out of Russia and Poland into Western Europe and New York (a fear, note, which some in established Jewish communities in Berlin, London and New York also shared). Another stream might be termed the “casual anti-semitism” of London’s and New York’s society clubs and boardrooms.
Pennell’s book wades deep in the second stream, repulsed by Eastern nor a Jew lover,” but he labels “the Austro-Hungarian or Russian Jew as the most contemptible specimen of humanity in Europe…dreaded by the peasant…loathed by people of every religion.” The typical Polish Jewish town, he says, is “a hideous nightmare of dirt, disease, and poverty; and…all this disease and ugliness is in a large measure the outcome of their own habits and way of life.” Later of Russian Jews, he writes, “They like dirt; they like to herd together in human pigsties;…they like to make money out of the immorality of the Christian. They are simply a race of middlemen and money-changers.”
Some nuance does exist in Pennell’s views: “There is no doubt whatever that these Jews who have stood persecution for centuries have in them many elements of good which ought to be developed, which can be developed, and which are developed almost every time an individual Jew is given a chance.” If he feels that the individual Jew can rise on his own, he detests the mass wave of immigrants, clannish and self-seeking. They must not be helped. If they are, “they will ask for more, until they are strong enough to drive everybody else out of that part of the country in which they have settled…. they intensified all those characteristics which in the end have made them so odious…”
Questions. First, his wife. Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855–1936) was an American writer who grew up in Philadelphia, attending convent schools. Bored with being a proper Catholic young lady, she took up writing as a career, starting with articles in periodicals such as Atlantic Monthly. Through this she met a young artist named Joseph Pennell, who had also had to face down parental disapproval to pursue his creative calling. Elizabeth Pennell sounds remarkable, in the words of one researcher, “an adventurous, accomplished, self-assured, well-known columnist, biographer, cookbook collector, and art critic”. She wrote travelogues, mainly of European cycling voyages, and memoirs, centered on her London salon. She and her husband knew everyone worth knowing. Among her writings, her biographies included the first in almost a century of the proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, one of her uncle the folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland, and one of her friend the painter Whistler.
Elizabeth Pennell was an early cycling enthusiast, particularly because it enabled city dwellers to escape to the countryside. She claimed that “there is no more healthful or more stimulating form of exercise; there is no physical pleasure greater than that of being borne along, at a good pace, over a hard, smooth road by your own exertions”. She disparaged racing (for men but especially for women), preferring long unpressured travel, and wondering if she had inadvertently “broken the record as a touring wheel-woman”.
Did she share her husband’s opinions of Jews? Did her husband’s trip reveal something new and horrible or did it merely confirm existing sentiments? Could they have lived together for so long, undertaken so much together without sharing these views? How did this fit into their lives?
What about the circles they moved in? Certainly, anti-Jewish sentiment existed widely in Britain. Opponents of the Boer War blamed “Jewish capitalists” for fomenting the war and for pushing imperialism in general. When the wave of Jews fleeing Russia broke over Britain early in the twentieth century, demands were widespread that Britain not become “the dumping ground for the scum of Europe”. The Aliens Act of 1905 sought particularly to control this immigration. A leader in The Times blamed Jews for World War I and the Bolshevik regime, calling them the greatest threat to the British Empire. The widely read Illustrated London News “featured any number of respectful pieces on Jewish life” (writes the author of Victorian Jews through British Eyes) but also ran Pennell’s anti-Semitic series during December, 1891.
All things considered, Pennell does not seem too far out of step with his time. Still, the book and its illustrations are particularly vile. These wretched, selfish people deeply, profoundly offended him. So one last question. In an era where some of my friends will no longer watch a Woody Allen movie, can we separate an artist’s work and his life? Can we enjoy Pennell’s work while aware of his anti-Semitism?
All indications are that he was a much better husband than Dickens or Hemingway, that he was not as bad as Wagner who once wrote that Jews were by definition incapable of art and probably no worse than Degas, also an anti-Semite and a staunch defender of the French court that falsely convicted Alfred Dreyfus. Caravaggio and Ben Jonson both killed men in duels or brawls. Genet was a thief, Rimbaud was a smuggler, Byron committed incest, Flaubert paid for sex with boys. So what? Some of my friends still won’t watch Manhattan.
Judy asked me to tell you about Joseph Pennell who made wonderful art of New York City (though never of Blackwell’s Island) not to brood over such intense matters.
Stephen Blank
Roosevelt Island
September 12, 2020
WORLD WAR I POSTER
Joseph Pennell, That Liberty Shall Not Perish from the Earth, Buy Liberty Bonds, ca. 1917, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Barry and Melissa Vilkin, 1995.84.57
New York Bay from the Margaret by Joseph Pennell, 1857-1926, artist. dated between ca. 1922 and 1926. New York City. As Wuerth described, “In foreground housetops on Columbia Heights, middle distance Brooklyn docks, East River, Governor’s Island, lower end of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and Jersey shore on the horizon. Colours, cream, blue, Gray, rose, brown, black, orange, white and violet, on dark Gray paper.” (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Joseph Pennell, Battery Park (from Portfolio, Lithographs of New York in 1904), 1905, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.144
Henry Wolf, Joseph Pennell, The Cathedral from High Street, 1887, photomechanical wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1973.130.22
Joseph Pennell, Lower Broadway, 1904, drypoint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of DeWitt Hornor, 1978.77.6
Joseph Pennell, Nassau Street (from portfolio, Lithographs of New York in 1904), 1905, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.140
Joseph Pennell (American 1857-1926)- ”Sunset, From Williamsburg Bridge” (Wuerth 674)- etching and drypoint, 1915, edition of 100, collector stamp ‘T. F. T’
INVALUABLE.COM
Joseph Pennell, Provide the Sinews of War, Buy Liberty Bonds, 1918, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.148
Summary Washington, DC. Closeup view of figures on steps leading to Lincoln Memorial, statue of Lincoln visible between Corinthian columns beyond.Contributor Names Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artistCreated / Published [ca. 1922]
The hall of iron, Pennsylvania Station, New York Summary Prints shows passengers in the steel-and-glass concourse of Pennsylvania Station. Contributor Names Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artist Created / Published [New York] 1919. Subject Headings – Pennsylvania Station (New York, N.Y.)–1910-1920 Library of Congress
Title Concourse, Grand CentralSummaryPrint shows passengers on the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal, New York, New York.Contributor NamesPennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artistCreated / Published New York], [1919]Subject Headings- Grand Central Terminal (New York, N.Y.)–1910-1920 Library of Congress
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
Elizabeth was a noted writer, cook book collector and food critic among her talents.
The final string to her bow was as a cyclist. She praised cycling in general, and the ease with which it enabled city dwellers to escape to the countryside, for its fresh air and views. She claimed that “there is no more healthful or more stimulating form of exercise; there is no physical pleasure greater than that of being borne along, at a good pace, over a hard, smooth road by your own exertions”. She disparaged racing (for men but especially for women), preferring long unpressured travel, and wondering if she had inadvertently “broken the record as a touring wheel-woman”.She started off cycling in the 1870s, while she still lived in Philadelphia. On moving to London, she and her husband exchanged their Coventry Rotary tandem tricycle for a Humber model, going on to experiment with a single tricycle, a tandem bicycle, and finally a single bicycle with a step-through (“dropped”) frame. The first journey that she turned into a book was A Canterbury Pilgrimage, a homage to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as a gentle introduction to cycling in England. Over the next few years, the pair took several trips together, including another literary pilgrimage, this time on the trail of Laurence Sterne’s 1765 travel novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. On a later leg of this 1885 journey they “wheeled” a tandem tricycle from Florence to Rome, attracting more attention than she was comfortable with, as possibly the first female rider that the Italians had ever seen.In 1886, now each on safety bicycles, they journeyed to Eastern Europe. This was at a key time in the history of the bicycle, and, of course, in the history of women’s rights as well, and they were both intertwined, in the figure of the New Woman. Suffragists and social activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard recognised the transformative power of the bicycle. By the time the Pennells had gone Over the Alps on a Bicycle (1898), Annie Londonderry had already become the first woman to bicycle around the world. There was a ready audience for Robins Pennell’s books, and the last-mentioned was chosen as a book of the month.
A Humber tandem tricycle, circa 1885
wikipedia
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EDITORIAL
Sometimes get get lead down the garden path, sometimes it is full of weeds. When I spotted the dark history of Joseph Pennell and his hateful anti-Semitic writings. I asked Stephen Blank to write the article and more learned history of this trait.
Both Pennells left their works to the Library of Congress. Tens of thousands from their art, writings and letters are available to the public at LOC.GOV.
Judith Berdy
jbird134@aol.com
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated
Wikipedia for both
“Joseph Pennell”, Smithsonian American Art Museum https://americanart.si.edu/artist/joseph-pennell-3751
Thanks to Stephen Blank for his contribution to this issue
C McGrath, “Good Art, Bad People” (NYTimes)
M Mendelsohn, “Beautiful Souls Mixed Up With Hooked Noses”
(Victorian Literature and Culture)
Preface to volume of P’s etchings
A Cowan and R Cowan, Victorian Jews Through British Eyes (1998)
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