Irish Arts Review

Cheating the fell destroyerAuthor(s): Brendan RooneySource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 28, No. 3 (AUTUMN [SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2011]),pp. 112-115Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23049509 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 06:08

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Irish Arts Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish Arts Review(2002-).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.202 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:08:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Cheating the fell

destroyer Brendan Rooney recounts the adventures of 19th-century Irish artist Trevor Thomas Fowler whose

move to America brought him celebrity and commercial success

The

ocean-going vessel Oceana, built in Medford, Massachusetts and displacing 625 tons, left Le Havre

for New Orleans, accompanied by her sister ship

Marengo, on 20 October 1841.1 On board were the crew

and 241 passengers, mostly German emi

grants seeking their fortune in the southern

United States.2 Their long journey passed

without incident until the night of 3

December, when the ship ran aground at Bare

Bush Key, approximately twelve miles off

Kingston, Jamaica. 'Thrown on her beam

ends, her wheel and rudder in a moment shat

tered to pieces', the Oceana was left at the

mercy of the sea, the damage to the vessel so severe that all

pumps were rendered useless.3 The crew and passengers

gathered together on deck, 'numerous sharks playing around

them' and breakers pounding the stricken hull.4 Neither dis

tress shots nor the ship's bell succeeded in attracting the

attention of passing ships. As panic took hold, Trevor

Thomas Fowler, a thirty-two-year-old Irish artist, who was

en route to Louisiana with his brother-in-law Dr William

Wright, stepped forward, and took it upon himself to effect

a rescue. Commandeering a lifeboat, Fowler first ferried a

group of women to a sandbank some distance away. The

small boat was barely seaworthy, filling with water so

quickly that Fowler had to 'bail it out continually with his

hat'.5 At one point, the young artist even had to dive into the

sea to save a Dutch woman who had fallen overboard. Fie

returned several times to the Oceana for yet more cargoes of

'the doomed and hopeless', inspiring them 'with courage and

112 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2011

Cheating the fell

destroyer Brendan Rooney

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.202 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:08:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

CHEATING THE FELL DESTROYER ARTISTS

his counsel and example'.6 The hapless captain, Edward

Bray,7 was the last to leave the ship.

Shipwrecks were not uncommon in the unforgiving waters

of the Atlantic, but the experience of the Oceana was unusual

and significant. Though the ship was destroyed and its pas

sengers, according to one source, 'plundered by the inhabi

tants of Long Bay and the shore in the neighborhood', not a

single life was lost." Moreover, the incident prompted the

establishment of the Oceana Verein, an association of

German immigrants in America who collected money and

clothing for their luckless compatriots.9 The success of the

association's efforts would ultimately lead to the foundation

of the much broader German Society in America. Trevor

Thomas Fowler and William Wright, meanwhile, would ben

efit from charity from more local, if unlikely, quarters, receiv

ing immediate assistance from

Louth-born Dowell O'Reilly, Attorney

General in Kingston who, by happy

coincidence, had known both of their

families in Dublin.10 O'Reilly's interven

tion was critical, as Fowler and Wright

are unlikely to have had anything but

the clothes in which they stood. Given

that Fowler was returning from France,

where he had been studying and proba

bly gathering materials, the loss of 'his

many valuable pictures, paints,

brushes, &c. &c' was a severe blow.11

With O'Reilly's help, he and Wright finally made it to Louisiana, in the

company of nineteen other survivors of

the Oceania, on board the aptly named

America, on 1 January 1842.

That ill-fated journey was not Fowler's first transatlantic

crossing, nor, remarkably, would it be his last. It did, how

ever, punctuate dramatically an extraordinary and previ

ously unreconstructed career. Fowler is best known in

Ireland for his painting Children Dancing at the Crossroads

(Fig 1), a romanticized scene of life in rural Ireland. Though

marked by a sentimentality that to a modern audience seems

rather cloying, the painting is an accomplished piece that

demonstrates the artist's considerable technical skill and

ambition.12 Around the same time, he showed similar, if per

haps less fruitful, intent, in an elaborate group portrait of the

family of Richard Garratt of Granite Hall, Kingstown, (now

Dun Laoghaire; private collection). The picture features

Garratt, his wife, no less than nine children, and even two

dogs, casually assembled around a large terrestrial globe.

Like so many artists of his and

later generations, Fowler tried

his hand at many pictorial gen

res in his early work and his

contributions to the RHA

included such diverse subjects as

Portrait of Miss Kenneth of the

Theatre Royal Dublin, in the

character of Lady Percy (1830), The Herald of War descending upon Earth (1831), Sucillere

Rock, Co. Kilkenny (1831), The Last Farewell (1831), and numerous formal portraits.

Though Fowler was born in

Dublin, he is not known to have

received any formal artistic

instruction in his native city.

Instead, he may have begun his

training in London, where he exhibited at the Royal Academy

in 1829." That, however, was the first and only representation

at the RA, and by the following year, Fowler was back in

Dublin, where he exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy

annually until 1836, and subsequently in 1843 and 1844.

On the evidence of his surviving Irish pictures and his exhi

bition practice, Fowler had reached an impressive level of

proficiency and professional status by his mid-twenties.

However, Ireland could not hold him, and like several of his

fellow Irish artists, he left for America. The precise date of his

departure is unclear, but no fewer than nine works by him

appeared at the National Academy of Design in New York in

1837. In keeping with the pattern he had established in

Dublin, those works included formal portraits, a sentimental

narrative picture, a streetscape and the improbably titled

Andrew Gill, aged 113 years, his Longevity has been attrib

uted to Strict Temperance; He never indulged in Strong

Drink. Fowler's Scottish-born wife Mary Ann and their two

young daughters followed him to New York in March 1837,

accompanied on their journey by nineteen-year-old Frederick

AUTUMN 2011 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 113

1 TREVOR THOMAS FOWLER (1810 after 1881] CHILDREN DANCING AT THE CROSSROADS oil on canvas 71x92cm National Gallery of Ireland. Photo ©National Gallery of Ireland

2 The ill-fated Oceana, after Frederic Roux Marblehead Historical Society

3 THEODORE SIDNEY MOISE (1806-83) & TREVOR THOMAS FOWLER (1810 after 1881) MASON PRESTON BROWN (1836 741 and ORLANDO BROWN JR.(1839-93) WITH THEIR DOG, JUDGE 1848 oil on canvas 153.7x135.9cm National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Orlando Brown House, Frankfurt, Kentucky. Photo by Bob Lanham

U LA PETIT VENDANGEUSE 1843 oil on canvas 81x64.5cm Private Collection Courtesy Gorry Gallery

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.202 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:08:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ARTISTS CHEATING THE FELL DESTROYER

Fowler, presumably the artist's brother.14 Fowler asserted

his burgeoning status further the following year by includ

ing a portrait of the mayor of New York, Aaron Clark,

among his contributions to the National Academy of

Design's annual exhibition.

From New York, Fowler soon moved with his family to

Cincinatti, Ohio, but while they settled there, he plied his

trade as an itinerant portrait painter, acquiring a studio in

New Orleans and travelling throughout Louisiana,

Mississippi and Kentucky. Between 1840 and 1852, he win

tered in New Orleans, a city in which he would exhibit regu

larly and to critical acclaim, but spent the summer months in

Louisville and Cincinnati. His departure from Ireland had

not gone unnoticed. In October 1840, the Freeman's Journal

reprinted an article from the Louisiana Advertiser announc

ing the artist's intention to travel to Cincinnati to complete a

portrait of General William Henry Harrison, hero of the

American Civil War, and to present that portrait, and another

of Henry Clay, Harrison's rival candidate for the Whig nom

ination for the Presidential election of 1840, to subscribers in

New Orleans.15 The article provides clear evidence of the

esteem in which Fowler was already held in the American

south. 'We are perfectly confident,' wrote the journalist 'that

the portraits... will reflect credit on the good taste and dis

cernment of the gentlemen who selected the artist; while the

paintings will prove an ornament to the city, and highly cred

wife Elizabeth (c.1842, Kentucky Historical Society,

Frankfort),24 were achieved against considerable competition.

In his American formal portraits, Fowler appears to have

relinquished the interest in the mise-en-scene that character

ized his early Irish pictures like Children Dancing at the

Crossroads and his portrait of the Garratt family. Instead his

portraits, for all their warm, slightly flushed coloration and

'sensuous note',25 seem comparatively formulaic. Indeed, in

many of his successful collaborations with Moi'se, such as

the portrait of young brothers Mason Preston Brown and

Orlando Brown, Jr. with their Dog, Judge (1848, Orlando Brown House, Frankfort, Kentucky), Fowler painted the

faces, yielding responsibility for the background and cos

tume to his associate26 (Fig 3). One can only assume that he

tailored his work to accommodate the relatively conservative

tastes and expectations of his elite American clientele.27

In 1842, just months after his misfortune off Jamaica,

Fowler returned to Europe, where he remained for two years

'studying the best Masters of the art'.28 He dispatched three

works to the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition of 1843,

including La petite Vendangeuse (Fig 4), a sentimental study

of three young grape-pickers in a rustic landscape that also

appeared for sale at the Royal Irish Art Union that year.29 His

painting La jeune Artiste, also shown at the RHA in 1843,

received a creditable mention in the Freeman's Journal.

Fowler sent those works from Paris, but must have travelled

FOWLER'S PORTRAIT OF THE ELDERLY FORMER PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON, PAINTED IN THE SAME YEAR, IS A FURTHER TESTAMENT TO THE ARTIST'S STANDING IN THE SOUTHERN STATES

5 THEODORE SIDNEY MOISE &TREV0R THOMAS FOWLER VICTOR M FLOURNOY c.1742 oil on canvas 143x112cm Donated by Marie H Hawkins. Kentucky Historical Society

6 TREVOR THOMAS FOWLER ANDREW JACKSON. 7th US PRESIDENT c. 1740 oil on canvas 76.8x63.5cm Washington DC, National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institute ©2011 Photo: National Portrait Gallery. Smithsonian/ Art Resource/ Scala, Florence

itable to Mr. F'.16 The New Orleans Commercial Bulletin

claimed in relation to the portrait of Harrison that Fowler

had 'animated the canvas with the living greatness of the

noble original'.17 Fowler's portrait of the elderly former pres

ident Andrew Jackson, painted in the same year,18 is a further

testament to the artist's standing in the southern states. On a

label on the back of the work, Fowler wrote 'I certify that this

portrait is the original picture for which General Jackson sat

to me while on board the Steamer Vicksburg on her return to

Nashville from this city in January 1840. Trevor Ths. Fowler,

New Orleans, 19 Camp St'." This audience with Jackson was

highly significant, as it took place on the retired statesman's

return from the twenty-fifth anniversary commemorations of

the Battle of New Orleans.

While working in the south, Fowler also established a pro

ductive partnership with the Charleston-born artist Theodore

Sidney Moi'se (1800-71),20 with whom he specialised in paint

ing group portraits in the American grand manner,21 and 'por

traits of children with their pets'.22 Fowler and Moi'se were,

according to the Daily Picayune 'particularly fortunate in

having the best heads and features in the city to copy upon

canvas',2' but their successes, including a fine portrait pair of

Kentucky landowners Victor M. Flournoy (Fig 5) and his

to Ireland soon after, as his contributions to the RHA exhibi

tion the following year included a portrait of John Classon, a

Dublin gentleman, and a watercolour of the saloon at

Stillorgan House, the residence of John Verschoyle.30 He

arrived back in New York from London in June 1844, and

continued on to New Orleans later that year, where his return

was cheerfully announced in the local press.31

Around 1854, Fowler moved north with his family to

Pennsylvania, settling first in Germantown and later in

Philadelphia. Though his reputation had been based on por

traiture, and his achievements in that genre in particular

praised by the press, Fowler evidently retained the interest in

scenes from everyday life that he had displayed first in

Ireland. His contributions to the annual exhibitions of the

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts included such works as

The Cedar Bucket (1854), The Lost Pet (1862), The Fortune

Teller (1861), The Happy Little Farmer and Intent on

"Chatterbox" (both 1881). As no residence for Fowler is

listed in the catalogue for the Academy exhibition of 1882,

in which just one of his works featured, it seems likely that

the artist died earlier that year or in late 1881.

Fowler is still widely considered one of the most accom

plished southern portraitists of his generation and his work

114 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2011

5 THEODORE SIDNEY MOISE &TREVOR THOMAS FOWLER VICTOR M FLOURNOY c.1742 oil on canvas 143x112cm Donated by Marie H Hawkins. Kentucky Historical Society

6 TREVOR THOMAS FOWLER ANDREW JACKSON. 7th US PRESIDENT c.mo oil on canvas 76.8x63.5cm Washington DC, National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institute ©2011 Photo: National Portrait Gallery. Smithsonian/ Art Resource/ Scala, Florence

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.202 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:08:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1 Benjamin J. Lindsey, comp., Old Marblehead Sea Captains and the

Ships in which they Sailed, (Marblehead Historical Society 1915), 71-2.

2 John F. Nau, The German People of New Orleans, 1850-1900, (Leiden; E.J. Brill 1958). 20.

3 Freeman's Journal, 23 February 1842. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.. 7 Benjamin J. Lindsey, comp., Old Marblehead Sea Captains and the

Ships in which they Sailed, (Marblehead Historical Society 1915), 72. 8 Ibid. 9 J. Hanno Deiler, Geschichte der deutschen Gesellschaft von New

Orleans, (New Orleans; Im Selbstverlage 1897), 51. 10 Freeman's Journal, 23 February 1842. 11 Ibid 12 For a detailed discussion of the picture, see Brendan Rooney, ed., A

Time and a Place. Two Centuries of Irish Social Life, exh. cat. National Gallery of Ireland, (Dublin 2006), 30-31.

13 Fowler gave his address as 71 Great Titchfield Street in London. Several authors have assumed that Fowler's early representation at the Royal Academy indicates that he studied there, but there is no record of his attendance at the schools. The author is grateful to Mark Pomeroy, Archivist at the Royal Academy, for his help.

14 Frederick was listed on the manifest of the ship John Linton, which sailed from Liverpool, as merely travelling'.

15 Freeman's Journal, 20 October 1840. Reprint of article from the Louisiana Advertiser, 20 June 1840. Fowler was commissioned by the Tippecanoe Club of New Orleans to paint those portraits of Harrison and Clay. Both pictures had been acquired by the city by 1852.

16 Ibid. 17 New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, 12 December 1840. 18 Harrison was elected president in 1840. His presidency, lasting just

thirty days, remains the shortest in American history. 19 'Paintings of Note', Chicago History, vol.I, no. 10 (Winter 1947-48),

286. 20 Mo'i'se collaborated with several artists during his career. 21 These portraits conventionally measured 150 x 125cm or larger. See

Estill Curtis Pennington, Downriver. Currents of Style in Louisiana

Painting 1800-1950, (Gretna; Pelican Publishing Company 1991), 58. 22 Estill Curtis Pennington, Messengers of Style: Itinerancy and Taste

in Southern Portraiture 1784-1867, (Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art 1993), 27.

23 Daily Picayune, 27 March 1842. 24 See Estill Curtis Pennington, Messengers of Style: Itinerancy and

Taste in Southern Portraiture 1784-1867, (Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art 1993), 26-27.

25 See Estill Curtis Pennington, Messengers of Style: Itinerancy and Taste in Southern Portraiture 1784-1867, (Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art 1993), 27.

26 Estill Curtis Pennington, Kentucky. The Master Painters from the Frontier Era to the Great Depression, (Paris, Kentucky; Cane Ridge Publishing House 2008), 71-72.

27 Among Fowler's sitters were fellow Irish expatriates Maunsel White of Tipperary and, probably, James Hopkins of Belfast.

28 The Daily Picayune, 19 November 1844. 29 See Gorry Gallery, 2 November 2000, no.29 and 5 May 2004, no.27. 30 Classon was listed as a subscriber to both America: Historical,

Statistic and Descriptive and Slave States of America, both by J.S.

Buckingham. Three of Fowler's works, including The Young Enthusiast, (presumably the abovementioned La Jeune Artiste } a

painting of a young artists standing by his easel, were distributed

through the American Art-Union between 1847 and 1849. Edna Talbott Whitley, Kentucky Ante-Bellum Portraiture, (Paris, Kentucky: National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Kentucky 1956), 666.

31 Daily Picayune, 19 November 1844. Fowler had travelled from London on board the Napier, which docked in New York on 17 June 1844.

32 The author is extremely grateful to Cary Wilkins of the Morris Museum, Augusta GA, and Sheila Cork, Librarian at the New Orleans Museum, for their assistance in tracing Fowler's life in the United States.

33 Daily Picayune, 28 February 1845. 34 Daily Picayune, 13 February 1842. Brendan Rooney is Curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery of Ireland.

features in numerous American collections, from The Morris

Museum in Augusta, Georgia and the New York Historical

Society to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.32

His success was considerable and longstanding, but his quiet

demise appears to have been in keeping with his character. He

was, according to one source, 'modest of his merits, which is

no bad proof that he possesses them'.33 In 1842, the Daily

Picayune, which championed Fowler's cause for several years,

observed in relation to his work that while 'death may deprive

us of a beloved associate or a dear friend... the painter cheats,

in some measure, the fell destroyer, and preserves to us a per

fect presentment of those whom, living, we so fondly loved,

and memories, in death, we so dearly cherish'.34 ■

AUTUMN 2011 | IRISH ARTS REVIEW 115

1 Benjamin J. Lindsey, comp., Old Marblehead Sea Captains and the

Ships in which they Sailed, (Marblehead Historical Society 1915), 71-2.

2 John F. Nau, The German People of New Orleans, 1850-1900, (Leiden; E.J. Brill 1958), 20.

3 Freeman's Journal, 23 February 1842. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.. 7 Benjamin J. Lindsey, comp., Old Marblehead Sea Captains and the

Ships in which they Sailed, (Marblehead Historical Society 1915), 72. 8 Ibid. 9 J. Hanno Deiler, Geschichte der deutschen Gesellschaft von New

Orleans, (New Orleans; Im Selbstverlage 1897), 51. 10 Freeman's Journal, 23 February 1842. 11 Ibid 12 For a detailed discussion of the picture, see Brendan Rooney, ed., A

Time and a Place. Two Centuries of Irish Social Life, exh. cat. National Gallery of Ireland, (Dublin 2006), 30-31.

13 Fowler gave his address as 71 Great Titchfield Street in London. Several authors have assumed that Fowler's early representation at the Royal Academy indicates that he studied there, but there is no record of his attendance at the schools. The author is grateful to Mark Pomeroy, Archivist at the Royal Academy, for his help.

14 Frederick was listed on the manifest of the ship John Linton, which sailed from Liverpool, as merely 'travelling'.

15 Freeman's Journal, 20 October 1840. Reprint of article from the Louisiana Advertiser, 20 June 1840. Fowler was commissioned by the Tippecanoe Club of New Orleans to paint those portraits of Harrison and Clay. Both pictures had been acquired by the city by 1852.

16 Ibid. 17 New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, 12 December 1840. 18 Harrison was elected president in 1840. His presidency, lasting just

thirty days, remains the shortest in American history. 19 'Paintings of Note', Chicago History, vol.I, no. 10 (Winter 1947-48),

286. 20 Mo'i'se collaborated with several artists during his career. 21 These portraits conventionally measured 150 x 125cm or larger. See

Estill Curtis Pennington, Downriver. Currents of Style in Louisiana

Painting 1800-1950, (Gretna; Pelican Publishing Company 1991), 58. 22 Estill Curtis Pennington, Messengers of Style: Itinerancy and Taste

in Southern Portraiture 1784-1867, (Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art 1993), 27.

23 Daily Picayune, 27 March 1842. 24 See Estill Curtis Pennington, Messengers of Style: Itinerancy and

Taste in Southern Portraiture 1784-1867, (Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art 1993), 26-27.

25 See Estill Curtis Pennington, Messengers of Style: Itinerancy and Taste in Southern Portraiture 1784-1867, (Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art 1993), 27.

26 Estill Curtis Pennington, Kentucky. The Master Painters from the Frontier Era to the Great Depression, (Paris, Kentucky; Cane Ridge Publishing House 2008), 71-72.

27 Among Fowler's sitters were fellow Irish expatriates Maunsel White of Tipperary and, probably, James Hopkins of Belfast.

28 The Daily Picayune, 19 November 1844. 29 See Gorry Gallery, 2 November 2000, no.29 and 5 May 2004, no.27. 30 Classon was listed as a subscriber to both America: Historical,

Statistic and Descriptive and Slave States of America, both by J.S.

Buckingham. Three of Fowler's works, including The Young Enthusiast, (presumably the abovementioned La Jeune Artiste ) a

painting of a young artists standing by his easel, were distributed

through the American Art-Union between 1847 and 1849. Edna Talbott Whitley, Kentucky Ante-Bellum Portraiture, (Paris, Kentucky: National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Kentucky 1956), 666.

31 Daily Picayune, 19 November 1844. Fowler had travelled from London on board the Napier, which docked in New York on 17 June 1844.

32 The author is extremely grateful to Cary Wilkins of the Morris Museum, Augusta GA, and Sheila Cork, Librarian at the New Orleans Museum, for their assistance in tracing Fowler's life in the United States.

33 Daily Picayune, 28 February 1845. 34 Daily Picayune, 13 February 1842.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.202 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:08:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions