The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonne [Hardcover]

Mr. Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 2000

Martin Johnson Heade was one of the most significant American painters of the nineteenth century, creator of portraits, history and genre pictures, still lifes, ornithological studies, landscapes, and marines, and his own unique orchid and hummingbird compositions. This book brings a new perspective to Heade and his works, presenting him as one of the most original and productive painters of his time.

Theodore Stebbins builds on his acclaimed 1975 study of Heade, drawing on several newly discovered collections of Heade's letters and the painter's own Brazilian journal. Stebbins tells of Heade's training and early career as an itinerant portraitist and discusses his move to New York, where, under the influence of Frederic E. Church, he began painting landscapes and seascapes. He examines Heade's relationships with patrons and dealers, writers and scientists, and he sheds new light on Heade's trips to Brazil, to the Central American tropics, and to London. And he describes Heade's move to Florida in 1883, which marked not his retirement but a final period of creativity that lasted until his death in 1904. The book includes not only an examination of Heade's life and works but also reproductions of all his 620 known paintings, including nearly 250 that have been discovered since 1975.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Drawing on newly available archival resources and scholarship on this American landscape artist (1819-1904), the author offers a substantial rewriting and massive expansion of his 1975 text (Yale Univ. o.p.). Stebbins (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) brings Heade to life as an individual in a chronologically arranged essay on his life and art. Although the critical estimate of his work is not radically different from Stebbins's earlier assessment, the oeuvre catalogue has been increased dramatically, from under 400 to over 600 paintings. Despite an awkward horizontal size and inadequate binding, this title supplants the earlier one for academic collections; more popular collections may be served by the catalog of the current traveling exhibition, also by Stebbins (Martin Johnson Heade, LJ 12/99).
-Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 2nd edition (January 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300081839
• ISBN-13: 978-0300081831
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 10.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #462,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Finest Works on a Hudson River School Painter, March 19, 2008

By 

Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonne (Hardcover)

In his preface to this all-around superb work, a true gift to lovers of American Art, Professor Stebbins mentions how during his course work in the History of Art at Harvard in the sixties the University offered NO CLASSES IN AMERICAN PAINTING! Amazingly enough this shallow presumptiousness of American inferiority in painting at Harvard existed side-by-side with the universal acceptance of contemporary American painting's dominance around the art world!

So much for turning to academia for keeping up with the arts!

Stebbins' outstanding book breaks down into two major sections,

1). A historical and critical overview of Heade's life and works.

A) A Long Apprenticeship
B) A New Life
C) Painter of the Tropics
D) Success in Landscape and Still Life
E) Florida and the Late Work

- After a short three section appendix - including 15 pages of fine printed notes -

2). Catalogue Raisonne

A) Figurative Works
B) Landscapes
C) Still Lifes
D) Drawings and Prints

There follows an excellent Bibliography, List of Owners, a General Index, and a separate Index of Heade's Works.

The cost of the volume may be off-setting, but this revised edition of an earlier work must be judged the major work on this artist, and with it's superb and invaluable catalogue must be counted near the top of any short list of books on 19th century American painters.

Filled with illustrations, and some color examples, in the first half of the book, the second half catalogue has a black and white illustration for each painting, complete with a listing of all exhibitions. The usefulness of so complete a listing for doing research is mind-boggling, and as such any decent university art library should purchase this book.

Those of you Hudson River Shcool Fans who can find this at a reasonable price might consider it as a special purchase.

Unfortunately, many general works on the Hudson River School, such as the wonderful "American Sublime, Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880" American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880 have few examples of Heade's work. Too, sadly, many of the best of these beautiful books, such as "American Sublime", with their near mystical images, are now out of print and frightfully expensive.

There are other less expensive books showcasing Heade's art. For Heade's last years in Florida there's an excellent work by Roberta Smith Favis Martin Johnson Heade in Florida A more expensive volume put together by Stebbins to accompany the 1999 Heade exhibit, not quite as dear as Stebbins' major work, is this one listed below, another huge marvelous book filled to over-flowing with fabulous reproductions, and many superb tropical images.Martin Johnson Heade

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, September 14, 2006

By 

Christopher L. Scofield (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonne (Hardcover)

The definitive work on Heade. Excellent plates, nice coverage and organization. The contemporary critical reception of the early works is quite interesting.