International studio (46.1912)

Eugene Speicher

Eugene speicher—a new ar-
rival
BY FORBES WATSON
The awarding of the Thomas R.
Proctor prize for the best portrait in this winter’s
National Academy Exhibition to Eugene Speicher
is a compliment to the Academy jury which
awarded the prize as well as to the artist who re-
ceived it. We all know that sometimes it is dif-
ficult, often impossible, to understand the origin
of official approval, so frequently has it gone
astray, so many times has it been merely the bul-
wark of mediocrity. But again the official stamp
is used impartially and intelligently and we get a
glimpse of the large possibilities of conscientious
organization. In the case of the portrait of Miss
Helen Appleton by Mr. Speicher the Academy has
given its prestige to a work of art which deserves
it and helped not only to establish a young painter
of promise but also to justify its own importance-
Mr. Speicher, like several of our most vital
young painters, is essentially American in train-
ing and in sympathies. That curious mental
debilitation and unfortunate esthetic intolerance
which is liable to attack the young American who
has studied abroad is a disease from which he has
not had to recover. He is naively, freshly, al-
most rampantly American. His first visit to
Europe took place after he had finished his art-


PORTRAIT OF
CLINTON MORRISON

BY EUGENE
SPEICHER


PORTRAIT OF
MARY STUART SNYDER

BY EUGENE
SPEICHER

school days and had passed through those peril-
ous years which so critically test the painter’s
power to survive. And while in Europe he did
not at any time come under the charm of that
hybrid life, as unrelated to European as to Ameri-
can realities, which young Anglo-Saxons for the
most part have set up in Paris and elsewhere.
Nothing distracted his attention from Valesquez,
Hals, Gainsborough, Holbein and the other great
masters.
The specific names are not cited at random but
because the thorough painting, organization and
realization of Valesquez, the directness, handling
and characterization of Hals, the grace and re-
finement of Gainsborough and the quintessence
of craftsmanship and sincerity of Holbein in-
terested him intensely. Thorough painting, di-
rectness, character and sincerity are the qualities
that he aims at in his own portraits, and to see, at
least to some extent, what treatment evoked the
expression of these qualities was the primary ob-
ject of his visit to the Prado and other impor-
tant galleries. To help him in his quest he had in-
experience, ideality, intense enthusiasm and, in
spite of a thorough school grounding in the uni-
versal laws of handling, sensitiveness to fresh im-
pressions.
Mr. Speicher’s searching effort to understand
traditional painting does not seem to have made
his outlook on everyday American life and aspects

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