Fishing for answers

April 11, 2009 12:14 PM

My grandmother just gave me an old framed print of a 1903 painting entitled "Summer-Girl" by a James Arthur. I haven't had any luck finding out who Mr. Arthur was, but he seems to have been a capable artist and popular enough to have prints made of his work. There's a torn look to the top of the print, as though it were ripped from a book of prints, but I can't find any info about that book or where the image comes from. If anyone knows more about James Arthur, this picture or his other work, I would be most grateful. Thanks!
posted by ktoad to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Best answer: It might have been torn from a calendar. Here is a page for him on AskArt which has just a few facts and biographical info. This Ebay print description has some info also.
posted by various at 2:01 PM on April 11, 2009

This may be a different James Arthur, but a photographer of that name appears to have been active in Detroit and nationally known around the turn of the century.
posted by metaquarry at 2:06 PM on April 11, 2009

Two other works by James Arthur — a photograph and a painting for a calendar. Although to my eye there are similarities in style between your painting and the art that various and I linked to, I'm not sure whether these are by one or two artists sharing the same name.
posted by metaquarry at 2:16 PM on April 11, 2009

Best answer: A James Arthur did a lot of illustrations for printed matter like ads and calendars and magazines and anything that could have printed on paper at the at the turn of the last century. He was slightly earlier than R. Atkinson Fox and Maxfield Parrish and W. M. Thompson, but there was overlap. Arthur was painting illustrations into at least the 1920s and for some of the bigger printmakers - 1 in Chicago, and 1 in New York. These were prolific illustrators whose images were widely sought after by printmakers and seller - at least until the Depression. Thompson. for instance, took a government job to survive the depression and never sold another painting for printmaking and lived unhappily ever after. These illustrations were almost like the stock photogaphy of their day. I've seen the same Fox on a calendar print, a fine art print, a chimney flue print, and as an illustration for a magazine.

I don't know a lot about Arthur (I've sold both Fox and Thompson pictures), but I occasionally see his prints or paintings show up on ebay. I believe he is a separate individual and not a pseudonym that one of the Big 3 (Fox/Parrish/Thompson) employed to seem less prolific. I did a quick web search and found a number of prints, paintings, and ephemera for sale at online antiques dealers and ebay. I suspect his Indian Women paintings are his most collectible prints.

Having said that, I couldn't find a biography of the man online that provides any decent information - this is partially due to the common names, but also because there isn't a lot of information out there online about vintage illustrators of this time period/genre that aren't the Big 3. There are a few reference books on the Indian Maiden illustrations (which I haven't read) that might be able to give you more information, but I've heard they are mediocre. He isn't mentioned at all in the Thompson or Fox books I have.

I bet a lot of his prints are registered with the Library of Congress, but you pretty much have to go there to the Prints Division to look them up.

I don't know if he was the same guy as the photographer. There usually isn't overlap, particularly since he didn't print his own illustrations. Still, it isn't impossible, stylistically, but in looking at the work he produced, I doubt he had time to become that good a photographer at that time.
posted by julen at 2:28 PM on April 11, 2009 [2 favorites]