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Table of Contents

Summary Information

Historical Note

Scope and Content Note

Arrangement

Administrative Information

Related Materials

Controlled Access Headings

Physical Condition

Collection Inventory

Summary Information

Repository

The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives10 East 71st Street
New York, NY, 10021
archives@frick.org
 © 2010 The Frick Collection. All rights reserved.

Creator

Stokes, Frank Wilbert, 1858-1955.

Title

Photographs of Artists in Their Studios Collection

ID

MS.14

Date

circa 1885-1890

Extent

1.0 Linear feet  (2 boxes, 4 oversize folders)

Abstract

Seventy-four photographs of artists in their Paris studios circa 1885-1890, collected by artist Frank W. Stokes.

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Historical Note

Frank W. Stokes (1858-1955), a New York artist known for his paintings of the polar regions, which he called "icescapes," was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He first studied under Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Stokes spent five years in France from 1887-1892, studying in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Jean Leon Gerome (see box 1, folder 29) and at the Academie Colarossi and Academie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre (box 2, folder 6).

Upon returning to America, Stokes served as staff artist for three Robert Edwin Peary expeditions to Greenland and the Arctic Regions from 1892-1894. He also joined Otto Nordenskjold in a 1901 expedition to Antarctica. These experiences provided inspiration for hundreds of paintings of the Polar Regions. Stokes' "icescapes" were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and other galleries and museums in London, Paris, and the U.S. He authored several illustrated articles based on his polar experiences for Century Magazine, including an "An Artist in the Antarctic" and "The Aurora Borealis."

Mr. Stokes' most familiar works of art are the commissioned mural decorations of the Eskimo Hall in the American Museum of Natural History. These paintings of the Greenland Eskimos were presented to the museum by Arthur Curtiss James in 1909.

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Scope and Content Note

This collection contains seventy-four albumen prints mounted on cardboard. They range in size from 9 x 11.5 in. to 10 x 12 in. The photographs are images of artists in their Paris studios taken circa 1885-1890. The photographer is unknown. They were most likely purchased by the donor, Frank W. Stokes, when he lived and studied in France from 1887-1892. Some of the artists appear to have been fellow students, friends, and instructors of Mr. Stokes. He provided annotations on roughly one-third of the photographs, describing personal anecdotes and opinions regarding the artists. These annotations have been transcribed in the container list below.

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Arrangement

This collection is arranged alphabetically by artist.

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Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

These records are open for research under the conditions of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives access policy. Contact the Archives Department for further information at archives@frick.org.

Provenance

Gift of Frank W. Stokes, 1940.

Processing Information

Arranged and described by Sally Brazil, 1999; Shannon Yule, 2008.

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Related Materials

Related Materials

[Artists in their Paris studios,] 1880-1890. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

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Controlled Access Headings

Genre(s)

• Albumen Prints.
• Photographs--19th century.

Personal Name(s)

• Stokes, Frank Wilbert, 1858-1955.

Subject(s)

• Artists' studios--France--Paris--History--19th century--Pictorial works.
• Painters.
• Sculptors.

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Physical Condition

The photographs are bowed and the cardboard mounts are fragile.

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Collection Inventory