 Frank Tolles Chamberlin (1873-1961)
Marriage 1 Katharine Beecher Stetson b: 23 MAR 1885 in Providence, Providence, RI * Married: 30 MAR 1918 Children 1. Has No Children Dorothy Stetson Chamberlin b: 10 OCT 1918 in Lyme, New London, CT 2. Has No Children Living Chamberlin
Born: San Francisco, California 1873 Died: Pasadena, California 1961
Frank Tolles Chamberlin was born in San Francisco, California in 1873. At the age of seven the Chamberlin family moved to their old family homestead in Vermont, where he began to draw. When he was twelve the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he studied under Dwight W. Tryon and a few years later when living in New Rochelle, New York, he attended evening classes under George Bridgman and George DeForest Brush at the Art Students League in New York City. Chamberlin spent his days working in an architectural office where practical experience in drafting and the problems of design were of great value in his chosen career. Chamberlin was determined to study in Italy, and he resigned his position to enter the national competition for the Scholarship for the American Academy in Rome, Italy. He won the competition in 1908, spending the next three years studying and traveling in Europe using the Academy as his headquarters. In 1911 he received the degree of Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Chamberlin returned to New York where he won the H.O. Avery prize for sculptural composition at the New York Architectural League, and in competition, a commission for a mural painting. In 1915 he was asked to teach in the School of Architecture at Columbia University and to conduct classes in painting, drawing and anatomy at the Beaux Art Institute of Design in New York City. Chamberlin gave up his teaching to move his family to Pasadena, California in 1919. He resumed his teaching career at University of Southern California School of Architecture. He also taught classes at Chouinard Art Institute and Otis Art Institute, all three in Los Angeles, California. He was a charter member of the Pasadena Society of Artists. Chamberlin worked as a painter, sculptor and etcher. He won numerous awards for both painting and sculpture and is represented in museum collections, educational institutions and private collections. [Information excerpted from “Western Art Review” and the Pasadena Star News.]
[Frank Tolles Chamberlin was born in San Francisco in 1873 and moved with his family to Vermont on 1879. Showing talent at an early age, Chamberlin was enrolled at the Art Students League in New York. Success in a mural competition earned Chamberlin a scholarship for four years of study at the American Academy in Rome. Upon his return to the states, he taught at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design and the Columbia University School of Architecture. In 1919, Chamberlin moved to Pasadena, California accepting teaching positions at the Otis and Chouinard Institutes. Chamberlin worked in both oil and watercolor and his paintings reflect his conservative, classical training.
http://www.kargesfineart.com/frank-tolles-chamberlin.html
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[Chouinard Faculty Record: from 1921: http://www.calartsredcat.net/alumni/chouinard/years.html]
Studied at the ASL in NYC with Brush and Bridgman; known for his paintings and murals, he was also a sculptor. He painted a mural for (and which is still located in) a Pasadena school. (H)
[ARGALL, Charles James Gladstone (1893 - 1956) 23rd CAC President: teachers were Frank Tolles Chamberlin, Will Foster and Ralph Johonnet.]
[Born in Pomona, California in 1907, Millard Sheets grew up on his maternal grandparent’s ranch where he developed a love of the land and of the purebred horses that his grandfather raised. After graduating from Pomona High School, he enrolled at the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles (1925-29) where he was a pupil of F. Tolles Chamberlin (1873-1961) While a student at Chouinard, Sheets, at the suggestion of F: Tolles Chamberlin, began to explore the possibilities of watercolor.]
{Hardie Gramatky, N.A. (1907-1979)
"F. Tolles Chamberlin? Oh, he was a dear man. He'd be hovering behind us, humming, and then he'd take the charcoal and add boxes to show the relation between the rib cage and the pelvis. Hardie and Millard [Sheets] and Phil [Dike] and a bunch of the guys would go over to his studio in Pasadena and take a special life class. I was too tired after a day of classes, but Hardie worked all day and he still would go on over there. Lawrence Murphy was a delightful man who lived alone down on Bunker Hill or some place like that. He had an air about him - a jaunty tilt to the brim of his hat. He was a great artist, and he had forgotten more about drawing than we'd ever know!
http://www.gramatky.com/story.asp?n=4
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[The first exhibition of the California Water Color Society was held in September 1921. Just three months earlier the Chouinard School of Art had been founded in Los Angeles. Included on the first faculty were F. Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle, two artists who would have profound influence on the next generation of painters who were students at the school beginning in the mid 1920s. Phil Dike was the first scholarship student in 1924, followed by Millard Sheets in 1925. Phil Paradise enrolled in 1927 (he had been there briefly in 1923) and Hardie Gramatky in 1928. Barse Miller arrived from the East and began teaching at Chouinard in 1927. A spirit of camaraderie pervaded the atmosphere at Chouinard, and the young artists formed personal bonds that would last their lifetimes. All eventually joined the California Water Color Society, and within a few years their personal styles would come to dominate the group. Many would also stay on as teachers at Chouinard in the 1930s and 1940s.
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa50.htm
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[In 1882 she met a young artist, Charles Walter Stetson. Though she loved him and felt him to be a kindred spirit she struggled for months with the question, not of whether she wanted to marry him, but of whether she should, for she felt she had serious work to do (though not yet sure what it was) and that to choose personal happiness was wrong. She did choose it, however, and married Walter Stetson on May 4, 1884. Their daughter, Katherine Beecher Stetson (later married to F. Tolles Chamberlin), was born March 23, 1885.
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00019
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F. Tolles Chamberlin standing outside Adams Studio, ca. 1914. Gelatin silver print. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (16) Digital ID# ppmsca-13430
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/macdowell/early-years/ |
Frank Tolles Chamberlin (1873–1961) had recently returned from the American Academy in Rome when he first came to The MacDowell Colony in 1913, and he noted "the existence of more than a sentimental tie between the Academy and the MacDowell Association." Also an architect, Chamberlin designed Adams Studio, as well as Colony Hall and the Men’s Lodge, a new residence that was nicknamed "Mrs. MacDowell’s Folly" because it took eleven years to complete.
Frank Tolles Chamberlin, 1873-1961 This text comes from a typewritten announcement composed by Chamberlin's family on the occasion of his death in 1961. The announcement is located in the Architecture and Fine Arts Library, USC. F. Tolles Chamberlin died on July 24, 1961 in the house in which he had lived for the past 40 years. In November 1957, and again in November 1958, he had almost died from heart attacks, followed by a case of facial shingles. In May 1959, he had to have the "Eisenhower" operation, then another, in July, for adhesions, but recovered enough to walk more than a mile and to ride half a day in the car. He was eager to live and to work, and was full of plans Ð for a sculptural monument, a major composition for oil, and many other projects in painting and etching Ð but found he had neither strength nor the eyesight to carry them out. From this period of greatest recovery he grew weaker until, for the last few days, he was unable to rise from his bed. His interest in current events was undiminished, and he listened to a great many daily newscasts and commentators, as well as all the editorials and articles on art and education that we could read to him. F. Tolles Chamberlin was born in San Francisco on March 10, 1873. When he was 7, his grandfather Chamberlin died and the family returned to the farm at Ascutney, Vermont, where he enjoyed a happy and fairly typical farm childhood; attending a one-room school, tramping Mt. Ascutney's slopes with his much treasured rifle, driving the team at haying time, learning the trickery art of cracking butternuts, or the delicious art of "sugaring off" in the snow filled maple woods. He loved the farm life of New England with its changing seasons as he had loved San Francisco's busy waterfront and the Napa Valley ranch. He took great pleasure in listening to his sister's music lesson. In fact, since the age of 3, when he was taken to see Pinafore, music was a lifelong enthusiasm. About 6 years after they came to the farm, it was sold and Tolles' father, hoping to make a fortune for his family, joined his brothers in Texas where real estate was booming. He was soon followed there by Tolles' older brother harry, while Tolles and his mother and sister stayed in Hartford. Tolles attended public school and Hannan Business College there and, at the age of 15 he took his first few drawing lessons in the old Wadsworth Atheneum from Dwight W. Tryon whose criticisms he remembered with pleasure all his life. Tolles' first position was in New Rochelle with Mr. Nathan Barrett, landscape architect, making technical drawings and water color renderings. A little later he taught in Miss Lowe's School for Girls in Rye, N. Y. Before long he was able to take advantage of a more attractive opening in New York in the architectural office of Mr. William Wheeler Smith, at no. 7 Wall Street. His work there must have been unusually promising, for Mr. Smith wanted him to stay on and inherit the business. During these years of architectural work, he was attending night classes in drawing and painting with George Bridgman and George De Forest Brush at the Art Students League. Tolles' heart was set on going abroad, so resigned from Mr. Smith's office in order to try for the Lazarus scholarship to the American Academy in Rome, which was only possible at 3-years intervals. Tolles passed the perspective examinations with the highest marks on record. The main part of the test was a problem in mural painting, and when the preliminary sketches were approved, each contestant was given a private studio, and three weeks to complete the study to scale. The coveted prize won, Tolles sailed for Rome in November 1908 to spend three days happy and profitable years, which fortunately he was able to extend to four. In 1911 he received his F. A. A. R. During these years, besides working in his studio, he traveled extensively, studying painting and sculpture related to architecture. It was for this that the academy was founded, after the World's Fair of 1893 had demonstrated the serious lack of understanding among our painters and sculptors of this relationship. The muralists and illutrastor, Frank Millet, who was chosen to succeed Frederic Crowninshield as Director of the Academy, came to Rome in 1912. He astonished and delighted Tolles by asking him, shortly after arriving, to return with him and take over his Washington studio and to carry out his New Bedford mural commission. Had it not, been for his figure - "The Cup Bearer" - Which was nearing completion, but not yet ready for casting, he would have sailed with Mr. Millet---and been lost with him on the "Titanic". On returning to New York, Tolles was invited to give six weeks to teaching classes in life and nature forms at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. The students begged him to continue, and in the end he gave four years---rewarding years---for the students were eager, earnest and appreciative. He spent four summers at the Mac Dowell Colony at Peterborough, N. H., where the acquaintance, made in Rome, ripened and led to his marriage with Kathatine Beecher Stetson. The School of Architecture of Columbia University asked him to conduct the watercolor rendering class, but since the students all joined the armed services the class was soon abandoned. Tolles volunteered also but was refused because of age, and had to content himself with drilling in the 7th Regiment. Having won the Expert Rifleman Medal, he coached others in Marksmanship. Late in 1919, Tolles and his wife and baby daughter removed to Pasadena where his son was born. Before leaving the East, he had been warned that there were no teaching jobs to be had in Southern Calif. He was much surprised, therefore, when he made a social call on Mr. Townsley at the Ottis Art Institute, to be offered a teaching position there; and still more surprised to be invited my Mrs. Chouinard, before leaving the building, to be co-founder as well as instructor of the "Chouinard Art Institute". Soon after he began these classes he was asked by the Dean of the School of Architecture at U. S. C. to conduct a class in watercolor rendering. Some years later, when he resigned from U. S. C. to concentrate on the Chouinard, and his own work, this same Dean and a delegation of students came to beg him to return. He refused, but offered to start classes here if there were enough interested. There were. The evening class opened with 19-some coming from as far away as Santa Barbara. Classes continued in Pasadena, with one summer school course in anatomy at the Ottis, until was again called young men away. Tolles was a born teacher. He had a deep interest in his students and enjoyed working with them. A large number of these are now widely known in fields of illustration, commercial arts, animation, and teaching, as well as in the fine arts, but each has developed in his own distinctive way. Tolles taught his students to see, to understand what lay beneath the surface form, to express what they saw intelligibly, but never forced his own style upon them. Still latter, the returning G. I.'s, seeking jobs and education on the G. I. Bill of Rights, indirectly caused Tolles to lose his large studio - a store building next door to the expanding State Employment Bureau. The demanding for education caused a sudden increase in classes and schools of all kinds and, among others, Herbert Jepson, one of his old students, open the Jepson Art Institute where Tolles taught for a couple of years. In 1955 the Pasadena Art Museum invited him to make a retrospective exhibition in its largest galleries. The Director, Mr. Joseph Fulton, gave him a very free hand in selecting and arranging the work, and they worked together most harmoniously. The exhibition was comprehensive and varied; oil, water color, pastel, sculpture, drawing and etching; from a delicate drawing of a hummingbird's wing, to a full sized cast of the powerful restrained bas-relief lintel on the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. In fact, most of his major work was shown - save the mural in the library of the McKinley Junior High School! A man can best be judged by his assembled work - the scope of his talent and his power of expression. But, by its very nature, much of his work was not included in this show at the Art Museum. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Tolles was almost as much interested in mechanical things as in Art itself. His inventions were practicable and carefully worked out. They included a bilge-keel stabilizer for large ships, an antiglare headlight, and a shade for streetlights that directed all the light onto the street and out of the drivers' eyes. Thirty years ago he tried to get Cal-Tech interested in developing a chemical for dropping on forest fires by mean of an old Army bomber, but the Army said it was an absurd idea since to fly a bomber cost $300 a day! In those days the value of our watershed was not as widely appreciated! Tolles was also deeply interested in conversation, education, and fine music - especially of the early classic composers - as well as in politics and current events. He exhibited widely (one-man shows and general exhibitions) and won many awards. Examples of his works are in public and private collections. At the time of his death he was an Honorary Life Member of The Beaux Arts Institute of Design, The Bookworkers Guild (N. Y. ), The California Art Club, The California Water Color Society, The Pasadena Society of Artists (Charter Member also) and the Artists of the S. West. We are sending this brief biographical sketch primarily as a notice to friends who either live at some distant, or, being out of town, would miss the local papers, and to let them know (as he never could Ð for he found it hard to write letters himself) how much he appreciated them and how deeply touched he was by all the visits and letters and tributes he received. Katharine, Dorothy and Walter Stetson Chamberlin. Back to Pasadena Murals |
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C 1942
© McKinley School 325 South Oak Knoll Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101 Phone: (626) 844-7880
mural water damaged & looking to restore, PSA should get a decent photo.
Assisted by Ben Messick. Former McKinley Junior High School, 325 South Oak Knoll Ave, Pasadena. Oil on canvas The photograph is reproduced from the 1942 brochure "The Library Mural McKinley Junior High School, Pasadena, California." The brochure itself is located in the Architecture and Fine Arts Library, USC.
Assisted by Ben Messick. Former McKinley Junior High School, 325 South Oak Knoll Ave, Pasadena. Oil on canvas This text (composed by Chamberlin) comes from a brochure entitled "The Library Mural, McKinley Junior High School, Pasadena, CA, 1942." The brochure itself is located in the Architecture and Fine Arts Library, USC. The Mural Composition The following brief account of the mural panting is the library of the McKinley Junior High School is written by Mr. F. Tolles Chamberlin, the artist who has composed and painted this masterly work of art. The mural was initiated by the Treasury Department of the United State with the collaboration of the Board of Education and a committee of which Miss Fannie Kerns was chairman, and the class of 1934. When it was decided to have the painting on the west wall of the library, the subject matter and treatment were naturally the first thing to be determined. After observing the classes in various departments it was decided to make the composition expressive of the activities, spirit, and ideas of the Mckinley Junior High School, and let the subject matter grow from the suggestions of the individual students. The idea of engaging the interest and cooperation of the students in the project, was proposed to the committee and Mr. Bigham, which was the principal at the time the mural was begun. The idea was approved and every student was given a chance to write his or her preference regarding subject matter. A hearty response and interest in the project was evidenced by the great number and range of suggestions sent in. The most popular of these included literature, physics, mechanical science, water power and conservation, wild life, history of education, agriculture, art, and music. Any one of these subjects by itself would have been splendid material for a mural painting, but it was decided to take several of the more popular subjects and combine them in one composition with a typical California landscape background. The problem of expressing these many activities in one composition was formidable, and at the same time interesting, because it was felt that in doing this, the spirit of the school and something of the trend in modern education could be suggested. Gifted students are active partners in the education process, and such students recognize the unlimited opportunity and incentive for creative thinking in fields of science, engineering, and humanities. Youth is eager to learn by dong andÑthrough directed study of the inherited knowledge stored in booksÑto use this knowledge in solving new problems. As we live in an age demanding technical skill in many fields, it was my desire to express youth as mastering the mechanical and scientific problems involved. Projects in the fields of agriculture, construction of dams, bridges, hydroelectric power, and shipbuilding, suggested in the background, call for research and training. The line in the lower border of the painting is from "Song of Youth," a poem by Anne Trumbull. It reads "All heritage of the past is mine, to be moulded by my spirit into forms new and fair." This line was chosen because it tersely suggested the dignity and potential powers of youth whether absorbed in work or play. To paint a composition on the theme of youth and its activities at a time when freedom and civilization were threatened by destructive forces, was both inspiring and disconcerting. But with the full consciousness of a war-torn world, the main idea of the mural seemed intensifiedÑthe painting of a group of boys and girls who, are best able to understand their inherited freedom, and to defend it from all enemies. These were some of the ideas from which the mural painting was evolved and it is hoped that it may be regarded not as having didactic significance, but rather as a representation of a group of future citizens of the type who can and will preserve their freedom and the best in civilization. I wish to express my sincere appreciation for the sympathetic cooperation accorded by the Treasury Department of the United States and its officials; the Southern California Art Project; the Board of Education; Miss Kearns and her committee; Mr. Bigham; Mr. Walkup; and the many students of the graduating classes; and the student body of McKinley Junior High School. |
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C19??
In the Arroyo
[Arroyo Seco, Pasadena CA]
16" x 11.875"
Oil on masonite
http://www.trottergalleries.com/ |
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1934
Eaton Canyon
[Pasadena CA]
16" x 12" – watercolor
http://artroots.com/art/art06_index.html |
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19??
Still Life Flowers
27" x 20" inches – watercolor
Signed Lower Right
http://www.redferngallery.com/ |
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1940
Fruit and Majolica
24" x 20" –
oil on canvas
Courtesy of the Orange County Museum of Art |
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1931
Still Life with Fruit and Jug
24" x 20.1" – Oil on Canvas Size
Signed
http://new.artnet.com/artist/709160/frank-tolles-chamberlain.html |
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1942
Still Life with White Roses
25" x 16.9" – oil on board
http://new.artnet.com/artist/709160/frank-tolles-chamberlain.html |
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Chamberlin, Frank Tolles (San Francisco, 1873 - Pasadena, 1961)
1947
Near Pasadena
6 3/4 X 5 (Sizes in inches are approximate, height preceding width of plate-mark or image.)
Original Drypoint Engraving
Matted with 100% Archival Materials
Limited edition of one fifty proof impressions.
Price: $285.00 US
Condition:
Printed on hand made, laid paper and with large, full margins as published by the Print Makers Society of California in 1947. Containing slight tape staining in the two upper corners of the margins and faint foxing on the verso of the paper. Else in very good condition throughout. Dated and signed with the artist's monogram in the plate (lower right corner) and signed in pencil along the lower margin. Near Pasadena represents a prime, original example of the important California art of Frank Tolles Chamberlin.
Publisher:
The Print Makers Society of California
Note:
Frank Tolles Chamberlin: A California etcher, engraver and painter, F. Tolles Chamberlin studied art under D. W. Tryon, in Hartford, and under George Bridgman at the Art Students League of New York. He first worked as a draftsman in a New York architectural firm until 1908 when he entered and won the national Prix de Rome competition for painting. Chamberlin received a three year residence in Rome to further his studies in art. Upon his return to America he taught at Columbia University, New York. Frank Tolles Chamberlin returned to California in 1919. During the following years he was a professor at such institutes as the University of Southern California, the Chouinard Art Institute and the Jepson Art Institute. During his distinguished career he exhibited at such major venues as the National Academy of Design and became a member of the California Water Color Society, the California Printmakers, the California Art Club, the Pasadena Fine Arts Club, the New York Architectural League and the American Federation of Arts. Today examples of his art are housed in the permanent collections of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, the Pennsylvania Academy of fine Arts, the New York Public Library and the Detroit Art Institute. Near Pasadena was commissioned by the Print Makers Society of California as their presentation plate for associate members for the year 1947. It was limited to a sole, signed edition of one hundred and fifty impressions. The original printed folder with the dedication to associate member, Harry C. Kriewitz, is included.
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