Sad Loss of Francis Quirk Painting in1992 to Vandals

In searching for paintings by Francis Quirk, we came across this sad story about vandalism at  Allentown Pennsylvania's Dieruff High School. In the senseless attack on the School's Art Museum one of Quirk's paintings, a portrait appears to have been extensively damaged.  The decision was made not to repair it.

A New Life For Ruined Works At Dieruff High's Museum Of Art

Allentown's DieRuff High School's Art Museum once housed a Quirk Portrait in its Art Museum

May 22, 1992|by GEOFF GEHMAN, The Morning Call

 

Peter Sardo felt honored. It was Dieruff High School's 1988 commencement, and his retirement as head of social studies was celebrated by the informal rededication of the permanent art collection, which he helped establish in 1965 and had more or less shepherded ever since.
Principal Michael P. Meilinger personalized the announcement by picking up Sardo, who had taught Meilinger everything from shared management of schools to rock formations to good living in New York City.
 
Two weeks later Sardo felt sick. The June morning began promisingly, with Sardo returning to
 Dieruff to discuss his dedicatory plaque with Meilinger. The day went downhill when they learned that less than eight hours earlier an alumnus, thinking he was the skipper of "Star Trek," had ruined 17 of the 70 artworks.
 
Sardo cried and cursed at canvases yanked from frames, paintings dented by feet, watercolors ripped like confetti. To make matters worse, a school employee had tossed pieces of the collection into a dumpster.
"I seldom swear, except `damn' or `hell,' but I'm sure I said a few choice words that couldn't be taped," claims Sardo, who for three decades taught geography and geology at Dieruff and Muhlenberg College. " ... It was the antonym of exhilaration: it was debilitation." He remembers only one event more terrible, and that was the death of an 18-year-old son from a brain tumor.
 
Sardo feels better these days. After a year-plus restoration, and three lengthy postponements, the Dieruff collection was finally, officially, named for him on May 7. Now when he visits the school, he feels more like himself, more like the teacher who would see an artwork in the lobby, or the library, or the sculpture garden, and be challenged "to do my best to advance the cause of education."
 
Determining the price of mutilation caused the first delay, says Dennis Danko, caretaker of the Dieruff collection since 1986. According to the head of the school's art and music departments, appraisal to reimbursement took about a year.
 
Prior to damage the 17 pieces were valued at $15,100, notes Ron Engleman, business manager for the Allentown School District (Danko's guesstimate for the whole collection is $100,000). Damaged, the 17 pieces were worth $1,025. To restore the artworks, plus such items as a freedom shrine and photos of Dieruff principals, cost $9,492. Insurance paid for everything but the $1,000 deductible. The remainder came from the school district's general fund.
Delay No.2 involved restoring the restorer. James Brewer III, a conservator from Revere, Bucks County, worked for about two months, then underwent his second and third heart-bypass operations. He recuperated for approximately a year.
 
Brewer had many opportunities to act like a surgeon during his year and a half on the Dieruff items. Some were slashed. Others were deeply dented. Many carried the vandal's blood. The assignment was nothing new for Brewer, who has sealed the "X" of an ex-wife's razor blade, rubbed off linseed oil applied lovingly but wrongly every five years, and removed everything but an artist's blood.
Ask Brewer for a sample of his Dieruff work, and most likely he will mention Clarence Carter's "Study for Over and Above, #19." Artist and restorer have been partners for 15 to 20 years. One time, Brewer refurbished a Carter painting that had spent decades in a woodshed. This time, he had to bind six pieces of gouache on cardboard without damaging the watercolor.

Brewer began by placing the torn sections face down on a sheet of Mylar. Then he ironed beeswax through the back. Over this he applied Belgian linen and more beeswax. Only unpurified, "dirty" beeswax satisfies Brewer. When an archaeologist friend gave him a nugget from an Egyptian tomb, the first thing he did was taste it. He was testing for sugar content and binding strength.
 
Brewer finished the Carter by petrolling off the beeswax and regouaching the cracks. He intends to document the process, which he compares to making a grilled-cheese sandwich, in a book on 10 case studies in restoration.
 
Every Dieruff piece was conserved except two. Brewer says the faces on Francis Quirk's oil-on-canvas could be removed from their white field, reassembled and remounted. Danko insists the price would be too high. Such a renovation, he adds, would violate the artist's goals.
 
Brewer delivered the last of three installments last summer. Danko booked the rededication of the collection for Dec. 19, 1991. The plan was wiped out by a flu epidemic.
 

Photo Portrait of President George Bush

Danko rescheduled the ceremony for May 7. The idea, he notes, was to coincide with a spring concert and a reunion of school art angels. While the rededication was a month late for President Bush's visit to Dieruff, Sardo did get to discuss the collection with a federal education official.

Francis J. Quirk Painter and TV-Star!

While seeking information on Francis Quirk and his time in Provincetown, we came upon this article in an issue of the  October 22, 1957 issue of the Reading Eagle. The piece discusses an upcoming gallery talk at the Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery.

The article also mentions that the dashingly photographed Quirk is active in two Bethlehem television shows- "Art and I" and "It's Happening There." I believe the programs were broadcast on WFIG, a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania TV station which is now longer operational under those call letters. 

The 1950's was the early days of television when they were hungry for content. The program may have even been broadcast live so tapes may not exist. It may be time to reach out and/or visit Lehigh University to see what they have.  Alas, so many leads, so little time.

Article on Francis Quirk Gallery Talk Mentioning His Involvement in Two TV Shows.

Where did Francis Quirk Sell His Art in Maine?

Map highlighting Ogunquit Maine

In our quest to learn more about Quirk, we have begun exploring the places he exhibited and sold his fine paintings. A bio lists the "Ogunquit Gallery" and we have reached out to the non-profit Ogunquit Art Association for their 75th anniversary book to see if it has any mention of him. If so, a visit to lovely coastal Maine could be on the travel itinerary to begin sorting through boxes in the archives. (We'll also stop for a nice lobster at Mabels!)

We also have learned from a helpful person at the Ogunquit Art Association that artist Chris Ritter had a gallery on Route 1 and this could be the gallery referred to in the bio. Route 1 is the coastal road with shops, housing and industry on it.

Chris Ritter was a fairly well known artist himself and had relocated from New York. His bio on Ask Art.com says that he was born in 1908 and had a gallery in New York from 1946-1951. He also taught art at Hunter College and Cornell. He died in 1976, but his wife lived on past 2000. Her holdings were auctioned in 2006.

Chris Ritter Self Portrait

.  We will see where this leads.

Francis Quirk's Wife Anna Exhibited Artistic Talent as Well

In our never- ending quest to learn more about Quirk a query on the web revealed that his wife Anna also had some flair with the brush. The article below was in the Lehigh University Brown and White on Tuesday November 23, 1964. It appears that Anna's work had been exhibited at Old Orchard (Beach) Art Association and it was also on view at Moravian College.

According to Wikipedia "Moravian College a private liberal arts college, and the associated Moravian Theological Seminary are located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States, in the Lehigh Valley region. The College traces its founding to 1742 by Moravians, descendants of followers of the Bohemian Reformation (John Amos Comenius), the 17th century Moravian bishop, though it did not receive a charter to grant baccalaureate degrees until 1863.

We have not yet found any of her works... but we have not really tried that hard yet.

Is this a Photo of a Francis Quirk Portrait of Robert Strider of Colby College? No.

Quirk's bio lists him as being commissioned by the Colby College Alumni to paint the College President Robert Strider.  The College is located in Waterville, Maine so it is likely that he came to the attention of the school through his Summer presence there. But where is the painting. We checked the collection of the quite respectable Colby College Art Museum and their was no mention of him in the collection.

An aside about the The Colby College Museum Collection, which appears to be well worth a trip to Maine to see. The collection includes major artists such as John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale, Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, Mary Cassatt, Robert Henri, Paul Manship, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

The Museum also showcases the work of significant 20th- and 21st-century American artists, including John Marin, George Bellows, Fairfield Porter, Marsden Hartley, Terry Winters, many works by Alex Katz.  Adolph Gottlieb, Rudy Burckhardt, Chuck Close, Jennifer Bartlett, Lois Dodd, and Elizabeth Murray.

Back to finding Quirks work... So we reached out to the President's Office figuring that the former President's portrait is an administration building conference room or hallway. We are waiting to hear back.

In the mean time we did find a black and white picture of a portrait on the Wheeling Ohio Hall of Fame website where Strider is honored. There we came across this unattributed black and white image of an oil portrait. Is it the full image or a cropped close up? There does not appear to be a signature, was it cropped out?  Only time and investigation will tell.

Portrait of Colby President Robert Strider

For reference here is  picture of younger President Strider from Wikipedia. He was quite an accomplished fellow in addition to guiding the College through a period of extensive growth over a period of 20 years, he received 11 honorary degrees, served in numerous service posts and remained active until his death in 2010. Perhaps the portrait is in the Theater in Runnals Union that is named after him.

Photo of Colby College President Robert Strider

As part of our ongoing research, we have since found the image of the actual portrait. You can see Quirk's work by visiting this post. 

Quirk at Ogontz College

Quirk's Biography has him working at Ogontz College from 1935-1950. This entity was entirely new to me. The best information on it comes from the work of Lillian Hansberry of the Penn State Library System.

For 100 years, the elite and prestigious school known as The Ogontz School for Young Ladies was a prominent force in female private education. Three locations served the school, each for about a third of its existence.  The school had its beginnings in 1850 as The Chestnut Street Female Seminary, founded by two teachers, Miss Mary L. Bonney and Miss Harriette A. Dillaye, who had been classmates at the Troy Female Seminary, NY. The location of their "finishing school" was a stately four-story row house at 1615 Chestnut Street- surrounded by some of Philadelphia's wealthiest residences- but after several decades, the success of the school required a search for more suitable quarters "in the country."

In 1883 the school rented the Elkins Park estate of Civil War financier Jay Cooke, named “Ogontz” for Cooke’s boyhood mentor and role model—a Sandusky Indian chief. Cooke also made considerable sums developing railroads including the Northern Pacific Railroad. While he once lost Ogontz in bankruptcy, he purchased it back and donated it to the school. This was one of many charitable activities. He also send painter Thomas Moran out to paint the West. He is known for his paintings of Niagra Falls and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (below.)

With the move, the school assumed the name of the estate and became The Ogontz School for Young Ladies. By then misses Bonney and Dillaye had selected two associate principals from the school’s faculty, Miss Frances Bennett and Miss Sylvia Eastman. At the new location the four principals shared responsibility for a brief time, with Bennett and Eastman gradually taking over entirely. Sylvia Eastman became sole principal after Bennett’s retirement in 1900. For thirty-four years the school thrived in the Jay Cooke mansion, with a student body of about a hundred privileged young girls.

In 1902 a young English teacher joined the faculty, Miss Abby A. Sutherland. She was to become Sylvia Eastman’s hand-picked choice as her successor. After four years of training, during which time Sutherland gradually purchased the school, she took over as principal in 1912—a role she was to maintain until the school closed.

By 1916, the Elkins Park school was outgrowing its quarters. With expansion and modernization in mind, Miss Sutherland purchased fifty-four acres of land on “the rolling hills of Rydal” in suburban Abington Township. Here she built The Ogontz School into an empire that would eventually encompass a primary school from kindergarten to eighth grade (The Rydal School), a high school, and a junior college. The new location opened in the fall of 1917 and distinguished alumnae include Amelia Earhart, Mary Curtis who founded Philadelphia's Curtis School of Music, noted painter Eleanor Massey (Bridges) who taught Art at Vassar and of course Nancy McFeeley who fathered the popular children's TV host Mr. Rogers.

It was at this location that Quirk worked for 15 years. For part of the time he served as Co-Head of the Art Department with Mrs. John Lewis Gross. She was in charge of painting and studies from life. He focused on black and white drawing, murals and History of Art. By the time of his departure in 1949 there was a graduation award in his honor- The Francis J. Quirk Portrait Award for marked progress in the Ogantz Junior College Art Department. The tradition may have started in 1938 when he executed a portrait of Nancy Lustig in Pastel. A Nancy Lustig is listed in the 1940 census as living in Manhattan with her parents; stepfather Saul J. Barow and mother Sophie. The family had a live in driver and cook, so they weren't doing too bad financially.

Changing times and changing fortunes marked the end of The Ogontz School in 1950 when Abby Sutherland gave the campus and facilities to The Pennsylvania State College, now The Pennsylvania State University. This change also may have been the catalyst for Quirk to move on to Lehigh University.

Lodging at Camp Ogontz

Ogontz spun off a camp in the White Mountains in Lisbon, NH. It continued to thrive into the 1960's, but has since shifted to a more musical focus with various groups using it for retreats during the Summer Season.

Portrait Photo of Quirk

While searching for Quirk's painting of Carl Sandburg, I came across this photo of Quirk from the Brown and White Newspaper at Lehigh University.  Now he has a face and it is not the happy jovial type I had imagined.

Photo of Francis Joseph Quirk from the Brown and White Newspaper at Lehigh University