Helen Hoffman Artist Influenced by Francis Quirk at Ogontz College- We mourn her passing.

We are sad to report the death of one of Francis Quirk's students at Ogontz College. Helen Bacon Hoffman was gracious in sharing her memories of Francis and Ogontz  College and we had a delightful conversation. Her obituary is pasted below. 

Helen Bacon Hoffman, known to friends as "Biddy," passed away on November 8, 2017, at the age of 87 years. Helen is survived by her husband of 66 years, Richard, her children, Kathi (Terry), Rick (Faith), and Cindy (Alex), five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and her brother, Stanley Bacon.

Helen was a renowned artist whose medium included oils and pastels. Her unique talent was in the tone she set through the action of light, shadows and reflected light. In each of her paintings, she produced exquisite depictions of everyday settings made extraordinary by beautifully drawn contrasts of light and shadow.

Helen always said, "I want to explore the familiar, to discover the world around me, rather than create one of my own. Whether it is in the bustle of a market place or the quiet moment of a reader with his book, there is a mood created that I try to share on canvas. I want to involve my viewers and give them a moment of pleasure."

Helen was born in San Antonio, Texas and began studying art as a teenager with the noted Southwest artist, Hugo Pohl. She later studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York City and with the world famous artist, Herbert E. Abrams.

When she married Army officer, Richard, her husband's career meant worldwide travel. Helen took advantage of her nomadic life by painting wherever she found herself, often returning to her former haunts of Hawaii, Mexico and Europe to paint. Helen also found intriguing subjects for her paintings in Florida, her residence since 1986.

One of Helen's favorite sources of artistic inspiration was her greenhouse where she cultivated exotic orchids and became an active member of the Jacksonville Orchid Society. When Helen retired and moved from her Deerwood home to Fleet Landing, Atlantic Beach, she donated her lifetime orchid collection to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

Helen's career included an impressive listing of art awards, shows, and permanent art exhibits. She also won many statewide awards for her orchids.

Our original post 

In our ongoing quest to learn more about the forgotten master painter Francis Quirk, we have come across one of his students. Interestingly, Helen Hoffman worked in both oils and pastels. These media were also used by Quirk. 

We have reached out to Helen through her family and she graciously provided a few memories of him. While in his class in 1948, she said he was tall, strict but nice. His History of Art class was first thing in the morning and he frequently would call out her name to ensure that she was paying attention. But he also paid attention to the sketches and oils that Helen produced; telling her that she was the best draftsman he had ever had. And a survey of Helen's works shows that she certainly has a skilled hand.

The following is from her website.

Helen Bacon Hoffman is a realist who works in both oils and pastels. Hoffman’s unique talent is in the tone she sets through the action of light, shadows and reflected light. In each of her paintings, the viewer will observe exquisite depictions of everyday settings made extraordinary by beautifully drawn contrasts of light and shadow. Maturity of expression and dramatic mood are the hallmarks of all her works.

Artist Helen Hoffman who studied with Francis Quirk at Ogontz College

Hoffman says “I want to explore the familiar, to discover the world around me, rather than create one of my own. Whether it is in the bustle of a market place or the quiet moment of a reader with his book, there is a mood created that I try to share on canvas. I want to involve my viewers and give them a moment of pleasure.”

Helen Hoffman was born in San Antonio, Texas and began studying art as a teenager with the noted Southwest artist, Hugo Pohl. She majored in art at Ogontz College, now a part of the University of Pennsylvania, and continued her studies at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. Later, Hoffman studied with the world famous artist, Herbert E. Abrams at West Point, NY.

When she married an Army officer, Richard Hoffman, her husband’s career meant travel for her and her three children. His frequent overseas assignments required that she balance her artistic career with managing home and family. Hoffman took advantage of her nomadic life by painting wherever she found herself. Even now, she returns to her former haunts of Hawaii, Mexico and Europe to paint. Hoffman also finds intriguing subjects for her paintings in Florida, her current residence. One of Hoffman’s favorite sources of inspiration is her greenhouse where she cultivates exotic orchids.
Her works are in several prominent collections.

Exhibitions in Major Collections

The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art , Kansas City, Missouri
The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA
The Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL
The Instituto Norte Americano Mexicano de Relationes Culturales, Mexico City, Mexico

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Interestingly, Hoffman's  work seems to have some similarity to Quirk’s in both subject matter and technique. We have provided some paintings in close juxtaposition for your consideration. It appears that Hoffman has technically matched her one-time teacher.

Allison- Portrait By Helen Hoffman

Morning News- Portrait By Helen Hoffman

Portrait by Francis Quirk

Pas de Deux by Helen Hoffman

Ibises by Francis J. Quirk

Artwork By Helen Hoffman

Shrimper by Francis Quirk  Image Courtesy of Canton Museum of Art

Breaking Wave- Portrait By Helen Hoffman

Biddle Pool Maine by Francis Quirk Oil on Canvas Image Courtesy of Lehigh University

 Haying by Helen Hoffman

Painting possibly by Francis Quirk

Artists at Ogontz School- Eleanor Massey Bridges Paints Her Way Into History

In seeking out information on him we identified at least two painters who were at the Ogontz School. The first of these profiled here pre-dates Quirk's tenure on the Ogontz faculty. Eleanor (Massey) Bridges went on to be a successful painter and inspirational citizen.We have drawn heavily from Bhamwiki in preparing this post. Bhamwiki, is an encyclopedic resource for anyone curious about Birmingham, Alabama and the region around it.

Eleanor Bridges photo courtesy of Bhamwiki

Eleanor Massey Bridges  was from Brimingham Alabama. Wanting to be an artist, she studied at the Ogontz School for Young Ladies in Abington, Pennsylvania, where, for a year, she was the roommate of Amelia Earhart. On a whim, she joined a suffragists' parade in Philadelphia, missing an appointment with her school chaperone. The incident nearly led to her expulsion, but she was able to continue at the Pennsylvania Academy and studies sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. During the summer she operated a tractor and filled in as a cook at a local farm, until the lady of the house heard that she was an Ogontz girl and threw a party in her honor. She continued her studies throughout her life, at prestigious institutions such as Harvard, the Sorbonne and the Académie Julian. In Birmingham she took classes at Birmingham-Southern College and Samford University.

At the age of 19 she met World War I veteran and aspiring sculptor Georges Bridges at a debutante party in Birmingham. They were engaged within a week, despite the strong objections of her father. They were married at her family house in front of friends while the family remained upstairs, then honeymooned at a camp on the Warrior River. They studied together at the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts until their first daughter, Mary Eleanor, called "London", was born. In 1921 they built a large pink stucco house on Edgewood Boulevard where Georges devoted himself to sculpting, soon winning prizes and commissions. They stabled horses to ride through Shades Valley and around Edgewood Lake and summered at Lake George.

Soon the couple moved to Paris and circulated in the expatriate community there, which included Tallulah Bankhead, Norman Bel Geddes, Bud Fisher, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Because of Georges' strong resemblance to the actor Douglas Fairbanks, the two often played pranks on others. They later lived in Greece, Turkey, Morocco and Mallorca, where she founded an art colony. There she met the Duchess of Malta who arranged an exhibition of her paintings in Madrid.

Eleanor Massey Bridges as Birmingham Alabama's Woman of the Year 1953 photo courtesy of Bhamwiki

She would later return to Birmingham during the Great Depression and take in 15 abandoned children. In 1953, she was honored as Birmingham’s women of the year.

Eleanor Bridges poses with her painting Cyclorama of Birmingham History photo courtesy of Bhamwiki

In 1982 She would paint he rmagnum opus, the Cyclorama of Birmingham History which can be seen at the Birmingham History Center.

The Cyclorama of Birmingham History is a large, nearly-completed freestanding painting on the surface of a plastered structure, 8-feet-tall, with two flat walls joined by semi-circular end pieces. It was commissioned in 1980 by Gary Smith of the Alabama Historical Foundation and painted by Eleanor Bridges over the next two years. It had been intended for display in 1981, but Bridges refused to work with a deadline, and it took some time to master the peculiarities of the substrate.

The work was originally conceived as a mural for the lobby of the Brown-Marx Building, but because the interior walls were clad in pink marble, Bridges proposed the idea of a constructed installation. It was dubbed a "cyclorama" despite not surrounding the viewer. Free to choose the theme of the piece herself, Bridges decided to portray the history of Birmingham through scores of vignettes and portraits, loosely arranged into larger compositions for different historical periods.

Warner Floyd helped her to assemble source materials for the composition. The background of the painting features Shades Mountain, Red Mountain and Sand Mountain, encircling the other elements. The motto "We dream of the future, we learn from the past, but we live in the present" was to have been included, but was not part of the completed work.

The resulting work is a massive and complexly-organized collage of images from the city’s cultural and technological history. From the Muskogean brave on his chocolate palomino it circles through time to the microcellular manipulations of Southern Research Institute, with every roaring furnace, quivering harp string, glittering ball gown and  fluttering flag in between. Surely Bridges intended for her masterpiece to convey a message to the future, to surpass the sum of its myriad parts. But the key to unraveling the mystery has, so far as anyone can tell, been lost.



The Cyclorama of Birmingham History by Eleanor Massey Bridges photo courtesy of Bhamwiki

The ghostly penciled image of Brother Bryan hovers over a cluster of church towers on one side. Phantom lines converge into an unidentifiable web on the other. And, staring mutely out at the viewer—taunting us perhaps—sits the infant Vulcan in his apron, rosy cheeked, but sad-eyed, his hammer laid to rest beside his chubby feet.

As Bridges' health declined, the work was left incomplete. She died in 1987. The great cyclorama was left unfinished and was never installed at the site for which it was painstakingly designed. It was displayed for a while in the lobby of the BellSouth Building, then placed in storage at the Lyric Theatre. With the opening of the Birmingham History Center at the Young & Vann Building in 2010, it was returned to public exhibition.

New Quirk Pastel Artwork Surfaces and Acquired by Astute Collector

A pastel portrait by Quirk has surfaced in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania and we are seeking to learn more details about it and its history.

The seller described it as a portrait of a 1950's gentleman in a 3-piece suit, smoking a cigarette. It is executed in light burgundy on black artist paper, creating the effect of the subject coming out of the shadows.

Francis J. Quirk  Pastel Portrait of a Gentleman 1951

Here is a close up of the signature.

Francis Quirk Signature

We also are seeking better images... If/when we obtain them, we will share them with you.

Notre Dame's Snite Museum Shares Image of Francis Quirk Painting

After lengthy discussions with the  University of Notre Dame's Art Museum, we were able to get an image of their painting by Francis J. Quirk.

The painting was acquired by the Snite Museum in 1971 and was painted by Quirk in 1968. It is a monochromatic work entitled "Old Artist" and appears to be a self portrait.

We would share the painting with you, however, the Museum has a strict policy against publishing images without permission from the artist or the artist's estate. Our best efforts to find a person who might hold the rights to Quirk's paintings have been futile.

We know Quirk died in 1974.  We don't know where. We have not been able to find a death certificate.  We have not been able to find an obituary. 

We don't believe he had any children... The last census we found had him and his wife childless when he was 32. 

We cannot find the death certificate for his wife Anna or her obituary...  

We attempted to convince the University that this blog should be allowed to publish the painting under the safe harbor of "Fair Use."

"Fair Use" allows for the sharing of images for scholarly or criticism purposes. Here is the definition from Wikipedia.


Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship.

While this blog is not Sister Wendy or the Arts Section of the New York Times, it does provide commentary, criticism, research and scholarship.

The Canton Art Museum, The Georgia State Museum and Lehigh University's Art Department have all graciously made images of works available.

If you would like to see this painting while you are on the campus dominated by the Golden Dome, you can visit the Museum and ask to see it.

Statue of Mary on the University of Notre Dame's Golden Dome.

We do thank the staff of the Snite Museum for being open to our entreaties and sharing an image on a limited basis.

Francis Quirk in Provincetown Mass

In our ongoing quest to learn more about Francis J. Quirk and his artwork, we came across his name in an exhibition catalog of the Provincetown Art Association from 1932.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) was established in 1914 by prominent artists Charles Hawthorne, Oscar Gieberich, William Halsall, Gerrit Beneker, E. Ambrose Webster and several local business men and women. The donation of works by the organizing artists and two juried exhibitions mounted in the summer of 1915 began PAAM’s traditions of collecting and exhibiting the work of the local community of artists. By then, the art community at the tip of Cape Cod had become the refuge of artists and expatriates returned from war-torn Europe, and Provincetown was firmly established as “The Biggest Art Colony in the World” (Boston Globe, 8/8/1916). PAAM consolidated its role as the anchor of that colony through the purchase and refurbishing of its present building in 1919.

Exhibition Catolog Cover 1932

At this time, young Francis was turning 25 and seeking to make his mark in the art world after his graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design. The times must have been tough as the great depression was in full swing following the stock market crash of 1929. This was a turbulent time for the art world and Provincetown was caught up in the moiling change with the emergence of the modernist movement.

In the ’20s and ’30s, the philosophical wars being waged throughout the art world were also fought within the Association. Its artist founders had come out of the Impressionist tradition, and although a variety of styles had been represented in members’ exhibitions since the inception, PAAM’s “establishment” did not readily incorporate the contemporary modernist movement. Faced with aesthetic differences among its artist membership, PAAM maintained a balance. True to its mission, the organization represented both sides of the artistic argument, mounting separate “Modern” and “Regular” summer exhibitions between 1927 and 1937. Still, the conciliation reached in 1937 was only partial; instead of separate exhibitions, separate juries installed concurrent exhibitions on opposite gallery walls, with a coin-flip deciding that the modernists’ work hung on the left. Throughout this period, much of the artistic argument took place in forums and discussions organized at PAAM by one side or the other.

Quirk exhibited two artworks. 

Number 15 was Provincetown Fisherman. As a young man Quirk was painting a subject he would revisit many times in his career. We do not know where this painting might be today. 

Page with listing of Francis J. Quirk's painting.

Painting number 99 is listed as "Fred Fisher's Place". We have not yet been able to find out more about the work. 

A search for Fred Fisher in Provincetown identified a gentleman by that name born in 1866. There also was a man of the same name active in the town earlier that century.  He designed two cold storage plants and was married to Sarah Fisher who was one of the founders of the town's Universalist Church, which was built in 1847.

Provincetown's Universalist Church was built in in1847.

We have now found several references to paintings by Francis Quirk, but do not have images to match. We can only wonder what became of them. Do they hang in a cherished place? Or are they forgotten in some old barn waiting to be discovered?  We will keep on looking.

Is This Painting by Francis Quirk? We think... No...

Painting signed T. Quirk '94.

In the Summer of 2015, this beautiful golden landscape painting went up for sale in Vermont. We were intrigued because the painting was well executed, located in New England and had the name Quirk associated with it. We know that Francis Quirk summered in Maine and planned to spend a good deal of time there painting after retiring from teaching at Lehigh University. The Quirk name is not common, however there are a few other painters with the name in the listings. Artnet lists seven Quirks and there is a Danny Quirk who paints some interesting anatomical paintings.

Circumstances did not allow us to attend the preview or the auction. But there has been that nagging feeling that perhaps this actually may have been a work by Francis. Whatever the case, digging into it has been an interesting journey. 

While we had never seen a pastoral landscape by Quirk, we had seen his tremendous versatility with works in oil, pastel, and watercolor. He also was not afraid to take on a variety of subjects including portraits, animals, marine paintings and even figure studies. Francis J. Quirk could paint almost anything.

The subject matter implies that the painting is older as the farmers collecting the hay use a horse drawn wagon and stacks,not rows, of hay are drying in the golden field. According to a History of Hay Farm Equipment on the FarmCollector.com website tractors did not begin replacing horses until the 1930's. But we doubt that there were many still farming this way in the 1970's. Even in the communes of Vermont.

The detail is commendable with shadows of trees and haystack highlights well executed. The background hills, fences and workmen also exhibit the skill of a talented hand. The workers move the hay manually. 

The Elm trees also are a sign that this painting is either drawn from imagination or comes from a period before Dutch Elm Disease wiped out the mature trees in the U.S. This disease came to the U.S. in 1928 through a shipment of elm wood from the Netherlands. The disease was contained fairly well,but broke out in World War II and effectively eliminated the natural cathedrals along our streets by 1989. It is possible that if a painter in 1974 could have been painting healthy Elm Trees, but not likely.

The Featherduster Elm of Wolfeboro, NH died in 1986 from Dutch elm Disease. The Main Street landmark was the tallest in New England and 217 years old.

Wolfeboro, New Hampshire’s Featherduster elm tree once was a famous landmark marking the entrance to town. Note the enormous size of the elm in the painting. It is 3 feet in diameter. 

There may be chestnut trees in the background as well. Chestnut was once the most prominent tree in the forests of the East Coast, but they were logged for construction materials and many a colonial barn timbers are made of the fire resistant wood. But the trees that the loggers did not get were finished off by a blight that came to the country in 1904 from Japan.

 

Chestnur Trees with Loggers Photo couresy of Forest History Society

If this was painted by Francis Quirk, then it had to be painted by imagination; perhaps as a favor for someone or an illustration.

 

Close up of signature

Without seeing the painting and checking the back for other clues, this brings it down to the signature. The signature clearly says “T. Quirk”. The signature is executed with some care with emphasis on the vertical lines on the Q and the lower tail of the K.  But when comparing that to the signatures of the known Quirk works, we can see that there are some similarities.  The first letter is canted to the right with the top cross stroke sometimes executed like a T and the lower cross stroke de-emphasized. 

The middle letters in Quirk are similar in execution with a tail on the u and a higher dot on the i. Finally, the finishing K is  given greater emphasis.  Note how the upper right portion of the letter is lengthened in both the lower right signatures. 

The date also adds an element of mystery. It follows the same format of all the works we have seen dated by Quirk with an apostrophe and two digits. The numeral four is formed in the same classic style as that of the top Summer Preacher painting of 1944.  

But the first digit remains an enigma. If it is a 9, then the painting is not by Quirk as he was born in 1907 and died in 1974. On the other hand, if it is a 7, then it could have been painted in the last year of his life. But if it was the 1874 or 1894, then Francis was not yet even born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The 1870’s was a time of healing after the Civil War when people were seeking a more peaceful time. While 19th century's foremost painter Winslow Homer executed some wonderful paintings during the war such as "The Sharpshooter" His painting of innocence such as “Snap the Whip” are perhaps well remembered and a salve for a country violently ripped apart. At this time the country was industrializing and the little red school houses were becoming a thing of the past. The exuberant boys have the bare feet of youth and the suspenders of mature men at labor. Like the nation, they are struggling to stay united.

 

Snap the Whip by Winslow Homer  Metropolitan Museum of Art

November 15, 2016 update. 

After seeing many of Quirk's paintings in the Maine estate sale, we have come to the conclusion that this painting is not by Francis Quirk. We come to this conclusion based on three reasons.

1. The signature is not typical. We have never seen him sign his work with an initial and the last name. Every other signature spells out his full first name and frequently includes his middle initial. 

2. The signature is T. Quirk. It is unlike Francis to make such a sloppy error of leaving off the middle cross mark of an 'F' particularly in such a carefully executed signature. 

3.The painting style is not in keeping with his oeuvre.  

It is a nice painting, but not by Francis Quirk.