Edward Simmons (1852-1931)

Edward Emerson Simmons was an American Impressionist painter, remembered for his mural work.

Biography

His father was a Unitarian minister. He graduated from Harvard College in 1874, and was a pupil of Lefebvre and Boulanger in Paris, where he took a gold medal.

In 1894, Simmons was awarded the first commission of the Municipal Art Society, a series of murals - Justice, The Fates, and The Rights of Man - for the interior of the Criminal Courthouse at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan.

This court is the criminal branch of New York Supreme Court (the trial court in New York), where many New Yorkers serve on jury duty.

Later Simmons decorated the Waldorf Astoria New York hotel, the Library of Congress in Washington, and the mural series "Civilization of the Northwest" in the Minnesota State Capitol rotunda in Saint Paul.

In the year 1914, he travelled with Childe Hassam to view the Arizona desert paintings of the rising California artist Xavier Martinez at his Piedmont studio.

Simmons was a member of the Ten American Painters, who, as a group, seceded from the Society of American Artists.

He was also considered a contributor to the style known as the American Renaissance, a movement after the American Civil War that stressed the relationship of architecture, painting, sculpture and interior design.

Vandalism of Painting

In 1996 his painting "The Carpenter’s Son" located in the First Unitarian Church, New Bedford, Massachusetts, was yanked from the wall and cut out from its frame. The section depicting Jesus taken cutout and removed with the rest of the painting left lying on the floor.

The lost section was found in 2006 rolled up behind a refrigerator when it was being removed from the congregation’s kitchen.

The painting was then restored and ownership transferred to the Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum. | © Wikipedia

Edward Emerson Simmons (Concord, 27 ottobre 1852 – Baltimora, 17 novembre 1931) è stato un pittore impressionista statunitense. Appartenne al gruppo dei Dieci (Ten American Painters). Figlio di un ministro della Chiesa Unitaria, Simmons studiò e si diplomò all'Harvard College nel 1874.

Si recò quindi a Parigi per perfezionarsi nella pittura e si iscrisse all'Académie Julian, dove fu allievo di Jules Joseph Lefebvre e di Gustave Boulanger.

Ottenne dall'Accademia una medaglia d'oro.

Rientrato in America si dedicò in prevalenza all'affresco e, in genere, alle pitture e alle decorazioni murali.

Nel 1894 dipinse una serie di affreschi ("Justice", "The Fates", "The Rights of Man") nel Palazzo della Corte Criminale di New York.

Per questo lavoro la Commissione della Municipal Art Society lo premiò. In seguito Simmons affrescò l'Hotel Waldorf Astoria, sempre a New York, la Biblioteca del Congresso a Washington e il Campidoglio di Saint Paul nel Minnesota.

Nel 1914 si recò in California assieme a Childe Hassam, per vedere dei quadri del deserto dell'Arizona dipinti da Xavier Martinez.

Simmons è ricordato per essere stato uno dei dieci pittori dissidenti della Società degli artisti americani, i Ten American Painters, nonché per aver fatto parte del movimento dell'American Renaissance che, dopo la Guerra civile, sosteneva l'importanza di stretti rapporti estetici fra pittura, scultura, architettura e decorazione.

Nel 1922 Simmons scrisse e pubblicò la propria autobiografia. Morì nel 1931. | © Wikipedia