The Sartain Family and the Philadelphia Cultural Landscape
A Symposium, April 11-12, 1997
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Moore College of Art and Design will present a
symposium, "The Sartain Family and the Philadelphia
Cultural Landscape 1830-1930," on April 11-12, 1997.
Thepurpose of this program is to define the unique
characteristics of Philadelphia's artand cultural
communities between 1830 and 1930 by examining the
influence of theSartain family and their contribution to
the city's role as a national cultural center.
The symposium inaugurates the Sesquicentennial
Celebrations of Moore College, the nation's oldest and
now the only art and design college for women.
Appropriately, the symposium marks the one-hundredth
anniversary of the death of John Sartain (1808-1897), the
American patriarch of this illustrious family and a
long-time member of the board of the Philadelphia
School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art
and Design). His daughter Emily (1841-1927) and
granddaughter Harriet (1873-1957) held successive key
positions at the school, as principal and dean over a
period of 60 years. The Sartain family, which also
included artists Samuel (1830-1905), Henry (1833-
1895), and William (1843-1924), occupied a unique
position at the center of Philadelphia's art community
becausetheir main occupations -- printmaking and art
education -- connected them with individuals from a
wide variety of social classes and occupations.
The Sartain symposium will bring together scholars from
museums and academic institutions throughout the
United States who have studied the participants in "The
World of the Sartain Family" to interweave the voices
and artwork of the period. They will demonstrate that a
cultural community has an identity formed from a
chorus that intermingled and shaped the resulting artistic
history of the city and its contribution to a national art
history.
The goal of this project is to attract international
attention to this remarkable family and the city which
fostered its artistic triumphs, to recognize their strong
connection to and leadership of MCAD, and to stimulate
scholarship.
The Importance of the Sartain family: Like the Peale and
Sully households, the Sartain family achieved great
distinction in their day. Yet today the names of John,
Samuel, Henry, Emily, William, and Harriet Sartain are
far less well-known than other influential American
artists. The reason for this discrepancy may well be the
medium of their artistic endeavors. Unlike the notable
painters named Peale and Sully, the Sartains are best
known as engravers, a class of artists whose own
individual reputations have been eclipsed by that of the
painters whose works they reproduced for the nation.
The careers of Sartain family members coincided with
enormous change in the practices of creating and
consuming visual images and amidst widespread public
debate about the definition of art and culture. The
symposium will focus on the complex layers of influence
operating within the Philadelphia art community and the
dialogues that were on-going throughout the
period: between painters and printmakers, between
collectors and artists, between groups of prominent and
powerful civic leaders and members of the artistic
community, and between male and female artists. The
papers will highlight the intens
ity of the private and public art conversations that were going on
simultaneously in Philadelphia between 1830 and 1930.
By bringing together academic and museum scholars
whose areas of expertise encompass a variety of
methodologies and subjects, the symposium promises to
provide a stimulating opportunity to study an active
artistic community from a variety of vantage points.
Who should attend: anyone interested in Philadelphia
cultural history, American art, women's history, art
education, and the history of printmaking in the United
States.
Conference co-chairs will be Katharine Ann Martinez,
Member Services Officer, Research Libraries Group,
Inc., and Page Talbott, Project Director and Curator for
the Sesquicentennial Celebration, MCAD. The most
thorough treatment of any member of the Sartain family
in America is the 1986 Ph.D. dissertation by Katharine
Martinez: "The Life and Career of John Sartain (1808-
1897): A Nineteenth Century Philadelphia Printmaker."
She has continued to write and speak on this topic, most
recently at the Delaware Seminar in American Art,
History, and Material Culture at the University of
Delaware (December 1991). In addition to her specific
familiarity with Sartain, Dr. Martinez is a well-known
scholar in the field of American material culture. Page
Talbott has been consulting curator of the permanent
collection at Moore since 1984. During this time she has
catalogued the college's art collection, which includes
more than 300 prints, paintings, and historical artifacts
pertaining to members of the Sartain family - John,
Emily, Harriet, Samuel, and William. Dr. Talbott, a fine
and decorative arts historian specializing in American
art, is currently Project Director and Curator for the
Sesquicentennial Celebration at MCAD.
Conference Speakers: Following are the speakers and
topics that will be included in the Sartain symposium:
FRIDAY, APRIL 11: Elizabeth Johns, Keynote Speaker,
Silfen Term Professor of American Art History,
University of Pennsylvania, Thoughts on the
Historiography of Philadelphia's Cultural Landscape;
Helena E. Wright, Curator of Graphics, Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution, Teaching by
Example: The Sartains' Influence on Philadelphia
Printmaking; Mark Thistlethwaite, Kay and Velma
Kimbell Chair of Art History, Texas Christian
University, Fort Worth, TX; Printmaker and Painter: The
Nature and Impact of John Sartain's Engravings after the
Work by Peter F. Rothermel; Ethan Robey, Ph.D. Candidate,
Art History, Columbia University, New York,
NY, Painting and Progress: John Sartain and the
Practical Uses of Painting at the Centennial Exhibition;
Sylvia Yount, Curator of Collections, Museum of
American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
A "New Century" for Women: Philadelphia's Centennial
Exhibition and Domestic Reform SATURDAY, APRIL
12: Sue Himelick Nutty, Independent Scholar, formerly
Assistant Professor of Art History, Earlham College,
Richmond, IN; Ambitions and Visions: John Sartain and
Joseph Harrison Jr.; Andrew L. Thomas, Museum
Technician, National Museum of American Art,
Washington, D.C., Portraiture, Politics, and Patronage:
Edward Dalton Marchant's "Abraham Lincoln" (1863;
engraved by John Sartain, 1864) and the Union League
of Philadelphia; Helen Goodman, Assistant Professor,
History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology.,
New York, NY, Emily Sartain: Leader in the Art
Establishment of her Day and Advocate of
Careers for Women in the Arts; Patricia Likos Ricci, Assistant
Professor, History of Art, Elizabethtown College,
Elizabethtown, PA, "Bella, cara Emilia": The Italianate
Romance of Emily Sartain and Thomas Eakins; Kirsten
N. Swinth, Visiting Assistant Professor, George
Washington University, Washington, D.C., Emily Sartain
and Harriet Judd Sartain M.D.: Female Influence and A
Community of Women Professionals; Nina de Angeli
Walls, Consultant Historian, Ridley Park, PA, Art in
Everyday Life: Harriet Sartain and the Democratization
of Art Education, 1900-1930; Todd D. Smith, Associate
Curator of American Art, The Dayton Art Institute,
Dayton, OH, Defining an Orientalist Idiom: The Case of
William Sartain; Elizabeth Milroy, Closing Speaker,
Associate Professor, Art History and American Studies,
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT; Nature and
Culture in Philadelphia: The Creation of Fairmount Park,
1855-1876.
The illustrated papers will be published following the
conference.
Sartain Exhibitions: In conjunction with the Sartain
symposium, three exhibitionsin Philadelphia have been
planned. Selections from Moore College's Sartain
collections, the most varied in any institution, will be
exhibited at the College from April 1 to May 15. Titled
"The Sartains' Legacy at Moore," the exhibition will
include four rare paintings by Emily Sartain, selections
from volumes of prints collected by John Sartain as well
as examples of his own engravings, John Sartain's
engraving tools and his drafting table, three early
paintings by William Sartain, anda pair of sketch books
by the young Samuel Sartain. Additionally, in
recognition of the importance of the Sartain family to
their institutions and to the city as a whole,
The Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania
Academy and the Philadelphia Museum of Art will
mount related exhibitions. The exhibition at PAFA, "The
Sartain Family and their Philadelphia Circle," has been
scheduled for January 17-April 13, 1997.
This installation will feature paintings, photographs, works on
paper, and archival material drawn from their permanent
collection as well as from local lenders (including local
museums and libraries). The exhibition at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art will be held in the American
Wing and will feature drawings and prints by John
Sartain in the museum's collection. Representative
works by members of the Sartain family will also be on
display (and for sale) at The Philadelphia Print Shop in
Chestnut Hill, PA.
Funding for this symposium has been provided by The
Barra Foundation, Inc.
For further information contact:
Page Talbott Ph.D., Co-Chairman, Sartain Symposium
Moore College of Art and Design Tel.: (610) 667-7496
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
FAX: (610) 667-3873
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