Henry Farny

Henry Farny (right) with Frank Duveneck in 1874
Obsidian mountain in the Yellowstone, 1897

Henry François Farny (15 July 1847 Ribeauvillé – 23 December 1916) was a French-born United States painter and illustrator. His work was centered on the life of Native Americans in the 19th-century United States.[1]

Biography

Farny's family left France in 1853 to emigrate to the United States. The family moved to Warren in Pennsylvania, near a Seneca reservation. As a child he learned the lore of the woods from Seneca Indians, who came from their reservation in New York state to hunt in the neighborhood where his father lived. In his boyhood he was fond of covering the walls of his father's board-house with pictures of animals, birds and Indians, which he scratched with nails or framed by aid of burnt sticks.[1]

Around 1859, the Farny family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Attracted by painting and drawing, the young man became an illustrator for magazines and books for children. When he was 18 years old, Harper's Weekly published a double page view of Cincinnati he made.

Between 1867 and 1870 he took private lessons from Albert Bierstadt in Düsseldorf. By the time Farny had arrived at Düsseldorf, and began attending Düsseldorf academy in the late 1860s the Düsseldorf school of painting had already begun to lose its once high acclaim amongst most of the American populace.

One part of America where this was not the case was in Cincinnati, Ohio where the realist objectives taught there were still being held in high esteem. Despite this, upon his return to Cincinnati in 1870 Farny, who had been studying abroad, came home to a minimally responsive demand by Cincinnatians for his paintings. He used his new found skills in the service of poster painting and other odd jobs. In 1873 this all changed when he was commissioned by the chamber of commerce to depict in drawing the different stages of pork packing in Cincinnati.

In 1881, inspired by the developing market for Indian paintings, Farny traveled up the Missouri River, making sketches, taking notes and photography, and collecting artifacts. On several more trips West he did the same, until his Cincinnati studio contained enough material for almost any Indian subject he wished to illustrate.[2] Upon his return to Cincinnati, he remarked: "The plains, the buttes, the whole country and its people are fuller of material for the artist than any country in Europe."[3]

About a hundred paintings were inspired by Farny's western trips in the 1880s. Ration Day at Standing Rock Agency, The Song of the Talking Wire, and The Last Vigil are among his most famous. His understanding of the Indian's plight is often apparent in his work.[3]

Farny was one of the founding members of the Cincinnati Art Club and served as its second president from 1892–94.[4]

Theodore Roosevelt once said to Farny: "Farny, the nation owes you a great debt. It does not realize it now but it will some day. You are preserving for future generations phases of American history that are rapidly passing away."[1]

He died in Cincinnati in 1916.[5]

Style

Farny who was an erudite scholar, and student of both Munich and Düsseldorf's school's of fine arts, nonetheless, can be seen, from his works of art to have assimilated the Düsseldorf techniques of a drab styled realism into his paintings. In his depictions of the post civil war era and oppression of native Americans at the time, Farny masterfully painted confounding situations, such as a perplexed Indian examining a telephone line. This painting entitled (In song of the Talking wire, a major work of 1904) can be interpreted as 'in the struggle against the white man's technology he must succumb' "John Clubbe". This painting along with one entitled Morning of a New Day which shows native Americans on a snowy hill watching a far away train have gained Farny a reputation of practicing the 'vanishing race' style of painting.

Legacy

Farny's art continues to gain in popularity and most serious public as well as private Western art collections include at least on in them. Recently his Southern Plains Indian Warrior sold at the Bonhoms for £224,097 (US$362,500) - more than three times its original estimated value.[6][7]

Artworks

Selected artworks

Year Title Image Dimensions Collection Comments
1878The Silent Guest,
oil on canvas
40.2 in × 30.1 in (102.2 cm × 76.5 cm) Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
IAP 40800019
1885The Captive,
gouache/watercolor

color image
22.3 in × 40.0 in (56.7 cm × 101.6 cm) Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
IAP 40800021
1887The Unwelcome Guests,
oil on canvas
38.0 in × 48.3 in (96.5 cm × 122.7 cm) Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
IAP 40800949
1888The Water Carriers
(or Drawing Water),
watercolor
8.4 in × 16.1 in (21.3 cm × 40.9 cm) IAP 62641434
1890Hunting Camp on the Plains,
oil on canvas
22.1 in × 38.6 in (56.1 cm × 98.0 cm) Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
IAP 40800950
1891 Indian Brave,
watercolor
10 in × 6 in (25.4 cm × 15.2 cm) IAP 63003525
1892Renegade Apaches,
oil on canvas
32.6 in × 22.6 in (82.9 cm × 57.5 cm) Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
IAP 40800011
1895Conspiracy,
watercolor

color image
15.4 in × 9.6 in (39.1 cm × 24.4 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040012
1896Chief Spotted Tail
(1896?), watercolor
10 in × 7 in (25.4 cm × 17.8 cm)
or
10.3 in × 15.1 in (26.2 cm × 38.4 cm)
Subject: Chief Spotted Tail (1823-1881), Brulé, branch of Sioux tribe. IAP 82190580 IAP 86040016
1896Pastures New,
watercolor
color image 12.3 in × 18.3 in (31.2 cm × 46.5 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040013
1899Something Stirring,
gouache/watercolor

color image
12.5 in × 9.5 in (31.8 cm × 24.1 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040011
1902Big Game in Sight,
gouache/watercolor

color image
10.6 in × 5.6 in (26.9 cm × 14.2 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040005
1900The Old Buffalo Trail,
watercolor

color image
28.5 in × 20.5 in (72.4 cm × 52.1 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040015
1902Indian Elk Hunting,
oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
1905Fording a Stream
(or Breaking a Pony;
or Fording the Stream), oil on canvas
21 in × 32 in (53.3 cm × 81.3 cm) IAP 43590039
1906The Last of the Herd,
oil on canvas
22.1 in × 38.6 in (56.1 cm × 98.0 cm) Cincinnati Art Museum,
Cincinnati, OH
IAP 40800951
1906Rounded Up, by God
(or Rounded up by God) (1906?),
oil

color image
40 in × 22 in (101.6 cm × 55.9 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040006
1909On the Trail Home
(or On the Home Trail),
oil
color image 14 in × 24 in (35.6 cm × 61.0 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040007
1910Pere Marquette
(or Into the Unknown),
oil

color image
41.5 in × 23 in (105.4 cm × 58.4 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040008
1911The Moment of Suspense
(or A Moment of Suspense),
oil

color image
24 in × 16 in (61.0 cm × 40.6 cm) IAP 86040041
1912Departure for the Buffalo Hunt,
oil on canvas
22 in × 32 in (55.9 cm × 81.3 cm) IAP 86040032 IAP 8C280012
Fort Totten Trail,
watercolor
8.3 in × 15 in (21.1 cm × 38.1 cm) IAP 63005226
The Thunder Horse,
oil
color image 16.6 in × 24 in (42.2 cm × 61.0 cm) American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming,
Laramie, WY
IAP 59040014
Silent Guest,
oil
11.7 in × 8.3 in (29.8 cm × 21.0 cm) IAP 61515285

References

  1. 1 2 3 Clark, S. J. (1912). Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume 2. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. p. 449. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  2. "Henry F. Farny". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  3. 1 2 Dawdy, Doris Ostrander (1974). Artists of the American West. Sage Books. p. 84. ISBN 0-8040-0607-5.
  4. "Past Presidents". Cincinnati Art Club. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  5. Levy, Florence Nightingale (1917). American Art Directory, Volume 14. The American Federation of the Arts. p. 322.
  6. "Bonhams : Henry F. Farny (American, 1847-1916) Southern Plains Indian warrior, 1894 16 x 11in". www.bonhams.com. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  7. "Bonhams : Newly discovered masterwork brings $362,500 during May auction at Bonhams". www.bonhams.com. Retrieved 2016-03-28.

Additional reading

External links

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