Cincinnati Magazine
Cincinnati Art Museumâs current
Frank Duveneck: American Masterretrospective would seem to have little need to dig up anything new about the esteemed Covington native. Born to German-immigrant parents, he and his career flowered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and heâs often been called this cityâs most important artist. A respected Art Academy of Cincinnati teacher as well, he died in 1919 at age 70.
Illustration by Gabriel Ippoliti
But, really, the ideas behind this show are anything but complacent. It attempts to shake the cobwebs off of Duveneckâs reputation, which isnât as prominent nationally and internationally as it is here. As
Fig. 1.
The Whistling Boy by Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), 1872. Initialed and
dated “FD [in monogram]. Munich. 1872” in monogram at lower left. Oil on canvas, 27 7/8 by 21 1/8 inches.
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, gift of the artist; all photographs courtesy of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Although it would be foolish to suggest that the influential and wildly productive Jean-Léon Gérôme is lost to history, it is safe to say that the great academician is perhaps less widely known today than his students Thomas Eakins and Mary Cassatt. And while it would be equally foolish to suggest that Frank Duveneck is but a footnote to his more recognizable students, such as John Henry Twachtman, the Kentucky-born artist is not the name he was in his day. Reviewing a 1972 show at Manhattan’s Chapellier Galleries, critic John Canaday described Duveneck as “a painter who promised to establish a major position in American art but stopped halfway through his career and settled for a mi