Henry's Lieutenants

Irving Ruben Bacon

Irving Ruben Bacon 1875-1962 "Miss Jones was drawing teacher for allpublic school children . Irving used to help her by drawing the lessons on the blackboard, and there was a faint suspicion, which no one dared to utter, that he was better than she." —George W. Stark* Irving Bacon lead a charmed life as Henry Ford's "court painter.,. He did paintings of every aspect of Ford's life, from frivolous childhood scenes to mature portraits. Ford expressed satisfaction with Bacon's paintings; Clara Ford, however, was not quite as generous with her praise. Irving Ruben Bacon was born November 29, 1875, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He came to Detroit with his family when he was five years old. He was the son of Joseph and Caroline Bacon. His father is listed in 1880 in the Detroit City Directory as a pattern maker working at the Detroit Stove Works. The Joseph Bacon family is said to have first taken up residence at the home of Rebecca Flaherty on Mt. Elliott Street in Detroit. Flaherty was an older sister of Henry Ford's father, William. Her son, John, later married Joseph Bacon's sister, Rhoda. In 1879, when Ford first left his home on the farm, he stayed at his aunt Rebecca's boardinghouse in Detroit. So some of the Fords knew the Bacon family at a very early date. Irving Bacon states in his reminiscences that he first became well acquainted with Henry Ford in 1898, when he was given a ride in Henry's first automobile. Bacon attended public grade schools in Detroit and excelled in art. About 1888, he won several awards in a drawing contest conducted by the Detroit News. In 1889, his parents moved to Montana, where Irving , then a teenager, reveled in horseback riding, cowpunching, and the wild ways of the West. The family soon decided Irving had had enough of the Western influence and moved back to Detroit. Bacon finished high school in Detroit, meanwhile drawing some cartoons for Detroit newspapers. Henry Ford is said to have enjoyed Bacon's cartoons. In 1895, Bacon is listed in the Detroit City Directory *From "Town Talk—by Stark," Detroit News, November 29,1942. 21 Henry's Lieutenants as a draftsman at the Detroit Boat Works, boarding at 311 Sheridan Avenue. In 1903, he is listed in the same directory as an artist working for the Book-Keeper Publishing Company, Ltd., with his home address as 703 Stanley Street in Detroit. It is thought his parents moved to Cleveland that same year. The West was still in Bacon's blood. He went out to North Dakota, to Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Reservation, where he completed a painting of Buffalo Bill and sold it to Buffalo Bill when the popular Wild West show appeared there. Bacon received $350 for the painting. Buffalo Bill later commissioned Bacon to paint him a Western scene titled "The Life I Love," now in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. Bacon next went to New York, where he studied at the Chase School of Art and sold his work to various newspapers and magazines. When Bacon was twenty-one, he married Elfleda Louise Wheeler, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Henry Wheeler, owners of the Banner Laundry Company of Detroit. After marriage, the couple lived on Avery Street at Calumet Avenue. Daughters Dorothy, Virginia, and Janice were born in Detroit. In 1907, Bacon sold some of his paintings to the Wheelers and left Detroit with a scholarship to study at the Royal Art Academy in Munich, where a fourth daughter, Gretchen, was born. His daughters say they greatly enjoyed their leisure days with their father in Germany. While in Munich, Bacon painted "Conquest of the Prairie ," which now also hangs in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. After Bacon had spent more than three years at the Royal Art Academy, he returned to Detroit. Henry Ford suggested to Edsel, "Let's go down and buy one of Bacon 's paintings for the house." Henry selected a farm stable scene with a horse standing and cows lying down. (Bacon thought Henry had picked one of the poorest of the lot.) Henry Ford truly believed Bacon had talent, and in later years took art lessons from Bacon. About this time, the Bacons moved their now sizable family into a large home in Redford, on the outskirts of Detroit. C. Harold Wills, with whom Bacon was acquainted, also thought Bacon's paintings were very...