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Chapter 2. 1901: Early Days in New York City
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| 5 | C h a p t e r 2 1901 Early Days in NewYork City The train slowed to a stop and passengers rushed to get off on that cold January day in New York City— cold by Texas standards anyway. Among them was a baby-faced eighteen-year-old youth whose black hair framed his slightly chubby face. Julian Onderdonk had arrived in his ancestral home. He aspired to become a great artist and he hoped that New York would provide him the training to succeed. Robert Onderdonk, before leaving the East twenty-five years earlier to seek his fortune as an artist in San Antonio, had been an early student of William Merritt Chase, and Julian sought to follow in his father’s footsteps. He must have looked around in amazement at the crowded and busy city that would be his home for the next nine years. Little did he know how those years would test him, mature him, and help him to grow into one of the finest artists to come from the Lone Star State.1 Julian set about finding a place to live, enrolling in classes, and meeting other students. According to a letter he sent his family on January 13, 1901, his first address in New York City was 332 West Fifty-Sixth Street. His rented room was near the Art Students League building, which was on Fifty-Seventh Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue. He hoped that his skills would be sufficient to become an artist, but he feared that among so many talented and aspiring artists he would not stand out.2 Unaware that the Art Students League required students to submit drawings to be evaluated for placement in appropriate classes, Julian had to produce these drawings quickly, while other students may have worked for weeks on their submissions. Much to his disappointment, his drawings of the human form were not judged good enough to qualify him for life drawing class and he was put to sketching plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculptures. Looking at the pen and ink drawings he had done before leaving Texas (figure 2.1), this may be hard to understand . These works show a steady hand and sharp perception; but, in truth, the human figure was never the focus of Julian’s art. Landscape painting always interested him more, and once in New York he found himself among the best aspiring artists America had to offer.3 Julian enrolled in a drawing class taught by Kenyon Cox, who was a harsh taskmaster but an excellent draftsman. It was a difficult winter and spring for Julian as he watched his limited funds dwindle, and at times he felt discouraged by his slow progress while surrounded by so many talented students. To the sophisticates of the East, Julian’s dress, accent, and manners must have appeared rustic. He does not seem to have made many strong friendships, but he focused on his art and on living frugally. Money was a constant problem, and over the course of the next two years Julian’s debt to G. Bedell Moore grew to $500.4 Julian alternated between happiness at his independence and about studying in New York, and depression, homesickness, and loneliness. He had a romantic image of himself as the artist and always worked hard at perfecting his art.Two pen and ink drawings done early in his time in New York demonstrate his sense of humor and tendency to romanticize his state of being, but they also illustrate that Julian was spending time in the solitude of his room working at his art (figures 2.2 and 2.3). When he did get out and about in the city, he preferred to visit museums and galleries and to work in the parks. Several sketches he executed in Central Park have survived and they are typical of his work, with their emphasis on the landscape and not on buildings or genre scenes (figures 2.4 and 2.5).5 Julian’s intelligence, abundant energy, and knack for close attention to a task worked to his benefit. During that first semester he took courses, associated with other students, visited every gallery and museum he could, and wrote home fairly regularly about it all. As summer approached, he made plans to attend William Merritt Chase’s Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art in Southampton, on Long Island. Thus, William Merritt Chase became the second artist, after his father, to have a...