New York, 31 July, 1829.
Gentlemen:
For several years past I have strictly devoted myself to the profession of the liberal arts and flatter myself that my efforts have not been detrimental to their interests. The reason why or wherefore I, an American artist, bearing with me an unblemished moral reputation, should have been selected for exclusion by both the American Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the self-denominated Academy of Design, appears mysterious and illiberal, and not in accordance with the principles of religion or democracy. Had not an enthusiastic love of and devotion to the Fine Arts guided my reason, at this day I should have become one of the most inveterate enemies to both institutions. Philosophy has made me what I now am, viz., the sincere friend of man and admirer of the works of his hands. As such I have,—written injuries as sand—favors on the tablet of memory.
As one of the great body of artists of America I deem it an incumbent duty to advance the beauteous arts by all honorable means, and to chastise arrogance, presumption, ignorance, and wilful malevolence. With chagrin I have viewed the sinister and aristocratical proceedings of the National Academy, and the ill results that must eventually follow its longer continuance, and therefore have publicly deprecated its wickedness. As one of the regenerators of the old or American Academy of Fine Arts, I now make bold in saying to its directors a few things, which if duly weighed and followed must result favorably to its vitality and best interests, and be the medium of establishing the reputation of artists on firm and lasting basis, viz.: by collecting around the American Academy and with it all the genius and talent in the arts of design which our country possesses and creating a fund sufficient to all its wants and expenditures.
Already, twenty-five artists of respectability of this city await one effort of the American Academy to reëstablish its original standing and reputation, and they will join heart and hand to oppose the Academy of Design (truly so called) by every work of their hands done and to be done. The one effort alluded to is to procure at a reasonable rent say from 800 to 1000 dollars per annum the second story of the large and splendid building now erecting corner of Anthony Street and Broadway. The undersigned is perfectly well assured that from $1000 to $1500 per annum can be realized (exclusive of rent) from daily exhibitions of the works of living artists not in connection with the National Academy. He is fully satisfied from late observations that twenty-five new pieces or paintings can be procured monthly, all of which may be procured on loan for one month at least. This being the case the Academy must eventually and in a very short time supplant the puny efforts of a few National Esquires, a majority of whom are scarce entering their teens.
The subscribing artist respectfully informs you that the exhibition of the rough specimens of his art, viz., “The Inquisition of Spain,” at No. 315 Broadway, did positively realize to him, in eighteen months, Seven thousand and sixty-nine dollars. If, then, such an exhibition could realize such a sum, what would an exhibition of splendid historic and allegoric subjects, with portraits, miniatures, and landscapes by our native artists, not realize under the guidance of such a respectable board of directors as is that of the American Academy of Fine Arts?
The names of Trumbull, Vanderlyn, Frothingham, etc., alone would act as magic on a discriminating public, provided fair specimens of their talents be judiciously arranged for public inspection. Boston has done wonders this year in her Athenæum. Why, then, should we, equally blessed with native talent, despair, and sit down in sack-cloth and ashes, when a single effort can make us her equal and rival? Gentlemen, I am enthusiastic, and yet have maturely weighed each and every reason against your regeneration, and boldly assert more is for you than against you. The three preceding mentioned gentlemen are equal to, if not superior in talent to, any Boston can produce. Our portrait-painters generally bid fair to excel. All that is wanted is your help as a body corporate, your co-operation as lovers of the Fine Arts. Where, if you become extinct, shall we go to study the models of antiquity? Alas! we know of no other place wherein the experience of ages is collected, en masse, no place wherein to receive that instruction so essential to a knowledge of our profession. Mr. Bowen, the proprietor, has offered to you through Colonel Trumbull, the room alluded to at a fair compensation; it now rests with you to say for once and for all, “We will,” or, “we will not continue the patrons of art.” Wishing to yourselves individually, and collectively as a body corporate, health and peace, I remain,
Gentlemen, truly your Friend in the Fine Arts,
John H. I. Browere.
No formal action is known to have been taken upon this communication; but the antagonism plainly evident as existing between the new Academy of Design and the old Academy of the Fine Arts, forms a lively chapter in the history of American art. Full particulars of the strife are given in Dunlap’s book and in Cummings’s “Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design.” But these accounts are from biased adherents of the new institution and bitter opponents of the old, so that, for a brief but philosophical and judicial consideration of the subject, one must turn to John Durand’s sketch of Colonel Trumbull in the “American Art Review” for 1880.