And then we have the memory of Bob Davis, onetime editor of Munsey’s Magazine and a columnist for the New York Evening Sun. In his California days he was a printer’s apprentice with a job near Gutzon’s studio. Davis describes Gutzon’s studio thus:
His walls were the most fascinating thing in my life. They were hung with pictures of stage coaches and horses leaping at you from every direction. These things were painted in oils and I thought they were the finest things in California. He also modeled in clay and chiseled a bit in stone. During the lunch hour I visited his studio and struck up a friendly acquaintance. He confided that his ambition was to excel in sculpture and that he painted only to get the sinews with which to go on.
One noon I entered his studio and found him in high spirits. He was rigging a large canvas on the easel and making great preparations for something important.
“I’m going to do a life-size, seated portrait of General Frémont in military regalia,” he told me. “Mrs. Frémont is bringing him around this afternoon for the first sitting. Come around tomorrow at lunch time and I’ll have the figure rounded in. He has a strong face and I think I can make a pretty good picture.”
I saw the painting from the first touch of the brush. Frémont always came in on the arm of his wife who seemed to be the one person he wanted to please. She brought with her a military coat adorned with gold fringe and epaulets, a garment the great Indian fighter wore with dignity.
And it was a good picture. Day after day it assumed more life and grandeur until it was finished and taken away to be exhibited in an art gallery on Spring Street. I went to see it there. And I boasted about my acquaintance with the artist to anybody who would listen to me.
There seems to be no doubt that the Frémont portrait was one of the most important works of Gutzon’s youth. It got him attention and acclaim. But more than that it got him the friendship and advice of Mrs. Frémont. The general was nearing death when Gutzon first saw him. The portrait was finished in 1888 and Frémont died in Washington, D. C., in 1890. But the motherly interest of Jessie Benton Frémont in the artist went on unbroken for many years. She helped him with letters to important people and with advice on how and where to sell his works. Some of these letters were still in Gutzon’s effects when he died.
The most discriminating patron of the young artist in California was, perhaps, Spencer J. Smith. Smith bought enough canvases to give Gutzon a start toward his training in Paris. These pictures, tenderly cared for, are still in the possession of Smith’s widow in the same house where the artist saw them hung some sixty years ago. As then the house, surrounded by gardens, stands like an oasis in the heart of busy Los Angeles.
Shortly before going abroad in 1889, Gutzon married Mrs. Elizabeth Putnam, whom the family called “Lisa,” a painter of ability and a teacher of art. Unfortunately, the details of the romance are lacking. Gutzon never talked about such intimate matters. His father and other members of the family met her only after the marriage.
Lisa seems to have loved her husband. At any rate, his worries during the early years in Europe made little impression on her—nor on him. Yet, that there was some difficulty in their relationship is evidenced in letters written to Gutzon by friends of both of them. A young sculptor pupil, Arthur Putnam, who lived with them at Sierra Madre, mentioned the vague unhappiness he sensed in Gutzon and tried delicately to probe into the matter. But, unfortunately, only the question of Putnam is extant. Gutzon’s reply to his letter has not been kept.