Weiss on Eugene Speicher

Eugene Speicher, Portrait of a French Girl (Jeanne Balzac), ca. 1924. Oil on canvas, 40 x 36½ in. Woodstock Artists Association and Museum Permanent Collection. Gift of E.G. Jarman, Jr.
Eugene Speicher, Portrait of a French Girl (Jeanne Balzac), ca. 1924. Oil on canvas, 40 x 36½ in.
Woodstock Artists Association and Museum Permanent Collection. Gift of E.G. Jarman, Jr.

Eugene Speicher, who first studied, and then taught at the Art Students League for five years during the 1910s, is the subject of  Along His Own Lines: A Retrospective of New York Realist Eugene Speicher. “At the height of his fame,” writes Jerry Weiss in the October 2014 issue of the Artist’s Magazine (PDF here), “Eugene Speicher was called ‘America’s most important living painter’ by Esquire magazine.” But his exalted reputation declined precipitously over the second half of the twentieth century.

Speicher painted fellow student Georgia O’Keeffe, when both were studying with William Merritt Chase. Speicher’s portrait, reproduced below in the Art Students League’s 1908–09 annual course catalogue, was acquired as a red dot purchase, and remains part of the school’s permanent collection.

O'Keeffe by Speicher
A spread from the 1908–09 annual course catalogue of the Art Students League

Along His Own Lines opens October 18 at the New York State Museum, Albany.