It might seem a bit odd to pick out Charles Bartlett from such an illustrious group of young artists at the Academy Julian in Paris but it continues a conversation between Darrel Karl at Eastern Impressions and myself about students who attended the Paris academies in the mid 1880s. Some of this has been by email, which doesn't draw in others. So here for the first time for me at least is the first photograph I have seen of a young British colour woodcut artist. (He was 27 or 28 at the time). He is un-missable on the left, with his arm stretched out above the easel.
I will just pick out four others. Paul Gaugin is right at the top and rather out of focus. The man with the delicate features and in a light waistcoat below Gaugin is Vincent van Gogh. To the back of him, with equally fine features and watch chain is Pierre Bonnard. Less well-known is the Scots artist, A.S. Hartrick, front centre with the handsome moustache and hand rested on the shoulder of his companion. (He was a friend both of Van Gogh and Frank Morley Fletcher who attended the academy soon afterwards.) Other British colour woodcut artists-to-be who attended were Ethel Kirkpatrick and Elizabeth Christie Austen Brown who also became a neighbour of Bartlett's back in London - and long-term readers of the blog will know just how much I would like to find a photograph of either of them.
And before anyone thinks that the research is mine, the photograph and identification of the artists can be found on a Van Gogh post on the library blog at L'institut national d'histoire de l'art or INHA. I was hazy about how to get the link working, I'm afraid.
