Thwarting the Odds: The Colorado Art Scene and the Artists’ Club of Denver
By: Sidni Zimmer
On December 4th, 1893, artist Emma Richardson Cherry hosted an evening soiree at her Denver studio. Attended by local artists such as Henry Read, Charles Patridge Adams, Henrietta Bromwell, and Elisabeth Spalding, the gathering was not purely to unite her creative circle under one roof. Cherry looked to form a coalition of creators to augment Denver’s meager art world. That night, her efforts culminated in the founding of the Artists’ Club of Denver.[1]Its elected president, Henry Read, later recounted the evening’s intentions: they had a duty “of upholding art, not as a plaything for the unemployed, but as a factor in the life of Denver, which sooner or later will be acknowledged.”[2]
On the eve of the Artists’ Club of Denver’s birth, the art world in Colorado was tenuous at best, and the state’s economic and social environment was even more uncertain. In the year of the Club’s creation, three things occurred. First, the value of silver plummeted in the United States, leading to job loss, a reduction in foreign investors, and a general depression. Second, Colorado became the second state to grant women the right to vote. And third, a rising trend in beautifying cities to promote civic duty led to the City Beautiful movement.
Cherry’s decision to create a unified art club composed of men and women was in spite of economic obstructions and because of local progressive movements, such as the City Beautiful movement. It was also because of Colorado’s limited exposure to art. Despite being the second largest Western city, Denver saw little by way of artistic expression and appreciation. What it did see was often in the form of scammers. Vendors peddled art with forged signatures at exorbitant prices, and many Colorado citizens fell victim. A dejected environment prevented art from finding a foothold in Denver. Henry Read confirmed this. “[In 1893], during a period of depression,” he wrote, “public interest in art matters gave no sign of encouragement.” This wasn’t for lack of trying. These environmental woes led to the establishment of various artists clubs in the mid-1800s, including Le Brun Art Club. This Club held three annual exhibitions between 1891 and 1893, at which point it was absorbed by the Artists’ Club of Denver. During its short existence, Le Brun failed to cultivate artistic appreciation in Colorado. Upon taking up the mantle, the Artists’ Club found itself at the base of a lofty mountain.[3]
Scholars have approached the Artists’ Club of Denver from two schools of thought. They either briefly cover the Club’s existence from an art history standpoint, or they discuss it from a feminist lens.[4] Often, the two overlap. Some scholars have acknowledged that the Club was critical for the city’s development, as evidenced by the behemoth that is the Denver Art Museum. Yet these sources often gloss over the cultural barriers and setbacks that profoundly shaped the Club’s trajectory.[5]
In its formative years, the Artists’ Club of Denver met and overcame three major obstacles: Wild West stereotypes, a dearth of adequate financial backing, and the absence of a permanent art gallery. All three issues were unique to Colorado and fed into one another, resulting in an unending circle. However, these copious trials and tribulations were paramount to the Club’s eventual success in crafting Denver into an art center. By dissecting these obstacles, we reveal a greater understanding of the Club’s perseverance and incredible success in making Denver a notable art scene. Without the efforts of the Artists’ Club, the Denver Art Museum would never have become one of the largest museums in the West.
Beginnings
Prior to the Artists’ Club’s inception, the women’s club movement flooded the nation like a tidal wave. The purpose of the campaign was not merely to carve a space for women in a patriarchal world. As the founder of the movement, author and journalist Jane Cunningham Croly wrote in 1898, “the essence of a club is its many-sided character, its freedom in gathering together and expressing all shades of difference, its equal and independent terms of membership, which puts every one upon the same footing and enables each one to find or make her own place.” The goal was humanitarian: to encourage education, stimulate an appreciation for art and literature, raise awareness for environmental conservation, and rally for human rights and reform. The movement spread across America in the ensuing decades, birthing some of the most prestigious clubs such as the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) and the Fortnightly Club of Chicago.[6]
Colorado was not immune to this tidal wave, though it took a decade to reach the young state. In 1881, Denver women founded their own Fortnightly Club to emulate Chicago’s. The Monday Literary Club’s inception followed. Jane Cunningham Croly founded the Colorado Federation of Women’s Clubs (CFWC) in 1895 to cultivate a greater sense of community among the state’s organizations. A count by the CFWC listed 108 clubs and 4,700 members in Colorado by 1899.[7]
As clubs gained popularity in the state, another progressive movement spread in America, one that promoted art and aesthetics. The City Beautiful movement began in the 1890s consisting of architects, city planners, and landscape architects who promoted the development of parks, murals, city buildings, and monuments. Its purpose was not purely aesthetics. City Beautiful also encouraged civic virtue and reform. The construction of public libraries, municipal buildings, parks, and gardens was meant to improve the lives of locals and encourage tourists. Artists were therefore crucial to this rising movement and this was reflected in the creation of art clubs.[8]
In 1890, artists Harriet Winslow Hayden and Emma Richardson Cherry founded Le Brun Art Club. Harriet Hayden, not to be mistaken for the black antislavery activist of the same name, was an artist and teacher from Illinois. Cherry, also from Illinois, was a purveyor of art and she played an integral role throughout her twenties and thirties in the creation of both art clubs and schools in Nebraska, Missouri, Denver, and, later, Texas.[9] Shortly after the creation of the Artists’ Club, she settled in Houston, but her ties to Denver remained steadfast.
Le Brun Art Club held three annual art exhibitions between 1891 – 1893 that featured oil, pastel, charcoal, and watercolor artworks by Denver women such as Henrietta Bromwell, Elisabeth Spalding, Alice H. Howes, Ida de Steiger, and Ida C. Failing. Born in 1859, Bromwell was the daughter of Henry Pelham Holmes Bromwell, a prominent Republican congressman, lawyer, politician, and Freemason. The family moved from Illinois to Denver when she was just eleven. There her father switched parties and became an ardent advocate for women’s suffrage. Bromwell attended the University of Denver’s School of Fine Arts, where her artistic talents flourished. Later, she served as secretary of the Artists’ Club for the first few years before Spalding took over.[10]
Elisabeth Spalding was born in Pennsylvania in 1868 to Reverend John F. Spalding and Lavinia Spencer Spalding. When Spalding was six, the family moved to Denver after Reverend Spalding was appointed Missionary Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Like Bromwell, Spalding pursued an art education, first at the Cooper Union School of Arts and Design and later at the Art Students League, both in New York. Spalding was involved in the art and literary scenes of Denver, evident by her membership in the prolific Fortnightly Club as well as her significant role in the Artists’ Club of Denver. She was the secretary of the Artists’ Club after Bromwell stepped down, and remained rooted to the art scene in Denver until her death in 1954.[11]
Spalding and Bromwell are two interesting and notable figures in the history of the Artists’ Club and Le Brun—not only because of the abundance of source material about them that survives, but because of their important and overlapping roles in the Denver art scene (and the artistic world as a whole). Both women had supportive fathers, neither ever married or bore children, and both remained connected to the Denver art scene long after they stopped creating art. Unfortunately, their other peers, Howes, Steiger, and Failing are much harder to uncover. Biographical information is scant, if at all present in the source material. Their lives beyond their roles as artists are effectively nonexistent. However, their names appear frequently in newspaper articles that describe their artworks. For instance, in 1894, Howes had an artwork titled “Peasant’s Head” at the Artists’ Club’s annual exhibition that Denver News regarded as one of “the strongest pictures shown.” Failing and Steiger were named in newspapers in a way that suggested contemporary readers’ familiarity. The Denver Republican remarked that Failing’s blooming cactus sketch in an 1898 exhibition proved she had “found something worth seeing on the dry plains of Colorado.”[12] Small tidbits about these women’s artistic contributions can reveal details about them in the absence of biographical information. They were certainly well-known and respected figures in the Denver art scene.
Despite such a cast of artists, Le Brun’s contemporary sources rarely mention Le Brun, and when they did, it was in an unfavorable light. The Denver Republican published in 1894 that local exhibitions had “shown a distinctly amateur character” prior to the Artists’ Club’s formation. Henrietta Bromwell echoed this sentiment in 1899 when she stated that commendable exhibitions of local art were recent. These statements combine to suggest that Le Brun was among the “amateur” and mediocre presentations of local art.
Cross-referencing the surviving Le Brun exhibition pamphlets with Artists’ Club membership lists confirms that a handful of Le Brun’s female artists were not members of the Artists’ Club. Thus, when Le Brun was absorbed into the Artists’ Club, there was no guarantee that every member from Le Brun would or could follow. While this may have been a personal choice of the artist herself, it was more likely because of the Artists’ Club’s strict membership process. According to the Club’s constitution published in 1894, artists interested in active membership (i.e. an artist) had to be suggested by an active member “and approved by the Executive Committee before being voted upon by the active members.” A single negative vote would disqualify the artist from membership. Many Le Brun artists likely did not transfer to the Artists’ Club because they were not unanimously voted in. Why? To echo The Denver Republican, they were “amateurs.”[13]
Cherry’s intentions for creating the Artists’ Club were, therefore, manifold. She wanted to give art its rightful place in Denver by assembling the prestigious local artists into one coalition, defined not by gender but by an appreciation of art that would spread throughout Colorado. As Cunningham Croly succinctly put it, the goal was to create “an ideal basis of organization where every one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre; where the centre itself becomes a radiating medium for the diffusion of the best of that which is brought to it.”[14] Cherry wanted to make Denver into an art center.
Aside from the noted members Spalding, Bromwell, Hayden, and Cherry, the Artists’ Club included professor Henry Read; the well-regarded artist, Charles Partridge Adams; and art lover, Anne Evans. Evans was the daughter of Colorado governor, John Evans, and was raised in a family that held a deep appreciation of art. Indeed, her entire family were members of the Artists’ Club. She had attended New York’s Art Students’ League and had even studied in Europe. Evans’s art was not always on display at the annual exhibitions. Indeed, she seemed to have given up her personal artistic pursuits early on in favor of becoming an unofficial curator and collector for the Club. She would later become a member of the DAM’s board of directors, and would generously donate her extensive collection of Native American art to the museum.[15]
Unlike many of his peers, Henry Read was not American-born, but hailed from the Isle of Man, an English territory between England and Ireland. He was the founder of the Students’ Art Club of Denver, a supporter of the City Beautiful movement, a member of the Board of Managers of the Mining Exposition, head of the Denver Art Commission, and an active member of the Artists’ Club of Denver. Indeed, he was the Club’s president for many years. To say he was a busy man is an understatement. Read was an artist of considerable standing and a treasured teacher. The Rocky Mountain News declared him a “genius” in 1900. In 1898, the Daily News called him “that well known local artist.” The Rocky Mountain News (1959) recalled him as a “slender figure with the bristly white beard and the English voice [whose] black military cape made him a picturesque part of Denver streets.” Read was a memorable member of Denver society.[16]
An equally important figure, described by the Brush & Pencil as being “truly sympathetic with the spirit and nobleness of the landscape of the West,” was the renowned Charles Partridge Adams. Born in Massachusetts, Adams moved to Denver as a young boy. While working at a bookstore, he was exposed to art, which piqued his creative interests. While he was largely self-taught, he did study art in the East for some months in 1885, returning to Denver with a wellspring of knowledge that translated to his artwork. “He is a colorist,” wrote Brush & Pencil, “and his art possesses a royal insight, a subtle sensitiveness caught from the grandest moods of nature, which no mean spirit could grasp.” By 1900, his art was owned all across the country and beyond: Chicago, New York, Boston, London, Honolulu, and Paris. American landscape painter Thomas Moran spoke highly of him. The Brush & Pencil dubbed him “the prophet.” Newspapers covering the Artists’ Club’s annual exhibitions almost always dedicated multiple paragraphs to Adams’s work.[17]
Together, these unique artists and art appreciators were determined to build the art scene in Denver. Doing so required both artistic skill and a stubborn determination to overcome the obstacles that blocked their path. Though they had the numbers, they lacked an established location to exhibit and store their works for the general public to visit any day of the week. In short, they needed a home.
No Place to Call Home
Public funding was a major obstacle in Denver’s journey to become an art hub. More specifically, its failure to raise funds for an art museum. Until 1910, the Artists’ Club bounced from building to building for its annual exhibitions held twice a year. The Old Art School, the Tabor Grand Opera House, the Denver Camera Club, and the University of Denver all housed the Club. Annual exhibition pamphlets reveal a variety of locations were used—most of them on sixteenth street—for seventeen years. It had no permanent location to host lectures, workshops, or fundraisers. No established gallery that any Coloradan or tourist could visit.[18]
The Panic of 1893 played the first role in the struggle for funding. Two things occurred around this time. First, the price of silver plumetted. Having discovered an abundance of silver around Leadville in the mid-1870s, Colorado boomed as the self-proclaimed Silver State. The prosperity that followed upgraded Denver into a fully-fledged, bustling city. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act, signed in 1890, required the U.S. government to buy out huge amounts of silver to mint coins. The result was an oversupply of silver. In 1893, newly elected President Cleveland repealed the Act to combat the oversupply, and a financial hysteria rippled through the country. The second problem was drought. The early 1890s saw an abrupt decrease in rainfall in the West. Farmers fled Nebraska and the Dakotas when crops failed, and the threat of starvation loomed. Plain states such as Colorado had endured drought conditions since the 1870s, but when combined with the Silver Crash of 1893, a depression ensued. Homes foreclosed, banks shut their doors, and unemployment skyrocketed. Homelessness abounded, and camps set up for derelict families dotted Denver riverbanks. In other parts of the state, coal and gold mining strikes exacerbated financial strains.[19]
Thus, at the founding of the Artists’ Club in December of 1893, Colorado was in the midst of a homeless and unemployment problem. Gradually, gold and agriculture swept in to save Coloradans from their dire straits. In the meantime, attempts to boost morale in such trying times included efforts to expose Denver to local art. Achieving this goal required a permanent building to display artwork.[20]
The dawn of the 20th century saw an increase in discussion centering on the Club’s lack of a gallery. The Denver Republican wrote in 1900 that compared to other cities, particularly those in the east, Denver artists were working “out their salvation entirely alone.” The Artists’ Club arranged exhibitions, charged membership fees, organized lectures, and requested donations wholly alone. A considerable portion of their funds went toward acquiring art from the East, while another portion went toward leasing temporary galleries. When the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy of New York was gifted $350,000 for a gallery by a generous donor, Colorado newspapers turned a scathing eye on its community. “Denver has a group of millionaires richer than the richest in Buffalo,” wrote Edward Ring, treasurer of the Artists’ Club. “Why does it never occur to them to do something for their city?” The Denver Republican questioned, “Shall Denver listen…or has it yet to reach that stage of development which justifies a movement to give the city the same opportunity?” There was a general consensus that an art gallery was crucial to the city’s growth, yet no significant donation ever came in. In 1900, the Club was still twenty years out from their own building.[21]
Numerous efforts to raise awareness and funds for the construction of a building ensued. Exhibition fees often went toward a museum fund. In 1900, the Club hosted a lecture on Colorado history by businessman C.M. Hobbs. All proceeds from the event went to the Club’s museum fund. The total amount acquired at the end of the lecture is unknown, but if it was enough for a building, nothing came of it. If it had, the Club wouldn’t have appealed publicly in November of 1901 to collect $3,000. This immense fund (equivalent to $120,000 today) was to aid in the completion of an art gallery attached to the new Colorado Museum of Natural History building. C.M. Hobbs and senator Lawrence Phipps were noted as the two biggest donors—$250 and $500 respectively. The average donation was $10. Once again, this ploy failed. Construction delays curbed enthusiasm and the Club broke negotiations.[22]
Why the Club failed to secure a permanent location for so long remains speculative. Charles Partridge Adams wrote two years prior that “after nearly a year spent in investigating various building projects…it was found impracticable to attempt building at present.” Adams did not elaborate on this cryptic explanation. Why was building “impracticable” in 1898? And what changed by 1900? It is possible that the general local attitude toward art, combined with the recovering economic crisis of the Silver Crash, meant that not enough people were donating. It certainly could not have been due to a lack of advertising: local newspapers informed the populace about the Club in a variety of ways, from detailing the art displayed at annual exhibitions to advertising lectures, exhibitions, and meetings. Indeed, newspapers were some of the loudest supporters of the Artists’ Club. “Museums and art galleries are among the best possible investments,” wrote The Daily News in 1894, “and any city which establishes and maintains them, will be repaid their cost manyfold.” Investing in the Club would attract a “superior class” to Denver and stimulate the local population, The Daily News added. By encouraging art, Denver would reap abundant benefits to its economic and cultural environment. Civilians just needed to pitch in.[23]
This is not to say that no one contributed financially to the Artists’ Club. There was a collection of people who appreciated Denver art and whose support was paramount to the Club’s continued existence. In its first ten years, the Club had three membership groups: active, associate, and sustaining members. Active members were the artists. Associate and sustaining members were either those who knew little to nothing about art but desired to know more, or they were “able to discuss. . .realism and impressionism and the painters of the romantic school,” according to The Bohemian. The key difference between associate and sustaining members was in their financial contribution; associate members paid less and thus often comprised the majority while sustaining members paid the most and numbered the least. As of 1895, the Club had 157 members. Nineteen were active members and the remaining 138 were associates (sustaining membership was added in 1896). The annual fee for active members was $1 and $2 for associates, resulting in $295 for the annual funds.[24]
By 1897, the annual membership price had increased to $2 for active members. The Club now charged sustaining members $10 a year. Using the 1897 membership list and calculating the annual fees, the Artists’ Club raked in $412 for the year. Though a membership list for 1900 is missing in the sources, The Denver Republican listed the number of active members as sixty people and the associate membership as 410, amounting to $940 in annual income. Certainly this number was nowhere near the required amount for a building fund, but it showed the growing popularity of the Club. Every year saw an increase in members and, by proxy, an increase in funds. The Club used the money to pay for temporary galleries and artwork from other parts of the country. It was not enough to fund a building, even when combined with generous donations, exhibition fees, and other monetary contributions from lectures and other hosted events. Doing so would have rendered the Club incapable of acquiring lodging for its members’ art as well as artwork from other parts of the country—which was necessary for their goal to develop Denver into an art center.[25]
Western Stereotypes
Fighting against a lack of public funding was only one of the three hurdles that the Artists’ Club had to clear. Prevailing Wild West stereotypes played a crucial role in how outsiders perceived Denver art. In a 1900 interview with the Denver Times, Club president Henry Read lamented how the American East perceived its Western sibling. “The wild Western idea prevails a great deal more generally than is supposed, as [the Artists’ Club has] learned in our efforts to get different exhibits here,” he said. The Club fought against the “impression that [Coloradans] are still scalping people as a pastime” and the presumption that “Denver [was] something on the order of an enlarged trading post.” Efforts to acquire art from other parts of the country were met with resistance since artists often perceived Denver as an untamable Wild West town rather than the Queen City of the Plains. Why would they lend their art to a “trading post” rather than an established city? Indeed, stereotypes of the Wild West affected every aspect of Western culture. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which ran from 1883 to 1913, aggrandized the concept of an unruly West. Artist Charles Partridge Adams wrote in 1898 that Colorado elicited images of “the wild and unkempt frontier, wild cowboys, wild bears, and bare Indians.” Writers only added to stereotypes, often portraying the West as a largely unpopulated region peppered with miners, traders, cowboys, and indigenous groups.[26]
For a considerable portion of its existence, the Artists’ Club fought these stereotypes of an unruly and unpopulated West. Denver was a growing city with a wealth of art to show for it. At the Thirteenth annual exhibition in 1916, a tourist from the East was surprised to find a blooming art center. “I had an Easterner’s idea of a wild and wooly West,” they said in an interview with The Rocky Mountain News. The Exhibition proved them wrong. Denver had “true artists in every sense of the word.” With each successive annual exhibition, the Club’s prowess grew, and yet Denver was far from being credited as a genuine artistic capital in America. As the Denver Times pointed out in 1898, “‘Denver as an art center’ is a phrase that would, perhaps, not meet with unanimous approval in all parts of the artistic world.”[27]
For their part, Denver artists challenged stereotypes with their creations. While many notable members of the Artists’ Club painted local scenery, others depicted subjects that were distinctly un-Western. For instance, artist Blanche Dougan Cole specialized in portraiture. Harriet Hayden painted beautiful still-life floral paintings. Elsie Ward Hering’s bust sculptures lacked any distinct Western iconography. Sometimes the art was literally Western insofar as depicting the view right outside the artist’s door. Scenic paintings could depict a Western wilderness that, to any eye, could be mistaken for Eastern countryside.
However, Colorado artists could also contribute to Western stereotypes. Cole’s portraiture included indigenous women; Charles Partridge Adams’s landscape paintings depicted the colossal peaks of the Rocky Mountains; and Frank P. Saurwen crafted bold, emotional paintings depicting harrowing aspects of Native American life. Western art could be colorful, simple, or different. It was not distinctly masculine nor feminine—both men and women artists painted Western scenes and characters. They also painted subjects that were not stereotypically Western. “It is hard to understand why Eastern artists are content to go year after year to the Atlantic coast,” wrote the Denver Times in 1899. “They seemingly forget that there is a great and eminently picturesque country all undiscovered at their very doors.” Colorado had a wealth of beauty to offer people, they only had to remove the shades that blinded them.[28]
Thus, the Artists’ Club of Denver faced multiple adversaries: persistent stereotypes of the Wild West, locals who refused to donate to the artistic cause, and the absence of a permanent gallery. While people across America and beyond were beginning to notice Colorado’s artistic talents, many locals refused to. “The club, while possibly appreciated only by the artistic few of Denver, [is] becoming quite widely known abroad,” read a column in 1898. Without community support, the Club could not raise the funds needed for a permanent gallery. And without a permanent gallery, there was no way to expose locals and tourists to more art (more often). The problem was an ouroboros—an infinite circle. So long as the snake continued to bite its own tail, the issue at hand would never be resolved.[29]
They Have A Home
In 1907, the Denver Public Library (DPL) commissioner W.A. Moore had a solution to the Club’s transient problem. DPL was constructing a new Central Branch building on Bannock and Colfax. Moore, recognizing the “manifest advantages” of a collaboration, offered a second-story room in the new library that “could be adapted to the purposes of an Art Gallery.” There were two stipulations to this offer: the Club had to contribute to the cost of preparing the central room and the public was to have free access to it. They agreed. When the building opened in 1910, the Artists’ Club had its first official gallery. And yet, it was not a space wholly their own.[30]
With a home secured, the financial focus shifted to acquiring artwork for the Club’s collection. Before, the Artists’ Club’s funds had gone toward borrowing canvases for their exhibitions. Now, with a dependable roof over their heads, they could turn their attention to expanding their public collection as befit a museum. The Club acquired out-of-town and local art, funding local purchases through membership dues. Charles Partridge Adams, Henry Read, and Elisabeth Spalding were added to the permanent collection between 1912 and 1915; at least seven out-of-town pieces were purchased between 1910 and 1915; and two paintings were gifted to the club by generous donors around 1912. In 1916, the Club purchased ten paintings by the artist J. Alden Weir.
Alongside this collection process, the Club continued the annual exhibitions, as well as other, smaller exhibitions of local and out-of-town art. A noteworthy example was an exhibit dedicated to Frank P. Saurwen, who died at the age of 43 in 1910. Born in New Jersey, Saurwen moved to Colorado in 1895, where he pursued a prolific art career. Despite suffering from an unknown malady, he continued to paint, often portraying Native American subjects. The 1916 exhibit marked the first time since his death that his canvases were displayed. A touching tribute to one of the Club’s own artists.[31]
In 1916, Walter C. Mead, an art collector and associate member of the Artists’ Club, stated his intention to donate $5,000 toward a $300,000 art museum to be built in the new Civic Center. Mayor Robert W. Speer’s voracious pursuit of the City Beautiful movement resulted in the construction of a civic center, a space for a collection of public buildings that espoused civic virtue. At the suggestion of an art museum, the Club jumped at the chance to prove they were the best organization to pursue this offer. For one, they had been an important artistic pillar in the community for almost thirty years. And two, they had a diverse and growing public art collection from around the country. Seizing the opportunity, the Artists’ Club restructured its body: they rearranged the council, elected a new president, instituted an art director position, and increased the annual membership fee from $2 to $5. And as a neat cherry on top, they rebranded into the Denver Art Association (DAA).[32]
Unfortunately, befitting the narrative of the DAA’s misfortunes, the building in Civic Center never happened. Once again, there was a distinct lack of public funding, and the onslaught of World War I hampered any prospective plans. The negotiations over the building were delayed repeatedly. In 1922, with still no sign of a Civic Center building, the Chappell family donated their mansion to the DAA. Chappell House, near Logan, was the organization’s first fully ownedbuilding. The change inspired them to rebrand once more, a year later, this time to the Denver Art Museum (DAM). While the prospect of the Civic Center building still hung tantalizingly in the air, it never quite came to fruition as originally planned. In 1924, the organization was offered land south of Civic Center for a building. Again, nothing came of it. Ten years passed. Then another. In 1947, Coloradans voted against a $2 million bond to aid in the construction of an art museum. Almost fifty-four years after its founding, the Club still faced financial issues, still had an imperfect home, and still had to fight to get their community to care about Denver’s art scene. It was almost as if no time had passed at all.[33]
After the failure at the 1947 polls, the DAM took matters into its own hands. Using private funds, they purchased the land where the museum stands today. Rather than waiting for the public funding and community support that would never come, they, to repeat The Denver Republican in 1900, worked “out their salvation entirely alone.” They did it themselves.[34]
So what precisely contributed to the eventual success of the Artists’ Club? Perseverance was certainly one of them. Despite limited local support, membership grew steadily. The Club still had several supporters that grew every year. From a scant 157 members in 1895 to “a strong civic body of several hundred members” in 1916, the Club was successful in garnering appreciation for local art. Certainly, such artists as Henrietta Bromwell, Elisabeth Spalding, Charles Partridge Adams, and Henry Read played a significant role in the expansion of art appreciation. However, other members also played a crucial role. Anne Evans was a significant contributor throughout the Club’s existence and beyond. Colorado Senator Lawrence Phipps was another vital supporter (even financially). Men and women collaborated to nurture Denver’s art scene. Local newspapers also played a role with continual advertising of the Club. How successful these papers were can only be speculated, but in a time when the bulk of information was acquired through periodicals, it can be surmised that their involvement was crucial. Journalists urged locals to support the Club, advertised exhibitions in detail, and consistently commended the members’ work between 1893 and 1923. While the setbacks the Club faced were a seemingly endless circle, certainly the same could be said of its supporters: newspapers incited interest in local exhibitions and lectures which could invite new members, artists repelled stereotypes about the Wild West by inviting Eastern artists to display their canvases in Denver, and members donated time and money to the goal of expanding Denver’s art scene. All three worked in tandem, an unbroken circle.[35]
For thirty years, the Artists’ Club of Denver fought tooth and nail to mold Denver into an art center. It resisted prevailing stereotypes of an unpopulated and dangerous Wild West; combatted a lack of local support caused by the abysmal art environment prior to 1893 and fueled by a preference for art from the civilized American East and Europe; and it was consistently thwarted in its quest to acquire a permanent gallery due to stingy local millionaires and an uncertain economic environment after the Silver Crash of 1893. The Club was destined for failure, and yet it persevered in the face of these significant setbacks. Now over a hundred years since the Artists’ Club’s founding, the Denver Art Museum is considered one of the largest art museums in the West today and stands as proof of the Club’s success. Retelling the origin and development of the Artists’ Club with a focus on the tribulations they faced during their first thirty years reframes the importance of the Club, the artists, and members. Without their diligent work and tenacity, Denver would not have become the pivotal art center it is today.
[1] Some sources refer to it as Denver Artists Club. Both are correct ways to identify it. For consistency, I will refer to it as the Artists’ Club [of Denver].
[2] Henry Read, “New Department Denver Artists Club,” Friday Evening Times, December 1, 1905 in Artists’ Club of Denver Records, M10, FF2 Denver Public Library hereon the Artists’ Club Records will be shortened to ACDR followed by a page number.
[3] Mary Therese Anstey, “The Fall & Rise of the Queen City of the Plains, 1893-1904,” Context 3. Denver: Discover Denver, Historic Denver, Inc., 2016; Notes,” The Woman Voter, April 25, 1895 in Artists’ Club of Denver Scrapbook, WH15, Western History Collection, The Denver Public Library, 3, from hereon the Artists’ Club of Denver Scrapbook will be shortened to ACDS followed by a page number; Read, “New Department” Friday Evening Times; Croly, The History, 13.
[4] For sources about women artists in Denver see Erika Doss, “I must paint,” in Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, ed Patricia Trenton, (California: University of California Press, 1995); Gail Marjorie Beaton, “The Literary Study and Philanthropic Work of Six Women’s Clubs in Denver” (master’s thesis, CU, 1987); Jean Gordon, “Early American Women Artists and the Social Context in Which They Worked,” American Quarterly 30, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 61, https://doi.org/10.2307/2712279; Holly Carol Allen, “Early Colorado Women Artists,” (master’s thesis, CU Denver, 2007); Linda Anne Sivertson, “Colorado Women Artists Of The New Deal,” (master’s thesis, University of Minnesota, 2008).
[5] For two sources specifically about the Artists’ Club see Denver Art Museum, The First Hundred Years (USA: C&C Offset Printing, 1996), 24 and Stan Cube, The Denver Artists Guild: Its Founding Members: An Illustrated History, (Denver: History Colorado, 2015). The DAM’s book about the history of the Artists’ Club is the most detailed recounting of the Club’s history.
[6] Jane Cunningham Croly, The History of the Woman’s Club Movement in America (New York: Henry G. Allen & Co, 1989), 13.
[7] Beaton, “The Literary Study and Philanthropic Work,” 6-7.
[8] Neil Harris, “Searching for Form: The Denver Art Museum in Context” in The First Hundred Years, 24.
[9] Lorraine A. Stuart, Emma Richardson Cherry (1859-1954): Houston’s First Modern Artist (Houston: Houston Public Library, 2013), 14.
[10] Allen, “Early Colorado Women Artists,” 34-8.
[11] Allen, “Early Colorado Women Artists,” 38-41.
[12] “The Artists’ Club,” The Denver News, April 1984 in ACDS, 5; “Sketches By Denver Artists,” The Denver Republican, Nov. 22, 1898 in ACDS, 14; de Steiger was stated to be a University of Denver professor by Elisabeth Spalding in her Fortnightly paper titled “Something of Art in Denver as I Think of It” in Elisabeth Spalding Papers, WH14, Box 1, FF27, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library, 8. From hereon, this collection will be referred to as ESP.
[13] Exhibition pamphlets for the Le Brun Art Club can be found in ACDS, 87. Sources on the Le Brun Art Club are scarce. It existed for only three years and morphed into the Artists’ Club of Denver according to Vivian Sheldon Epstein, History of Colorado’s Women for Young People (Denver: VSE Publisher, 1998), 35. This can be corroborated by the presence of two Le Brun exhibition pamphlets in the ACDS; “Taking the Private View,” The Denver Republican, April 1894 in ACDS, 4; “Why Denver Should Have an Art Gallery,” Denver Times, April 29, 1900, in ACDS, 33; “Art and Art Conditions in Denver, By A Woman,” Denver Post, May 1899, in ACDS, 24; The Artists’ Club, “Constitution” in ACDS, 109.
[14] Croly, The History, 13.
[15] Edward T. James, ed., Notable American Women 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary (Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1971), 587; Chambers, “First Steps” in The First Hundred Years, 66. Chamber mentions Evans becoming an active member at the turn of the century. Not all of the pamphlets are included in the ACDS, but perusing the available ones shows that Evans exhibited art at the annual exhibitions in 1897 and 1901. However, she remained listed as an associate (non-artist) member in the membership lists until 1914.
[16] Reference to Henry being from the Isle of Man can be found in “Cartoons Are A Feature,” Nov 1895 in ACDS, 6. He moved to Denver from Switzerland, where he had been staying due to his health; “Nature’s Gems Caught by Brush,” The Daily News, Apr 10, 1898 in ACDS, 9; Allen, “Early Colorado Women Artists,” 25-6; “University of Denver Adds School of Art,” The Rocky Mountain News, Mar 31, 1915; 5 “Henry Read’s Design Chosen for City Seal,” The Rocky Mountain News, June 26, 1900, 6; “Letters from the People,” The Rocky Mountain News, Apr 30, 1959, 30.
[17] Daisy Pattersen Hall, “Charles Partridge Adams,” Brush & Pencil 7, no. 2 (Nov. 1900), 107-110.
[18] There were two annual exhibitions held by the Club, one in the spring and one in the fall. The spring Exhibition was the largest and most popular of the two as it hosted the most art pieces both locally and abroad. Sometimes the Club held exhibits in between the annual ones, though usually for one artist versus a collection; though the Club was predominantly situated on sixteenth street, there were some years it was elsewhere in Denver. A collection of the annual exhibition pamphlets can be found in ACDS, notably pages 90, 94, 96, 98, 100-1, 106. A number of newspapers in this collection also relate the locations of the Exhibits.
[19] Louisa Ward Arps, Denver In Slices (USA: Swallow Press, 1959), 19-21 and 24; Robert Suits, “Beyond Rainmaking: Climate Engineering on the Nineteenth Century Great Plains,” Western Historical Quarterly 54, no. 2 (Summer 2023); Arps, Denver In Slices, 33.
[20] Arps, Denver In Slices, 34.
[21] “Denver’s Great Need of an Art Gallery,” The Denver Republican, Apr 22, 1900 in ACDS, 33; Edward Ring, “Public Spirit in Buffalo,” Apr 28, 1900 in ACDS, 33; “A Lecture in Art’s Interest,” The Denver Republican, 1900 in ACDS, 36.
[22] In 1899, the Club was reported to have $789.32 in the bank according to “Work of the Artists Club,” Denver Times, May 10, 1899 in ACDS, 23; “Art Gallery for Denver,” Nov 28, 1901 in ACDS, 43; $10 in 1901 was equivalent to around $300 today; Chambers, “First Steps” in The First Hundred Years, 63, the Club did exhibit art at the Colorado Museum of Natural History eventually alongside paintings loaned from private collectors, but it was never a space designated solely for the Club.
[23] Charles Partridge Adams, “The Art Situation in Denver,” Brush & Pencil 2, no. 1 (Apr. 1898); H.M.W., “Art From a Business Standpoint,” The Daily News, Dec 25, 1894 in ACDS, 72.
[24] For the 1895 membership list see “The Denver Artists’ Club,” The Woman Voter, April 25, 1895 in ACDS, 88; on the membership tiers, Ruth Richardson, “Art Talk,” The Bohemian, Dec. 1, 1894 in ACDS, 5; for membership fees see The Artists’ Club, “Constitution” in ACDS, 109.
[25] For the membership fees of 1896 see ACDR, M19, FF1; The Denver Republican, 1900 in ACDS, 44. The 1900 membership count in the article does not mention sustaining members, thus the actual yearly amount could be higher. The source also could be rounding numbers up or down (for instance, a previous source incorrectly listed the ‘95 member number as 150 when an official count of the list numbers 157).
[26] “Why Denver Should Have an Art Gallery,” Denver Times in ACDS, 33; Richard W. Etulain, Re-Imagining The Modern American West: A Century Of Fiction, History, and Art (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996), xxiv-v.
[27] Sara Parrar, ed., “Palette and Brush,” Rocky Mountain News, Apr 30, 1916 in ESP, Box 1, FF24; “Fifth Annual Show,” Denver Times, April 13, 1898 in ACDS, 18.
[28] Henry Read’s paintings of the Northern Colorado landscape are a good example of art that lacked the staples of Western stereotypes (cowboys, deserts, horses, and Native Americans); the Artists’ Club of Denver Scrapbook has a trove of newspaper articles detailing (and sometimes reprinting) the art on display at the annual exhibitions. These articles are invaluable to understanding the type of art that was displayed, what subject matter the artist tended to prefer, and how it was received locally; “Devotees of Pencil and Brush Enjoy the Art Club’s Exhibition,” Denver Times, April 16, 1899, in ACDS, 25.
[29] “Exhibitions Which Followed,” 1898, in ACDS, 27.
[30] W.A. Moore to The Artists’ Club of Denver, May 10, 1907 in ACDR 1905-1924, M19, FF3..
[31] Chambers, “First Steps” in The First Hundred Years, 67-8; Sara Parrar, ed., “Palette and Brush,” Rocky Mountain News, Feb 6, 1916 in ESP, Box 1, FF24.
[32] Chambers, “First Steps” in The First Hundred Years, 69-71; Horace G. Wetherhill, 1917 in ESP, Box 1, FF24. Students, artists, and teachers continued to only pay $2 a year.
[33] Chambers, “First Steps” in The First Hundred Years, 72-3.
[34] “Denver’s Great Need of an Art Gallery,” The Denver Republican, Apr 22, 1900 in ACDS, 33; Chambers, “First Steps” in The First Hundred Years, 73
[35] Sara Parrar, ed., “Palette and Brush,” The Rocky Mountain News, May 21, 1916 in ESP, Box 1, FF24.
