Sketchbook [Mohawk Valley]

Artist/Maker William C. Palmer (American, 1906 - 1987)

Date1953

MediumCrayon and graphite on paper

DimensionsOverall: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm) Sheet (each): 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)

Credit LineWilliam C. Palmer Papers. Bequest of William C. Palmer. Transferred from Hamilton College Library Special Collections.

Object numberWCP.XXX.32

Not on view

DescriptionThe American Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton inspired William C. Palmer, H1975, a student of Benton’s at the Art Students League in New York City, to take up mural painting and, in 1926, invited Palmer to assist him in installing his first exhibition of murals at the Ferargil Gallery in New York. Palmer subsequently studied fresco painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau with a former assistant of the famed nineteenth-century muralist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. During the Great Depression, he was hired by the government-sponsored Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project (WPA/FAP) and the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration to paint murals in civic spaces, including at the Queens General Hospital in Jamaica, New York; the Post Office Department Building in Washington, DC; and post offices in Arlington, Massachusetts, and Monticello, Iowa. In 1939, Palmer was named supervisor of the Mural Department for the New York City branch of the WPA/FAP. The artist moved to Utica, New York, in 1941, when he was appointed the founding director of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute School of Art, a position he held for thirty years. The appointment also included part-time status as the first instructor of studio art at Hamilton College, a position he maintained until 1948. During his years in central New York, his style became more abstracted and landscape-oriented. Palmer acknowledged the British nineteenth-century painters J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, and Samuel Palmer as influences, citing their shared interest in nature and in the changing of the seasons. Daily, throughout his life, Palmer made drawings—or “notes,” as he called them—in sketchbooks, to which he would turn if he needed inspiration for a painting. In 2009, a group of more than one thousand sketches, paintings, and sketchbooks were transferred to the Emerson Gallery from the Special Collections at Burke Library, where the accompanying William C. Palmer Papers are still held. Shown here and on the following spread are pages from a selection of sketchbooks that represent the span of Palmer’s career: one from his days as a student at the Art Students League; one from Canada, where he lived with his sister in 1930 and continued to visit throughout his life; one created around the time he moved to the Mohawk Valley; and one created later in life, when his style had become more abstract. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017) Large orange Strathmore sketchbook of mainly landscapes.

Additional Details

Exhibition History 2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 87, illus.).

Provenance 2009: Hamilton College (Fred L. Emerson Gallery), by transfer from Special Collections, Burke Library;
1996 - 2009: Hamilton College (Special Collections, Burke Library), by bequest of Catherine W. Palmer;
1987 - 1996: Catherine W. Palmer, by inheritance from William C. Palmer.

Markings None noted.

Published References Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 200.

Signature Not signed.

Inscribed "Mohawk Valley 1953" on cover at upper center in pencil; "22 /6 / 16; 26 /6 /20" on cover at upper left in pencil; "53+54" at lower left in pencil; [various inscriptions throughout]