Duveneck started visiting Cape Ann in 1888. He often brought groups of
students with him, and a contingent of “Duveneck boys” was usually in
evidence as well. He exhibited at Gallery-on-the-Moors in east Gloucester
with Hassam, Prendergast, Sloan and Davis. He stayed nearby, frequenting
the inns and hotels popular with artists - the Rockaway, Harbor View,
Beachcroft, and Hawthorne. The Museum’s Study of Braces Rock
(c.1893) was originally Duveneck’s gift to a couple who presented a
musical program at the Rockaway.
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Frank Duveneck, Study of Braces Rock, 1893 |
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| Charles Grafly, Bust of Frank Duveneck, 1915 |
One of the first “Duveneck boys” on the Cape Ann scene was Theodore Wendel. He met Duveneck in the mid-1870s at the University of Cincinnati
School of Design. He followed him to Munich and then to Venice where they
joined forces for a while with James Abbott McNeill Whistler. By the end
of the century, Wendel had made his home in Ipswich, Massachusetts, just
down the road from Gloucester, where he often painted with Duveneck. The
Museum’s Return of the Fleet (1896) is an example of Wendel’s work
from that period.
John Twachtman was another of the “Duveneck boys.” He came to Cape Ann
for the first time in 1898, then returned two years later to stay until
his death in 1902. Working in a studio on Gloucester’s Rocky Neck, he
produced fresh, bold images of Gloucester. The interior of his studio,
with its woodburning stove, is the subject of a painting in the Museum’s
collection, Camp Stove (c.1954) by Herman Wessel, who was often
called “the last of the Duveneck boys.” Twachtman was staying at the
Harbor View in East Gloucester when he died. He is buried in Gloucester’s
Oak Grove Cemetery.
The force of Duveneck’s personality is evident in a portrait bust
created by the influential sculptor Charles Grafly in 1915 which is part
of the Museum’s collection. Grafly was head of the sculpture department at
the influential Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the preeminent
portrait sculptor of his day. He maintained a studio in the Folly Cove
area of Gloucester, just across town from the artists’ community where
Duveneck spent his time. Grafly’s presence on Cape Ann drew younger
sculptors to the area including Paul Manship, Walker Hancock and George
Demetrios.
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