Arthur Crisp
{{short description|Canadian artist (1881-1974)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Arthur Crisp
| image =
| image_size =
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| birth_name = Arthur Watkins Crisp
| birth_date = {{birth date|1881|04|26}}
| birth_place = Hamilton, Ontario
| death_date = {{death date and age|1974|06|28|1881|04|26}}
| death_place = Biddeford Pool, Maine
| nationality =
| spouse = Mary Ellen Crisp
| field =
| training = Hamilton Art School (1898-1900) with John Sloan Gordon; Art Students League, New York (1900-1902) with Frank Vincent Dumond
| movement =
| works =
| patrons =
| awards = bronze medal at the Pan-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco (1915); the Halgarten Prize at the National Academy of Design exhibition in New York (1916)
| elected = elected full member, National Academy of Design (1937)
| known_for = Painter, Muralist, Designer
}}
Arthur Watkins Crisp (26 April 1881, Hamilton, Ontario – 28 June 1974, Biddeford Pool, Maine) was a Canadian painter, muralist, and designer.{{cite web |title=History of Illustration, Index |url=http://canadianillustrators.wikidot.com/a |website=canadianillustrators.wikidot.com |accessdate=2021-07-05}}{{cite encyclopedia |year= |title=Arthur Watkins Crisp |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Foundation |author=Charles C. Hill |location= |id= |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arthur-watkins-crisp |accessdate=27 November 2011}}
Career
By 1898, Crisp was attending the Hamilton Art School, studying with the artist and teacher John Sloan Gordon. He remained there for three years.{{cite web |last1=Burant |first1=Jim |title=Arthur Crisp and the Nation's Memory of the First World War |url=https://samizdatpress.typepad.com/fall_winter_201213_hamilt/arthur-crisp-war-remembrance-and-the-canadian-war-memorials-2.html |website=samizdatpress.typepad.com |publisher=Hamilton Arts and Letters Issue 5.2 Fall/Winter 2011/2012 |access-date=2021-07-04}} During this time, he also worked as an engraver at the Hamilton Herald.
He left Hamilton for New York City in the summer of 1900 to attend the Art Students League and worked there three years, valuing especially Frank DuMond as a teacher. He worked afterwards as a commercial artist, and as a painter and a muralist. From 1913 to 1917, he was appointed a drawing instructor at Cooper Union. He then went on to teach at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design of New York, as well as the Art Students League. He won a bronze medal at the Pan-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915, and the Halgarten Prize at the National Academy of Design exhibition in New York in 1916.
He was commissioned to paint British and Canadian recruiting on the Boston Common in 1918 for the Canadian War Memorials and painted decorations for the Reading Room of the new House of Commons in Ottawa (1920-1923), for the Imperial Bank of Commerce, King St, Toronto (1930),{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/432401392|last1=Foss |first1=Brian |title="Painting, c. 1880-1914". The Visual Arts in Canada: the Twentieth Century|page=34|date=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|others=Foss, Brian, Paikowsky, Sandra, Whitelaw, Anne (eds.)|isbn=978-0-19-542125-5|location=Don Mills, Ont.|oclc=432401392 }} for the Capitol Building, Columbus, Ohio (1951) and for the State Educational Building, Albany, NY (1959). His paintings are in the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Morgan Library, NY,{{cite web |title=Collection |url=https://www.themorgan.org/drawings/artist/crisp-arthur |website=www.themorgan.org |publisher=Morgan Library |access-date=2021-07-04}} the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa,{{cite web |title=Arthur Crisp |url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/a-crisp |website=www.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=2021-07-04}} the National Portrait Gallery, USA,{{cite web |title=Collection |url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_1081-P-447?destination=edan-search/catalog_of_america%3Fpage%3D26%26edan_q%3D%252A%253A%252A%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Ddate%253A%25221910s%2522 |website=npg.si.edu |publisher=National Portrait Gallery |access-date=2021-07-04}}
and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.{{cite web |title=Collection |url=https://whitney.org/artists/303?q%5Bs%5D=sort_date%20desc |website=whitney.org |publisher=The Whitney |access-date=2021-07-04}}
Crisp was a member of the New York Architectural League (1911), and the National Society of Mural Painters (1914). He was a founder-member of the Allied Artists of America (1914), and also belonged to the American Water Color Society and the New York Water Color Club (1915). He was elected a full academician of the National Academy of Design (1937) as well as exhibiting widely.
He retired to Biddeford, Maine, in 1956 and gave a large collection of his work to the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 1963, which celebrated the occasion with a major retrospective exhibition for Arthur Crisp and his wife.{{cite web |title=exhibition archive |url=https://www.artgalleryofhamilton.com/exhibitions/exhibition-archive/ |website=www.artgalleryofhamilton.com/exhibitions |publisher=Art Gallery of Hamilton |access-date=2021-07-04}} Arthur Crisp died in Maine in 1974, aged 93.
The Arthur Crisp Papers (1952-1963) are in the Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, Syracuse, NY (13244-2010).{{cite web |title=Arthur Crisp Papers |url=https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/c/crisp_a.htm |website=library.syr.edu |publisher=Syracuse Universities, N.Y. |access-date=2021-07-04}}
References
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Category:Artists from Hamilton, Ontario
Category:Canadian male painters
Category:20th-century Canadian painters
Category:Art Students League of New York alumni
Category:Canadian illustrators