Cyrus Cuneo
{{Short description|American painter and illustrator who settled in London}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Cyrus Cincinato Cuneo
| image = ILN0-1909-1225-0034-15 Cyrus Cuneo.png
| alt = Cyrus Cuneo, in 1909
| caption = Cuneo in 1909
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1879|06|18|df=y}}
| birth_place = San Francisco, California, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1916|07|23|1879|06|18|df=y}}
| death_place = London, England
| nationality = Italian, American{{refn|group=note|Cuneo described himself as an Englishman by preference and adoption, an American by birth and citizenship, and an Italian of unmixed blood by parentage.{{r|CCCuneo-Times-Obit}}}}
| other_names = Generally known as Ciro
| occupation = Painter and illustrator
| years_active = 1896–1916
| known_for =
| notable_works = Murals for the Canadian Pacific Railway
| spouse = {{marriage|Nellie Tenison|1903}}
| children = 2 (including Terence Cuneo)
| relatives = Rinaldo Cuneo (brother)
}}
Cyrus Cincinato Cuneo {{post-nominals|list=ROI}} (18 June 1879{{snd}}23 July 1916),{{r|CCCuneo-California-Index}}{{r|Probate-CCuneo-1916}} known as Ciro, was an American-born English visual artist, best known for painting.
Early life
He was born into an Italian American family of artists and musicians. His parents were Giovanni (John) and Annie Cuneo; his brothers Rinaldo (1877–1939) and Egisto (1890–1972), and his son Terence Cuneo (1907–1996) also became artists.
The family lived on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco's Italian American neighborhood of North Beach.{{r|Hughes-1989-127}}{{r|Zimbardo-2009}} {{refn|group=note|Their house was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and the family lost almost everything. However, by then Cuneo was successfully established in London and he was able to assist them, as well as paying for the whole family to take a holiday in Italy.{{r|Cuneo-Society}}}} Cuneo's first published drawings appeared in an Italian newspaper when he was 16, and he spent the next three years he worked for the San Francisco Press.{{r|CCCuneo-Times-Obit}}{{refn|group=note|Again, there is a date conflict, as he should only have been 17 in 1896 when he went to Paris.{{r|Kirkpatrick-2019|p=128}}}}
Cuneo trained as a boxer, becoming the fly-weight champion at the Olympic Club in San Francisco{{r|Zimbardo-2009}}{{refn|group=note|Peppin and Micklethwait state that he became the flyweight boxing champion of San Francisco at age 19, but he had left for Paris in 1996, when he was 17. He may have returned to San Francisco to compete, but that would have been expensive.{{r|Peppin-Micklethwait|p=}}}} and his prize money, together with earnings from spare-time jobs, and the sale of sketches and to travel to Paris to learn painting.{{r|Kirkpatrick-2019|p=128}} The Times reported that he left San Francisco for Paris with £40 in his pocket.{{r|CCCuneo-Times-Obit}}
Education
Cuneo began his studies in art while still living in San Francisco, at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute{{r|Zimbardo-2009}}. When he travelled to Paris in 1896, he joined the Colarossi’s studio and trained under Whistler eventually becoming his massier or head student. Cuneo set up an afternoon sketching school with Edith Œnone Somerville (1858–1949). Teaching sketching and boxing helped Cuneo to support himself in Paris. The Times said that Cuneo had a fine physique and was a notable athlete, and as a boxer was famous not only on the Pacific slope, but also in Paris and in London.{{r|CCCuneo-Times-Obit}}
Cuneo was living at 9, Rue Campagne, Première Montparnasse, Paris, in 1900 when he first exhibited at the Royal Academy. He showed two works in that year, both of them illustrations from King Lear by Shakespeare.{{r|Graves-Vol2-224}} Cunoe also exhibited at other venues.{{refn|group=note|He exhibited 16 works at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, 13 at the Royal Academy, nine at the Royal Hibernian Academy, six at the Walker Art Gallery, and five at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Art.{{r|Johnson-Greutzner-1986-131}}}}
Move to London
While Greenwall states that Cuneo moved to London in 1902,{{r|Greenwall-1922-122}} Kirkpatrick notes that the 1901 census found him lodging with his future wife's parents in London (while she was still in Paris).{{r|Kirkpatrick-2019|p=128}}
Cuneo married fellow artist Nellie Tenison (28 August 1869{{snd}}23 May 1953){{r|Kirkpatrick-2019|p=129-30}} in London on 20 October 1903.{{r|Cuneo-Society}}
Honors and awards
Cuneo was elected ROI in 1908. Cuneo was a successful artist in terms of earning a living. During World War One he painted war subjects in London and the sale by auction of one of his paintings paid for two motor ambulances for the front.{{r|Peppin-Micklethwait|p=80}}{{r|TCuneo-Obit}}
File:Pall Mall Vol 20 April 1900 Page 502 Illustration by Cyrus Cuneo.jpg to be a beauty.{{r|Thorpe-1935|p=169}}]]
Cuneo's illustration work was unusual in that he often painted in oils on board.{{r|Houfe-1996|p=109}} Peppin and Micklethwait state that Cuneo worked with considerable panache in crayon or in black and white oil on board painted without preliminary pencil drafts. Thorpe considered one of his illustrations{{r|Pall-Mall-Harp}} for The Pall Mall Magazine in 1900 to be a beauty{{r|Thorpe-1935|p=169}} and reproduced it in his survey of English illustration in the 1890s.{{r|Thorpe-1935|p=opp.71}} Cuneo was selected by Percy Bradshaw for inclusion in his 1918 The Art of the Illustrator which included a portfolio for each of twenty illustrators.{{refn|group=note|Of course, Cuneo was dead by the time that Bradshaw published, but some of the illustrations by other artists were dated 1915, so Bradshaw had been working on the collection for some time. The portfolio contained a brief biography of Cuneo, an illustration of him in his studio and an explanation of his method of working accompanied by an illustration typical of his work and the stages of its production.{{r|Art-Illustrator-Review}} Cuneo's black and white illustration shows a horseman dismounting at a campsite while a man and a woman are cooking.{{r|TAOTI-Palace-Cuneo}}}}
Death
Cuneo got blood poisoning after being accidentally scratched with a hat-pin at a dance.{{r|Kirkpatrick-2019|p=129}} He died on 23 July 1916. His estate was valued at £13,798 17s. 6d. and his wife Nellie acted as his executor.{{r|Probate-CCuneo-1916}}
Notes
{{reflist|group=note}}
References
{{reflist|refs=
|title=The Connisseur Bookself
|journal=The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors
|volume=51
|issue=204
|pages=223
|date=1 August 1918
|url=https://archive.org/details/connoisseur51londuoft
|accessdate=12 August 2020
|via=The Internet Archive
|url-access=registration }}
|last1=California State Library
|title=California, Biographical Index Cards, 1781-1990
|chapter=Cyrus Cincinato Cuneo
|date=2011
|publisher=Ancestry.com
|location=Provo, Utah }}
|title=Cyrus Cuneo
|url=http://www.cuneosociety.org/family.html
|publisher=Cuneo Society
|accessdate=6 December 2017 |archive-date=14 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914153128/http://www.cuneosociety.org/family.html
|url-status=live
}}
|last1=Graves
|first1=Algernon
|title=The Royal Academy of Arts: A completed Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904
|volume=2: Carrol to Dyer
|pages=224
|date=1905
|publisher=Henry Graves and Co. Ltd., and George Bell and Sons
|location=London
|url=https://archive.org/details/royalacademyofar01grav
|accessdate=25 August 2020
|via=The Internet Archive
|url-access=registration }}
|last1=Greenwall
|first1=Ryno
|title=Artists and Illustrators of the Anglo-Boer War
|pages=122
|date=14 June 1905
|publisher=Fernwood Press
|location=Vlaeberg, Western Cape, South Africa
|isbn=0-9583154-2-6 }}
|last1=Houfe
|first1=Simon
|title=Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists
|date=1996
|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club
|location=Woodbridge
|isbn=1-85149-193-7 }}
|last1=Hughes
|first1=Edan Milton
|author-link=Edan Milton Hughes
|title=Artists in California, 1786-1940
|year=1989
|publisher=Hughes Publishing Company
|location=San Francisco, CA
|isbn=0-9616112-1-9
|page=127}}
|last1=Johnson
|first1=J.
|last2=Greutzner
|first2=A.
|title=The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940
|pages=131
|date=8 June 1905
|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club
|location=Woodbridge }}
|last1=Kirkpatrick
|first1=Robert J.
|title=The Men Who Drew For Boys (And Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books: 1844-1970
|date=2019
|publisher=Robert J. Kirkpatrick
|location=London }}
|title=Illustration by Cyrus Cuneo: The eldest Miss Rowley trrummed on the harp/
|journal=The Pall Mall Magazine
|volume=20
|pages=502
|date=1 April 1900
|url=https://archive.org/details/pallmallmagazin00unkngoog/page/n526/mode/1up
|accessdate=25 August 2020
|via=The Internet Archive
|url-access=registration }}
|last1=Peppin
|first1=Bridget
|last2=Micklethwait
|first2=Lucy
|title=Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: The Twentieth Centrury
|date=6 June 1905
|publisher=John Murray
|location=London
|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofbrit00pepp
|accessdate=25 August 2020
|isbn=0-7195-3985-4
|via=The Internet Archive }}
|title=Wills and Probates 1858-1996: Pages for Cuneo and the year of death 1916
|website=Find a Will Service
|url=https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar?surname=Cuneo&yearOfDeath=1916&page=1#calendar
|accessdate=25 August 2020
|archive-date=31 August 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200831183928/https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar?surname=Cuneo&yearOfDeath=1916&page=1#calendar
|url-status=live
}}
|title=Cyrus Cuneo: Cyrus Cuneo and His Work: The Art of the Illustrator (Limited Edition Prints)
|website=Illustration Art Gallery with The Book Palace
|url=https://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_Cuneo6.html
|accessdate=22 August 2020
|archive-date=12 June 2019
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190612132611/https://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_Cuneo6.html
|url-status=live
}}
|last1=Coates
|first1=Tom
|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary--terence-cuneo-1323023.html
|title=Obituary: Terence Cuneo
|date=8 January 1996 |accessdate=1 August 2017 |work=The Independent
|archive-date=16 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140816043026/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary--terence-cuneo-1323023.html
|url-status=live
}}
|last1=Thorpe
|first1=James
|title=English Illustration: The Nineties
|date=18 April 1905
|publisher=Faber and Faber
|location=London }}
|title=Mr. Cyrus Cuneo
|journal=The Times
|issue=Monday 24 July 1916
|pages=11
|date=24 July 1916
|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1916-07-24/11/13.html
|access-date=25 August 2020
|url-access=limited
|archive-date=31 August 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200831183956/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1916-07-24/11/13.html
|url-status=live
}}
|last1=Zimbardo
|first1=Tanya
|title=CUNEO: A Family of Early California Artists – Exhibition Catalog
|year=2009
|publisher=Museo ItaloAmericano
|url=http://issuu.com/marylss/docs/cuneo
|accessdate=25 August 2020 |archive-date=12 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312192453/https://issuu.com/marylss/docs/cuneo
|url-status=live
}}
}}
External links
- {{Gutenberg author|id=9717}}
- {{FadedPage|id=Cuneo, Cyrus|name=Cyrus Cuneo|author=yes}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Cyrus Cuneo}}
- {{LCAuth|no98104456|Cyrus Cuneo|3|}}
- [http://issuu.com/marylss/docs/cuneo?mode=window&pageNumber=1 Cuneo: A Family of Early California Artists], 2009, Museo ItaloAmericano, San Francisco, California
- [http://www.cuneosociety.org/family.html The Cuneo Society Website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914153128/http://www.cuneosociety.org/family.html |date=14 September 2017 }}
- [http://terencecuneo.co.uk/?page_id=37 Cyrus's page on Terence Cuneo Website]
- [http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/hcdr1906/index.htm Drink : a love story on a great question by Hall Caine, 1906, illustrated by Cyrus Cuneo]
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuneo, Cyrus}}
Category:19th-century American painters
Category:20th-century American painters
Category:Académie Carmen alumni
Category:Académie Colarossi alumni
Category:American male painters
Category:Painters from California
Category:19th-century American male artists
Category:20th-century American male artists