Salmagundi Club

It was founded in 1871. Originally called the New York Sketch Class,{{cite web |url= http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa290.htm |title= A Fertile Fellowship: The Rich History of the Salmagundi Club |author= Anne Cohen DePietro |work= Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., San Clemente, California, and the Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York |date= 2005}} and later the New York Sketch Club,{{cite web |url= http://www.thevillager.com/vilager_26/130yearsoldvillage.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20031207184917/http://www.thevillager.com/vilager_26/130yearsoldvillage.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= December 7, 2003 |title= 130-year-old Village arts club still flourishing |author= Mara McGinnis |work= The Villager |volume=73 |issue= 26 |date= November 4, 2003}} the Salmagundi Club had its beginnings at the eastern edge of Greenwich Village in sculptor Jonathan Scott Hartley's Broadway studio, where a group of artists, students, and friends at the National Academy of Design, which at the time was located at Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street,{{cite web |url= http://www.nationalacademy.org/ |title= National Academy School of Fine Arts History |work= National Academy of Design website |quote= Lemuel Wilmarth was appointed the first full-time instructor in January 1870, by which time the school was located at Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street. Under Wilmarth's leadership, the number of classes and the enrollment increased, and new techniques, such as the quick-sketch, were introduced in response to changing esthetic criteria.}} gathered weekly on Saturday evenings.

The club formally changed its name to The Salmagundi Sketch Club in January 1877. The name has variously been attributed to salmagundi, a stew which the group has served from its earliest years, or to Washington Irving's Salmagundi Papers.{{cite web |url= http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV008SalmagundiClub.htm |title= Salmagundi Club Landmark |author= Tom Fletcher, with thanks to the Museum of the City of New York |work= New York Architecture Images, exterior and interior}}

Growing rapidly, the organization was housed in a series of rented properties including 121 Fifth Avenue, 49 West 22nd Street, 40 West 22nd Street and finally 14 West Twelfth Street, where it remained for 22 years. In April 1917, following a three-year search, the club purchased Irad and Sarah Hawley's 1853 Italianate-style brownstone townhouse at 47 Fifth Avenue between East Eleventh and East Twelfth Streets from the estate of William G. Park for $75,000.00 and erected a two-story annex in the rear at an additional cost of $20,000.00 to house its primary art gallery and a billiard room. A housewarming event on February 5, 1918 was attended by more than 500 persons. In 1918, the club spearheaded a national effort to produce range-finder paintings used to train military gunners for World War I. The club provided the canvas and painting materials for these special-purpose paintings.Walter, Paul A.F. "Art in War Service". Art and Archaeology 7 (January—December 1918), pp. 395–403, 409.

In 1969 the building was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. In 1975 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Salmagundi Club was a male-only club for its first century, although artworks by women were accepted and praised.{{cite web|last1=DePietro|first1=Anne Cohen|title=A Fertile Fellowship: The Rich History of the Salmagundi Club|url=http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa290a.htm|publisher=Traditional Fine Arts Organization|access-date=March 12, 2017|quote=the Salmagundi was still a men's club (only opening to women in 1973), works by women were accepted and praised.}} A sister club for women artists, the Pen and Brush Club, was formed around the corner from Salmagundi in 1894.{{cite news|last1=Davis|first1=Nicole|title=New directions for historic art club|url=http://thevillager.com/villager_144/newdirectionsforhistoric.html|access-date=March 12, 2017|publisher=The Villager|date=February 1, 2006|quote=Pen and Brush, a sister arts club around the corner from Salmagundi, which opened in 1894 after female artists got tired being excluded. (Salmagundi admitted women in 1973.)}} Salmagundi began admitting women members in 1973.{{cite news|last1=Ratcliffe|first1=Christopher|title=Christopher Ratcliffe: The art of women's equality|url=http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20170311/christopher-ratcliffe-art-of-womens-equality|access-date=March 12, 2017|publisher=The Providence Journal|date=March 11, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312155704/http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20170311/christopher-ratcliffe-art-of-womens-equality|archive-date=March 12, 2017}}

Members of the Salmagundi Club have included Tore Asplund, Thomas P. Barnett, William Richardson Belknap, Alon Bement,{{Cite book|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00016071|title=Benezit Dictionary of Artists|date=31 October 2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|chapter=Bement, Alon|doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00016071 |access-date=2021-02-23|url-access=limited}} Ralph Blakelock, A. J. Bogdanove, Charles Bosseron Chambers, James Wells Champney, William Merritt Chase, C.K. Chatterton, Frederick Stuart Church, Jay Hall Connaway, Francis S. Dixon, John Henry Dolph, Charles Dana Gibson, William W. Gilchrist Jr., Gordon H. Grant, Walter Granville-Smith, Edmund Greacen, Charles P. Gruppé,{{Cite news|date=1940-10-01|title=C.P. Gruppe Death Announcement|pages=12|work=Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7191482/cp-gruppe-death-announcement-oct-1/|access-date=2020-08-24}} Emile Gruppe,{{Cite web|title=Emile Albert Gruppe Biography|url=http://www.artnet.com/artists/emile-albert-gruppe/biography|access-date=2020-08-24|website=Artnet.com}} William Hart, Childe Hassam, Ernest Martin Hennings, Harry Hoffman, Alexander Pope Humphrey, George Inness Jr., Lajos "Louis" Jambor,{{Cite web|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/06/12/92827963.html?pageNumber=15|title=Louis Jambor, 69, Versatile Artist; Portraitist and Mural Painter Who Also, Did Book, Film Work Succumbs Here|date=June 12, 1954|website=The New York Times|language=en|access-date=February 22, 2020|issn=0362-4331}} John LaFarge, Ernest Lawson, Austin W. Lord, Frank Mason, Leopold Matzal, Samizu Matsuki, John Francis Murphy, Spencer Baird Nichols, Richard C. Pionk, Howard Pyle, Will J. Quinlan, Norman Rockwell, Harry Roseland, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, R. F. Schabelitz, Leopold Seyffert, Channel Pickering Townsley,{{Cite news|date=December 3, 1921|title=Obituary: Famous Artist Answers Call|pages=13|work=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18079452/channel-p-townsley-jr-obituary/|access-date=July 12, 2020|via=newspapers.con {{open access}}}} Louis Comfort Tiffany, Edward Charles Volkert, Ernest William Watson, J. Alden Weir, Jack Wemp, Stanford White, William Wilson (physicist), Stuart Williamson, Joseph Mortimer Lichtenauer and N.C. Wyeth.

Honorary members have included Paul Cadmus, Schuyler Chapin, Winston Churchill, Buckminster Fuller, Al Hirschfeld, and Thomas Hoving.

{{Blockquote|In 1894, to raise money for the growing club's library,{{Cite news|last=Shelton|first=William Henry|date=1898-11-19|title=Salmagundi Club's Library.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1898/11/19/archives/salmagundi-clubs-library.html|access-date=2020-08-12|issn=0362-4331}} artist members were invited to decorate ceramic mugs, which were then fired by Charles Volkmar, the club potter. The club would host a dinner followed by an auction of the finished mugs ... Over the years, many decorated mugs have been returned to the club and are on exhibit in the library along with the largest collection of used artists' palettes in America.|Dubuque Museum of Art}}

Salmagundi curatorial committee is responsible for maintaining Salmagundi’s permanent representational art collection of approximately 1,800 works from the 1840s to today, including: paintings, sculpture, objects and works on paper by its past and present artist members.

The collection consists of exhibition purchase prizes, competition purchase prizes, artist donations, and estate bequests.

The works are rotated on a continual basis throughout the townhouse and are featured in live shows and online exhibitions throughout the year.

Past Chairs of the Board have been

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• Joseph Hartley, 1871–1889
• George W. Maynard, 1888–1889
• Charles Yardley Turner, 1883–1889
• Thomas Moran, 1893–1896
• W. Lewis Fraser, 1896–1897
• Alexander Theobald Van Laer, 1897–1898
• Robert C. Minor, 1898–1899
• Alexander Theobald Van Laer, 1899–1900
• George H. McCord, 1900–1901
• George Inness Jr., 1901–1903
• J. Scott Hartley, 1903–1905
• Alexander Theobald Van Laer, 1905–1908
• Henry B. Snell, 1908–1910
• Frank Knox Morton Rehn, 1910–1911{{cite news |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/07/08/100096828.pdf |title= F. K. M. Rehn, Artist, Dies. Ex-President of Salmagundi Club Stricken at Summer Home |work= The New York Times |date=July 8, 1914 |access-date=August 10, 2009 |issn=0362-4331}}
• Carleton Wiggins, 1911–1913
• Charles Vezin, 1913–1914
• F. Ballard Williams, 1914–1919
• Emil Carlsen, 1919–1920
• J. Massey Rhind, 1920–1922
• Hobart Nichols, 1922–1924
• W. Granville-Smith, 1924–1926
• Franklin De Haven, 1926–1929
• Bruce Crane, 1929–1933
• Louis Betts, 1933–1935
• George Elmer Brown, 1935–1937
• Frederick W. Hutchinson, 1937–1939
• Gordon Grant, 1939–1941
• George Lober, 1941–1944
• Frederick K. Detwiller, 1944–1946
• Henry O' Connor, 1946–1947
• Silvio B. Valerio, 1947–1949
• Percy Albee, 1949–1953
• Russell Rypsam, 1953–1955
• Henry Laussucq, 1955–1957
• Junius Allen, 1957–1959
• A. Henry Nordhausen, 1959–1963
• Francis Vandeveer Kughler, 1963–1966
• Martin Hannon, 1966–1970
• John N. Lewis, 1970–1976
• Martin Hannon, 1976–1977
• Raymond R. Goldberg, 1977–1979
• Richard Clive, 1979–1981
• Carl L. Thomson, 1981–1983
• Ruth B. Reininghaus, 1983–1987
• Edward A. Brennan, 1987–1990
• Kenneth W. Fitch, 1990–1991
• Robert Volpe, 1991–1994
• Richard C. Pionk, 1994–2007
• Claudia Seymour, 2007–2013
• Robert Pillsbury, 2013–2019
• Elizabeth Spencer, 2019-2021
• Jacob Collins, 2021 - 2024
• Aurelio ("Ray") Cisneros, 2024
• George Grubb, 2024 -

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{{Reflist|1=30em}}

{{Commons category|Salmagundi Club}}

• {{Official website|http://www.salmagundi.org}}
• [http://salmagundimuseum.org Salmagundi Museum of American Art]
• [http://gildedage.omeka.net/exhibits/show/galleriesandclubs/clubs/salmagundi Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century] A New York Art Resources Consortium project. Exhibition catalogs from the Salmagundi Club.
• [http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/salmagundi/index.html The Salmagundi Club Photograph Collection at the New York Historical Society]
• [http://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/1617.html Salmagundi Club: David John Gue]

{{Fifth Avenue}}

{{National Register of Historic Places in New York}}

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Category:1871 establishments in New York (state)

Category:American artist groups and collectives

Category:Arts organizations established in 1871

Category:Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan

Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1852

Category:Greenwich Village

Category:Italianate architecture in New York City

Category:New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan

Category:Non-profit organizations based in New York (state)