Frederick Copley: the passing glance
- By Bruce McKinney
Frederick S. Copley in 1852
By Bruce McKinney
Frederick Copley, water colorist [1828-1905]
Note: I acquired a portfolio of his watercolors and sketches in February,2010. Many examples are now accessible in a Wiki Bibliography I've organized to display his work. Links are provided at the end of this article.
His is a name that sounds familiar but the familiar, even famous, Copley who painted was John Singleton Copley [1738-1815]. They may have been related but I have no record of it. John Singleton Copley was born in America and moved to England, Frederick was born in England and moved to America. They were born almost a hundred years apart.
John Singleton Copley was an acclaimed professional painter, Frederick an amateur water colorist, by turns casual observer and keen recorder. We know he was uneven because he seems to have kept most of his work, both the highly conceived and the casually executed. His watercolors, by the evidence or lack of it, suggest he recorded for personal satisfaction, not public acclaim. He is a listed artist in the New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860 [1957] and is also included in Who Was Who in American Art - 400 years of artists in America [1999] but there are no records of his work appearing at auction, possibly because he kept his paintings in a portfolio, sealed away. The portfolio dates to 1870 more or less. He pasted his watercolors securing them in the corners with a paste that didn't stain. His media was wove paper, the standard of the day. He wrote identifications under most and in many cases wrote detailed descriptions on the back. About five percent of his watercolors are painted on both sides.
For some understanding of 19th century watercolors I've read both "Drawn by New York" by Roberta J. M. Olsson of the New York Historical Society and "American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art" by Kevin J. Avery. Both provide perspective on the history of watercolor painting in America. Mr. Copley was born into the right family at the right time. His father Charles was a hydrographer, that is, chart publisher and one of the first in America in a field that took hold after the Revolution in response to the burgeoning need for maps and charts. In a list prepared by Peter J. Guthorn for his article The Last Independent Hydrographer for Imago Mundi in 1991 Charles Copley is No. 7 of 8 identified as "Chart Publishers after 1783." His was a recognized, if late, figure.
By age 15 Frederick is in the family business, the company name - Charles Copley & Sons, he and his brother Charles Jr. connected with the name if not yet necessarily the work of the enterprise. At 19, in 1847, he's painting and by 24 has executed most of the watercolors in his portfolio. Dated pieces continue to be posted but their scale and frequency decline. The last dated examples are executed in the late 1860's. Taken together, his watercolors, pen and pencil sketches seem appropriate to a mapmaker and contain perspective consistent with capturing the facts as he found them.
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Frederick Copley: the passing glance
- By Bruce McKinney
Newburgh Bay. October 27, 1849
In that era watercolors are an ascendant medium. Several attempts at organizing watercolor societies had taken place in New York in the 1820's and in the 1850's The American Society of Painters in Water Colors takes hold, in a few years to become The American Watercolor Society that continues today. Serious and amateur artists, in the era, are painting in water color, often in a style that begins as an extension of drafting and evolves into more artful and free expression as the decades progress. The first half of the 19th century, it turns out, is the moment when watercolor becomes established in America. Toward the end of era, in the last moments of pre-industrial America, Frederick Copley, perhaps to develop the artful hand he'll need to be a hydrographer in the family business, begins to gather the evidence that today convey clear impressions of many out-of-the-way places, some of which have since declined, a few that prospered, others that simply aged. Better artists painted better pictures. Few painted so many pictures of so many places in New York and New England during this formative period. For this reason the material is unique, possibly important, certainly useful. In many cases his watercolors and sketches are the only visual records we have of these places in that period.
As to the portfolio this is the way many painters kept water colors, often retaining them for decades. It simply mattered more to them than it did to others and such material was not yet collected by institutions. That day would, for the early leading lights, come early, even in their lifetimes during the second half of the 19th century. For Frederick Copley and others who painted without recognition it would be left to generations hence to decide if the perspective and art warrant assessment. For Mr. Copley, these many years his work lost to view, that moment arrives. What he saw on summer days we now see as history.
For each drawing there must have been a ritual, packing them up for the trip on or home. In time what were random efforts became a collection, a personal history of youth and travel. That is what we have today, a window, his window on a passing moment.
Leaf through his watercolors to see what he saw: an America on the verge. To paraphrase John Adams, "Copley lives."
About his work
Written in an elegant hand on the back of watercolors mounted in a folio volume is the name Frederick S. Copley, the oldest examples dating to 1847. These images, 150 watercolors and 30 pencil sketches, range from discarded studies to detailed images, 3" by 5" to 9" by 12." More than sixty are large, most of the others about 5" by 8". The sizes are uneven, the sheets of apparently hand cut.
Mr. Copley, long forgotten if ever known beyond a close circle, emerges through his watercolors as fresh perspective on an extraordinary moment in the history of the Hudson Valley, New York and New England: the years 1848 to 1852: America in the embrace of the industrial revolution and incipient social upheaval. In these few years he captured the details of daily life, busy river settings, villages and towns, boats, horses, canals and people - then the pedestrian that today has become historical perspective. Mr. Copley's America is one of youth and expectation, a nation of farmers soon to become a country of burgeoning towns and cities.
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Frederick Copley: the passing glance
- By Bruce McKinney
Roslyn. Sep. 23, 1856
Frederick's first watercolors, painted when he is nineteen, are of Brooklyn and Gowanus. The following summer he travels along the Hudson, across New York state and into New England, on trips that last a month and more and eventually take him to Niagara, into Canada and as far east as Portland, Maine. He paints what he sees, communities large and small on the cusp of development, towns that have since emerged and some that have all but disappeared. In 1850 he records his impressions of Boston, Portland and sundry in-betweens but never paints western Massachusetts, Connecticut or Rhode Island, a sequence of hits and misses that suggest he reached Boston by boat. Precisely how he traveled and how he could afford to take such extended trips is unclear. That he did, when he did, is known because he labeled, signed and dated his work.
He becomes a naturalized American citizen in 1849 and is listed in his father's household in the census' of 1850, 1860 and 1870. Over the decades the official address changes and the number of siblings rises and falls. Among his thirty pen images are sketches of his family in the 1850s which cross-reference to information in the censuses. That names of younger siblings disappear may suggest his sisters died young or married away. It's unclear.
In 1864 he publishes his first of two books. It is Copley's Improved Geometrical & Universal Chess-men, adapted for every game on the checkerboard,... We know of it only because a single copy exists in the OCLC.
In 1865 there is evidence that Charles Copley & Sons continues. The elder Mr. Copley, now 65, is listed as author of Coast of the United States, from Cape Fear to the Bahamas, the publisher Charles Copley & Sons.
In 1868 Frederick contributes an article to the monthly >Horticulturalist which is published by his friend George Woodward. We know they know each other because Frederick painted his portrait, one of the sketches in his portfolio. In the article, Garden Ornaments - Designs for Covered Seats by F. S. Copley, artist, Tompkinsville, Staten Island, Frederick includes illustrations reminiscent of his watercolors.
In 1870 Frederick authors a second book Set of Alphabets of all the various hands in modern use with examples in each style, designed as a text book, by Fred'k S. Copley. It is published by the same Geo. E. Woodward, republished in 1877 and again, around the turn-of-the-century.
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Frederick Copley: the passing glance
- By Bruce McKinney
The Erie Railroad at Deposit, N.Y., 1851
During this period he appears to have become an architect. His connection to hydrography and charts fades. In 1886 he's listed in the Staten Island Directory at Richmond Road, occupation architect. He is still associated with the family firm: Charles J. Copley. In 1900 he appears for the last time in the census, his birth date 1827, place of birth England, his age 72. He lives with his brother Charles.
Today, online, searches for him bring up references [paraphrased here] to the architectural history of Roslyn Harbor Village.
William Cullen Bryant, renowned American poet and editor/half-owner of the New York Evening Post, purchased 40 acres to establish an estate in Roselyn Harbor in 1843. He later built and remodeled other houses on his estate, bringing in a variety of architectural styles and designs by well known architects and artists such as Frederick S. Copley, Frederick Law Olmstead, Clavert Vaux and Andrew Jackson Downing.
He apparently died in 1905 in Staten Island. His watercolors came to light in 2010.
Both Graham Arader and Bill Reese have looked at his work, Graham in person and Bill via the internet. Both describe him as an amateur, even a gifted amateur. Graham, who looked at each twice over an hour and a half, pronounced them good to very good. "You used to see such archives but they rarely come up anymore."
Links
The Frederick S. Copley Wiki Bibliography.
Portraits of family and friends
History of Roslyn Harbor Village
List of known works by Charles Copley and his son Frederick
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