Railroad Patronage of American Artists (original) (raw)
Railroad Patronage of American Artists
and Railrad Art
Introduction
This section of the Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) catalogue Topics in American Art is devoted to the topic "Railroad Patronage of American Artists." Articles and essays specific to this topic published in TFAO's Resource Library are listed at the beginning of the section. Clicking on titles takes readers directly to these articles and essays. The date at the end of each title is the Resource Library publication date.
After articles and essays from Resource Library are links to valuable online resources found outside our website. Links may be to museums' articles about exhibits, plus much more topical information based on our online searches. Following online resources may be information about offline resources including museums, DVDs, and paper-printed books, journals and articles.
We recommend that readers search within the TFAO website to find detailed information for any topic.Please see our pageHow to research topics not listed for more information.
(above: Howard Fogg, Denver and Rio Grande Western No. 3707 along the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, 1971, oil on canvas, courtesy of Richard Fogg. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
Our 27 Resource Library articles and essays honoring the American experience through its art:
Trails to Rails: John Mix Stanley and the Pacific Railroad Survey of the 1850s (3/10/14)
Who Was Sam Hyde Harris?; essay by Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick (1/15/08)
The Best of the King Collection (8/17/07)
Timeless Excellence: Honoring Museum of Northern Arizona's Fine Arts Collection (6/30/06)
Western Women Artists: An Overview; text by Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick (9/22/05)
Winold Reiss: Artist for the Great Northern (6/1/05)
The Morans: The Artistry of a 19th-century Family of Painter-Etchers (8/30/04)
Leonard Lopp: Glacier Park Artist (7/15/04)
America's Wilderness in Art, monograph by Marlene R. Miller and Warren P. Miller (11/12/02)
The Artist and the American West: The Great Basin (11/4/02)
John Fery, Artist of the Rockies; essay by Peter C. Merrill (11/13/01)
American Impressionism Goes West, essay by Charles C. Eldredge, PhD (8/17/01)
Thomas Moran and the Spirit of Place (3/27/01)
Wildling Museum Acquires Fery Painting (12/14/00)
Winold Reiss: Native American Portraits (7/18/00)
Taos Artists and Their Patrons: 1898 - 1950 (7/16/99)
Taos Artists and Their Patrons, 1898-1950 (6/10/99)
Mountain Majesty: The Art of John Fery (12/17/98)
Other Resource Library articles and essays regarding railroad-related art:
Leroy Trobaugh: The Paintings of a Railroad Worker; text by Rachel Berenson Perry (6/19/08)
Thomas Hart Benton: Train Wrecks and Hillbilly Songs (8/20/07)
Arrested Motion: 1950s Railroad Photographs by O. Winston Link (7/21/04)
Mark Priest: Women and Men of the Railroad (2/28/01)
(above: Howard Fogg, Denver & Salt Lake Railroad passenger train exiting a snow shed at the top of Rollins Pass, Colorado, 1971, Watercolor courtesy of Richard Fogg. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
From other websites:
All Aboard: The Romance of California's Railroadsis a 2023 exhibit at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University which says the exhibit features "...nearly 40 paintings, illustrations and etchings by top California artists from the 1930s to today, selected from The Hilbert Collection..." The museum also says: "Chapman University's Hilbert Museum of California Art undergoes construction and expansion that will triple its size by the time of its planned re-opening in 2024...the museum has opened a temporary location in downtown Orange that is open to the public now and throughout 2023." Accessed 2/23
(above: The Hilbert Temporary, 216 E. Chapman, Orange, CA. Photo 2023 by John Hazeltine)
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Company Calendars from qstation.org. Accessed August, 2015
Center for Railroad Photography & Art website. Accessed August, 2015
Promoting the West: Abby Williams Hill and the Railroads is a 2017 exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum which says: "From 1903 to 1906, Tacoma artist Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943) painted the Pacific Northwest landscape and Yellowstone National Park for the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads. She was one of only a few women artists hired by these railroad companies. Her images were used for promotional campaigns encouraging railroad travel to the West for tourism or settlement." Accessed 8/17
Romancing the Rails: Train Travel in the 1920s and 1930s is a 2021 exhibit at the Albany (NY) Institute of History and Art which says: "Romancing the Rails features objects and library materials from the Albany Institute's railroad collections, including rare photographs, posters, locomotive models, and objects designed for New York Central's 20th Century Limited railroad that debuted in 1938 and ran from New York City to Chicago in sixteen hours." Accessed 7/21
Steaming Ahead: Reginald Marsh Watercolors of Locomotives is a 2016 exhibit at the Benton Museum, U of CT, Storrs which says: "This exhibition features over twenty-five watercolors and prints (lithographs and etchings) of locomotives, produced between 1927 and 1934, along with one from 1940, all from the permanent collection of the William Benton Museum of Art." Accessed 10/18
_Ticket to Ride: Artists, Designers, And Western Railway_s is a 2018 exhibit at the Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art which says: "This exhibition features paintings, studies, posters, and graphics that emerged from the parallel relationships between artists and commercial designers with Western rail companies between the late 1880s and early 1930s, which were key decades in passenger travel." Accessed 11/18
Books:
The Art of Railroading, by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Publisher: Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, 19 pages.
Travel by Train: The American Railroad Poster, 1870-1950, by Michael E. Zega and John E. Gruber. Publisher: Indiana University Press (October 2002). 
From Libraey Journal: "...Five chronologically arranged chapters interweave information about the artists and how the characteristics of their commissioned designs serve the advertising purposes of the railroad lines they worked for. A large number of artists, both well known (N.C. Wyeth, John Held Jr.) and not so well known (Maurice Logan, Leslie Ragan), are included in the discussion, with reproductions of their designs." (right: front cover of Travel by Train: The American Railroad Poster, 1870-1950, by Michael E. Zega and John E. Gruber)
Visions & Visionaries: The Art & Artists of the Santa Fe Railway, by Sandra D'Emilio and Suzan Campbell. Publisher: Peregrine Smith Books, (1991), 147 pages
Magazine articles:
"Santa Fe: The Chief Way," by Robert Strein, John Vaughan and C. Fenton Richards, Jr. New Mexico Magazine, 2001
(above: William Hahn, _Railroad Station of Sacramento, California,_1874, De Young Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
Tag for expired US copyright of object image:
Return to Topics in American Representational Art
TFAO catalogues:
American Representational Art links to dozens of topics in American Representational Art
Audio Online a catalogue of online streaming audio recordings
Collections of Historic American Art notable private collections
Distinguished Artists a national registry of historic artists
Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History a catalogue of articles and essays that describe the evolution of American art from the inception of the United States to WWII.
Illustrated Audio Online streaming online narrated slide shows
Articles and Essays Online substantive texts published outside of Resource Library
Videos Online a comprehensive catalogue of online full motion videos streamed free to viewers
Videos an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format
Books general reference books published on paper
Interactive media media in CD-ROM format
Magazines paper-published magazines and journals
Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.
Search Resource Library
Copyright 2022 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved.