A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE JOHN F. CARLSON PAINTING AT THE WOODSTOCK TOWN OFFICES ON COMEAU PLACE
Catskill Vista by John F. Carlson
Oil on canvas, 32" x 90"
ca. 1912
Firmly built into the dark woodwork above the living room mantel of the Comeau House in Woodstock, New York, is a striking painting entitled Catskills Vista. It has been darkened by the effects of the more than seventy years that have passed, since it was placed so conspicuously in the big room. Yet, it is still capable of giving pleasure by the boldness of its composition, its evocation of the look of the Woodstock landscape of the past, and the hints of color which glimmer through the time-woven veil which has tried to cover it. Through the generosity of the painter's sons, the overmantel will soon be cleaned and restored to its original condition.
How did this remarkable work of art come to be painted and placed in so commanding a position in such an unusual house; a house with an exterior skillfully designed as an adaptation of the early Dutch farmhouses of the lower Hudson Valley, yet with an interior which reflects the wave of arts and crafts enthusiasm that marked the opening decade of the present century? Answering that question will lead to a New England-born couple who commissioned the painting, to the distinguished painter who executed it, and to the part which Comeau House has played in the complex of relationships which mark an American art colony set down in a quiet farming town in 1902.
Edgar Newton Eames and Kate Gowing were born in 1858 in the town of Wilmington set midway between Boston and the great textile manufacturing center of Lowell, Massachusetts. The two were married in 1878 and had one child, a daughter named Marion. As the twentieth century got underway, the Eames Family was living in suburban Montclair, New Jersey, from where Eames was commuting to his office in lower Manhattan. There, he was known as being associated with firms in the silk trade and as a director of the Arnold Printing works. He was listed as a merchant and designer.
About 1909, the Eames met a young textile designer named Margaret Goddard. Miss Goddard was then studying landscape painting in the art colony of Woodstock in the Catskills under John F. Carlson whom she would marry before very long. The Eames took fire at Miss Goddard's enthusiasm for the Woodstock landscape and the way of life prevailing in its art colony. They went to Woodstock and bought land on which to build a house for summer living. The architect they chose was Frank W. Wallis, known as "Colonial Wallis" because of his expertise in designing buildings inspired by Colonial precedents. The arts and crafts interior Wallis designed was appropriate to the Woodstock art colony and would not have been out of place at Byrdcliffe on the mountainside above. There, the art colony had been founded by rich Yorkshireman and aesthete, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead.
Like the interior of the Eames House, its overmantel was appropriate to its time and place. John F. Carlson, whom Eames had commissioned to create the long panel above the mantelshelf, had arrived in the colony as a student at the art school which was once a feature of Byrdcliffe. He, more than anyone else, had been responsible for the choice of Woodstock as the site of the Summer School of Landscape Painting of the Art Student's League of New York. Under tonalist Birge Harrison he had taught at the school and then, after Harrison's resignation, had headed the school which was regarded as the first, and certainly the largest of its kind in the world. His overmantel showed Carlson at an early stage of the artist's mature manner. He liked to say that each tree has its own personality, that a tree was much like a man in its individuality - except for being rooted in the ground. In his canvases of the overmantel period, Carlson used the trunks of trees to define striking compositions with masses of foliage and bold mountainsides bringing up the rear. In the Eames painting he did not aim at an exact delineation of a particular spot - he aimed instead, and with decided success, at capturing the spirit of the landscape which had so charmed the Eames in all its early autumn beauty.
The house was the first in Woodstock to have been designed by an architect of national reputation and it was the first of many to have been inspired outwardly by those of colonial times. Its grounds had a perennial border of the kind that was becoming fashionable among sophisticated gardeners, and in its overmantel the house had a touch of lasting elegance, for an overmantel is something that is there for keeps. It is built into the fabric of the house which it adorns and it is not likely to be removed as fashions change.
The Eames family were well suited for life in so outstanding a setting. They belonged to that very small group of Woodstockers whom Hervey White, the rebellious founder of the more radical part of the art colony, liked to refer to as "the country gentry." The gentry were people of assured income and ample acreage. A few Woodstock people still remember, as a sign of the Eames' status, the emergence from their long drive of their twelve-cylinder, six passenger National touring car with wiry Edgar Eames, statuesque Kate and their daughter aboard, with chauffeur, Courtney Rodney at the wheel.
Edgar and Kate did not establish many social relationships with Woodstock people beyond a lasting friendship
with their overmantel's painter and his family and, an occasional appearance at the Thursday "at homes" of Mrs. Ralph Whitehead of Bynlcliffe. Their daughter Marion, however, became active in Woodstock community life. She had a talent for music and sang and played accompaniments. In 1913, she joined the founding members of the Woodstock Club which organized the Woodstock Library. The Library owes much to Marion's years of effort on its behalf.
In 1917, Edgar Eames died and in 1929, his wife followed him. Marion Eames lived on in the Dutch-Colonial arts-and-crafts house on the hilltop. Following Marion's marriage to Martin F. Comeau, who had a Boston accent and a varied past on sea and land, changes came to what began to be known and still is, as Comeau House. By the late 1930s Martin was becoming active as a lawyer in Woodstock and Kingston. He served as Woodstock's Town Attorney, as U.S. Marshall, as vice-commander of the local post of the America Legion and, after the second World War cast a shadow over the world, he became chairman of Woodstock's War Defense Committee with offices in the Comeau Building which stood just across Tinker Street from the end of the Comeau's drive. Victory Gardens appeared on allotments on the Comeau lands and Marion plunged into many home front activities. The house with the overmantel, under stress of the war, became a significant center of community activity.
Edgar and Kate Eames had been Christian Scientists when they first came to Woodstock and had been members of the town's Christian Science Society at its first organization in 1914. Only a few local people were aware after Marion's death that it had been provided that Comeau Place should go to the Mother Church of the Christian Science denomination. While Martin lived, he could remain in the house under a life interest. He soon busied himself with closing down his law practice, giving his law library to the SUNY College at New Paltz. As Martin moved into retirement, he seldom used the living room. The room's curtains, drawn by day as well as night. The Carlson overmantel, already darkened by time, remained in its familiar place. But in the dim light it was not easy to make out. These were indeed dark days in the life of the painting -- for more than one reason.
By the nineteen sixties, many changes had taken place among Americans who kept in touch with h the frequent fluctuations in taste which were a part of the twentieth century. Paintings by artists like John Carlson had lost favor among experts as the work of Cézanne, Picasso and the Abstract Expressionists pushed aside the work of men of Carlson's peak years. But a change was underway. By the time the Mother Church took title in 1979 to Comeau Place, Carlson's work was rising in favor after its period of decline. Once the Mother Church was in possession of the place and the contents of the house, both place and furnishings were put on the market. At this, Supervisor Val Cadden realized with enthusiasm that here was a unique opportunity to raise the quality of life in Woodstock. She communicated her enthusiasm to others; the church gave the town an option. A referendum followed and the house and its outbuildings, minus their contents, were purchased by the town as were the seventy-eight Comeau acres. Had the overmantel above the living room mantel been simply framed and hung on the wall, it would have been carried away by the New England buyer of the furnishings of the house. But this was not the case. The overmantel formed an integral part of the house, built as it was, into a wall. And so, with the purchase of the house, the overmantel became the property of the Town of Woodstock.
Comeau Place, with its scenic acres, it fine buildings -- and its overmantel , are now useful and valuable assets to the town and will remain so, far into the future. The house and its outbuildings are in use as town offices; a studio on the premises functions as the Museum of the Woodstock Historical Society; the sledding hill delights children each winter, as it has done for generations of their predecessors. It supplies a much-needed open space in which bird watchers, hikers and strollers along the bank of the Sawkill find the woods and open fields a welcome oasis in a rapidly growing Woodstock.
And John F. Carlson's masterly over mantel, once its restoration is complete will give pleasure to Woodstock people of the present and future and will remind them of the days when Woodstock was emerging as an art colony of national stature with significant help from Carlson both as outstanding painter and as the favorite teacher of many hundreds of Woodstock art students.
Alf Evers, Historian
Shady, New York
1995
