Ohio museum asks for help in identifying mystery portraits
Philena Clark, circa-1844 oil-on-canvas American portrait by unknown artist. Courtesy Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase, Howald Fund.
The clues are few: four portraits of individual members of a Morrow County family painted in 1844, sold to the museum by an antiques dealer in 1942 and put away and left untouched for 65 years.
“Meet the Clarks” is a display that asks the public for a hand.
The museum wants help in learning more about the poker-faced subjects and their descendants as well as the unidentified artist who probably ventured by buggy into rural Ohio to make a buck by appealing to the vanities of the newly rich.
“How many museums get an opportunity to showcase people from right there in the neighborhood?” said Michael D. Hall, a folk-art curator for the museum who rediscovered the portraits in storage two years ago.
“It’s like looking in the mirror. It’s like looking at ourselves.”
Here’s what is known about the Clarks:
Husband and wife Roswell and Philena (born in 1793 and 1790), with children Eliza and Daniel, left Connecticut in the early 1830s and settled in what would become South Bloomfield Township in Morrow County, about 40 miles north of Columbus.
Their farm prospered, and by August 1844 the Clarks commissioned an artist to paint their portraits. The artwork probably hung in their home to signal to guests that they had achieved some measure of success.
Hall, a former professor who lives in a Detroit suburb, said such “vanity portraits” were commonly commissioned by the Eastern elite – usually sea captains, merchants, bankers and lawyers.
As wealth was being accumulated in rural Ohio, enterprising artists ventured west during the summer in search of business.
“It was a sign of the emerging middle class in the interior of the United States,” Hall said.
After finding the paintings in storage racks in the museum basement, Hall used museum and government records to determine that Philena died sometime in the 1870s; Roswell appeared in the 1880 federal census as an 87-year-old widower.
Daughter Eliza was found in the same census as a 66-year-old homemaker with a 70-year-old husband, John Barr. They had four children: Wesley, Philena, Wilbur and Sylvia.
Son Daniel seems to have left his parents’ Morrow County farm as a young man, but where he ended up is unclear. The 1870 census identifies a 44-year-old, Connecticut-born Daniel Clark living in Dayton – his approximate age at that time – but the trail runs cold.
Fliers displayed next to the paintings make a pitch for clues:
Can you tell us about modern-day Clarks who may be descended from the sitters depicted in these wonderful paintings? Leave us a note, give us a call or send us an e-mail. The rest of the Clark story is waiting to be told.
Museum spokeswoman Nancy Colvin said the exhibit is the first to seek the help of patrons in such a way.
“We’ve had a lot of people checking them and taking the information,” she said.
So far, though, no solid leads have materialized.
“The whole presentation makes you curious who they are,” said Havilah Vitartas of Bexley, studying the portraits one recent afternoon between classes at Columbus State Community College.
“It’s just neat to see such a large collection of folk art all done by the same painter.”
Turned off by the dour expressions on the Clark family faces, friends Stephanie Baron of Orlando, Fla., and Heather Branist of Dublin gave the paintings little thought.
“They didn’t draw our attention,” Baron said. “In fact, they’re kind of creepy.”
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-05-15-09 1522EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Roswell Clark, circa-1844 oil-on-canvas American portrait by unknown artist. Courtesy Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase, Howald Fund.
Philena Clark, circa-1844 oil-on-canvas American portrait by unknown artist. Courtesy Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase, Howald Fund.
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