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Will
Hicok Low (1853-1933) was one of the most accomplished muralists
in the history of American Art as well as an extremely literate
writer and critic. Though his work was classically inspired and
often allegorical, his palette exhibited the influence of the gay,
chromatic colors of French Impressionism. His books A Painter's
Progress and A Chronicle of Friendships are invaluable
references for artists and art historians. His writing illuminates
the lives and relationships of the cosmopolitan American artists
in the latter half of the 19th Century and the early years of the
20th Century. Low was an important figure in the era known as the
American Renaissance, and felt that "every American artist…
should be born with a missionary spirit." His mural decorations
include works in the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey,
The New York State Capitol and St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Albany,
New York, the Luzerne County Court House in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
and the Federal Building in Cleveland, Ohio. Low's most impressive
civic project was the mural cycle "Advance Through Education"
in the New York State Education Building in his hometown of Albany.
He studied in the Parisian ateliers of Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904)
and Charles Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran (1838-1917) in Paris, after
which, through his instruction at the National Academy of Design
and Cooper Union, he passed the French Beaux-Arts methods
on to generations of students. In his years abroad, he exhibited
at the Paris Salon and was elected to the National Academy, participating
in its annual exhibitions for sixty years.
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Will
Low was one of the most literate American Artists of the late 19th
and early 20th Centuries. Like his friend and fellow muralist Kenyon
Cox, he wrote art reviews and criticism for major American magazines.
In 1910, Low was asked to deliver the prestigious Scammon Lectures
at the Art Institute of Chicago, them America's largest art school.
The six lectures that Low delivered in April of 1910 were then turned
into the book A Painter's Progress (1910). Low's talks were
devoted to his experiences as a student and artist, his experiences
in Europe and some observations on the future of American Art. The
book is divide into six chapters: "The Awakening of Vocation,"
"The Education of an Artist," "The Problem of Self
Support," "Experiences in the Old World," "Thirty
Years at Home and Abroad" and "Our Present and Our Future."
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