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Highlights

FEATURED ARTIST - BARTON STONE HAYS

19th Century Fine Art Legacy

Barton Stone Hays (American 1826 – 1914)

Barton Stone Hays was born in Greenville, Ohio in 1826. Known as B. S. Hays, he was a self-taught artist, who after moving to the northern part of Indiana -- the villages of Wingate, Covington, and Attica, made a successful career as a portraitist -- painting portraits of the Indiana “pioneers” (Indiana having been admitted as the 19th state only a few years earlier). Years before the start of the American Civil War, Hays was to join the ranks of the abolitionists, and after having read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (published in 1852), he painted two panoramas depicting the scenes from that novel.

In 1858 Hays moved to Indianapolis where he continued with portraiture, in addition to landscape painting. He also taught at McClean’s Female Seminary as well as giving private lessons. One of his students was a young William Merritt Chase, whose father owned the largest women’s shoe store in Indianapolis. Frustrated with his son’s use of wrapping paper for art practice and his inability to make a businessman of him, he told him “William, you have spoiled wrapping-paper enough here; put on your hat and come with me—I am going to take you up to Hays.” Recognizing Chase’s ability, Hays recommended that Chase’s father send him to New York City for additional study.

Hays was to become one of the leading portraitists. During the late 1850s and 1860s, Hays was associated with Peaslee & Runnion and then the Howard & Davies Gallery (later Davies & Merritt), the latter of which advertised that they were in the “business of photographing, ambrotyping, and painting in oil, watercolors or India ink,” touting that “B.S. Hays, the celebrated artist, paints for this Gallery only.”

Hayes would leave Indianapolis for months, returning with the fruits of his labor -- landscapes among others. As was common practice for many well-known and popular artists of the time, Hays would exhibit paintings before sending them to auction. 1870, he sent a number of his paintings to an auction in neighboring Cincinnati, Ohio, which sold for very good prices. So pleased with this, he moved to Cincinnati in 1871, thinking perhaps that it was more of an art center than Indianapolis. The illusion faded and he returned to Indianapolis in 1873.

Circa 1882 Hays moved to the expanding art community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. There he opened a studio and continued his portrait and landscape painting and accepting pupils. It was in Minneapolis that he concentrated more on his small, pristine “fruit pieces,” described by art historian William H. Gerdts as “gem-like still lifes of fruit, clearly defined compositions of perfect forms and muted colors glowing in a pale atmosphere – the antithesis of the baroque, sometimes gaudy arrangement painted by [Jacob] Cox,” a contemporary of Hays in Indianapolis.

Hays would, later in the late 1880s and early 1890s, make a trip to California to sketch from nature. [B In 1894, he sent “a large collection of oil paintings, including scenes on the Pacific coast, Eastern landscapes, and a great variety of fruit pieces” to Bowen & Muncy’s Art Store to sell at auction to finance a trip throughout the South.

Hays returned to Minneapolis and continued to paint and send his “fruit pieces” and landscapes to auction. He died in 1914.

Use only with permission of Bedford Fine Art Gallery.

References:

  1. Burnett, Mary, Q., 1921, Art and Artists of Indiana, pg. 72-74 and 133, The Century Company.
  2. Falk, Peter, ed., 1999, Who Was Who in American Art, Sound View Press, Madison, CT.
  3. Gerdts, William H., 1990, Art Across America, Vol. 3, Cross River Press, Ltd.
  4. https://newspaperarchive.com/indianapolis-daily-state-sentinel-apr-03-1858-p-3/
  5. https://newspaperarchive.com/indianapolis-daily-journal-feb-26-1864-p-1/
  6. https://newspaperarchive.com/saint-paul-daily-globe-dec-09-1894-p-20/
  7. Meeker, Mary Jane, 1994, rev., 2021, Barton Stone Hays, in, “Encyclopedia of Indianapolis,” indyencyclopedia.org.

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Jerry & Joan - Thanks for your hospitality and helping us find this beautiful new piece for our home. Until next time...

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230 South Juliana St.
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