Temple Gold Medal

Joseph E. Temple Fund Gold Medal (defunct) was a prestigious art prize awarded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts most years from 1883 to 1968. A Temple Medal recognized the best oil painting by an American artist shown in PAFA's annual exhibition. Recipients included James Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Robert Henri and Edward Hopper.

Temple Gold Medal Nude (1924) by William Glackens. Winner of the 1924 Temple Gold Medal.

History

The medal was named for Philadelphia merchant Joseph E. Temple (1811–1880), a patron of the arts and PAFA Board member, whose bequest of $51,000 funded the awards.

Any American artist was welcome to submit works for PAFA's annual exhibitions. Juries in painting and sculpture, composed of PAFA faculty and invited artists, evaluated hundreds (and later thousands) of submissions and chose those for exhibition. The Painters' Jury of Selection also chose the medal winners in painting. An artist could be awarded a Temple medal only once. Sometimes the medal-winning painting was purchased for PAFA's permanent collection.

The process for the first Temple Medal was a fiasco.[1] To encourage American historical painting, PAFA added a $3,000 cash bonus to the 1883 gold medal if it went to a historical work.[1] But the art jury could not agree on a gold medal recipient.[1] A silver medal would have been awarded to William B. T. Trego for The March to Valley Forge, but he refused to accept it. Trego argued that if only one Temple medal was awarded it should be a gold, not a silver (which implied second place).[2] Trego sued PAFA to be named the gold medal winner and claim the cash bonus. After losing in a Philadelphia court, he took his appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which concurred with the lower court's ruling that PAFA's art jury had the right to issue awards as it saw fit.[3] After 1883, no cash prizes accompanied Temple medals.[1]

From 1884 to 1889, a gold medal was awarded for the best figure painting and a silver medal for the best landscape or marine painting. But the jury ignored the rules in 1890, awarding a landscape-with-cattle painting the gold medal.[lower-alpha 1] In 1891 and 1892, a gold medal was awarded for the best painting regardless of subject, and a silver for the second-best. No second-place medals were awarded after 1892. From 1893 to 1899, two gold medals were awarded each year. Beginning in 1900, a single gold medal was awarded for the best painting in PAFA's annual exhibition regardless of subject.[5]

Famously, Thomas Eakins, who had been forced to resign as director of PAFA's school in 1886, accepted his 1904 award for Archbishop William Henry Elder by declaring, ”I think you’ve got a heap of impudence to give me a medal." He then rode off on a bicycle to the Philadelphia Mint, where he sold the gold medal for its melt-down value.[6]

William Glackens wryly changed the name of the figure painting that won him the 1924 award from Nude to Temple Gold Medal Nude.[7]

By the 1930s, PAFA's annual exhibitions had acquired a reputation for being parochial and nepotistic.[lower-alpha 2] With the costs of transporting and insuring the works, they were also expensive. Beginning in 1954, PAFA's exhibitions became bi-annual. The last Temple Gold Medal was awarded to Helen Frankenthaler in 1968. Beginning in 1969, PAFA's annual exhibitions were dedicated exclusively to student work from its school.

List of recipients
Year Artist Image Work Collection Notes Ref(s)
1883
(silver)		 William B. T. Trego The March to Valley Forge Museum of the American Revolution,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania		 Trego refused the silver medal.
1884 George W. Maynard Portrait of Francis Davis Millet
(Dressed as a War Correspondent)		 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian [9]
1884
(silver)		 Thomas Hill Yosemite Valley: View from Bridal Veil Meadow Ex collection: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Deaccessioned 1898
Auctioned at Bonham's San Francisco, November 20, 2011; Sold for $2,500.		 [10][11]
1885 Charles Sprague Pearce Peines de Coeur (Troubles of the Heart) Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Exhibited: 1885 Paris Salon
1885
(silver)		 William Trost Richards Old Ocean's Gray and Melancholy Waste Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts PAFA board member (later president) Edward Hornor Coates bought the painting from the exhibition.
His widow, poet Florence Earle Coates, donated it to PAFA in 1923.
It may have been the inspiration for her 1909 poem, "Mid-Ocean."		 [12][13][14][15]
1886 No exhibition
1887 Clifford Prevost Grayson A Fisherman's Family Exhibited: 1885 Paris Salon
Ex collection: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Deaccessioned 1898		 [10]
1887
(silver)		 T. Alexander Harrison The Wave Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Exhibited: 1885 Paris Salon
1888 Charles Stanley Reinhart Washed Ashore Corcoran Gallery of Art Honorable Mention: 1887 Paris Salon
Vincent van Gogh was an admirer of the painting.[lower-alpha 3]
1888
(silver)		 Howard Russell Butler Les ramasseurs de varech (The Seaweed Gatherers) Smithsonian American Art Museum Honorable Mention: 1886 Paris Salon
1889 Anna Elizabeth Klumpke In the Wash House Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Exhibited: 1888 Paris Salon
First woman awarded a Temple Gold Medal.
1889
(silver)		 Arthur Parton Winter on the Hudson Honorable Mention: 1889 Paris Exposition [17]
1890 William Henry Howe Return of the Herd at Evening, Uplands of Normandy Exhibited: 1887 Paris Salon

Howe in his Paris studio with Return of the Herd at Evening:
1890
(silver)		 Edward Emerson Simmons St. Ives's Bay, Cornwall at Sunset, Looking East Ex collection: Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia [18]
1891
1st place		 Abbott H. Thayer Winged Figure Art Institute of Chicago
1891
(silver)
2nd place		 Kenyon Cox Portrait of a Lady (The Artist's Wife) Smithsonian American Art Museum One of 13 works in Cox's medal-winning group at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
1892
1st place		 Henry S. Bisbing On the River Shore, Holland Bronze Medal: 1889 Exposition Universelle, Paris
One of 3 works in Bisbing's medal-winning group at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.		 [19]
1892
(silver)
2nd place		 George Inness Autumn Oaks Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum,
Canyon, Texas		 [20][21]
1893 No exhibition
1894 John Singer Sargent Portrait of Ellen Terry as Lady MacBeth Tate Britain
1894 James Abbott McNeill Whistler Arrangement in Black: Lady in the Yellow Buskin
(Lady Archibald Campbell)		 Philadelphia Museum of Art [22]
1895 Edmund C. Tarbell Arrangement in Pink and Gray (Afternoon Tea) Worcester Art Museum
1895 John H. Twachtman Sailing in the Mist Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Twachtman painted this following the death of his 8-year-old daughter Elsie.
1896 Gari Melchers The Family A Melchers painting of this title is in the Old National Gallery in Berlin, Germany.
1896 J. Humphreys Johnston Le Domino Rose Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [23]
1897 John White Alexander Isabella and the Pot of Basil Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
1897 George de Forest Brush Mother and Child Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [24]
1898 Edward Francis Rook Pearl Clouds, Moonlight Cincinnati Art Museum [25]
1898 Wilton Lockwood The Violinist (Otto Roth) Skibo Castle, Dornoch, Scotland 3rd Prize: 1898 Carnegie Institute
Owned by Andrew Carnegie in 1907.		 [26]
1899 Childe Hassam Pont Royal, Paris Cincinnati Art Museum
1899 Joseph de Camp Woman Drying Her Hair Cincinnati Art Museum
1900 Cecilia Beaux Mother and Daughter (Mrs. Clement Griscom and Frances C. Griscom) Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Second woman awarded a Temple Gold Medal.
1st Prize: 1899 Carnegie Institute
Gold Medal: 1900 Paris Exposition
1901 William Merritt Chase Portrait of a Lady with a Rose (Miss M. S. Lukens) Private collection [27]
1902 Winslow Homer A Northeaster Metropolitan Museum of Art
1903 Edward Redfield under copyright
until 2035		 A Winter Evening Private collection Appraised on Antiques Roadshow, air date: September 22, 2014.
1904 Thomas Eakins Archbishop William Henry Elder Cincinnati Art Museum
1905 J. Alden Weir The Green Bodice Metropolitan Museum of Art [28]
1906 Eugene Paul Ullman Portrait of Madame Fisher Indianapolis Museum of Art [29]
1907 Willard L. Metcalf The Golden Screen Private collection [30]
1908 Frank Weston Benson Portrait of My Daughters Worcester Art Museum
1909 Frederic Porter Vinton Portrait of Carroll D. Wright, President of Clark College Clark University,
Worcester, Massachusetts
1910 Howard Gardiner Cushing Portrait of the Artist's Wife (Ethel Cochrane Cushing) [31]
1911 Richard E. Miller The Chinese Statuette [32]
1912 Emil Carlsen The Open Sea Addison Gallery of American Art [33]
1913 Frederick Frieseke Youth [34]
1914 W. Elmer Schofield The Hill Country Woodmere Art Museum,
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia		 [35]
1915 Charles Webster Hawthorne Provincetown Fisherman Indianapolis Museum of Art
1916 Joseph Thurman Pearson Jr. On the Valley Auctioned at Sloan's, North Bethesda, Maryland, September 27, 1981; sold for $1,250. [36][37]
1917 George Bellows A Day in June Detroit Institute of Arts
1918 George Luks Houston Street St. Louis Art Museum
1919 Daniel Garber under copyright
until 2028		 The Orchard Window Philadelphia Museum of Art [38]
1920 Ernest Lawson Ice-Bound Falls Art Institute of Chicago [39]
1921 Leopold Seyffert under copyright
until 2026		 Lacquer Screen (The Model) Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [40]
1922 William Langson Lathrop October Evening
1923 Walter Ufer Sleep National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma		 [41]
1924 William Glackens Temple Gold Medal Nude Private collection Auctioned at Sotheby's New York, May 19, 2011; sold for $254,500. [7]
1925 Clifford Addams Washington Square
1926 Hayley Lever under copyright
until 2028		 The Harbor
1927 Leon Kroll under copyright
until 2044		 My Wife's Family University of Virginia Art Museum [42]
1928 James Ormsbee Chapin under copyright
until 2045		 George Marvin and His Daughter Edith Dallas Museum of Art [43]
1929 Robert Henri The Wee Woman [44]
1930 Arthur B. Carles under copyright
until 2022		 Still Life
1931 Alexander Brook under copyright
until 2050		 The Intruder The intruder in the still life is a whimsical mouse. [45]
1932 Paul Bartlett under copyright
until 2035		 The Sand Barge [46]
1933 S. Walter Norris copyright? Pool at Ilk
1934 Yasuo Kuniyoshi under copyright
until 2023		 Fruit on Table
1935 Edward Hopper under copyright
until 2037		 Mrs. Scott's House Maier Museum of Art, Randolph College,
Lynchburg, Virginia		 [47]
1936 Paul Starrett Sample under copyright
until 2044		 Miners Resting Sheldon Museum of Art,
University of Nebraska,
Lincoln, Nebraska		 [48]
1937 Henry Lee McFee under copyright
until 2023		 Sleeping Black Girl Los Angeles County Museum of Art [49]
1938 Eugene Speicher under copyright
until 2032		 Marianna Whitney Museum of American Art [50]
1939 Henry McCarter The Pinnacle [51]
1940 Morris Kantor under copyright
until 2044		 Lighthouse (Lighthouse, Cape Cod) Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [52]
1941 Max Weber under copyright
until 2031		 Reading Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
1942 Ivan Albright under copyright
until 2053		 That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do
(The Door)		 Art Institute of Chicago [53]
1943 Raphael Soyer under copyright
until 2057		 Waiting Room (Railroad Station Waiting Room) Corcoran Gallery of Art [54]
1944 Franklin C. Watkins under copyright
until 2042		 Portrait of Thomas Raeburn White Cleveland Museum of Art [55]
1945 Abraham Rattner under copyright
until 2048		 Kiosk Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [56]
1946 Gregorio Prestopino under copyright
until 2054		 Death of Snappy Collins Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, Minnesota		 [57]
1947 Arthur Osver under copyright
until 2076		 The Majestic Tenement Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [58]
1948 Eugene Ludins under copyright
until 2066		 The Valley Woodstock Artists Association and Museum [59]
1949 Henry Koerner under copyright
until 2061		 Junkyard Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania		 [60]
1950 Harvey Dinnerstein under copyright
still alive		 Noah Wolf Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [61]
1951 William Congdon under copyright
until 2068		 Venice #2 [62]
1952 O. Louis Guglielmi under copyright
until 2026		 New York 21 Federal Reserve Art Collection,
Washington, D.C.		 In 2010, this hung in the office of then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. [63]
1953 Rico Lebrun under copyright
until 2034		 Figures on the Cross with Lantern
1954 John Marin (posthumous) under copyright
until 2023		 The Jersey Hills [64]
1955 Student exhibition
1956 Ben Shahn under copyright
until 2039		 Chicago (Allegory) Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Depicts Chicago's 1947 Hickman tenement fire, with the flames forming into a mythical beast. [65]
1957 Student exhibition
1958 Philip Evergood under copyright
until 2043		 Threshold to Success Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [66]
1959 Student exhibition
1960 Lee Gatch under copyright
until 2038		 Fish Market Newark Museum
1961 Student exhibition
1962 Julian E. Levi under copyright
until 2052		 Orpheus in the Studio Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [67]
1963 Student exhibition
1964 Stuart Davis under copyright
until 2034		 Letter and His Ecol Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [68]
1965 Student exhibition
1966 George L.K. Morris under copyright
until 2045		 Elegy on the Pennsylvania Station, No. 1 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1967 Student exhibition
1968 Helen Frankenthaler under copyright
until 2081		 Tobacco Landscape Third woman awarded a Temple Gold Medal.
Last Temple Gold Medal awarded.

See also

Notes
  1. "[T]hese cattle pictures of Mr. Howe are admirable, and they are certainly among the most satisfying things exhibited here, but the gold medal was offered for 'the best figure picture by an American artist,' and these are not figure pictures at all, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the committee has made another mistake in awarding this medal in this way." — L. W. M. [Leslie W. Miller][4]
  2. Art columnist Jane Richter complained that more than 60% of the 258 paintings in the 1937 exhibition had been by members of the selection jury or by invited artists. While acknowledging the value of having "name" artists, she argued that PAFA needed to choose: make future exhibitions truly open-to-all or make them by-invitation-only.[8]
  3. "In Harper’s Weekly I found an illustration by Reinhart, by far the best I’ve seen by him up to now, Washed Ashore. A body has been washed up, a man is kneeling beside it to see who it is, a few fishermen and women give information about the shipwreck victim to a gendarme. So it looks somewhat like Victim of a Shipwreck that you have, but the drawing by R. has something of [Félix] Régamey, for example. It’s a very fine print." — Vincent van Gogh.[16]

References
  1. Mark Thistlethwaite, "Patronage Gone Awry: The 1883 Temple Competition of Historical Paintings," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 112, no. 4 (October 1988), pp. 545-78.
  2. "Fifty-Fifth Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy," American Architect and Building News, December 13, 1884.
  3. "Not Good Enough for the Prize," The New York Times, April 20, 1886.
  4. "The Sixtieth Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy," The American: A National Journal, Volume 19, (American Company, 1889), p. 319.
  5. "Honors Awarded by the Temple Fund," Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition, (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1919), pp. 8-9.
  6. "Biography of Thomas Eakins," Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  7. Temple Gold Medal Nude, from Sotheby's NY.
  8. Philadelphia Art News, January 31, 1938.
  9. Francis Davis Millet, from National Portrait Gallery.
  10. Martin Gammon, Deaccessioning and Its Discontents: A Critical History (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018), p. 334.
  11. Yosemite Valley: View from Bridal Veil Meadows, from Blouin Art Sales Index.
  12. Old Ocean's Gray and Melancholy Waste, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  13. Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1876-1913, (Sound View Press, 1989), p. 406.
  14. PAFA website: Exhibitions 1805-1999
  15. "Mid Ocean" by Florence Earle Coates, from Wikisource.
  16. Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, 25 May 1883.
  17. Winter on the Hudson
  18. Looking East at Sunset, St. Ives Bay, from SIRIS.
  19. "Bisbing's Great Work," Philadelphia Item, February 14, 1892.
  20. Autumn Oaks, from Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.
  21. Autumn Oaks, from SIRIS.
  22. Arrangement in Black, from Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  23. Le Domino Rose, from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  24. Mother and Child, from PAFA.
  25. Pearl Clouds, Moonlight, Brush & Pencil, August 1898, p. 230.
  26. The Violinist (Otto Roth), from Studio International, Volume 41, (London: National Magazine Company, 1907), p. 266.
  27. Lady with a Rose, from Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: Portraits in Oil, (Yale University Press, 2007), p. 174.
  28. The Green Bodice, from Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  29. Madame Fisher, from Indiana Museum of Art.
  30. The Golden Screen, from WikiArt.
  31. Ethel Cochrane Cushing, from Art History Reference.
  32. The Chinese Statuette
  33. Open Sea, from EmilCarlsen.org
  34. Youth
  35. The Hill Country
  36. On the Valley, from The American Magazine of Art, March 1916, p. 180.
  37. On the Valley, from Blouin's Art Sales Index.
  38. The Orchard Window, from Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  39. Ice-Bound Falls, from Art Institute of Chicago.
  40. Lacquer Screen, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  41. Sleep
  42. My Wife's Family
  43. George Marvin and His Daughter Edith, from Mutual Art.
  44. The Wee Woman, from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian.
  45. The Intruder
  46. The Sand Barge by Paul Bartlett, from Smithsonian Institution.
  47. Mrs. Scott's House, from Maier Museum of Art.
  48. Miners Resting, from Sheldon Museum of Art.
  49. Sleeping Black Girl, from SIRIS.
  50. Marianna, from Whitney Museum.
  51. "Philadelphians Win Art Awards," The Lewiston Daily Sun, February 7, 1939.
  52. Lighthouse, Cape Cod, from Annex Galleries.
  53. That Which I Should Have Done, from Art Institute of Chicago.
  54. Railroad Station Waiting Room, from Corcoran Gallery of Art.
  55. Portrait of Thomas Raeburn White, from Cleveland Museum of Art.
  56. Kiosk, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  57. Death of Snappy Collins, from Walker Art Center.
  58. Majestic Tenement, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  59. The Valley, from Woodstock Artists Association.
  60. Junkyard, from Carnegie Museum of Art.
  61. Noah Wolf, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  62. Venice #2
  63. Mary Anne Goley, "What Fed Chiefs Like," The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2010.
  64. Jersey Hills
  65. Allegory, from Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
  66. Threshold to Success, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  67. Orpheus in the Studio, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
  68. Letter and His Ecol, from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
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