Stacy Tolman of Providence (1860-1935):
Portrait of Tolman.
From 1889 Tolman was a teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design, head of the dept. of drawing and painting there until 1905, thereafter teaching the anatomy class. He had his studio in the Fleur de Lys building in Providence from 1895.
The Etcher (c.1887-90), Stacy Tolman of Providence. The man depicted is the printmaker William Henry Warren Bicknell, friend and fellow student:
The Musicale (c.1887), Stacy Tolman of Providence:
Yard View, Providence (undated), Stacy Tolman of Providence:
The Interlude (1890), Stacy Tolman of Providence:
This evokes several Lovecraft stories such as “The Terrible Old Man”, “The Music of Erich Zann”, and “Hypnos”.
His late work, presumably in the 1920s, apparently showed the evidence of impressionism. One presumes that toward the end of his life Providence gave Tolman a major retrospective exhibition, which Lovecraft would have likely seen (unless he was away in New York at that point). I can’t find one, but there was a 1935 list catalogue for a Memorial Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Etchings by Stacy Tolman.
It is quite probable he was a teacher of Lovecraft’s Providence correspondent (and probable local friend) Frederick Allen Wesley, who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design as evidenced by the 1903 yearbook (and probably also studied there in later years)…
There is an ink drawing of Wesley by Tolman, not yet available online…
Rhode Island Historical Society–Graphics Dept.:
ACCESS RESTRICTED. APPOINTMENT REQUIRED
1. Ink drawing, “Frederick Allen Wesley” (call# Graphics XXB Painting T652 1)
Given this, one wonders if Lovecraft’s friend Wesley was the model for the artist in “The Call of Cthulhu”…
“who had latterly been studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design and living alone at the Fleur-de-Lys Building near that institution. Wilcox was a precocious youth of known genius but great eccentricity”
Note that the last “A.W.” initials of Henry Anthony Wilcox are the same as those of Frederick A. Wesley, and that Lovecraft has a tendency to slip his friends into his stories.
One wonders if the Tolman portrait of Wesley will show something of Lovecraft’s description of Wilcox in “The Call of Cthulhu” as a…
“thin, dark young man of neurotic and excited aspect”
Articles:
Ralph Davol, “An Appreciation of Stacey Tolman“, Brush and Pencil, an illustrated magazine of the arts today, Vol.7, Dec. 1900, pp. 163-172.
John. I.H. Baur, “A Painter of Painters: Stacy Tolman”, American Art Journal, Jan 1979, pp.37-48. 14 illustrations.
Neat stuff on Stacy Tolman and Frederick Allen Wesley (1885-1948). Wesley as the possible student of Tolman (with a studio in the Fleur-de-Lys building!) sounds like a more appealing connection with Lovecraft than my thesis that Lovecraft was consigned to clerical drudgery in the office of a Providence steam engineer (Thomas Evans Sr.) who may have worked with Wesley. While Lovecraft claimed never to have held a job at the time he was searching for work in NYC in 1924, I think it is possible he may have held at least short-term positions before then. I wish we knew more about his work as a ticket-seller at a Providence movie theater in the late 1920s. Too bad access to Tolman’s portrait of Wesley is restricted–if it were open, RIHS might be willing to make an electronic reproduction and grant you permission to reproduce it on the Tentaclii site.
Perhaps the Necronomicon Providence 2013 convention organisers could ask them to release a print of the portrait, for the convention’s art room? Got to be worth asking?