Charcoal Club of Baltimore

The Charcoal Club has been an arts club in Baltimore, Maryland, on an intermittent basis since 1883.

History

Started as the Sketch Club in 1883 by a group of male artists in Baltimore who "desired to draw and paint from life" (meaning nude models), the Charcoal Club was incorporated in 1885.[1][2] The founding officers included Adalbert J. Volck. Joseph Evans Sperry, Alfred Winfield Strahan, and Lee Woodward Zeigler.[3][4][5] The Club held exhibitions of local and national artists and its "annual juried exhibition of contemporary American art [was]...from 1911 to 1926...the high point of Baltimore's brief art season".[6] The club was also known for its wild annual "Bal des Arts", and in the 1920s many New York City-based artist would attend.[6][7]

In 1991, the Charcoal Club decided to allow the admission of women artists to the club.[8] The club is known for a focus on traditional art techniques and realism.[8]

References
  1. "Charcoal Club Records, 1888-1970, MS 1792". Maryland Historical Society. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  2. "An Evening of the Charcoal Club". The Baltimore Sun. 1885-05-01. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-03-10. Charcoal Club of Baltimore incorporated 1885
  3. Wiegand, Henry H. "The Charcoal Club of Baltimore", Art and Archaeology 19 (5-6) June 1925: p. 274.
  4. "Alfred Winfield Strahan Papers MS.12". Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), Archives and Manuscripts Collections. Archived from the original on 2012-04-25.
  5. "Lee Woodward Zeigler papers, 1911-1968". Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  6. Kirwin, Liza (1985). "Back to Bohemia with the Charcoal Club of Baltimore". Archives of American Art Journal. 25 (1–2): 44–45.
  7. "Baltimore Charcoal Club to Give Bal des Arts This Week". The New York Times. 1926-01-03. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  8. O'Mara, Richard (1996-11-07). "Drawing the Line Art: Charcoal Club digs in its heels and its easels against the abstract, modernist movement. It sketches what it sees, or it sketches nothing at all". Baltimore Sun News. Retrieved 2020-03-10.

Further reading
  • Wiegand, Henry H. (June 1925). "The Charcoal Club of Baltimore". Art and Archaeology. 19 (5–6): 274–277.
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