Cyrus Cuneo

Cyrus Cincinato Cuneo ROI (18 June 1879 – 23 July 1916),[2] [3] known as Ciro, was an artist, born into an Italian American family of artists and musicians. His parents were Giovanni (John) and Annie Cuneo; his brothers Rinaldo (1877-1939) and Egisto (1890–1972), and his son Terence Cuneo (1907–1996) also became artists.

Cyrus Cincinato Cuneo
Born(1879-06-18)June 18, 1879
San Francisco, United States
Died23 July 1916(1916-07-23) (aged 37)
London, England
NationalityItalian American[note 1]
Other namesGenerally known as Ciro
OccupationPainter and illustrator
Years active1896 – 1916
Notable work
Murals for the Canadian Pacific Railway
James Abbot McNeill Whistler in his studio by Cyrus Cuneo. Pencil and monochrome wash drawing, 1906.[note 2]

Early life

The family lived on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco's Italian American neighborhood of North Beach.[4][5] [note 3] Cuneo's first published drawings appeared in an Italian newspaper when he was 16, and he spent the next three years he worked for the San Francisco Press.[1][note 4]

Cuneo trained as a boxer, becoming the fly-weight champion at the Olympic Club in San Francisco[5][note 5] and his prize money, together with earnings from spare-time jobs, and the sale of sketches and to travel to Paris to learn painting.[7]:128 The Times reported that he left San Francisco for Paris with £40 in his pocket.[1]

Art Education

Cuneo began his studied in art while still living in San Francisco, at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute[5]. When he travelled to Paris in 1896, he joined the Colarossi’s studio and trained under Whistler eventually becoming his massier or head student. Cuneo set up a afternoon sketching school with Edith Œnone Somerville (1858 – 1949). Teaching sketching and boxing helped Cuneo to support himself in Paris. The Times said that Cuneo had a fine physique and was a notable athlete, and as a boxer was famous not only on the Pacific slope, but also in Paris and in London.[1]

Cuneo was living at 9, Rue Campagne, Première Montparnasse, Paris, in 1900 when he first exhibited at the Royal Academy. He showed two works in that year, both of them illustrations from King Lear by Shakespeare.[9] Cunoe also exhibited at other venues.[note 6]

The move to London

While Greenwall states that Cuneo moved to London in 1902,[11] Kirkpatrick notes that the 1901 census found him lodging with his future wife's parents in London (while she was still in Paris).[7]:128

Cuneo married fellow artist Nellie Tenison (28 August 1869 – 23 May 1953)[7]:129-30 in London on 20 October 1903.[6]

Assessment

Cuneo was elected ROI in 1908. Cuneo was a successful artist in terms of earning a living. During World War One he painted war subjects in London and the sale by auction of one of his paintings paid for two motor ambulances for the front.[8]:80[12]

Thorpe considered this illustration by Cuneo for a story in The Pall Mall Magazine to be a beauty.[13]:169

Cuneo's illustration work was unusual in that he often painted in oils on board.[14]:109 Peppin and Micklethwait state that Cuneo worked with considerable panache in crayon or in black and white oil on board painted without preliminary pencil drafts. Thorpe considered one of his illustrations[15] for The Pall Mall Magazine in 1900 to be a beauty[13]:169 and reproduced it in his survey of English illustration in the 1890s.[13]:opp.71 Cuneo was selected by Percy Bradshaw for inclusion in his 1918 The Art of the Illustrator which included a portfolio for each of twenty illustrators.[note 7]

Sudden death

Cuneo got blood poisoning after being accidentally scratched with a hat-pin at a dance.[7]:129 He died on 23 July 1916. His estate was valued at £13,798 17s. 6d. and his wife Nellie acted as his executor.[3]

Notes
  1. Cuneo described himself as an Englishman by preference and adoption, an American by birth and citizenship, and an Italian of unmixed blood by parentage.[1]
  2. Whistler is reading from The Gentle Art of Making Enemies in Académie Carmen, surrounded by art students. Illustration for Whistler's Academy of Painting : Some Parisian Recollections by Cuneo in Pall Mall Magazine
  3. Their house was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and the family lost almost everything. However, by then Cuneo was successfully established in London and he was able to assist them, as well as paying for the whole family to take a holiday in Italy.[6]
  4. Again, there is a date conflict, as he should only have been 17 in 1896 when he went to Paris.[7]:128
  5. Peppin and Micklethwait state that he became the flyweight boxing champion of San Francisco at age 19, but he had left for Paris in 1996, when he was 17. He may have returned to San Francisco to compete, but that would have been expensive.[8]
  6. He exhibited 16 works at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, 13 at the Royal Academy, nine at the Royal Hibernian Academy, six at the Walker Art Gallery, and five at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Art.[10]
  7. Of course, Cuneo was dead by the time that Bradshaw published, but some of the illustrations by other artists were dated 1915, so Bradshaw had been working on the collection for some time. The portfolio contained a brief biography of Cuneo, an illustration of him in his studio and an explanation of his method of working accompanied by an illustration typical of his work and the stages of its production.[16] Cuneo's black and white illustration shows a horseman dismounting at a campsite while a man and a woman are cooking.[17]

References
  1. "Mr. Cyrus Cuneo". The Times (Monday 24 July 1916): 11. 1916-07-24. Archived from the original on 2020-08-31. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  2. California State Library (2011). "Cyrus Cincinato Cuneo". California, Biographical Index Cards, 1781-1990. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com.
  3. "Wills and Probates 1858-1996: Pages for Cuneo and the year of death 1916". Find a Will Service. Archived from the original on 2020-08-31. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  4. Hughes, Edan Milton (1989). Artists in California, 1786-1940. San Francisco, CA: Hughes Publishing Company. p. 127. ISBN 0-9616112-1-9.
  5. Zimbardo, Tanya (2009). CUNEO: A Family of Early California Artists – Exhibition Catalog. Museo ItaloAmericano. Archived from the original on March 12, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  6. "Cyrus Cuneo". Cuneo Society. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  7. Kirkpatrick, Robert J. (2019). The Men Who Drew For Boys (And Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books: 1844-1970. London: Robert J. Kirkpatrick.
  8. Peppin, Bridget; Micklethwait, Lucy (1905-06-06). Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: The Twentieth Centrury. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-3985-4. Retrieved 2020-08-25 – via The Internet Archive.
  9. Graves, Algernon (1905). The Royal Academy of Arts: A completed Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904. Vol 2: Carrol to Dyer. London: Henry Graves and Co. Ltd., and George Bell and Sons. p. 224. Retrieved 2020-08-25 – via The Internet Archive.
  10. Johnson, J.; Greutzner, A. (1905-06-08). The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club. p. 131.
  11. Greenwall, Ryno (1905-06-14). Artists and Illustrators of the Anglo-Boer War. Vlaeberg, Western Cape, South Africa: Fernwood Press. p. 122. ISBN 0-9583154-2-6.
  12. Coates, Tom (8 January 1996). "Obituary: Terence Cuneo". The Independent. Archived from the original on 16 August 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  13. Thorpe, James (1905-04-18). English Illustration: The Nineties. London: Faber and Faber.
  14. Houfe, Simon (1996). Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-193-7.
  15. "Illustration by Cyrus Cuneo: The eldest Miss Rowley trrummed on the harp/". The Pall Mall Magazine. 20: 502. 1900-04-01. Retrieved 2020-08-25 – via The Internet Archive.
  16. "The Connisseur Bookself". The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors. 51 (204): 223. 1918-08-01. Retrieved 2020-08-12 – via The Internet Archive.
  17. "Cyrus Cuneo: Cyrus Cuneo and His Work: The Art of the Illustrator (Limited Edition Prints)". Illustration Art Gallery with The Book Palace. Archived from the original on 2019-06-12. Retrieved 2020-08-22.
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