AFA 18th Anniversary

18th Anniversary 168 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com text continues on page 175 F itz Henry Lane (1804–1865) is best known for his extraordinary corpus of marine paintings, mainly of the New England coast. Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a center of the fishing industry, Lane spent about fifteen years working in Boston as a commercial lithographer before becoming a painter fulltime. The Cape Ann Museum, located in Lane’s hometown, celebrates this aspect of Lane’s career in the exhibition, Drawn from Nature and on Stone: The Lithographs of Fitz Henry Lane . Fitz Henry Lane arrived in Boston to work at the commercial lithography shop operated by William S. Pendleton sometime in 1832 or early 1833. As a newcomer to the business, he would have spent time learning the basics of lithography as well as preparing stones for draftsmen. Lithography was a revolutionary process that gave working- and middle-class consumers access to a wide range of images. An artist or copyist drew designs with greasy crayons or oily ink on polished slabs of limestone imported from Germany. Printers “fixed” the drawing on the stone with a diluted acid to prepare the stone for printing, then used water-laden sponges to dampen the stone before inking the slab with rollers so that the ink would adhere to the portions of the stone that bore the drawing. Next they placed a sheet of paper, usually imported from Europe, on the stone and rolled the stone and paper through the press. While the process sounds complex, in comparison to earlier printmaking methods, lithography was actually less labor intensive and allowed for thousands of impressions to be pulled from one stone if desired. When the design was no longer needed it was effaced from the stone, which was then readied for a new print. The most successful commercial lithographic printers worked on two levels. First, they accepted job work or commissions from publishers of periodicals, books, pamphlets, and music, as well as advertisements from commercial establishments. In addition, some lithographers published prints on their own account, risking their own capital. Popular genres included portraits, political and social caricatures, sentimental prints, and town and city views. Lane’s forte involved producing images that exploited his careful observation of the world around him and his ability to provide accurate delineations of the natural and built environment. He had a thorough knowledge of perspective and became renowned for his harbor and town views. Lane’s career as a lithographer spans just fifteen years, roughly 1833 to 1848. After only a few years in the workshop Lane produced several stunning harbor and town views that presaged his future success as a painter, notably his 1836 view of Gloucester and those of Millbury, Massachusetts. Achieving the accuracy required of such views would have required weeks, even months, of dedicated work. As his skills as a draftsman on stone and from life gained recognition, he began to receive commissions for advertisements and designs for covers of music scores, even as he started painting in oils in 1841. Drawnfrom Nature andonStone The Lithographs of Fitz Henry Lane by Georgia Barnhill