Daniel Folger 7 BIGELOW page 4
This is a photo of the Art Institute of Chicago
See Adirondack Life article for
more information.
Also see Page 3a for artwork of Daniel Folger
7 Bigelow.
Also see Page 4 for 1997 information from Chicago
Art Institute.
Also see Page 5 for new article (1998) on Daniel
Folger Bigelow.
Also see Page 1 on Daniel Folger 7
Bigelow.
15146.33 Daniel Folger 7 BIGELOW,
son of Nathan 6 (Nathan 5,John 4,John 3, Samuel
2, John 1), and Clarinda
Folger (BARKER) BIGELOW, was born 22 July 1823 Peru, Clinton co, NY.
In the fall of 1997 I received E-mail from the Art Institute of Chicago,
concerning a project they were doing on 50 distinguished artists from Chicago,
to be published in 1998 in their journals? They remarked upon finding my
information on the internet and sent me a package of articles from old magazines
that they were using for their article. They of course were including Daniel
Folger Bigelow among the 50. They also read to me over the phone passages
from their article, and asked if I agreed with their descriptions of North
Country sites where Daniel grew up and painted. The following are articles
that they sent me concerning Daniel and others. Daniel's son, Folger Allen Bigelow, was also an artist
of note in his era, but died suddenly at a young age. I hope to publish his
obituary somewhere among these pages. Little did I realize how much time
I would spend on this family of Bigelows....ROD 4/3/98.
Crosby's Opera House, Chicago
The First Art Gallery mentioned below
Vol III, no, 4; Page 49.
Art is at present enjoying a season of unusual
popularity. Chicago has great reason to be proud (and she is) of her Art
Gallery, and of her many excellent artists. The Opera House is a temple of
art, devoted to painting, music, and the drama. From ground to roof the rooms
are occupied as ....stores, music teachers' rooms, the Auditorium, the Art
Gallery, the Academy of Design, and numerous artists' studios. The Art Gallery
contains one of the finest collections of paintings to be found in America,
and as new attractions are being daily added, it affords a never-failing
source of enjoyment and improvement to those who are so wise as to avail
themselves of its advantages, as every resident should. No visitor to our
city can afford to miss an opportunity to view this exhibition, which comprises
many works from our best home and foreign artists.
But the interest does not all centre in the gallery,
for the studios are occupied by some of our best artists. The first of these
which we will notice is that of D.F. Bigelow, Esq. The works of this gentleman
are attracting much attention of late, and they reveal many signs of real
genius. Born and reared in Northern New York, and possessing from earliest
childhood a passionate love for the beauties of nature, he early became fascinated
with the charming scenery of this romantic and picturesque region, a feeling
which has grown upon him with years, and led him to spend many summers of
his later life in making of these scenes, a close and thorough study. His
landscape paintings are nearly all from sketches taken during these seasons
of seclusion among the Adirondack mountains and about Lake Champlain, and
are remarkable for their truthfulness and fidelity to nature’s realities.
His life has been the old story over, of a longing
passion in youth, not appreciated or encouraged by his parents, who could
see nothing practical in it; a gradual toiling onward and upward in the face
of many obstacles, crowned at last with a degree of success such as can only
be reached through years of patient labor, and such as no man deserves who
is not willing to strive zealously and persistently for it.
His early opportunities in learning picture art,
were the most meager kind possible. He now exhibits, with commendable pride,
a little picture, about two by three inches, in a coarse gilt frame, which
was his first inspiration. A very clumsy attempt at water coloring, such
as a child might paint from a copy, it was the only colored picture in the
house, and he remembers how he often climbed upon the table to look at and
admire it.
Nature spread some of her grandest pictures before
him, and he longed to reproduce them; but he had few helps to guide his youthful
efforts. Yet he early learned to draw pencil sketches, which his parents
showed with pride to visitors, and thought the making of them a very pretty
pastime, but had no notion of encouraging it as a profession. But they finally
yielded, like sensible people, and at the age of eighteen allowed him to
commence the study of painting with an artist by the name of Powers, a relative
of the great sculptor. After this, lacking the pecuniary means to continue
his studies, he took to cutting in marble, a kind of artistic work at which,
without serving any apprenticeship, he soon became very expert, and was sought
for to design and execute many of the best pieces of work which were then
being turned out in that section of the country.
But he had no heart in this, and only pursued it
at intervals until he had laid by a hundred dollars or so, when he would
leave the marble yard to devote himself to the study and practice of painting,
until an empty purse compelled him again to resume his chisel and maul.
At the age of twenty he visited New York City for
the sole purpose of viewing some works of art of real merit, from which he
hoped to gather much valuable instruction. The old cosmopolitan Art Union
was then in the height of its glory, and their rooms contained the productions
of the most eminent living masters, and in almost endless profusion. Such
were their numbers and surpassing excellencies that during the two days which
he staid, he only succeeded in becoming quite bewildered, and returned home
overwhelmed with a sense of his own littleness, and of the rugged height
he had yet to climb before he could make pretensions of being an artist.
Since then, however, his course has been steadily onward. His works now adorn
the parlors of many of our most refined and cultured citizens.
………….-tics are sure to show themselves in his works.
Mr. Bigelow is a strictly honest, conscientious, kind-hearted man, a good
neighbor and genial friend; exceedingly modest, retiring, and unpretending;
always speaking well of his brother artists, giving their works the fullest
credit, and leaving his own to speak for themselves.
These traits of character are all noticeable in
his productions. His paintings are ever characterized by a conscientious
fidelity to nature, a truthful representation of her charms as they are,
with no attempts at sensational glitter or startling effects or gaudy unnatural
colorings.
His delight is to paint nature in her loveliest
moods; but he believes that nature furnishes the highest types of beauty.
In all his works there is manifest an exquisite tenderness, a refined delicacy
of feeling which avoids strength, and while it often fails to captivate the
masses, yet always appeals to the finer, poetic feelings of persons of culture
and correct taste.
Mr. Bigelow indulges no dreams of wealth and splendor;
but desires only to be above the perplexing anxieties of how to obtain the
necessaries of life, that he may give himself up to the charms of his profession.
In this there is more of life to him than money can buy. It is gratifying
to know that we have enough of appreciative taste to sustain such men in
our midst.
Sources:
Howe, Bigelow Family of America pages 477 - 478;
Bigelow Family Genealogy Vol II page 34;
Obituary of Daniel Folger BIGELOW;
The Western Home; Chicago April 1870; Vol 3 p 49;
More information can be found on page 2.
A picture of the house he moved to at 4 years old can be found on Nathan (6) as well.
Modified - 11/02/2005
(c) Copyright 2005 Bigelow Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
Rod Bigelow - Director
rodbigelow@netzero.net
Rod Bigelow (Roger Jon12 BIGELOW)
Box 13 Chazy Lake
Dannemora, N.Y. 12929
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
BACK TO THE BIGELOW SOCIETY PAGE
BACK TO BIGELOW HOME PAGE
