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Clifford Isaac Addams
Caprice, or House on Cliff Walk, Newport, Rhode Island

1931/32

About the Item

House on Cliff Walk, Newport, Rhode Island or Caprice, Newport, Rhode Island.. 1931/33. Etching. Hausberg catalog 138 state ii. 5 15/16 x 8 (sheet 7 7/8 x 9 5/8). A rich impression with plate tone, printed on cream wove paper. Unsigned. Housed in an archival 16 x 20--inch mat, suitable for framing. Addams was born near Philadelphia, and s tudied art first in the United States before leaving for continued studies in Europe. He is known to have both visited and worked in Belgium, Holland, Spain, France, Italy and, most particularly, England. He studied with Whistler in Paris in 1899. There he met, and later married, another Whistler student, Inez Eleanor Bate. Clifford Addams first exhibited his art in Paris, in 1901, and in London, in 1904. Whistler remained friendly with the couple until his death. She remained in London, and Addams settled in New York after World War I. He exhibited in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. He was also a full member of the Chicago Society of Etchers, the Philadelphia Society of Etchers and the Society of American Etchers. Later he became president of the Philadelphia Society of Etchers .s Adams, in fact, maintained working studios in both London and New York City throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century. Born into a Quaker family near Philadelphia, he first studied architecture and then won the prestigious Cresson Traveling scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at age 23 in 1899. Going to Paris to study painting, Addams quickly came under the spell of Whistler, enrolling at the mater’s atelier, The Academie Carmen, and soon after marrying a talented artist, Inez Bates, who taught at the Academie Carmen and then took over the running of the school until its early demise in 1901. Both Addams and his wife were pledged apprentices to Whistler: husband and wife were exceedingly close to Whistler in his last years. Their first child, Dianne, became Whistler’s goddaughter. Whistler’s influence on Addams was immediate and profound as he wrote to his parents: “I have been able to comprehend sufficiently enough, to tell you that [Whistler’s] system or craft has a depth and beauty undreamed of by me, and which I believe, once mastered, would be considered a way of working of the old Masters.” Most of Clifford Addams's fine etchings and engravings were created between 1901 and 1925. Many depict street scenes in and around London. Addams appears to have printed most of his art himself and mainly in very small editions. The largest recorded edition is 75 impressions, while others were often printed in impressions of ten or less. His art is included in such major collections as the Art Institute of Chicago, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
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