Background
Charles Caryl Coleman was born on April 25, 1840, in Buffalo, New York, United States. He was the son of John Hull and Charlotte Augusta Coleman.
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Charles Caryl Coleman
Edit ProfileEducation
Coleman early evinced talent as an artist and began his study with William H. Beard, who had a studio in Buffalo. When he was nineteen years old, he went abroad for further study in Paris, but returned to America after three years.
Career
During the Civil War Coleman served in the Union. He was badly wounded and suffered intensely, but he returned to Europe in 1866 and worked in Paris and Rome with William Hunt and Elihu Vedder, the latter a close friend. They made a trip together into Brittany stopping first at Dinan and at Vitre on their way back to Paris. Although Paris had become the favorite place for study for young Americans, Eugene Benson, Vedder, and Coleman found charm in the classic dignity of Rome. Here Coleman lived with George Simmonds, occupying the Keats apartment which has now become shrine, sacred to the two poets Shelley and Keats.
Though keeping his apartment in Rome, Coleman made his home finally on the Island of Capri. Vedder lived near by, each choosing for his home an old villa snuggled against steep hills, with terraces vine-clad, orange trees on the slopes, wide windows that swept the Bay, where to “see Naples and die, means to live in God’s Paradise. ” Coleman was particularly interested in Vesuvius. Whenever the old volcano burst forth, he was ready with canvas and brush to record the various atmospheric effects and changes made by the volcano on the clouds and the surface of the Bay of Naples. One of his paintings on this subject “Vesuvius from Pompeii” is in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
One of his earliest pictures was a study of Vedder in Coleman’s studio. He painted a portrait of Walter Savage Landor, through the influence of Kate Field. Elihu Vedder in his Digressions, told many interesting stories of sketching with him. On one occasion at Bordighera, Coleman had put a “chalk mark” on some particularly attractive view. They apparently respected each other’s “chalk marks, ” but when he began his sketch Vedder sat down behind him to paint the same scene. Vedder said: “I made one of my best sketches and had finished it before Coleman had hardly begun to draw his in. Whereupon Coleman was enraged, shut up his box and left, but he claimed my picture as his own, since he had discovered the place. ”
His work, not only in oil but in water-color and pastel, covers a wide range of subjects. Portraits and figure pieces occupied him in the early part of his career; later, landscapes and architectural subjects. He also painted flowers very successfully, understanding color and mass arrangement. One of his most charming paintings, bought by the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, is a moonlight view of the village of Capri.
Soon after his death the Brooklyn Museum gave a special memorial exhibition of his work for which they assembled a large collection. His funeral at Capri, where he died in his villa “Narcissus, ” was attended by the public officials and the American colony at Capri.
Achievements
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Charles Caryl Coleman became famous for his religious pictures and picturesque views throughout Italy. His picture of the last great eruption of Vesuvius which continued for several days was a historical record of real value. It is owned by the Brooklyn Museum. He received a Bronze Medal at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, and the Silver Medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901.
Membership
Coleman was an associate of the National Academy of Design, New York, a member of the National Arts Club and the Players, New York, and an associate member of the Newspaper Artists Association.
Connections
In 1875, Coleman married Mary Edith Grey Alsager.
