Edwin Davis French

Background

Edwin Davis French was born on January 19, 1851, and was the son of Ebenezer French, a carpenter of North Attleboro, Massachusetts, and his wife Ann Maria Norton.

Education

After preliminary schooling near his home and at the Connecticut Literary Institute of Suffield, French entered Brown University in 1866 but was forced by ill health to leave in his sophomore year. Two years later he entered the service of W. D. Whiting as a silver engraver in the Whiting Manufacturing Company of North Attleboro.

During his early years in New York, he studied at home, compiling scrapbooks of design and engraving. Flis formal training did not begin until 1883 when he entered the evening class of the Art Students’ League as a student of William Sartain and later of George de Forest Brush and F. Edwin Elwell.

Career

French accompanied the firm to New York City in 1876 and was given charge of the engraving department, serving in that capacity until 1894, with the exception of the years from 1881 to 1883 when he was in North Attleboro as a designer for F. M. Whiting.

Although almost twenty-five years of his life were devoted to silver engraving in the Whiting Company, French’s interest in graphic art, which in his childhood had prompted elaborate woodshed exhibitions, persisted through his long industrial career, and at length induced him to desert silver for copper engraving.

He fell into book-plate engraving almost by accident. His initial attempt was inscribed “u sepe ars so ap” and was inserted in an authentic collection as a practical joke. It printed so well that he cut others, some of which were shown at the 1893-94 exhibition of the Architectural League of New York, with the result that he was soon obliged to resign from the Whiting Company to satisfy the demand for his plates.

Of the approximately three hundred book-plates he engraved in the remaining twelve years of his life, many were designed for private libraries, but some of the most impressive were those cut for societies and institutions. These included ex-libris for the Colonial Dames, 1894, the Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1895, the Candidate and the Princeton Library, 1897, and the Hohenzollern Collection of the Harvard College Library, 1904.

He carried out various other commissions for designs and engravings, of which the most notable were the title-page for Andre’s Journal, published in 1903 by the Bibliophile Society, and twelve views of New York City published severally by the Society of Iconophiles of the City of New York from February 1895 to March 1897.

He was for five years on the board of control, as treasurer in 1887 and as president from 1889 to 1891. He removed to Saranac Lake in 1897, where, with the exception of a trip to the South in 1899 and another to Europe in 1905-06, he remained until his death.

Achievements

• Edwin Davis French produced at least 330 engravings beginning in 1893. His engraving was notable for its dignity of design and its meticulous workmanship. His preoccupation with the decorative element of his plates, and his use of formal and simplified baroque, as well as his technical skill, were probably the result of his long apprenticeship as a silver engraver. Excepting his realistic cuts, which were accurate but uninteresting, his work was uniformly distinguished and often striking. In his most successful plates, he preserved the best traditions of line engraving, and was, at the time of his death, an acknowledged master of his craft.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Catalogue of the engravings issued by the Society of Iconophiles of the city of New York, 1894-1908

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • List of Book-Plates Engraved on Copper (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from List of Book-Plates Engraved on Copper Subs...)

Membership

In 1885, French was elected to membership in the Art Students’ League.

Interests

• French was interested in languages, particularly Volapiik and Esperanto, in which he wrote for publication, corresponded actively, and made translations.

Connections

French had married Mary Olivia Brainerd of Enfield, Connecticut, on November 18, 1873.

Father:

Ebenezer French

Mother:

Ann Maria Norton

Wife:

Mary Olivia Brainerd

References

• Edwin Davis French, 1851-1906: A Catalogue of an Exhibition of His Engraved Work, Together with Original Designs by Him, Held at the Grolier Club ... New York, April the 16Th to May the 8Th, 1909
• Edwin Davis French: A Memorial
• Edwin Davis French; a memorial; his life, his art