Elliott Gregory

Background

Eliot Gregory, the son of James Gilbert and Eliza (Morgan) Gregory, was born on October 13, 1854 in New York City. He was descended from Ezra Gregory who settled in Connecticut some time in the eighteenth century.

Education

From 1870 to 1872 Gregory attended the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, and the following year he took a special course at Sheffield, at the same time attending the art school. He received no degree, and in 1876 he went to Paris to study under Carolus - Duran.

Career

In 1880 Gregory exhibited a portrait of Longfellow in the Paris Salon, as well as a statue, “Corinne. ” During the eighties he painted portraits of various Americans, including Admiral Baldwin, his uncle by marriage; Mrs. Astor; Ada Rehan; and August Belmont. His portrait of Gen. George W. Cullum was hung at West Point. After 1890 he devoted more of his time to writing than to painting.

The pen-name that Gregory chose is not without significance. He preferred to live in the fashionable world, and he spent most of his time in New York City, Newport, and France.

His paintings and sculpture, though praised at the time when they appeared, were soon forgotten, and his name is not mentioned in most histories of American art. His writing was rather desultory and derives such charm as it has from its suggestion of leisurely culture and intimacy with sophisticated society. He sought to be an arbiter of manners and discussed in his essays such topics as feminine charms, American cooking, the lack of a true social life in this country, the inefficiency of public servants, and the miserable lot of American husbands.

He also wrote occasionally on the arts, treating in a light and personal tone such subjects as the first performance of “Cyrano, ” Madam Calve at home, Tolstoi’s definition of art, and the character of Carolus-Duran.

His essays on France and the French led Jules Claretie to say that he would prefer Gregory to any one else as a literary guide to the curiosities of Paris.

Like Edith Wharton, to whom he dedicated his second book, he hoped for an alliance between the arts and so much of an aristocracy as might be found to exist in the United States.

Achievements

• Gregory was a prominent painter and essayist who wrote for the New York Post a series of essays which he signed “An Idler. ” Some of these essays were collected and published as Worldly Ways & Byways (1898), and a second volume, The Ways of Men, appeared in 1900. He also wrote a comedy, Under the Stars, and further essays by him appeared in various periodicals as late as 1910. In 1911 he was given the Cross of the Legion of Honor in recognition of his writings on French subjects.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

    ( George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871-72) is one of the cla...)

  • Vagabond Rhymes

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • Worldly Ways & Byways

    (Worldly Ways & Byways By Eliot Gregory - American author ...)

  • Worldly Ways and Byways

    (Worldly Ways and Byways is presented here in a high quali...)

  • The Ways of Men

Views

Gregory was, in short, a devotee of the genteel tradition. Always critical of those Americans who expatriated themselves, he felt it his duty to raise the tone of life in this country by correcting American manners and purifying American taste.

Personality

His contributions to that cause were, like the man himself, rather mild and perhaps ineffectual.

Connections

Father:

James Gilbert Gregory

Mother:

Eliza (Morgan) Gregory