Background
Ernest Haskell was born on June 30, 1876 in Woodstock, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of Besture Haskell and Caledonia Raines, a member of a family of Norman-French nobility.
Ernest Haskell was born on June 30, 1876 in Woodstock, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of Besture Haskell and Caledonia Raines, a member of a family of Norman-French nobility.
Haskell's artistic career began very early when the editor of the New York Mail and Express recognized talent in some of his idle "scratchings" and published them. The delighted boy decided at once to become an artist and later obtained a position in the art department of the New York American. In 1897 he went to Paris, studied in the galleries, took a studio, and produced a series of clever monotypes, one of them being hung in the Salon de Mars. These monotypes, some of them in pastel, were skilfully executed and evinced a sound knowledge of the technique involved in this form of reproduction.
Haskell returned to New York in 1898, making some successful caricatures and theatrical posters at a time when newspapers, magazines, and books were using them extensively for advertising. Among his posters were several of Minnie Maddern Fiske, which Weitenkampf says "attacted attention by their very reticence, by the simplicity of means used, crayoned with an almost pertly incisive characterization. "
He was unusually versatile. He worked delicately with crayon, making some notable drawings from nature; his silverpoints were of Whistler-like lightness, and he was also a successful painter. One of his best-known portraits is that of Joan and "Jock" Whitney, daughter and son of Mr. and Mrs. Payne Whitney. Among his lithographs is one of Maude Adams as Juliet. In 1899 he had an exhibition at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
In 1900 Haskell returned to Paris. He worked alone for two years, studying the work of Rembrandt, Durer, and Leonardo - an intensive study which he carried on during his entire life. Despite the variety of his work, he is perhaps best known as an etcher, and his prints are highly prized by collectors.
During World War I Haskell served in the Camouflage Unit and developed camouflage painting for the United States Army.
An exhibition of his drawings, prints, silverpoints, and monotypes was held in New York in 1911 and at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1916. A series of etchings and drypoints of trees and landscape subjects, inspired by a trip to California and Florida, were also exhibited in New York. He made a set of fifty watercolors in California, and in Maine a lovely series showing picturesque woods and country towns.
He was killed in an automobile accident near Bath, Maine, as he was on his way to his summer home from New York, where he had gone to arrange for a winter exhibition of his paintings. A memorial exhibition selected from his works was held in 1926 at the Macbeth Gallery, New York, when notable tributes were paid to him as a man and an artist by Childe Hassam, John Marin, Royal Cortissoz and many others.
Ernest Haskell was an internationally famous artist and illustrator in his lifetime, and remembered for his etchings, engravings, pen-and-ink drawings, lithographs and watercolors. He was a pioneer in the field of theatrical posters, and created many portraits and caricatures of luminaries of the day. He was also one of the artists who developed camouflage painting for the United States Army to disguise battleships and to use on soldiers' uniforms.
Haskell was a member of the Player's Club on Gramercy Park in Manhattan.
Although Haskell was an eager experimenter, he was an artist of rare taste, delicacy of feeling, and fine appreciation.
Haskell's first wife was Elizabeth Louise Foley; they had two children - Hildegarde and Eben. His first wife contracted influenza in the 1918 flu pandemic and died in New York City. His second wife, whom he married on June 5, 1920, was Emma Loveland Laumeister.
