The San Francisco call. [volume], March 09, 1913, Image 8

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
BOB CHANLERS CREEPY ART
Startling Paintings
Drawn in His Pri
vate New York
Menagerie Sur
rounded by Howl
ing Animals and
Strange Monsters.
Henry Tyrrell
ROBERT WINTHROPi
C H A NLER valiantly
throws his hat into the New j
York ring as decorative
Artist and craftsman by ex
hibiting at the International
Show come of the large,
weird panels and ecreens
which he has been execu
ting on commission for
great New York haste lriea
like the Vanderbilt, and for
the town and country
houses of Mra. (Harry
Payne Whitney, Mrs. Payne i
Whitney and other advanced
appreciators of the bizarre
and the outre in the essen
tially modern artist of
-BlieTiff Bob."
Paris has long since given
official and complimentary
recognition to these Chan
lerian things—notably the
big "Battle Under the Sea, ,
■which received honorable
mention at the Salon of
1912.
"Giraffes in tne jungie
had adventitious celebrity
•ac one of the artist's
gifts to Lina Cavalieri when
6he became his bride, but which re-'
verted to "Bob" after the divorce.
Pouf! that is but a trivial incident.
The really massive, gorgeous and be
wilderingly fanciful art work at which
Mr. Chanler has busied himself during
the past decade or so is more striking
on its own original merits than any
accidental notoriety could make it
If anybody ever thought the Chanler
studio a joke such an idea must now
be discarded, U only for the reason
that its output is in eager demand for
the mansions of upper Fifth avenue—
and, its creator tells with proper
pride, "at mighty good prices, too."
"I've been doing these things for
Porcupine Screen.
years," exclaims the big, bearded,
spectacled enthusiast, who has the
head of Benvenuto Cellini on the
shoulders of Bob Fitzsimmons, as he
stalks restlessly about a wondrous
studio lined with vast cartoons and
sketches, startling painted panels and
Japanese screens in gold, silver, crim
son and aluminum lacquer work, and
piled up with American Indian troph
ies and antique furniture littered with
costly books and prints, serving as
perches for Brazilian macaws and
chama thrushes from India, among
which Mr. Chanler's pet bulldog gam
bols at will.
"Why is it you fellows can't look at
my paintings for what they are and
cut out tlie sensational stuff 7" he con
tinued in a good-natured growl as he
glared upon the dazed and speechless
visitor. "Can't you see they are orig
inal decorative designs without their
having a Paris Salon 'mention honora
ble , tacked on? Have I got to give
a reason for everything I do, as if I
were a banker under investigation?
Why shouldn't I take birds and ani
mals and sea monsters, as well as hu
man people, for spots of color in my
compositions if I want to? Don't you
know that in Parie they have a so
ciety called 'Les Artistes Animaliers
Francais,' including all the painters,
sculptors, designers, illustrators, &c,
whose models are especially animais?
Screen for Henry Clews jr.
A Visit to Mr.
Chanler's Re
markable Studio
House Is the Sen
sation of a Life
Time.
In Paris an artist Is ac
cepted for what he is,
as a matter of course,
and not looked to for
freaks and sensations.
But, as I have said be
fore, I have no time to
be bothered with fool
questions and idle curi
osity. Here is my stuff
—I'm going to exhibit
come of my latest char
acteristic things—let the
public make what they
can, or will, of it. If
you're interested in my
methods of work come
along and we'll run
through the place."
A personally conduct
ed "run through" Mr.
Chanler's studio - house
in Eist Nineteenth street.
New York, is the sensa
tion of a lifetime. It is
something like a movfng
picture film of the "Tales
of Hoffman" and Jules
Verne's "Around the
world in Eighty Days"
jumbled up with "Twenty
Thousand Leagues Un
der the Sea."
Only such a place as
this — bachelor living
apartments, atelier and
zoo combined —could ful
ly explain the man and
his ait.
The exterior of the building ifeelf
prepares you for something out of the
common. It is one of a row of tile
roofed, green-and-white stuccoed
fronts with Moorish tiles and entab
latures imbedded in them and quaint
sculptured figures guarding narrow,
mysterious doorways lit with green
lanthorns on wrought iron brackets.
Mr. Chanler lives next door to Don
Quixote of La Mancha, whose devices
and inscription fit well in the out-of
th«-world aspect of the whole neigh
borhood.
Japanese valets, Swedish, housemaids
and queer animal tamers from the far
corners of the globe complete the 11
--llusion of Never-Nqver Land.
Dining-room for Mrs. Payne Whitney.
Steer carefully through this base
ment eubway littered with electri
cians' outfits, a miniature pool table,
bird cage 3, Sioux papoose cradles, war
bonnets and other miscellaneous junk,
toward where you see the silhouette
of a huge, black eplder monkey swlng
ing by his tall from a metal trapeze
and waving a purple duster clutched
i$- one hand, in a huge caige against
a submarine background of greenish
opaque glass.
This is Mr. Chanler's menagerie and
aquarium annex. It Is—or was —in
charge of Dan Rice, late of Bostock's,
and a son of the original Dan of circus
fame. Dan loves«animals and can talk
with the "monks" in their own lan
guage.
The monkey cage has a group of
simians, Including some of the rarest
species in captivity—mangabees, ring
tails, slotihs and the like—all alive and
active and wildly decorative. Adjoin
ing there is the aviary, where talkative
English ravens as large as buzzards
live unhappily with toucans —medium-
sized tropical birds with enormous
crimson beaks like giant lobster claws.
The unarbltrated disputes of these
strangely assorted birds have left the
toucans champions, while the ravens
mope silent and crestfallen.
The aquatic models are gold fish,
angel fish, devil fish, seahorses, eels,
frogs, turtles amd horseshoe crabs,
swimming about in a good-size pool
that is convenient for herons and
flamingoes to pose along Its margin
and for the unwary visitor to fall into.
"Give us that moonlight effect, Her
mann," shouts Dan Rice to the elec
trician somewthere In the subterranean
depths.
Through the vine-covered glass roof
falls a silvery#effulgence like to that
of the rising moon, flooding the place
with eerie, crepuscular light, and you
fancy you can hear the whippoorwills
calling in the distance.
"Now the sunrise!"
A thousand-candle radiance bursts
through, roseate and crimson now, and
the illusion is so perfect that the
tropical actually begin to squawk
and chatter.
"That's the wildcat in yon dark
corner." Keeper Rice tells v*> and
then adds apologetically, "The seven
teen-foot python ain't come yet, but
we're all ready for iiim. And then
there's the rattlesnakes and the gila
monsters from Arizona"
"And do you paint these things di
rect from life, Mr. Ohanler?"
"Of course I do —how else would I
get them in my pictures the way they
are? I like best to sketch them free
hand, but when I have an order to
fill In a certain time I have to make
a careful cartoon from detail studies
and leave notihing to chance. Now
come upstairs to the working studio
and see if you recognize any of these
models in my exhibition pictures."
The studio —or rather workshop—is
on the top flocr. On the way up eteep,
winding stairs we pause in Mr. Chan
ter's own library den —and* a woozy
place it is, sure enough. Booksihelves
are filled with costly illustrated
works on natural history—"lnsects,"
"Fauves," "Audubon's Birds of Amer
ica," and a hundred other standard
sets. Plaster portrait busts, Navajo
pottery and blankets and old-world
art treasures abound. Philip Burne-
Jones's "Vampire," with Kipling's
verses, hangs framed on tlhe wall, to
gether with rumerous autograph
sketches from artist friends. And here,
as everywhere else throughout the
house, parrots, macaws, singing birds,
cats and dogs, peer out from cages,
perches and unexpected nooks.
iThe window panes appear to be
swarming with dragon flies, humming
birds, beetles and all sorts of curious
Insects. Look again and you will dis
cover that these are just painted on
glass, hundreds and hundreds of
them, in fantastic decorative swarms.
Another flight up, through the door
marked "R. W. Chan'er's Studio—NO
ADMITTANCE," and the first little
novelty that catches your eye is a
bleached human skeleton dangling
from the high, cavernous ceiling. This
also serves tlhe artist frequently as a
model, and in his big swamp scene on
six wooden panels you may note a very
"life-like" (?) representation of its
bony superstructure.
"What is the motif of this cozy
everglade panorama with the 'naky
vine pattern populated with birds and
beasts of the forests?" Mr. Chanler is
asked as his man sets up the sections
of ten-foot screens and ceiling-high
panels.
"Oh, I call that 'Henry Clews jr., or
the Dreamer's Solitude.' It's a sort of
allegorical conception of my friend
Clews, don't you see—not in portrait
form, but a psychological representa
tion of his mental and artistic envir
onment. Those cranes and pelicans
are the bourgeoisie, staring stolidly in
presence of the artist's spirit, which
they can neither see nor understand."
One of Mr. Chanler's completed ex
hibition pictures is an African jungle
with serpents, gorillas and others
heavily painted in a sombre color
scheme, while tttie wide open mquth
of a hippopotamus furnishes a bright
splotch of red In the foreground.
A large unfinished canvas in Mr.
Back from "The Tournament.*!
Chanler'3 own peculiar medium of
geld, silver and aluminum paint snows
a baud of Indian warrior 3on horse
back. There Is some stunning draw
ing and really dramatic composition
here —for "Bob" hae spent ft good deal
of time in the far West recently and
is especially fond of horses and savaga
Redskins.
"The Tournament' and mediaeval
court scenes, for Mrs. Harry Payne
Whitney's house at Wheatley Hills, I*.
1.," he continues, "are perhaps the
most elaborate work I have done in
the line of pure decoration and crafts
manship.
"These panels for Mrs. Whitney "s
bedroom are what you call semi-
Gothic in style and tiheir general ef
fect resembles that of seventeenth
century Savonnerie tapestries, such as
you see in the" old French chateaux.
But they are, of course, in a totally
different medium—an invention of my
own, though witlh some practical hints
from the late Stanford White. I buiM
up my canvas with loads of blacli
paint, upon which I emboss my de
sign in accurate detail and then paint
in the high reliefs with a pigment
composed of aluminum, gold and sil
ver and Chinese white."
Mr. Chanler is obviously in sympa
thy with the modern art movement,
but he draws the line at some of its
extreme developments, such as that of
the cubists.
"Those fellows are in earnest —some
of them," he declares, "but It is the
self-delusive earnestness of the neu
rasthenic."