Charles Claude Buck, known as Claude Buck (3 July 1890,

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

– 4 August 1974,

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...

) was an American artist.

Early life

Buck’s parents, William Robert Buck and Grace Buck (née Sargeant), were British immigrants who lived in poverty in

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

. His father was a commercial artist, who introduced his son to drawing at the age of four. He quickly showed exceptional talent and the age of eleven was given permission by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

to copy classical Greek works in their collection. At fourteen he became the youngest artist ever to study at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

, where he spent eight years creating work mainly inspired by romantic literature. There he studied still life with

Emil Carlsen Soren Emil Carlsen (October 19, 1848, Copenhagen, Denmark – January 2, 1932, New York City, U.S.) was an American Impressionism, American Impressionist painter who emigrated to the United States from Denmark. He became known for his still lifes ...

, figure drawing with

Francis Coates Jones Francis Coates Jones (July 25, 1857JONES, Francis Coates
in ''

George de Forest Brush George de Forest Brush (September 28, 1855 – April 24, 1941) was an American painter and Georgist. In collaboration with his friend, the artist Abbott H. Thayer, he made contributions to military camouflage, as did his wife, aviator and artist M ...

. At 22 he completed his studies there, after winning eight prizes. He then studied in

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and immediately began exhibiting his work on his return to the United States. To earn money, he also worked as a theatrical scene painter and for the Willet Stained Glass company, and in 1914 he began taking portrait commissions.

Artistic career

In 1917, along with Benjamin Kopman, Abraham Harriton and Jennings Tofel, Buck was one of the co-founders of the Introspectives, a group who created surreal images and believed that “the poetry of a picture means more… than the imitation or even the representation of nature”. Their first exhibition was at the Whitney Studio Gallery in March 1917. There his work was noticed by the

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art dealer J.W. Young, who bought five of his paintings. After they sold quickly, Young invited Buck and his colleagues to mount their own show in Chicago in March 1918. Meanwhile the Introspectives had also exhibited their work at the Knoedler Galleries. The interest in their work in the Midwest prompted several of these young New York artists to move to Chicago, as Buck did in 1919, along with Benjamin Kopman and Felix Russmann. In April 1920 Buck was given a solo exhibition at the W. Scott Thurber Gallery Despite this success, the brochure for a 1929 exhibition in

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, while acknowledging that Buck was “one of the most promising figures on the horizon of the American Artists’ World”, conceded that his paintings, “influenced by such writers as

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

and

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

…

ere Ere or ERE may refer to: * ''Environmental and Resource Economics'', a peer-reviewed academic journal * ERE Informatique, one of the first French video game companies * Ere language, an Austronesian language * Ebi Ere (born 1981), American-Nigeria ...

ultra-mystic and not acceptable to the average picture buyer.” During his time living in Chicago, Buck also had a studio in

Midlothian, Illinois Midlothian () is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a southwestern suburb of Chicago. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 14,325. History Like many southwest suburbs of Chicago in the 180 ...

. He won the 1929 John C. Schaffer Prize for portraiture, and exhibited two paintings in the 34th annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity in 1930. Later in his career, he rejected the themes and styles of his earlier work and joined the

Society for Sanity in Art The Society for Sanity in Art was an organization of American artists strongly opposed all forms of modern art, including cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. The group changed its name in January 1947 to the Society of Western Artists. ...

, committed to straightforward, representational painting and dedicated “to help rid our museums of modernistic, moronic grotesqueries that were masquerading as art.” In 1932 he won the Mr and Mrs Frank G. Logan Art Institute Prize for his work ''Girl Reading'', and an image of this painting later appeared on the cover of the Society for Sanity in Art’s first exhibition catalogue. He continued to reject modern art all his life, and accused some of his peers who worked in abstract styles of being communists. Buck’s work can be found in the collections of any institutions across the United States, including the Santa Cruz Public Library, the Santa Cruz City Museum, the

Spencer Museum of Art The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. History In 1917, the Kansas City art collector Sallie Casey Thayer donated her collection of over seven thousand works of art, ...

, the

Brigham Young University Museum of Art The Brigham Young University Museum of Art, located in Provo, Utah, United States is the university's primary art museum and is one of the best attended university-campus art museums in the United States. The museum, which had been discussed fo ...

, and the Museum of

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Buck continued to exhibit and win prizes into the 1930s in Illinois, and into the 1950s in California.

Personal life

Shortly before moving to Chicago, Buck married his first wife Estrid Terkelsen, a concert singer and pianist, whom he divorced in 1934. They had twins in 1921, a son Robert Byron Buck and a daughter, Juel Buck Krisvoy-Schiller. In 1930 Buck took on a young art student, Leslie Binner, whom he married in 1934 soon after divorcing his first wife. In 1949, the couple moved to moved to a studio-home on Bean Creek, close to

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, where they lived for ten years before settling in Santa Barbara in 1959 to be closer to Buck's children and to improve his health. While in Santa Barbara he was a member of the Carmel Art Association and the Santa Barbara Art Association, and served as president of the Santa Cruz Art League in 1953. Buck had asked that no news of his son’s death be shared with him, so when Robert died in 1971, Juel kept it a secret from him for the remainder of his life.

References

External links

Works by Buck in the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Works by Buck in the Oakland Museum of California Collections
{{Authority control 1890 births 1974 deaths Artists from the Bronx National Academy of Design alumni 20th-century American male artists 20th-century American painters