Gallery of Fencing Portraits
Item
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Title
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Gallery of Fencing Portraits
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Date
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February 1942
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volume
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7
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issue
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1
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page start
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12
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page end
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12
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content
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en
GALLERY OF FENCING PORTRAITS
FENCERS have become used to being asked to exhibit before this or that group to spread interest in the sport. When an artist approaches some score of fencers and asks them to pose for their portraits in oil with the idea that these fencing portraits be exhibited at one of the salles d’armes, that is news.
Early in December Dr. Gil Parche conceived the idea of preparing a private collection of oil portraits of the leading American fencers. He had been a fencer himself while an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh and had always retained an interest in the sport and the men who participated in it. His idea of preparing such a group of portraits was, therefore, related to both his profession and his sports interest. The idea was expanded as he found the fencers entirely cooperative. More than fifteen of these already have sat for him in his penthouse studio on East 32nd Street. The exhibition will be opened with a banquet and private showing on March 10th. The paintings will remain on exhibition throughout the month of March at the Salle d’Armes Santelli.
Dr. Parche has already painted portraits of Dr. Graeme M. Hammond, John R. Huffman, Norman C. Armitage, Enrique A. Berumen, George Breed, the late Lieut. George C. Calnan, U.S.N., Jose R. de Capriles, Miguel A. de Capriles, Dernell Every, Tracy Jaeckel, Pieter Mijer, Helena Mroczkowska, Nickolas Muray, Rene Pinchart, William Price, George Santelli, Joseph Smith, Dorothy B. Locke, F. Barnard O’Connor, and Julio Castello. Other portraits still to be completed for inclusion later in the showing are of James Murray, Col. Samuel T. Shaw, Capt. Gustave M. Heiss, U.S.A., Joseph L. Levis and Marion L. Vince.
The collection is already impressive and is being looked upon as a Fencers Hall of Fame. Dr. Parche is also planning many additions for future years. He hopes to add to the collection as new and promising fencers are developed. He wishes to round out the collection with a fuller set of the contemporary figures in the sport. As out-of-town fencers come to New York, Dr. Parche hopes that they will sit for him and make the collection representative of the entire country.
Perhaps one of the most unusual features of the exhibition is that no picture is to be offered for sale. No fencer has assumed any obligation except to sit for the artist during the painting. If Dr. Parche continues his project, and he does not appear to be a man of short enthusiasm, his future requests for sitting may well be accepted as a mark of fencing honor that cannot well be overlooked.
Through the energy and conception of one man, fencing will soon gain the distinction of being the only sport in the world that has had a portrait collection made up exclusively of its amateur and professional leaders. Prominent people in the sport have agreed to lend their names to the showing as sponsors. Here too the same spirit of cooperation has been evident throughout. The private showing of March 10th will be under the sponsorship of such lovers of the sport as: the Hon. Henry C. Breckinridge, Frederick R. Coudert, Sr., Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Dr. Graeme M. Hammond, Capt. Gustave M. Heiss, U.S.A., Leo G. Nunes, Mrs. Robert Low Pierrepont, George Santelli, Col. Samuel T. Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Van Buskirk, Mrs. Charles Voorhees, Mrs. Junius Spencer Morgan, and Lieut. Col. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, U.S.M.C. Ret.
The growing enthusiasm for the exhibition already promises an unusual treat for the fencers this coming month. The idea itself, its scope, the quality of its sitters, and excellence of its sponsors promises success in advance. Artists, critics and sportsmen will be attracted to this exhibition, the first of its kind ever to be given.
