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Frederick Melville DuMond (July 16, 1867 - May 24, 1927) was an American fine-art painter trained in Paris who worked in a range of themes and styles popular in his time and seen as both traditional and modern. He also found applications for his art career in illustration, tourism advertising, and entrepreneurial projects. He is known especially for works painted in the American Southwest and California between 1910 and 1924.

Quick Facts

Early life, education, and family

Frederick Melville DuMond, born July 16, 1867, in Rochester, New York, was the younger of two sons of Alonzo DuMond, a manufacturer of sheet metal architectural cornices. Frank Vincent DuMond, his older brother, was also a painter. Frederick Melville DuMond began his formal art studies at twenty-one, attending the Académie Julian in Paris along with his older brother, accompanied for the first year by their mother, who kept house in Paris for them. Later, he attended the Beaux-Arts de Paris. He had works shown in many Paris Salons, winning some prizes. He and his first wife, Louise Adele Kerr DuMond—also a painter whom he met at the Académie Julian and who died in her twentieth year—had a son, Jesse William DuMond (1892–1976), who went on to have a distinguished career in physics.Camille DuMond (1900–1986), a daughter by a second wife, Clémentine Theulier DuMond, lived with the artist until his death and was also a painter.

Career

Relocating from France to the United States in 1908, DuMond lived and worked in New York City but struggled to make sufficient income from his art. While there he converted to Christian Science. To extend his career, the artist undertook a series of painting trips in the American Southwest during summers between 1910-1914. This period of creativity found special recognition in a show of 34 paintings at the American Museum of Natural History in 1912. By 1910 DuMond had relocated to Monrovia, California, later building an artist's home there that he called Le Château des Rêves, recently restored by its present owners. He painted there and in other Western locations until 1924. During two extended periods between 1924 and 1926, he again painted in France and Italy.

Works

Academic training and the Genre Feroce, 1889-1908

Under the influence of his academy training and seeking his own special emphases, DuMond painted typically quite large canvases featuring historical/dramatic subjects of considerable action or even violence: Roman amphitheater scenes of animals in combat or animals attacking people. These were attributed to a small movement, the Genre Feroce, so identified by contemporary art critic Sadakichi Hartmann. His Legend of the Desert (1894); Los Angeles Country Museum of Art) features a biblical theme in a symbolist style and was displayed at the celebrated 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Southwestern paintings, 1910-1924

DuMond is best known for his work of this period, in part due to his own extensive efforts to promote the 1912 show of 34 of his paintings at the American Museum of Natural History. He gave a number of interviews that appeared in newspapers and magazines, one written by noted journalist and aviator Harriet Quimby. He kept a diary of his first southwestern trip and recorded somewhat fictionalized accounts of his painting adventures in two manuscript drafts, one including a tale of lost treasure. A painting trip to the White House Ruin was funded by Lorenzo Hubbell. These accounts formed the basis for a True West Magazine article published after his death. One painting looks out from inside the Mesa Verde cliff dwelling ruins, where the artist camped for a few nights. His painting Sunrise at Walpi (1911) recorded a visit to a still-occupied site.

Frederick Melville DuMond worked in a number of popular art styles, sometimes quoting from others' works—notably, his academy teacher Fernand Corman and American painter William Merritt Chase. He was modern in applying aspects from the decorative arts, especially from muralists, emphasizing design and pattern. While accurate to geology and archeology, his landscapes especially of mountains and native ruins heightened dramatic effects to convey grandeur and spiritual impact. His Grand Canyon paintings were notable for these tendencies.

Book illustrations and entrepreneurial projects

While the artist made his living from sales of his art, he also undertook various projects to make money. Typical of artists of the time, he sold many illustrations to magazines and for published books. In work for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway and other enterprises, he engaged in tourism promotion, evoking themes of scientific and archeological exploration and celebration of the vanishing west. He became a founding member of the art colony at Laguna Beach, California, receiving a prime lot at Arch Beach Heights in exchange for four paintings that the promoters used for billboards. DuMond assisted his brother Frank Vincent DuMond in some art projects, notably the illustrations to Mark Twain's 1896 novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, in co-teaching and co-directing summer schools for young American artists, and in painting especially the animals for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition murals. The artist proposed to do a panorama of the Grand Canyon and to build a hotel in the Los Angeles hills modeled on ancient Indian ruins.

Last years

In late 1924 and early 1925, seeking new inspiration after his years in the American West, Frederick Melville DuMond decided to relocate to France or Italy. He obtained a studio in Florence, Italy, and Camille undertook singing lessons there. They returned to California upon news of his mother's illness in May, 1925, but her condition improved and they were able to return to Europe. Early in 1926 the artist again returned to California, learning that his mother was seriously ill. She died in May, and the artist remained to settle her affairs. Unexpectedly, on May 24, 1927, just short of his sixtieth birthday, Frederick Melville DuMond himself died. The Paris Salon had just hung his late work, The Dawn, and his son Jesse attached a memorial wreath to it there.

Collections and exhibitions

DuMond's work is in the permanent collections of the following institutions:

• Langson Institute and Museum of California Art
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Hubbell Trading Post National Monument, Arizona
• Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad

DuMond's exhibitions include:

• Paris Salons, twenty-one works between 1889 and 1908; one work in 1927
• Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 — Legend of the Desert (gold medal)
• Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1894, 1900, 1901
• Wanamaker's Store, Philadelphia, 1894
• Blanchard Gallery, Los Angeles, June-July, 1907, and May-June, 1908
• American Museum of Natural History, March 9-23, 1912 — 34 works painted in the southwest, hung in the West assembly room)
• Santa Fe Railroad, Spring Street Office Gallery, Los Angeles, 1909 and 1910
• Portland Art Association and the Museum of History, Science, and Art, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, 1914-1915 — Paintings by artists who had contributed to the murals at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, including ten works by F. M. DuMond.

Sources

• Archives of letters, paintings, sketches, personal writings, scrapbooks, proof sheets, contemporary news and magazine articles owned by descendants of the artist and communications with past and current owners of the artist's work; see reference 2.
• Paintings in permanent collections and owned by individuals.
• Communications with the Langson Institute and Museum of California Art; Los Angeles Country Museum of Art; Hubbell Trading Post National Monument; and Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad.

References

1. Listed in Lois Marie Fink, American Art in the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons (Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art/Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1990), pp. 339-340; and see reference 3, p. 141.
2. "DuMond…, Frederick Melville." The National Cyclopedia of American Biography 27 (1939), p. 58; [https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2299619W/'Publications_in_Southern_California_Art_1_2_3 Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, Southern California Art: Publications in Southern California Art 1, 2, & 3; League of American Artists (Paris), June 1905; among others.
3. Richard Panofsky, Art and Ambition, 1887-1927: Frederick Melville DuMond, An American Painter of his Time (Lulu, 2010), Amazon 0557625807.
4. For example, Harriet Quimby, "Land and Homes of the Ancient Cliff Dwellers: Reproductions of Notable Pictures Painted by F. Melville DuMond, the Only Artist Who Has Put These Curious Scenes on Canvas," Leslie’s Magazine, July 11, 1912; Flynn Wayne, "Distinctive American Art," The National Magazine, XXXIX, October 1913-March 1914 (Boston: Chapple Publ. Co.), pp. 851-852; and show catalogue in reference 3, p. 68.
5. Monrovia Legacy Project, Documents Record, "270 Norumbega Dr."
6. Sadakichi Hartmann, A History of American Art (1901), pp. 192-3
7. Kurtz, Charles M. Illustrations from the Art Gallery of the World’s Columbian Exhibition. Philadelphia: George Barrie, 1893]; Official Catalogue of EXHIBITS, World’s Columbian Exhibition, W.B. Conkey, Chicago, 1893, p. 16
8. Among many contemporary reviews, see reference 4, Harriet Quimby. Exhibition brochure is reprinted in reference 3, p. 68.
9. "Lost%20Treasure%20in%20Southern%20Colorado%20in%201910. Legends of America, "Lost Treasure in Southern Colorado in 1910."
10. Archive of Lorenzo Hubbell's personal correspondence and records, AZ 375, Box 25, Special Collections, The University of Arizona Library, Tucson, AZ; Chapter 13, "A Painters’ Mecca," by Martha Blue, Indian Trader: The Life and Times of J. L. Hubbell (Walnut, CA: Kiva Publishing, Inc., 2000).
11. Eleanor Bradley, "An Artist’s Two Years Alone in the Desert," True West Magazine (September-October 1978): 30-35, 37-38.
12. One is Grand Canyon at Sunset, location now unknown but reproduced in The National Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly 42 (June 1915): 385-400. Also see "Art by Kathryn Rucker," Los Angeles Herald, July 4, 1909, p. 8, a descriptive review of a DuMond Grand Canyon painting.
13. Over 100 are identified in reference 3; examples are cited here. Two novels: Mary E. Wilkins, The Heart’s Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (New York, Doubleday, 1900); C. N. and A. M. Williamson, The Motor Maid (Frontispiece is by DuMond) (New York: A. L. Burt, 1910). Magazine articles: Ewart S. Grogan, "After Rhinoceros in the Upper Nile," The Outing Magazine, 40 (April-September 1902): 683-691; "Les Mémoires de Buffalo Bill," Lectures pour Tous 2 (1904-1905); Gordon H. Nicholson, "Two Jungle Rogues," The Outing Magazine 62 (April-September 1903): 61-65; Lincoln Steffens, "The American Man on Horseback," McClure’s Magazine (December 1902): 216; Emerson Taylor, "The Shepherd Who Stayed Behind: A Story of the First Christmas Eve," Ladies Home Journal 27 (December 1909): 6; a series, Marie Ann de Bovet, "Le Majorat," Je Sais Tout 3, no. 27 (April 15, 1907): 359-68; Paul and Victor Margueritte, "Le Petit Roi D’Ombre," Je Sais Tout 17 (June 15, 1906): 1-45; "Christmas in the Middle Ages: Bringing in the Yule Log," St. Nicholas Christmas Book (New York: Century, 1901), p. 128; Abel Hermant, "Noël aux États-Unis," Je Sais Tout 1, no. 11.
14. See Gail S. Davidson, Floramae McCarron-Cates, Barbara Bloemink, Sarah Burns, Karal Ann Marling, Frederick Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape (New York and Boston: Bulfinch Press, 2006).
15. "Arch Beach Progress Means Popular Resort: Noted Artist to Build Home...," Los Angeles Herald XXXVII, Number 288, 16 July, 1911.
16. The Harmony of Nature: The Art and Life of Frank Vincent DuMond 1865-1951, Old Lyme, CT: Lyme Historical Society, 1990. On the summer schools, see pp. 7-8; on the Pan American Exhibition paintings, see pp. 14-17.
17. "The Cliff Dwellers Inn," Monrovia Daily News, December 15, 1922.
18. Rene T. De Quelin, "Among the Artists," Graphic (Los Angeles), reviews of DuMond shows on May 1908, pp. 18-19; June 27, 1907, p. 25.
19. See reference 12.

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