"Item #AT-0392- Item #AT-00392 â€œNovember" by Henry Edward Bedford (1860-1932)

Item #AT-00392
“November" by Henry Edward Bedford (1860-1932)

Description:
“November”
Oil on Board by Henry Edward Bedford (1860-1932) This wonderful landscape is likely Maine. On verso is Salamundi Club Exhibition Label, Henry E. Bedford, “November”

American

Measures:
Unframed
7.7/8"H x 10 7/16"W
Framed
11.5" x 14.5"

Provenance:
Salamudi Club
Private Collection NYC

Henry Edward Bedford Sr. was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 3, 1860 to Alfred and Sarah Jane Dean Bedford. He received an extensive education in both New York and Europe. In 1876, at the age of sixteen, Bedford attended the Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea, founded in 1845. Some of the school's illustrious alumni include Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Millais, Leighton, Flint, Solomon, and Sickert. Henry E. Bedford also studied painting with James W. Whittaker and William L. Anderson in the U.K. and sculpture with William O. Partridge in Paris. His formal education also included post-graduate work at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

The artist belonged to the prestigious Langham Art Club in London along with fellow painters Arthur Rackham and Sir John Tenniel. In addition, Bedford was a member of the Royal Water Colour Club and exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Academy in England. A reference book on Victorian artists reports Henry E. Bedford as actively painting in England in the early 1890s. In the United States, the New York artist was an exhibiting member of the renowned Salmagundi Club in Greenwich Village.

Little is known about Henry E. Bedford's personal life. According to genealogical records, the artist married his first wife, Florence Taylor, in December, 1884. She gave birth to a son in February, 1886 and died shortly thereafter. Bedford and his second wife, Alice Milne, also had a daughter, Francis. Apparently, the Bedford family was part of Brooklyn's elite society as reflected by the lengthy announcement of the engagement of the artist's son, Henry Edward Jr., in the New York Times. Henry E. Bedford was the brother of Alfred Cotton Bedford, past President and Chairman of the Standard Oil Company, who passed away in 1925.

Henry E. Bedford was a true "Renaissance man" who was proficient in diverse fields of interest. In addition to being a painter, sculptor, writer, lecturer and teacher, Bedford designed the massive four-sided clock in the lobby of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The clock is a beloved symbol of New York City and boasts an estimated 750,000 visitors per year. As a painter, Henry E. Bedford was best known for his studies of the Maine coast, where he maintained a summer house in Wiscasset for many years. The American Art Annual reported Bedford's sudden demise on October 29, 1932 on the train ride from Maine to Brooklyn. The death notice stated that "… he was especially fond of reproducing the scenery of Maine, and his landscapes and marines won him much praise from critics…" Henry E. Bedford Sr. was interred in the family plot in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Sources:
www.garrisonlogan.org, - Bedford family genealogical records
Maine Library Bulletin, volumes 8-13 by the Maine Library Commission (1899-1921)
Victorian Painters: The Text by C. Wood, C. Newall, M. Richardson, 2008
The Salmagundi Club Painting Exhibition Records 1889 to 1939: A Guide to the American Exhibition of Oil Paintings and the Annual Exhibition and Auction Sale of Pictures by Alexander W. Katlan, Salmagundi Club, 2008
New York Times, obituary for Florence Taylor Bedford, who died on March 4, 1886
New York Times, engagement announcement for Henry E. Bedford Jr. to Julia Huff, October 17, 1914

Sources Continued:
otham Magazine, "Centennial Secrets of Grand Central Station", by Finn-Olaf Jones, October 2012 issue
The Descendants of Ensign John Moor of Canterbury, N. H. Born 1696 - died 1786 by Howard Parker Moore, 1918 (ACB)
Romance of American Petroleum and Gas edited by Alfred Russell Crum, 1911 (ETB & ACB) §
Men Who Are Making America by B. C. Forbes, 1922 (ACB)
New York Times, obituary for Alfred Bedford Sr. who died in London on October 6, 1912
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, obituary for Henry Edward Bedford Sr. who died on October 29, 1932 §
American Art Annual, volume 29, 1932, additional obituary for Henry Edward Bedford Sr.
Who Was Who in American Art by P. H. Falk, 1999

Compiled and submitted by Tina Kasper of Pelham, New York (copyright 2012)