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In 1972 a fire destroyed the contents of Everett Warner's studio in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. Consumed in the blaze were several hundred of the artist's paintings, his sketchbooks, etchings and personal correspondence. Because of this tragic loss, works by Warner are indeed a rarity and it is fortunate that the Steidle Collection contains two examples of his painting; Rock Dusting which entered the collection in 1936 and As the Sparks Fly Upwards, which was obtained in the 1940s.
Everett Longley Warner, the son of Horace Everett and Anna Riggs Warner, was born on July 16, 1877, in Vinton, Iowa. He attended public school in his home town and later in Washington, D.C. In 1894 he was hired by the Washington Evening Star as an art critic, a position he held until 1898. His first formal art training was undertaken at the Corcoran Art School in Washington in 1897-98. In 1898 Warner moved to New York City for two years of study at the Art Students League, and in 1903 studied at the Academie Julian in Paris.
During the First World War he was engaged in producing camouflage for ships and was the originator of one of five systems of camouflage approved by the ship protection commission of the War Risk Bureau. In February 1918 he was appointed lieutenant in the Construction Corps of the United States Navy where he was placed in charge of the Sub-Section of Design of U.S. Naval Camouflage.
Warner married Katharine Jordan Thomas on June 14, 1923. Their marriage produced three children; Stephen, James McIntosh, and Thomas Everett Warner. In 1924 Warner moved with his wife and first son to Pittsburgh, where he took a teaching job at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. While in Pittsburgh he began painting scenes of the city and its various industries, including the two scenes in the Steidle Collection; As the Sparks Fly Upwards and Rock Dusting.
With the entry of the United States into the Second World War, Warner was recalled to the Navy as Chief Civilian Aide for Ship Camouflage, where he served from 1942 until his discharge in 1945. In that year he also retired from the Carnegie Institute and took up residence in his summer home in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. Warner maintained his studio in Westmoreland from that point on, exhibiting his paintings and contributing articles to Art Digest, the Atlantic Monthly and other publications.
Everett Warner passed away on October 20, 1963, at the age of 86. Among his many professional honors, Warner became an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1913, and became a National Academician in 1937. He was also a member of the American Water Color Society; the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh; the Boston Society of Independent Artists; the Cosmos Club; the Lyme Art Association, Lyme, Ct.; the National Arts Club; the New York Water Color Society; the Salmagundi Club, New York; the Society of New York Etchers; the Society of Washington Artists and the Washington Water Color Society. Warner's first official recognition for his painting came in 1902 when he was awarded the First Corcoran Prize by the Washington Water Color Club. His later awards include: 1908, the Sesnan Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; 1910, Silver Medal at the International Exposition, Buenos Aires; 1912, Second Hallgarten Prize, National Academy of Design; 1913, William T. Evans Prize, Salmagundi Club and the Bronze Medal for Painting, Society of Washington Artists; 1914, Vezin Prize, Salmagundi Club; 1915, Silver Medal for Painting and Bronze Medal for Etching, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco; 1919, Honorable Mention, Art Institute of Chicago; 1924, Museum Purchase Prize, Old Lyme Art Association; 1937, Goodman Memorial Prize, Lyme Art Association, and the Second Altman Prize, National Academy of Design; and 1937, the Lucille Dingley Prize, at the Ogunquit Art Center.
His paintings and etchings are represented in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Erie (Pa.) Public Library; the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Ct.; the Gibbes Gallery, Charleston, SC; the Museum of the City of New York; the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the New York Historical Society, Cayuga Museum, Auburn, N.Y.; the New York Public Library; the Oklahoma City Art Museum; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Princeton University; the Rhode Island School of Design; the Saint Louis Art Museum; the Syracuse Museum of Fine Art; the Toledo Museum of Art; and the Westmoreland Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pa. Warner also painted murals of Lafayette Square in Washington for the Cosmos Club.
Sources:
Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary. Vol. III. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press, Ohio State University, 1987.
Falk, Peter Hastings (edit.). Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
Fusscas, Helen K. A World Observed: The Art of Everett Longley Warner, 1877-1963. Old Lyme, Connecticut: Florence Griswold Museum, 1992.
This document copyright © 1996,
Eric John Schruers