American Monotypes from the Baker/Pisano Collection | Page 40
George Overbury “Pop” Hart
(American, 1868–1933)
Canal Scene, n.d.
Color monotype, 10 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.
Chazen Museum of Art, gift of D. Frederick Baker from the
Baker/Pisano Collection, 2014.6.9
Born in Cairo, Illinois, and raised in Rochester, New York, Hart
left home for Chicago in 1892. He began his career producing
campaign portraits for James G. Blaine and later painting signs
for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Hart studied
at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1894 to
1897, before embarking on various trips abroad including visits
to Egypt (1900), Cuba and Central America (1900–1903), and
the South Seas (1903–1904). During the summer of 1907,
Hart studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, and spent time in
Oise, Meulan, and Étaples before returning to the United
States later that year. During the 1910s and 1920s, Hart
became involved with a number of artists’ organizations,
notably the New York-based Whitney Studio Club and the
Penguin Club whose members included Joseph Stella and
Edward Hopper. Through his contact with different artists and
artistic organizations, Hart put aside his watercolors and oils to
take up printmaking in the early 1920s. Although he would
use New York as his “base” camp, Hart, always the peripatetic
wanderer, continued to travel, and often did so with a merry
band of ragtag artists–Bohemian esprits libres. His friends called
him “Pops” after he grew a beard; the name stuck.
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T H E E X H I B I T IO N
NOTES:
Gilbert, George Overbury “Pop” Hart, 13–28, 63–66, 121–122.
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Handbook of the Collections, 60.
Moser, Singular Impressions, 74–75.