The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 20

Figure 6. (left) Robert Swain Gifford (American,
1840–1905), Morning at Jessie Conklin’s, 1878, watercolor
and gouache, 3 5/8 x 6 5/8 in., Heckscher Museum of Art,
gift of the Baker/Pisano Collection, 2001.9.115
Figure 7. (below) Edwin Austin Abbey (American,
1852–1911), Procession of Ye Tilers at Long Island, 1878, ink
and pencil on cardboard, 4 1/2 x 24 3/4 in., Chazen Museum
of Art, gift of D. Frederick Baker from the Baker/Pisano
Collection, 2017.27.20
against inclement weather and buoyed by high spirits,
the club managed to engage the services of the sloop
Amelia Corning to deliver them to “Castle Conklin,”
an ironic name for a hodgepodge of connected clap-
board structures overseen by its proprietor, Uncle
Jesse Conklin. At sunrise, the industrious Gifford was
among the first “out hunting for a sketch,” which he
titled Morning at Jesse Conklin’s (fig. 6). 42 As the weath-
er cleared, the others appeared, “intent and studious
persons, bending assiduously over [watercolor] blocks
or sketch-books; some seated in chairs; others on the
backs of them; some on sketching stools; others on
boxes or in holes in the sand.” 43
By early afternoon, the artists left for Lake Ronkon-
koma via Sayville, where they purchased enormous
straw hats to shade them from the sun as they set off
on their six-mile walk behind a horse-drawn wagon
engaged to carry their luggage; a humorous rendition
14 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
of the weary entourage was captured by Abbey in
his drawing Procession of Ye Tilers (fig. 7). Although
arriving exhausted and barely in time for dinner at
Mrs. Carpenter’s hotel, the travelers managed to find
the energy to take a nighttime cruise on beautiful
Lake Ronkonkoma. Reinvigorated, the next day the
group continued their journey by stagecoach and rail
to Bridgehampton, where the artists made sketches of
the windmill and local inhabitants. Smith discovered a
milliner’s shop and convinced the others to adorn their
straw hats with colorful ribbons, an event dutifully
recorded by Reinhart in The Tile Club and the Milliner
of Bridgehampton, a sort of traveler’s memento (fig. 8).
Without further delay (they had actually covered
considerable ground in just two and one-half days), the
group proceeded to East Hampton, the main desti-
nation of their pilgrimage, where they began sketch-
ing the wealth of picturesque material before them.