Louis Michel Eilshemius
Louis Eilshemius' story as an artist is one of isolation and rejection; rejection that ultimately ruined him. Born in 1864 to wealthy and socially prominent immigrant parents in Newark, New Jersey, his beginnings were auspicious. He attended Cornell University and then enrolled at New York's Art Students League. From there he went on to Paris to study at the Academie Julian. His conservative early paintings placed him well within the context of contemporary American art and promised a successful academic career. In 1887 and 1888, his landscapes were accepted by the National Academy of Design. Eilshemius would never again have his work accepted for official recognition. Snubbed by the establishment, he drifted into a life of loneliness and isolation without encouragement. It was this very isolation, and the psychological effects it imposed, that was responsible for the full emergence of his distinctive artistic personality. Eilshemius was unable to establish lasting friendships or relationships with women, and his numerous paintings of nude figures seemed a substitute for his own unfulfilled experience. By the time he stopped painting in 1921, he had little money and few friends, and began promoting himself and his eccentric Bohemian image. Although he was well known, the rest of his days were spent in loneliness and poverty perpetuated by the cold shoulder turned on him by the artistic community. Ironically, his funeral in 1941 was attended by members of the same art circle to which he so desperately sought admittance. (Source: Website of the Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, OH
