John Whorf

The family of Henry McDaniel has alerted AskART that some works of art signed by John Whorf are in fact by Henry Mc Daniel. The following article addresses and appears to substantiate that claim.

The Boston Globe

'Whose painting is it? Quincy artist, 98, finds works sold under signature of more famous colleague

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | April 10, 2005

QUINCY -- When watercolorist Henry McDaniel saw his brushstrokes on the cover of the Spring issue of the Atlantic Salmon Journal, to which he subscribes, he was elated. The steep gray banks of the Matane River in Quebec, the fly fisherman casting his line over foaming rapids, the dappled pool -- it was exactly as McDaniel remembered painting the scene.

Except that, at least according to the magazine McDaniel received in the mail last month, it wasn't his painting.

Instead of McDaniel's usual red signature, the name of John Whorf, a well-known American impressionist from the Boston area who died in 1959, floated like a white ghost in the bottom right-hand corner.

''That burned me up . . . I'm in my 99th year," McDaniel exclaimed over tea in his Quincy home. ''You just hope you can sit back and not worry about these things."

McDaniel, a former art director whose two lifelong passions are fishing and painting, was flabbergasted, and his son, Joe, who was the model for the fisherman in the painting, immediately launched an investigation.

Drawing on the elder McDaniel's keen memory and the younger's persistent detective work, the duo has unraveled a case of what some say is a common malpractice in the art business: using the name of a reputable artist on a work by someone less regarded to boost its value. The McDaniels say that sometime before summer 2003, Henry McDaniel's water-soluble signature was rubbed off two paintings and replaced with John Whorf's name, and they were sold for thousands more than McDaniel ever received for his work.

The art dealer for those paintings, Barridoff Galleries in Portland, Maine, is now investigating the consignor, who had said the Whorfs were acquired from a private estate. In the meantime, the McDaniels have initiated a campaign to have the forged paintings re-signed by Henry McDaniel before he dies.

They have more than their memories to back them up: The Atlantic Salmon Journal cover painting, identified as Whorf's Fishing in the Rapids, had appeared with the caption ''One of the beautiful unnamed pools" in a spread of Henry McDaniel watercolors in the July 1957 issue of the Ford Times, a magazine published by the Ford Motor Co.

Joe McDaniel ''is totally right -- it is his father" who was the artist, said Rob Elowitch, owner of Barridoff Galleries, which sold the two paintings with a Whorf signature at an August 2003 auction in Maine.

Fishing in the Rapids sold for $18,720 to Avery Galleries in Haverford, Pa.; the second painting, 'Fishing in the Rapids, White River, Vermont, sold for $9,945 to another gallery.

Larry Taylor, the art consultant for the Atlantic Salmon Journal who chose the painting as its cover art, quoted Richard Rosello, owner of Avery Galleries, as saying the work has been sold since then for about $40,000. (The gallery would not confirm the figure, for privacy reasons.) Taylor got permission to use it as the magazine's cover art free of charge.

Source: Askart Archives

A native of Boston, John Whorf became a watercolorist known for his depictions of genre subjects and views of harbors and beach scenes. During the Depression years in Boston, he was one of the few artists whose work continued to sell.

He was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts on January 10, 1903, descended from a long line of Cape Cod ship captains, and his father was an artist and graphic designer. He studied painting at the St. Botolph Studio and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School under Charles Hawthorne and Max Bohm and at the Grande Chaumiere and Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Then at age 18, Whorf had a paralyzing fall from which he had difficulty recovering.

Whorf was awarded an honorary M.A. degree from Harvard University in 1938 and received a medal in 1938 and a prize in 1939 from the Art Institute of Chicago. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design annuals between 1945-1956 and 1958-1959.

Initially he painted in oil, but changed to watercolor. His first exhibition of fifty-two paintings, when he was age twenty, sold out. He traveled in Europe and the United States. Whorf spent the last years of his life in Provincetown, Massachusetts and was part of its art colony for many years. He died there in 1959.

Source:

Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art

Born in Massachusetts on Jan. 10, 1903. Whorf studied in France, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco in 1919. At age 21 his work was purchased by John Singer Sargent and Dodge MacKnight who continued to influence him throughout his career. While a resident of Provincetown, MA, Whorf was active in California during the 1930s. He died in Boston, MA on Feb. 13, 1959. Exh: Oakland Art Gallery, 1930 (solo); Mills College (Oakland), 1931 (solo); Calif. WC Society, 1934, 1939. In: Boston Museum; AIC; Vose Gallery (Boston); MM; LACMA.

Source:

Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"

Who's Who in American Art 1938-56; NY Times, 2-14-1959 (obituary).