It?s not a secret society … but it?s close.
After all, one would expect that the second-oldest art club in the United States would at least have a Web site or a central office … but taking a laid-back approach to promotion seems endemic to Baltimore?s Charcoal Club.
“It?s a social organization. [The members] have all become friends and we mutually support each other?s art efforts,” said Aimo Hill, of Annapolis, a member of the Charcoal Club since 1990.
Incorporated in 1886, the club started out as “just folks who got together to sketch in charcoal. Now we have oil and watercolor painters and the like,” Hill said, artists whose works pay homage to “old master realism,” the methods and techniques taught by Baltimore?s acclaimed Schuler School of Fine Arts, of which Hill is a graduate.
“The Charcoal Club had many prominentmembers,” he noted, including sculptor Hans Schuler Sr., the first American sculptor to win a Salon Gold Medal in Paris, and former Maryland Gov. Albert Ritchie.
“Actually, if you go down to the Statehouse in Annapolis and look at the portraits of the governors and their wives, almost every one was done by members of the Charcoal Club,” Wilson said.
While the club?s golden age was in the 1890s, “when the club would have art parties and shows at the Fifth Regiment Armory, and medals were struck and given to all the members,” Wilson sees a resurgence in what began as gentlemen?s sketch club.
“We seemed to be dying out in the 1950s. Many of club?s treasures, including artifacts, paintings and sculptures, had been donated to the Maryland Historical Society. About the same time myself and (fellow artist and Charcoal Club member) Bob Brown joined, and we breathed some life back into it. Got a lot of our treasures back, including some beautiful bronzes. Now we?re the old people.”
Today the club has about 75 members, ages ranging from late 20s to 80, “white hairs and young folks and all in between,” Hill said. And, as of “six or eight years ago,” women as well.
“The club didn?t allow women in the beginning. As an offshoot of this, the Baltimore Water Color Club was formed,” Wilson said.
Through the years, the club?s commitment to realism and the ways of the classic European masters has stood firm.
“Schuler was a fantastic sculptor and you find his work all over the city. I think he?d turn over in his grave if he saw what was in front of Pennsylvania station!” Wilson said, referring to the controversial 51-foot-tall “man/woman” statue at the entrance to Baltimore?s train station.
The club holds a monthly meeting every third Thursday, when a member puts on a “mini show” of about a half dozen works. A speaker is also invited to talk about art, “the latest methods for making prints, something like that,” Hill said. Wilson added that past speakers have included the daughter of renowned Baltimore photographer Audrey Bodine and Baltimore Sun editorial cartoonist, Richard “Moco” Yardley, who was also a member of the Charcoal Club.
The club will hold its next arts show exhibits works by all members in the fall. For more information about the Charcoal Club, contact Bill Wilson at 410-744-4880.
