From Cincinnati Post July 7, 1914
In the summer of 1914, the Cincinnati Art Club unveiled an exhibit bound to cause a stir. The members of the Club mounted couple dozen satirical portraits of their “associate” members—generally wealthy Cincinnatians more inclined to purchase art than to create it. The associate members thus highlighted were invited to take home their portraits at no cost.
Among the associate members portrayed in satirical “cubist or futuristic” renderings were George B. “Boss” Cox, distiller Julius Fleischmann, bakery president Simon Hubig, pawnbroker Harry Levi, clothier Moses E. Moch, bank president Charles E. Roth, dry goods merchant Joseph L. Stix and, very notably, Charles Phelps Taft, publisher of the Cincinnati Times-Star.
Mr. Taft sure bought a lot of art, and that’s a fact. His collection these days is called the Taft Museum. This accumulative prowess was the theme of Taft’s portrait in the Art Club exhibition. The artist, Enno Meyer, pictured Mr. Taft surrounded by ornately gilded frames holding venerable masterpieces by European artists.
Sadly, all of the portraits created for this show have apparently disappeared. We know about Enno Meyer’s satiric cartoon only because it tickled the funny bone of the editor at the Cincinnati Post, the chief competitor of Taft’s Times-Star. The Post, a staunchly progressive newspaper, was the sworn enemy of Boss Cox and his political machine. Charles Phelps Taft’s Times-Star was very much in Cox’s corner. The Post welcomed the opportunity to tweak its rival and published a photo of the Taft portrait on July 7, 1914.
“A water color picture of himself is waiting at the Cincinnati art Club for C.P. Taft, art collector, to come and take it home with him. Not that Taft has no room in which to place the picture. In fact, he has a regular gallery in his house on Pike-st., where he keeps all manner of works of art by deceased masters, the same being valued at $1,000,000 or so.”
The Post noted that Taft was obsessed with buying “used” paintings by dead foreign artists rather than acquiring “new” works by living Cincinnati artists. Enno Meyer’s painting, the Post reasoned, should appeal to Mr. Taft because it was brand new and because it would cost nothing to acquire.
“But, though he was offered the picture by letter some time ago, he has failed to heed the plea.”
The Post quotes Enno Meyer as denying any intended offense, claiming that the portrait was merely an attempt to be gently humorous. Despite that claim, it appears that Mr. Taft did not add the portrait to his collection. Does the Taft portrait still exist? Evidence that it still remains on display somewhere would be most appreciated.
Charles Phelps Taft died in 1929 and his home was opened as the Taft Museum in 1932.
The artist, Enno Meyer was a rather colorful chap, although he was not among the best artists to emerge from the Queen City. Professionally, Enno was a photographer. His father, John H. Meyer, emigrated from Germany and set up a photography studio in Over-the-Rhine soon after the Civil War. On his father’s death in 1902, Enno took over the family business and photographed customers for the next 30 years.
While his surviving paintings convey the impression of a competent but not exceptional talent, Meyer’s animal portraits were popular during his lifetime and the Cincinnati Post [April 7, 1906] described him as the “prize poster artist” of the Cincinnati Art Club. The occasion was the relocation of the Art Club from the third floor at 126 East Fourth Street to the fifth floor at 31 East Fourth Street. As a farewell gesture. Meyer had sketched cartoons of several of his colleagues on a blackboard normally used for life classes.
“He drew striking likenesses of W.N. Brenner, the Treasurer, in his shirt sleeves, moving the desk out. One lone dollar is seen reposing on the desk and Brenner is watching it with an eagle eye. John Rettig, who painted the frieze for ‘A Night In Old Granada,’ is seen staggering along with the frieze strapped on his back. And oh, horrors! Martin Rettig takes up a big slice of the foreground with a keg of beer on his shoulder.”
The impromptu mural attracted the attention of a local brewer, who offered a hefty sum so he could reproduce it in full color as an advertisement for his product. According to the Post, the Art Club was undecided about the offer because they didn’t want their wives to know they imbibed at meetings.
Enno loved animals and most of his paintings were studies of horses and, especially, dogs, although he donated a life-sized oil painting of Paul, the head lion of the Cincinnati Zoo, to a 1916 charity auction to save that venerable institution from bankruptcy. His love of animals wasn’t always appreciated by his neighbors. In 1903, Meyer found a common watersnake and took it home. The snake didn’t take kindly to captivity and bit Enno several times, but he eventually trained the serpent to eat out of his hand and to come when he called. The snake, as it turned out, was female and pregnant. Soon, the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was – literally – crawling with watersnakes.
From Cincinnati Post January 4, 1938
By the 1930s, Meyer was earning almost as much by raising and selling dogs as by painting them. A Cincinnati Post profile [January 4, 1938] revealed that Meyer and his wife owned 13 Great Danes in addition to Skye Terriers, German Shepherds and a Boxer or two at Pine Lawns, their farm outside Milford. Along with the canine residents, the Meyers also kept extensive stables full of show horses. Meyer explained that his artistic goal was to capture not only the appearance of an animal, but its character.
“’I never paint a dog until I know him,’ Mr. Meyer said. ‘You know dogs have personalities just the same as persons. There are no two alike.’”
In addition to breeding and painting dogs, Meyer was in demand as a dog show judge and had officiated at the Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Gardens in New York as well as an international competition in Toronto, Canada. Meyer was killed driving south of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1947. His obituary described him as a dog show judge, a dog breeder, and an artist, in that order.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Meyer’s Charles Taft portrait on display among the treasures of the Taft Museum?
Facebook Comments