John Younie Luyster
Artist
Ammi Phillips
(American, 1788-1865)
CultureAmerican
Dateca. 1838
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 46 x 30 1/2 in. (116.8 x 77.5 cm)
Overall, Frame: 50 9/16 x 35 5/8 x 3 3/16 in. (128.4 x 90.5 x 8.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 50 9/16 x 35 5/8 x 3 3/16 in. (128.4 x 90.5 x 8.1 cm)
InscribedLate inscription on the reverse:;
John Younie Luyster;
Born July 3, 1828 Town of Lagrange;
Died Sept. 9th, 1888, Age 65 Years;
Painted 1838
Credit LineGift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch
Object number74.6.4
Not on view
DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting of John Younie Luyster. He wears a brown suit with a black bow and wide white collar. His face is solemn and unsmiling. His left arm is leaning on a table set with two books. In his left hand he holds a sprig of strawberries, his right hand holds the thin chain which is leashed to his dog. The brown dog rests quietly in the foreground and the bottom right of the painting.Label TextAmmi Phillips American (1788-1865) John Younie Luyster, ca. 1838 Oil on canvas Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch 74.6.4 Descended from a Dutch family that settled near the Hudson River in the mid-1700s, John Younie Luyster was born July 3, 1828, and lived in LaGrange, New York. He died September 6, 1886, and is buried with his parents, children, and wife Sarah in the graveyard of New Hackensack Dutch Reformed Church, near present-day LaGrangeville. Posing in a "grown-up" suit, the young Luyster is supplied with several details suggestive of childhood: school books, strawberries, and a faithful pet dog. Like other itinerant folk painters of his day, Ammi Phillips repeatedly used these and other attributes to enliven his many portraits of children. Phillips set his subjects in simple, well-designed arrangements, his crisp outlines and unmodulated colors clearly related to his work as a sign painter. The subjects of his finest portraits, including ten-year-old Luyster, were his own neighbors in Duchess County, New York, and the nearby communities of Kent and Sharon in Connecticut. ProvenanceThurston Thacher, 1950; Purchased by Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, April 30, 1950; Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch to The Chrysler Museum, 1974. Exhibition History"Ammi Phillips: Portrait Painter, 1788-1865," Museum of American Folk Art, New York, N.Y., 1969. (Exh. cat. no. 195) "Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. "The American Primitive," The Mansfield Art Center, Mansfield, Ohio, March 8 - April 5, 1987. (Exh. cat. no. 31) "Images of Childhood from The Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., July 29 - September 16, 1990. "Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of American Portraiture," Museum of American Folk Art, New York, N.Y., February 5 - April 17, 1994; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, Calif., July 9 - September 4, 1994; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Ill., October 8 - September 31, 1994. (Exh. cat. no. 47) "Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008. "Man's Best Friends," Selden Arcade, Norfolk, VA, August 27 - October 19, 2013.Published ReferencesIntroduction by Mary Black, catalog by Barbara C. and Lawrence B. Holdridge, _Ammi Phillips: Portrait Painter, 1788-1865_, exh. cat., Museum of American Folk Art, New York, N.Y., 1969, 33, 50, no. 195. Foreword by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., preface by Clifford W. Schaefer, and introduction by Dennis R. Anderson, _48 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William & Bernice Chrysler Garbisch_ (Norfolk, Va.: The Chrysler Museum, 1975), 49, plate 29; cover illustration. Chrysler Museum staff, "Garbisch Collection of American Naive Paintings added to Virginia Art Treasures," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 4, no. 4 (April 1975). Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 48. _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_ (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982), 79. ISBN: 0-940744-37-6 Mary Black, "Ammi Phillips: The Country Painter's Method," _The Clarion_ (Winter 1986): 35. _The American Primitive: Naive Paintings from 1720-1870_, exh. cat., Mansfield Art Center, Mansfield, Ohio, 1987, no. 31. Leigh Rehner Jones and Shirley A. Mearns, "Ammi Phillips's Portraits with Animals," _Hudson Valley Regional Review_ 4 (September 1987): 77. _Folk Art: Imaginative Works from American Hands_ (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1990), 31, 168. ISBN: 080946800X, 0809468018 Stacy C. Hollander, _Revisiting Ammi Phillips: Fifty Years of American Portraiture_, exh. cat., Museum of American Folk Art, New York, 1994, 46, 56, plate XLVII. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 42-43, no. 18. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6
Pair/Pair