It’s
an odd place for a cemetery, right in the middle of a New England
prep school campus. But there it is, originally a burial ground on
the backside of the Andover Theological Seminary, holding reminders
of seminary and academy history. The lively Harriet Beecher Stowe,
the little lady who, according to an apocryphal quip by Abraham Lincoln,
started all the trouble, has a marker here, along with other luminaries
in the educational world. And it is here that I came to look for what
eventually revealed itself as a grave marker no bigger than a large
shoe box, barely visible to the passerby—the resting place of
Stuart Travis, artist. His burial in this relatively obscure graveyard
is final testimony to a man whose personal life was shrouded in mystery,
but who left a visible legacy on the walls and grounds of Andover’s
Phillips Academy.
For it is on this campus that we find many examples of the “opus
Travi,” as Travis signed his work. Most prominent among them
are three large, decorative, historic, cartographic murals: one in
the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, one in the Robert S. Peabody Museum
of Archaeology, and one that originally hung in Evans Hall and will
have a new placement in the Richard L. Gelb Science Center. Other
elegant and distinctive Travis legacies at Andover include the Cochran
Bird Sanctuary gates, the library’s striking nautilus bookplate,
and the Peabody’s intricate model of a Pecos tribal community.
Blueprints for
a “boys’ house,” or recreational building, in the bird
sanctuary and evidence of other unfinished projects exist in the academy
archive. |
| The
Phillips Academy seal was captured by Travis on his mural. |
In 1994,
the Abbot Academy Association supported the restoration by conservator
Christie Cunningham-Adams of Travis’ historical map of Phillips
Academy and the Town of Andover, which can be seen today in the Freeman
Room of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. Restoration of the mural
brought the original vibrancy back to this warm and dignified space.
The concept for this work was the brainchild of academy benefactor
extraordinaire Thomas Cochran, who offered the commission in 1928
to Travis, a New York artist with cachet in wealthy circles. A meticulous
craftsman, designer, illustrator and mapmaker, Travis had already
applied his cartographic and artistic skills to the interiors of large
private yachts and elegant steamships, which displayed them proudly.
The record is unclear on whether Cochran had admired Travis’
work on a fellow financier’s yacht or a steamship cruise he may
have taken, or whether he knew of him through Charles Platt, modern
Andover’s architect, who had studied with Travis at Julian Academy,
a Paris art school. In any case, Cochran had a penchant for becoming
enamoured with a work, a design or a concept and then bringing it
to Andover Hill to advance his dream of creating a visually stunning
place in which to learn. While contemporaries were pouring cash into
colleges and universities, Cochran felt the ages 14–18 were so
formative that to overlook them was a mistake. Shy and retiring, but
not without a humorous side, Travis was just the person to help fulfill
Cochran’s vision of a campus environment embodying poet John
Keats’ idea that a thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Arriving on Andover Hill in 1928 to begin his painstaking research
for the pictorial history, he found a group of sympathetic and patient
men with access to Cochran’s deep pockets. Under the patronage
of these “modern Medici,” as James Sawyer, treasurer of
the academy, called them, Travis weathered personal and financial
maelstroms and stayed on to serve as a kind of permanent artist-in-residence,
living and working at Andover off and on for the rest of his life.
The partnership of Cochran’s renaissance ideas and Travis’
selfless devotion to craft, coupled with the artist’s extensive
knowledge of materials, Sawyer observed, proved “a marriage for
all time.” |
| The
author says Travis’ use of two compass icons not only is fascinating,
but “provides a resting place for the eye.” |
Travis’
work around the campus in the late 1920s and 1930s contributed significantly
to Cochran’s scheme and constituted the crowning achievement
of Travis’ career. By the time Travis died on Christmas afternoon
in 1942, he had left a lasting legacy on Andover Hill.
Upon the installation of the library map—the gateway to his work
at the academy—the press reported that Travis was “alone
responsible for the survival of the art of cartography in a country
in which the love of beauty is rapidly giving place to the devotion
to materialism.”
Although the design and aesthetic decisions involved in the mural
were Travis’ alone, Cochran and the academy intervened with characteristic
attention to detail and control in its initial planning. One fundamental
disagreement centered on the inclusion of the town’s early history.
Sawyer, writing to Travis in December 1928, stated clearly, “I
have consulted ... Mr. Cochran and Mr. Platt, and we are now all in
agreement that it is ... appropriate that the map should deal exclusively
with the history of Phillips Academy. A historical map of the town
of Andover of 100 years ago opens up every possibility of a difference
of opinion as to the accuracy of many facts and locations. The more
important and controlling reason is that the map is intended primarily
to impress the student body with the history, tradition and background
of the school of which they are members.”
Going on to suggest that melding the two histories would dilute each
to the detriment of the final product, Sawyer outlined some major
events linking to our national heritage that had helped shape the
academy and should be illustrated in the mural. Among them were the
signing by patriot John Hancock of the school’s Act of Incorporation
in 1780; Paul Revere’s design of the academy seal in 1782; George
Washington’s address to students on the Phillips Academy training
field on Nov. 5, 1789; and French General Lafayette’s visit to
Andover in 1825. He also listed Samuel Smith’s writing the lyrics
to the hymn “America” in 1832 when he was a theological
student living in what is now America House, as well as Oliver Wendell
Holmes’ reading of his poem about his Andover days, “The
School Boy,” at the academy centennial in 1878. All these events
are depicted in the Travis mural. |
| A
view of Samuel Phillips Hall is central to the panorama. |
The
suggestion of excluding town history from the work did not sit well
with Travis. Writing to Sawyer, Travis insisted, “[My] contract
with Mr. Cochran calls for a map of Phillips Academy with the village
of Andover as the background, [and] that is what he asked me to do
... the academy will show prominently in the foreground ... superimposed
against Andover.”
On Jan. 24, 1929, Sawyer softened the academy’s position in a
letter to Travis. “In regard to the map,” he wrote, “we
feel that it should be confined wholly to Phillips Academy, but, of
course, this does not mean that we should not have some of the Andover
village as a background.”
On Nov. 25, 1929, Travis wrote to Cochran that, when the map was unveiled,
it proved of great interest to the townspeople, owing in part to the
coverage of the installation by the Andover Townsman, the local newspaper.
Travis added that as he put the finishing touches on the map he was
barraged with comments and questions by “old timers,” both
men and women. Loath to ignore a research opportunity, Travis indicated
he had made additions and corrections as a direct result of the locals’
interest and had eavesdropped on discussions of hotly debated topics
like “where Squire Abbott’s wife’s nephew lived after
he left PA just before he went to Maracaibo in 1850... .” He
even told of encountering an indignant woman whose great-aunt’s
house and genealogy Travis had omitted. Such observations put an end
to speculation about whether the residents of Andover would be interested
in the project.
Beyond expressing satisfaction in the interest shown by local residents,
Travis commented with pleasure on the students’ unswerving curiosity
during and after the map’s installation. Even in 1930, learning
from images rather than books apparently stimulated young men. Travis
astutely appreciated the appeal of seeing and reading a terse, illuminating
text. The librarians recorded the memories and stories the mural evoked
over time and eventually presented them to Travis, who predicted the
map would become a valuable local historical document. And so it has.
Reflected in the map is Travis’ conviction that Phillips Academy
is part of the town of Andover and not vice versa. The central bird’s-eye
view is of the town, showing Phillips Academy circa 1830 surrounded
by historic vignettes. The trompe l’oeil plaques scattered through
the mural commemorate images, events and persons significant in the
history of the school and, by extension, the town. |
| Cameo
portraits of Andover visitors George Washington and the Marquis de
Lafayette are among several elements that tie school history to town
history. |
Scenes
inset throughout the mural tell a history beyond names and faces.
Views of Phillips Academy’s first instructor, Eliphalet Pearson,
and the first 13 pupils out for a walk, of Headmaster Osgood Johnson
stopping to chat with students at the Commons on Phillips Street,
of commencement in the early 1830s and of the steam railroad finally
reaching Andover in 1835 remind us of our rich and colorful past.
The mural teaches us not only of historical events, but of habits
of dress and local icons. Travis even included a bluebird once prevalent
in the Andover area. Four panels of pressed-paper academy board hold
these images, fashioned from an unusual combination of oil paint,
resinous tempera, ink, oil glazes and gold leaf, challenging any restorer.
The arrangement of the pictorial details seems to have emerged as
the artist worked. A summary of Christie Cunningham-Adams’ pre-restoration
examination points out numerous “pentimenti,” or artistic
revisions, indicating that Travis changed his mind about where to
place some images during execution. A close look at the lower right
quadrant of the bird’s-eye view reveals the repositioning of
several houses. A visual liveliness results from Travis’ application
of various materials. The build-up of paint on the faux plaques seems
an attempt to have them appear as actual three-dimensional plaques
affixed to the surface.
Many items and documents in the Phillips Academy Archive today provided
source material for Travis—among them the original plaster mold
for Paul Revere’s seal, engravings and photographs of early campus
buildings, portraits of academy educators, letters and documents.
In Travis’ artist’s notebooks we find page after page of
notes pertaining to information presented in the mural. |
| Two
schoolboys are depicted before an image of Bulfinch Hall, surrounded
by early PA administrators. |
More
important than the recorded details, of course, is Travis’
fine design. Next time you visit the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library,
look at the depiction of Samuel Phillips Hall and note the visual
effect Travis created by its location. What seems a symmetrical
composition is carefully balanced to appear static, but it is the
dynamic between what is there and what seems to be there that hooks
us. The compass device, not new to Travis, not only is fascinating
to look at, but provides a resting place for the eye as we explore
the panorama. The overall visual integrity of the mural is such
that the viewer is not immediately aware of the four-panel construction.
The fastening strips, along with the impression of the seal, fit
inconspicuously into the overall design. The foliage on both sides
provides a curtain for the map, promoting the viewer’s aerial
orientation. The angular view of George Washington Hall, Pearson
and Morse Hall helps us to enter the story.
While resident on campus during installation, Travis took his meals
with the boys at the Bulfinch dining hall, which he described as
a page from Tom Brown’s Schooldays, a pop-ular 1905 novel set
in a British boarding school. He felt the students’ endless
fascination with detailed anecdotal history probably developed as
a diversion from their dreary studies. A gold mine of detailed information,
Travis must have wowed the boys, for some began to ask where they
could take art courses! In typical PA fashion, one boy attached
himself to Travis, serving as an assistant during the installation.
I wonder whether that boy ever went to Paris to study painting,
as he indicated to Travis he might. Sadly, to many of today’s
students, this mural-map has become just like a piece of furniture
that is passed by without notice. Why don’t they see it? Perhaps
it’s because of our mass media culture with its sound bites
and passivity. Travis’ works require active participation.
Once you start looking, it’s addictive. |
| Eliphalet
Pearson, the academy’s first instructor, leads his 13 original
charges out on a walk. |
Travis’
art comes out of a tradition long in suspension. He frets about the
introduction and the dominance of the machine in American culture,
where quantity and mass production supercede quality. In a 1921 interview
in the periodical Arts and Decoration, Travis articulated his artistic
philosophy and his reverence for artistic labor and for “something
higher than ourselves.” In correspondence with Cochran, he also
alluded to what he called the “human side of art.” It was
his belief that anything machine-made has no soul and that art, to
be valid, must be entirely hand-wrought. He advocated borrowing the
time-tested traditions of international cultures, but insisted on
culturally personalizing the work, voicing one’s own soul or
spirit. The work that goes into art, he argued, is de facto to be
revered, driven by that which is beyond knowing with specificity.
Travis would agree that we must liberate ourselves from the machine
and return to the higher calling, following the human urge to create
without the “canker of haste.”
Starting as a book illustrator, trained as an architect, Travis not
only designed but executed a range of work beyond what we have on
Andover Hill, including quaint garden wells and sumptuously sculpted
and painted rooms as well as intricate and elegant metalwork. Each
and every “opus Travi,” both on Andover Hill and beyond,
supports his philosophy.
Estranged from his family for undetermined reasons (his brother learned
not only of his death, but of his whereabouts for the previous decade
and a half, through the artist’s obituary in The New York Times),
Travis left not only his creative legacy, but also his worldly possessions,
to Phillips Academy. Dying in a nursing home of sorts in Andover just
as the first Andover casualty in World War II was reported, he was
with his surrogate family, the sole source of his financial and emotional
support for the last 15 years of his life. I guess it is fitting that
he rests in peace on Andover Hill, surrounded by “opi Travi.” |
| Ruth
Quattlebaum is the academy’s archivist and is a faculty
member in the art department. Letters, documents and other materials
from the Phillips Academy Archive were used in the preparation of
this account. |
|
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