Patrons of the Tenth Street Studio Building
This StoryMap charts three generations of Johnston family patrons. It begins with the life and business interests of Scottish expatriate and merchant John Johnston. It follows the upbringing and activities of his sons: railroad magnate John Taylor Johnston and merchant James Boorman Johnston. It ends with two of his grandchildren: Emily Johnston de Forest (along with her husband Robert Weeks de Forest) and her younger brother, John Herbert Johnston.
Arrival in New York (1804)
John Johnston immigrates to New York City in 1804, age twenty-three. Within weeks, he is hired as a bookkeeping clerk at the William Maitlin and James Lenox counting house, a firm owned by prominent members of New York's Scottish diaspora engaged in international trade. With fast promotions and savings, Johnston begins to invest in smaller trade ventures of his own. Within several years, Maitlin and Lenox offer Johnston a management position on board the Galloway, a merchant ship, which sails annually to India.
Boorman, Johnston, and Company (1813)
In 1813, John Johnston partners with James Boorman (1783-1866), also a Scottish expatriate, to open a merchant firm engaged in international trade. The firm imports Dundee linen from Scotland, iron from England and Sweden, Madeira wine, and other goods, and it exports tobacco from Richmond, Virginia, where Johnston has relatives.
Marriage and Family (1817-1825)
In 1817, John Johnston marries the widow Margaret Taylor, with whom he establishes a home. He and Taylor have five children, three of whom, two sons and one daughter, live to adulthood. Both of his sons, John Taylor Johnston (1820–1893) and James Boorman Johnston (1822–1887), become important businessmen and patrons of the arts in New York City.
"The Row"
John Johnston, in collaboration with his associates, among them his business partner James Boorman and other associates and peers, cooperatively lease land from the Sailors Snug Harbor and build "The Row," a blockfront of Greek-Revival style homes at Washington Square Park North.
First Family Trip to Europe (1832-1833)
John Johnston takes his family to Europe. They visit Scotland and tour the continent to see historic sites, view art collections, and buy furnishings for their new home in Washington Square North.
New York University (1833)
John Johnston, along with a number of his associates, founds New York University and provides funds for the construction of its gothic University Building, which opens in 1833. Both of his sons attend the university where they study with Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) and other important New York intellectuals.
Second Johnston Family Trip to Europe (1843-1844)
Ongoing wealth from his business ventures enables John Johnston to take his family to Europe again in 1843; this time his children—John, James, and Margaret—are fully grown. They tour the continent, visiting important city art collections, and interact with established and up-and-coming artists. In Rome, they meet Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895) and William Morris Hunt (1824–1879), the Studio Building architect and his older brother, who will become an important American painter. Upon their return, John Johnston, already suffering from illness, continues to grow infirm as he ages.
James Boorman Johnston Establishes Career and Home (1840–1853)
Prior to his father's death in 1851, James Boorman Johnston rises in the ranks of Boorman, Johnston, and Company, beginning as a clerk in 1840. After his father's death in 1851, he and his older brother, J. T. Johnston, travel to Europe. In 1853, they visit William Morris Hunt and Richard Morris Hunt, who are in Paris studying art and architecture; Wiliam draws J. B. Johnston's portrait. In 1855, J. B. Johnston moves into his Greenwich Village home at 56 West Tenth Street.
Henry T. Tuckerman publishes "New-York Artists" (1856)
Henry T. Tuckerman (1813–1871) publishes an essay in The Knickerbocker that encourages men of culture and means to visit the studios of New York City artists.
Tenth Street Studio Building (1857)
In 1857, shortly after the young architect Richard Morris Hunt returns from study abroad at the Académie Beaux Arts in Paris, J. B. Johnston, likely in concert with his older brother, hires him to design the Tenth Street Studio Building. The project is completed and fully opens to tenants in 1858. Demand for its three floors of state-of-the-art studios surrounding a two-story gallery, the first in the city devoted to showing contemporary art, almost immediately exceeds supply.
Heart of the Andes (1859)
In 1859, the year after artists fill the Studio Building's available rooms, Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900) exhibits Heart of the Andes (1859) in the gallery of the Tenth Street Studio Building. Domestic staff manage the thousands of people who visit in the span of several weeks. They also manage tickets to private art collections.
Studio Building Association (1865)
The New York State legislature records the passage of a bill making J. B. Johnston the president of Studio Building Association, Incorporated. The incorporation document enumerates seven members of its patron-class board of trustees, three of them tenants of the Studio Building.
Tuckerman's Book of the Artists (1867)
Tuckerman publishes Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists: Preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America, a culmination of his life's work and a revision an earlier book-length contribution to American art history. In Book of the Artists, Tuckerman historicizes the landscape painters who are his neighbors and friends in the Studio Building, taking a scholarly but also personal interest in promoting their work.
Paris World's Fair (1867)
Shortly after the conclusion of the US Civil War, Henry T. Tuckerman, John Taylor Johnston, Samuel P. Avery, and other peers organize an exhibition of American art for the Paris World's Fair. Included in the exhibition are many of the Studio Building’s painters. Frederic Edwin Church's Niagara (1857), lent from J. T. Johnston's private collection of American art, wins an award, which highlights Church's talent, the creativity of the patron class affiliated with the Johnston family, and the potential of New York City to become an globally significant art center.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1870)
At his home on Fifth Avenue, J. T. Johnston, along with other members of the patron class, found the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA). An Act to Incorporate the Metropolitan Museum of Art passes into law at the New York State legislature on April 13, 1870. J. T. Johnston serves as the museum's first president from 1870 to 1889.
Avery Architectural Library (1890)
Samuel Putnam Avery, Studio Building Association board member and MMA founding trustee, establishes the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University. This library is foundational to the writing of histories of American art and architecture and preserves records of the Studio Building's construction, its creative cluster, and local attempts by artists of the Studio Building and others to save it from demolition.
John Herbert Johnston inherits the Studio Building (1893)
At his father's death, J. H. Johnston inherits and becomes proprietor of the Studio Building. He remains its owner and landlord for twenty-seven years.
The New York Public Library's Avery Collection (1900)
Avery also gifts the New York Public Library (NYPL) with the Avery Collection, which forms the basis of the NYPL's collection of prints. This gift and the collection it helped to found becomes another important place of record for the Studio Building and its creative cluster.
Emily Johnston de Forest publishes Johnston Family History (1909)
In 1909 and coinciding with the Hudson-Fulton Celebration that her husband organizes, Emily Johnston de Forest publishes John Johnston, New York Merchant. This is the first of several books she writes and publishes about her immediate and extended family’s history.
Sale of Studio Building (1920)
After sixty-two years of Johnston family ownership, J. H. Johnston sells the Studio Building to Tenth Street Studios, Incorporated, a new corporation formed by Studio Building artist-tenants in 1920.
The American Wing (1922)
During his presidency of the MMA (1913–1931), Robert Weeks de Forest and his wife Emily Johnston de Forest establish the American Wing. This institution within the institution founded by their family becomes a landmark collection of American art and one of the largest repositories of art by tenants of the Tenth Street Studio Building.
Fig. 15. Mining @ Tenth Street, “Patrons of the Tenth Street Studio Building.” © Mining @ Tenth Street: Visualizing New York City’s Tenth Street Studio Building, 2022
Return to Panorama article: " From Center to Periphery: The Lifespan of New York City’s Tenth Street Studio Building and the Canon of American Art "
Cite this StoryMaps Data Visualization: Mary Okin with Celie Mitchard, “From Center to Periphery: The Lifespan of New York City’s Tenth Street Studio Building and the Canon of American Art,” fig. 15, "Patrons of the Tenth Street Studio Building," Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art 8, no. 2 (Fall 2022), https://doi.org/10.24926/24716839.15395 .
Image credits
1. "View of the Bay and Harbour of New-York from the Battery," 1830, reproduced in Emily Johnston de Forest, John Johnston, New York Merchant (New York: Privately published, 1909), 109.
2. George Hayward, lithographer, A South Prospect of ye Flourishing City of New-York in the Province of New York, North America, 1848. Color lithograph on paper, 22.2 x 48.5 cm. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, https://www.loc.gov/item/2018645786 .
3. "John Johnston Four Children," reproduced in de Forest, John Johnston, 125.
4. "The Row," de Forest, John Johnston, 151.
5. "Holyrood Palace and Regent's Seat As Seen From Regent Terrace," reproduced in de Forest, John Johnston, 135.
6. "The University Building, Washington Square," reproduced in de Forest, John Johnston, 163.
7. "John, James and Margaret, 1849," reproduced in de Forest, John Johnston, 191.
8. William Morris Hunt, James Boorman Johnston, 1853. Crayon on paper (location unknown), reproduced in de Forest, John Johnston, 169.
9. Henry T. Tuckerman, "New-York Artists," The Knickerbocker, 48, no. 1 (July 1856): 26.
10. “The Studio Building,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, April 13, 1867, 54.
11. Frederic Edwin Church, Heart of the Andes, 1859. Oil on canvas, 66 1/8 x 120 3/16 in. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. (Bequest of Margaret E. Dows, 1909).
12. Mary Okin, "Studio Building Association of the City of New-York in 1865," 2022.
13. Title page of Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists: Preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America (New York: G. P. Putnam and Son, 1867).
14. Exposition universelle de vue geneérale prise des Hauteurs du Trocadeŕo, 1867, https://www.loc.gov/item/2003677536; Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara, 1857. Oil on canvas, 40 × 90 1/2 in. Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund).
15. Daniel Huntington, John Taylor Johnston, 1875. Oil on canvas, 43 1/2 x 33 1/2 in. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Bequest of John Johnston Appleton, 2006).
16. US War Department, Colleges and Universities—Columbia University—Lecture rooms, Avery Hall, 1917–18. Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs (494), American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs (533461), Collection of the National Archives and Records Administration.
17. Photographer unknown, Tenth Street Studio Building, 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, New York, New York, circa 1870–90. Albumen print, [convert 40.4 x 32.3 cm to in., denominator no larger than 16]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.04961 .
18. Photographer Unknown, “Front Façade of the New York Public Library,” December 26, 1907. Gelatin silver print. New York Public Library Digital Collections, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/92e8dd84-e0a0-fc07-e040-e00a1806092e .
19. Title page of de Forest, John Johnston, New York Merchant (1909); Cover of Theodore Newcomb, Hudson-Fulton Celebration (New York: Newcomb Publishing Co, 1909), https://www.loc.gov/item/09023775/ .
20. Annotation of Photographer unknown, Tenth Street Studio Building (fig. 17).
21. Bernard Gotfryd, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Wing, May 1980. 35 mm color slide. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://www.loc.gov/item/2020736652 .
