After serving a seven-year apprenticeship with John Wesley Jarvis (1780-1840), Henry Inman set out as a portrait painter in New York City. There he became an active member of the city's art community, helping to found the National Academy of Design in 1826. From that moment until his death twenty years later, Inman remained among the city's best-loved and most highly regarded artists. Although he was praised mainly for his fine portraits, Inman also gained recognition for genre and history paintings, particularly toward the end of his career.

Portrait of Colonel Richard Varick belongs to a group of works that firmly established Inman as New York's leading portraitist by the beginning of the 1830s. In 1830 Inman was approached by the City of New York to paint a full-length portrait of then ex-governor Martin van Buren (1830, City of New York, City Hall Portrait Collection). This heroic canvas was soon followed by a commission from the American Bible Society for a similar portrait of its president, Richard Varick (1831, American Bible Society). Varick, whose portrait had been made by Inman at least twice before, chose the artist himself.

In the full-length depiction, Inman portrayed Varick as a giant of a man dressed in sober republican black. Standing erect and appearing unnaturally tall within a palatial room, Varick holds a rolled document in his right hand. On his lapel, he proudly wears the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati. Both the pose and the setting of the work recall Gilbert Stuart's (q.v.) famous "Lansdowne Portrait" of George Washington (1796, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC), which by the 1830s was already an American icon. Exhibited at the National Academy in 1832, Inman's full-length Varick was well received, despite its anatomical flaws and obvious indebtedness to Stuart.

Although there is little documentation surrounding it, the Currier's bust-length portrait of Varick is clearly related to the full-length painting. The subject's expression and clothing, even the medal on the lapel, are virtually identical in each case. In both works, Inman successfully conveys a sense of the sitter's inner strength as it shines through the outward erosion of advanced age. Stuart was a master of this particular conceit, and Inman studied it carefully. While it is unclear whether the Currier's Varick was a preparatory life study or a copy made after the full-length portrait, its unostentatious presentation and strong concentration on the sitter's psychological state make it the more pleasing work to modern eyes. Indeed, it may have been more pleasing to Inman's contemporaries as well, for in comparing the full-length to a bust-length version on display at another exhibition, a New York reviewer stated:

The…[full-length] portrait of Colonel Varick will be looked upon as one of the chief ornaments in the room. The head is finely painted and the whole of the picture is in excellent keeping. But we do not like Mr. Inman's "whole-lengths," so well as those of a kit-cat [bust-length] size; and we think the head of Colonel Varick, in the Barclay Street Exhibition much better than this.(1)

Richard Varick was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, on March 25, 1753. He first gained prominence during the Revolutionary War, when he served as military secretary to General Philip John Schuyler. In 1776 he became lieutenant colonel of the northern army and subsequently inspector general at West Point. Cleared of complicity in the Benedict Arnold treason case, Varick became George Washington's recording secretary. During the 1780s he held a number of city and state offices, including New York City recorder, Speaker of the state assembly, and attorney general of New York. In 1789 Varick was elected mayor of New York City, serving in that capacity until 1801.

After his last term as mayor, Varick held no more civic offices. He continued to play a role in public life, however, and was particularly active in the New York Society of the Cincinnati and the American Bible Society. Varick died on July 30, 1831, a scant few months after sitting to Inman during the previous spring. In addition to the portrait of Varick by Inman, the Currier Museum of Art also retains Varick's badge of the Society of the Cincinnati.

VSD

NOTE

1. 1832 review in the New York Courier and Enquirer, quoted in William H. Gerdts and Carrie Rebora, The Art of Henry Inman, ex. cat. (National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, 1987), p. 79.

REFERENCES

William H. Gerdts. "A Portrait of Richard Varick by Henry Inman." Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin 2, 1972, pp. 3-20.

William H. Gerdts and Carrie Rebora. The Art of Henry Inman. Ex. cat. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, 1987.