Louis Michel Eilshemius (February 4, 1864 – December 29, 1941) was an American painter, primarily of landscapes and nudes. He also wrote musical compositions, verse, novels, short stories, and published periodicals.

Biography

Eilshemius was the son of a Dutch father and a Swiss mother. His wealthy family lived near Newark, New Jersey. He was educated in Europe, after which he spent two years at Cornell University before beginning his art studies at the Art Students League of New York. He also studied privately with the American landscape painter Robert Crannell Minor (1839-1904). He subsequently studied under Bouguereau at the Académie Julian in Paris and traveled widely in Europe, Africa and the South Seas, returning to the family brownstone in New York City where he was to live for the rest of his life.

His early landscapes, which show the influence of the Barbizon School and of Corot, George Inness and Albert Pinkham Ryder gained him little recognition from critics or the public. Around 1910, the element of fantasy in his work became more pronounced and his technique became coarser; henceforth, he often painted on cardboard instead of canvas. As his works became more idiosyncratic, so did his behavior, and he developed an unsettling habit of visiting galleries and loudly condemning the works on display. (he reverted to the original spelling in 1913). On letterheads and in hyperbolic, self-published flyers he would proclaim his accomplishments: "Educator, Ex-actor, Amateur All-around Doctor, Mesmerist-Prophet and Mystic, Reader of Hands and Faces, Linguist of 5 languages", as well as world-class athlete and marksman, "Spirit-Painter Supreme", and musician whose improvisations rivaled the compositions of Chopin. All of this only reinforced the impression, already suggested by the peculiar imagery in many of his paintings, that he was either mad or a charlatan.

He was not without supporters, however. Eilshemius was championed by Marcel Duchamp, who discovered Eilshemius in 1917 and invited him to exhibit with him in Paris that year. Joseph Stella was an admirer and drew a particularly fine silverpoint portrait of him. His work was generally well received by French viewers and critics; his admirers included Matisse. Duchamp subsequently helped to arrange Eilshemius's first solo exhibition in 1920, at the Société Anonyme in New York City. The hostile critical reception to this exhibition, however, finally drove him to give up painting entirely in 1921, although there is a single known painting dated 1937. The remainder of his life was dedicated to self-promotion, and in 1931 he took to referring to himself as "Mahatma."

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File:Street in Biskra by Louis Michel Eilshemius.jpg|Street in Biskra (1893), Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

File:Summer Landscape with Hawk.jpg|Summer Landscape with Hawk (1901–06), The Phillips Collection

File:Louis Michel Eilshemius - Samoa - Google Art Project.jpg|Samoa (1907), The Phillips Collection

File:Louis M. Eilshemius - Standing and Reclining Nymphs - 1968.21 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg|Standing and Reclining Nymphs (1908), Smithsonian American Art Museum

File:Brooklyn Museum - Nude Ascending - Louis Michel Eilshemius - overall.jpg|Nude Ascending (1908), Brooklyn Museum

File:Kingsbridge by Louis Eilshemius.jpg|Kingsbridge (1909), The Phillips Collection

File:Louis Michel Eilshemius - Louis Michel Eilshemius Self-Portrait - NPG.83.132 - National Portrait Gallery.jpg|Self-portrait (1915), National Portrait Gallery

File:The Dream by Louis Eilshemius.jpg|The Dream (1917), The Phillips Collection

File:Louis M. Eilshemius - Nymphs Sleeping - 1989.43.4 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg|Nymphs Sleeping (1920), Smithsonian American Art Museum

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Notes

References

  • Karlstrom, P. J. (1978). Louis M. Eilshemius: selections from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Washington, D.C.: Published for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service by the Smithsonian Institution Press.
  • Schack, William (1939). And he sat among the ashes. New York: American Artists Group.
  • Neuburger, Katharina (2015). "No Jersey Blues" In: The Shadow of the Avant-garde: Rousseau and the Forgotten Masters. Edited by Kasper König and Falk Wolf. Berlin: Hatje Cantz.
  • Stefan Banz (2015). Eilshemius: Peer of Poet-Painters. Edited by KMD - Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp | The Forestay Museum of Art, published by JRP|Ringier.
  • Stefan Banz (2016). Louis Michel Eilshemius und sein Einfluss auf Marcel Duchamp. Edited by KMD - Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp | The Forestay Museum of Art, published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Vienna.
  • One-on-One: Ugo Rondinone / Louis Eilshemius 2023-2024 exhibition at The Phillips Collection