James E. Allen – E is for Edmund

E-is-for-EdmundJames E. Allen (1894-1964) was an American artist/illustrator/printmaker in the early twentieth century. His etchings show steel and iron workers building the skyscrapers and infrastructure of 20th century America. In stone and oil he illustrated stories of adventure, war, and American life in magazines such as Collier’s, Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post.  While many art references identify him as “James E. Allen”, corresponding to how he signed his prints, scholarly sources since the late 1980s began asserting that Edward was his middle name. But this is not correct; his middle name was Edmund.

This is not unprecedented. In 2006 the celebrated American painter Fitz Hugh Lane was found to actually be Fitz Henry Lane. Much like what we find with James Allen, at some point an unambiguous “H” was expanded to “Hugh” and it stuck.

Here I present evidence for James Edmund Allen and speculate on the source of the error.

The case for Edmund

It was not difficult find an Edward/Edmund discrepancy. Online searches reveal numerous authoritative listings, as well as auction house and gallery listings that include “Edward”, but there are telling exceptions.

  • The site “Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists” has a page on James Edmund “Edd” Allen highlighting his long and successful career as an illustrator and commercial artist. It includes a sample of his signature:
    JamesEdmundALlenSignature.png
  • Allen’s great nephew Allen Rizzi had a web site, http://www.violetbooks.com (no longer online), where he published a short biography of James Allen entitled “On James Edmund Allen, Illustrator”. He has given permission to share it here: On James Edmund Allen
  • Allen Rizzi recently self-published an e-book called The Horse Whisperers from Anaconda about James “Edd” Allen and his brother Elmer (“Lee”). He confirms the middle name of Edmund and includes this evidence, a report card from 1905:
    Allen-ReportCard-March1905.png
  • Allen Rizzi also has confirmed “Edmund” via email (April 22, 2018): “Yes, Edward is in error. His middle name was Edmund. He was known by his nickname “Edd” by family but professionally as James E. Allen. All personal correspondence was directed to “Edd Allen.”“
  • A shout out to Brier Hill Gallery which lists a work under James Edmund Allen. The gallery owner, Robert Strossi, was motivated like me by a personal interest in the artist and his works, and in fact took a fact funding journey similar to my own.

A check for genealogical evidence led me to an Ancestry.com listing for James Edmund Allen. There we can see

That these all refer to the same man is not in doubt, since biographical facts and works correspond.

How/when did things go wrong?

I surveyed a wide range of online and printed sources hoping to trace the origin and propagation of the error. There’s no clear answer, but it demonstrates the staying power of an unchallenged fact.

The bottom line:

  • The earliest use of “Edward” I found was in Peter Falk’s Dictionary of Signatures & Monograms of American Artists: From the Colonial Period to the Mid 20th Century from 1988. It shows only a monogram commonly used by Allen in his paintings but nothing that reveals the source of the expanded name:
    Falk-JEAllen
  • The full “Edward” name was soon adopted broadly. We see three major references switch from “E” to “Edward” between editions as well as its adoption in new works.
  • We can’t claim Falk’s use to be the pivotal influence alone however. It is not cited directly by other sources introducing the error, nor is it found in sources they do cite. Both Falk and his contemporaries may have been influenced on the name by common misinformation found in the marketplace.

James-Edward-Allen-graphThis diagram shows relationships in time sequence among a wide sample of published and online sources that include James Allen (click on the image for a larger view). Observations:

  • Authorities seem to fare poorly here, but they reflect facts as found in the world around them, placing trust in standard references and literature. Their goal is in fact to record the various ways entities are identified in the real world. However, as of this writing, Getty’s Union List of Artist Names indicates James Edward Allen as preferred form of name. [entry fixed, Sept, 2018]
  • Standard references are vetted, facts checked and verified to provide accurate information. But in a vast sea of information, errors can creep in. How long they survive reflects the amount of attention being paid to the subject, and I am simply part of a process of insuring the accuracy of information over time. In conversation with editor Peter Falk (Who Was Who in American Art and the Dictionary of Signatures and Monograms of American Artists), he was as excited to hear of this new information as I am to have found it.
  • Libraries and museums have been de facto sources of authoritative information since long before the computer age. They have a tradition of proper identification of works and place emphasis on identification found on the works themselves. This is perhaps why we see their part of the diagram nearly error free. The one exception, for WorldCat Identities, is simply because they acknowledge the alternate name as found in OCLC’s Virtual International Authority File (VIAF).
  • Scholarly literature that is about or mentions James Allen mostly stick to the artist’s preferred and generally accepted “James E. Allen”.  There’s simply not a concern in this context to reference a full legal name if it wasn’t commonly used.

Hypothesis — blame the marketplace?

Actually, there is no villain in this piece. But it is reasonable to speculate that “Edward” may have entered the picture through the sort of casual identification that comes with art consignments, gallery holdings or personal transactions. If someone knew the artist went by the name “Edd”, then Edward would be a reasonable guess for “E”.

While I don’t have access to auction records from the 1980s, a survey of a portion of the auction market as represented by current online auction brokers lends credence to this possibility.

  • LiveAuctioneers
    • James Allen – 24
    • James E. Allen – 38
    • James Edward Allen – 9
  • Invaluable
    • James Allen – 27
    • James E. Allen – 106
    • James Edward Allen – 7
  • Heritage
    • James E. Allen – 1
    • James Edward Allen – 6
  • BidSquare
    • James E. Allen – 3
    • James Edward Allen – 1

“Edward” by no means dominates, but neither does it conflict with alternatives. I certainly took it for truth until I learned otherwise.

Where the editors of Falk’s Dictionary found “Edward” may never be known. Falk believes the index cards used to track edits in 1988 were not kept, but that’s ok. The real story is the persistence and spread of one bad fact both in print and online. It is a small cautionary tale that highlights the value of questioning data and the need for continuous attention to the integrity of information we encounter every day.

References from diagram

Authorities

Libraries and Museums

References

  • Benezit
    • Bénézit, E. The Benezit Dictionary of Artists. [Oxford] : Oxford University Press, 2011. Internet resource. (Allen entry)
    • Bénézit, E, Jacques Busse, Christophe Dorny, Christopher J. Murray, and Karen Beaulah. Dictionary of Artists. Paris: Gründ, 2006. Print.
    • Busse, Jacques, and E Bénézit. Dictionnaire Critique Et Documentaire Des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs Et Graveurs De Tous Les Temps Et De Tous Les Pays. Paris: Gründ, 1999. Print.
  • Castagno, John. Artists As Illustrators: An International Directory with Signatures and Monograms, 1800 — the Present. Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1989. Print.
  • Falk, Peter H. Dictionary of Signatures & Monograms of American Artists: From the Colonial Period to the Mid 20th Century. Madison, Conn: Sound View Press, 1988. Print.
  • Falk, Peter H, Audrey M. Lewis, Georgia Kuchen, and Veronika Roessler. Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999. Print.
  • Falk, Peter H. Who Was Who In American Art: Compiled From the Original Thirty-four Volumes of American Art Annual–Who’s Who In Art, Biographies of American Artists Active From 1898-1947. Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1985.
  • Fielding, Mantle, and Glenn B. Opitz. Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers. Poughkeepsie, NY: Apollo, 1986 & 1983. Print.
  • Havlice, Patricia P. Index to Artistic Biography. Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press, 1973. Print.
  • Mallett, Daniel Trowbridge, b. 1862. Mallett’s Index of Artists, International-biographical: Including Painters, Sculptors, Illustrators, Engravers And Etchers of the Past And the Present. New York: R. R. Bowker company, 1935.
  • Reed, Walt. The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000. New York, N.Y: Society of Illustrators, 2001. Print.
  • Saunders, David. “J. E. Allen.” Field Guide To Wild American Pulp Artists, 2013, <www.pulpartists.com/Allen.html>.
  • Who’s Who in American Art. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1937-. Print.
  • Williams, Lynn B. American Printmakers, 1880-1945: An Index to Reproductions and Biocritical Information. Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press, 1993. Print.

Marketplace

Literature

  • American Art Today: Gallery of American Art Today, New York World’s Fair. New York: National Art Society, 1939. Print.
  • American Artist. Stamford, Conn.: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1940. v.8, January 1944
  • American Federation of Arts. American Art Annual. New York: MacMillan Co., 1898-1948. Volume 30, 1933
  • Beall, Karen F. American Prints in the Library of Congress: A Catalog of the Collection. Baltimore: Published for the Library of Congress by the Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. Print.
  • Ekedal, Ellen, and Susan B. Robinson. The Spirit of the City: American Urban Paintings, Prints, and Drawings, 1900-1952 : Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, February 18-April 7, 1986. Los Angeles: The Gallery, 1986. Print.
  • “James E. Allen: A Virile American Artist” in American Artist. Stamford, Conn.: Watson-Guptill Publications. Inc., 1940. v.8, no.2 (February 1944): 12-15
  • Master Prints of Five Centuries: The Alan and Marianne Schwartz Collection. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1990. Print.
  • North, Bill, Stephen H. Goddard, Rural America: Prints from the Collection of Steven Schmidt, Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, 1933 — “James E. Allen”, p.36
  • Reese, Albert. American Prize Prints of the 20th Century. New York: American Artists Group, 1949. Print.
  • Rizzi, Allen E. “On James Edmund Allen, Illustrator”. Aunt Violet’s Book Museum (a home for decayed gentlewomen). http://www.violoetbooks.com/jamesallen.html
  • Royot, Daniel, Itzhak Goldberg, and Daniel Lebard. L’amérique De La Dépression: Artistes Engagés Des Années 30. Paris: Hoëbeke, 1996. Print.
  • Ryan, Mary. James E. Allen. Exhibit catalog. Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, 1984.
  • Smith, Donald E. American Printmakers of the Twentieth Century: A Bibliography. Haworth, NJ: St. Johann Press, 2004. Print.
  • Three Centuries of American Art (Exhibition catalog), MoMA, May 24 – July 31, 1938
  • Williams, Reba, Dave Williams, Karen F. Beall, and David W. Kiehl. Graphic Excursions-American Prints in Black and White, 1900-1950: Selections from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams. Boston, Mass: D.R. Godine in association with the American Federation of Arts, 1991. Print.
  • Wooden, Howard E. American Art of the Great Depression: Two Sides of the Coin : Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas, October 27 Through December 1, 1985. Wichita, Kan: The Museum, 1985. Print.