The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 100

Arthur Quartley
American, b. France, 1839–1886
Known for his marine paintings, Arthur Quartley was largely
self-taught, aside from having studied drawing with his father,
Frederick William Quartley, a well-known engraver. Quartley
was born in Paris to English parents, and when he was a teenag-
er the family immigrated to Peekskill, New York. After serving
as an apprentice to a sign painter in New York City for several
years, Quartley moved to Baltimore in 1862. Once he settled in
the city, he became a partner at the decorative and sign-painting
firm of Emmart & Quartley; he married Laura Louise Delamater
shortly thereafter. Following a decade in the commercial business,
he left the partnership, opening a studio first in Baltimore and
then in New York City in 1876. Here, he received high acclaim
for his seascapes of the Chesapeake Bay, East Hampton, the Isle
of Shoals, Narragansett Bay, and Cold Spring Harbor. Also in
1876, he was elected to the National Academy of Design as an
Associate. Additionally, he was one of the original members of the
Tile Club, was a member of the Society of American Artists, and
along with fellow Tilers Francis Hopkinson Smith and Charles
Stanley Reinhart, established an art colony in Cold Spring Har-
bor, Long Island.
An unknown author, writing for The Art Journal in 1878, noted
that “his genius is as indisputable as are his earnestness, industry,
and originality; that both his subjects and his style are native
products; that his finest period is undoubtedly yet to come, and
that, when it does come, his reputation will be cosmopolitan.”
Sadly, after traveling to Europe with his children in 1884, Quart-
ley became ill, and by 1886, his health had deteriorated rapidly.
Out of respect for a distinguished artist, the National Academy
quickly awarded Quartley full status as an Academician. Soon
thereafter, he died in New York at age forty-six.
94 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
George Willoughby Maynard (American, 1843–1923) Arthur
Quartley (1839–1886): Study for a Plate in “A Book of the Tile
Club,” 1886, black crayon and graphite on beige paper,
12 1/4 x 10 1/8 in. irregular, New York Historical Society, gift of
R. W. G. Vail, July 30, 1945, Z.3652
REFERENCES:
“American Painters—William H. Beard and Arthur Quartley.”
The Art Journal 4 (1878): 321–324.
Dearinger, David Bernard. ed. Paintings and Sculpture in the
Collection of the National Academy of Design. Volume 1,
1826–1925. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2004.
Montgomery, Walter, ed. American Art and American Art
Collections: Essays on Artistic Subjects by the Best Art Writers,
Fully Illustrated with Etchings, Photoetchings, Photogravures,
Phototypes, and Engravings on Steel and Wood by the Most Cel-
ebrated Artists. Vol. II. Boston: E. W. Walker & Co., 1889.