The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 36

there like everywhere else, and beside a lot of braggarts
and daubers of the most detestable and impossible
kind, there are characters who give the effect of a lily
or a snowdrop between the thorns.” 129 Clearly, it was
through their widely appealing illustrations, rather than
their tiles, that the Tile Club reached a broad public
and gained invaluable recognition for its members.
The Tile Club was relatively inactive as an orga-
nization in 1883. Two early meetings were noted by
Vedder, both dinners: one on January 27, the second
organized by Smith and held on April 6 as a farewell
party for Vedder, who was returning to Italy. 130 That
summer Laffan traveled abroad, visiting Vedder in
Italy and later spending two days with Abbey, Parsons,
and Boughton in Stratford, England, before returning
home. A letter written by Millet to Vedder that fall
reported that the club had begun to “peter out” after
Vedder’s departure from New York. The only real news
was that Stanford White was made a Tiler (perhaps in
place of Vedder). 131
In the meantime, several of the club’s more active
members were busy with other ventures. Smith had
taken on the awesome job as salaried director of the
Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition, which opened
with a speech by him on December 3, 1883. This
historic event was organized to raise funds to construct
a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty presented by the
French government to the American people on the an-
niversary of the country’s independence. Other Tilers
active in the organization of this show included Diel-
man, Millet, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (who became
the club’s second sculptor member around this time),
and Chase, who served on a total of five committees,
and was chairman of the Committee on Admission of
Objects. 132 Chase also served as juror for the Munich
Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1883, and was helping to
30 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
plan the inaugural exhibition of the Society of Painters
in Pastel (postponed until 1884). Now, several years af-
ter the production of tiles by the Tile Club had all but
ceased, its crucial function as a fraternity and forum for
struggling artists was diminishing as well.
One major accomplishment of the Tilers toward
the end of 1883 was the remodeling of their clubroom
at 58½ West Tenth Street. On January 3, 1884, Laffan
wrote to Vedder that the club was not the same as it
used to be. 133 Although the usual dinners and argu-
ments were mentioned, nothing was said of regular
Wednesday night meetings. A letter from Millet to
Vedder provided further detail of the newly designed
space created for them (two rooms had been renovated
into one large L-shaped room) by their most recent
inductee, the celebrated architect, Stanford White:
“There is a light dado of red wood. Gorgeous Stanford
White redwood mantlepieces and the walls are all pan-
eled off so as to admit canvases which are to be painted
over by the members.” 134 Suggesting the apathy of the
Tilers by this point, Millet noted that not one of the
vacant spaces left for the installation of paintings in the
club’s room had been filled, and although he, Quartley,
and Gifford faithfully showed up for meetings, Weir
turned up only “sometimes,” Dielman “seldom,” and
Chase “rarely.” 135 “There are too few of us who think
it is a good thing to gather in the name of sociability,”
Millet summarized. 136 Rather than allow their newly
furbished quarters to go to waste, they made them
available to the Author’s Club free of charge in hopes
of establishing a little “fellow feeling between the two
professions.” 137
A special event on February 20, 1884, brought
many of the Tilers together for yet another excursion,
this one probably an overnight trip. The occasion was
a reception dedicating a new art gallery added to the