The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 39

Figure 25. Edwin Austin Abbey (American, 1852–1911), An Old Song, 1885, transparent and
opaque watercolor over graphite underdrawing, 28 x 48 in., Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial
Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, 1937.2681
true Tiler fashion. 142 “We’ll just tease the outsiders by
inviting the whole public to come and visit us. But in
a peculiar way...In a book!” 143 And the idea became A
Book of the Tile Club, published in 1887, to which many
members contributed their efforts.
The deluxe volume, the Tile Club’s magnum opus,
measuring 15 x 12 ½ inches with 105 pages, was de-
signed by White and enhanced by endpapers adorned
with members’ seals (based on their sobriquets) cleverly
devised by the artist George W. Maynard, who at some
indeterminate point became a member of the club. The
introductory text was written by Shinn, and humorous
accounts, loosely based on facts, were contributed by
Smith. Throughout the book were sprinkled vignette
drawings by the popular illustrator Arthur B. Frost,
presumably a recent inductee. Unfortunately none
of these drawings has been located; however Frost’s
earlier work, such as his watercolor Portrait of Emily
L. Phillips, shows an affinity to that of other An-
glo-American Tilers such as Abbey and Boughton. The
remaining illustrations ranged from informal sketches
to full-page phototype plates of various members’ ma-
jor paintings. The subjects and styles of these accom-
plished works serve as testimony to the fact that the
Tile Club, as a group, still did not represent any par-
ticular school of painting. Abbey and Millet, who had
made England their adopted home, drew inspiration
from its cultural heritage as seen in Abbey’s An Old
Song, a nostalgic costume piece based on earlier times,
and Millet’s Handmaiden, derived from the neo-clas-
Decorative Age or Decorative Craze? 33