Biography

If you had to name a famous American who lived in Paris for a time and ran with the bulls in Spain, you might well think of Ernest Hemingway. But Hemingway had a sidekick in some of his exploits, the artist Waldo Peirce. Peirce was born in Bangor, ME in 1894 into a family that held vast tracts of timber across the state. He was a giant of a man, and at one point in his youth, John L. Sullivan tried to recruit him as a professional boxer.

After graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, MA in 1903, Peirce went to Harvard. He enrolled in the class of 1907 but didn't receive his degree until 1909, preferring to spend his time playing football and shooting pool. After studying at the Art Students League in New York, Peirce decamped for Europe.

He traveled in typical Peircean style. With his Harvard friend John Reed, he booked passage on a cattle boat that was to stop in Liverpool. But he couldn't take the stench of the ship's cargo, jumped overboard and swam back to the Boston Harbor. Reed went on to Liverpool, suspected of having murdered his traveling companion, but Peirce had booked passage on a fast steamer so as to beat him there and help him escape any legal proceedings.

In Europe Peirce studied with Ignacio Zuloaga (1912-1914) in Spain and then at the Académie Julian in Paris, developing his own Impressionist style. His friend George Biddle (a friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who later played a major role in setting up the Federal Art Project) introduced him to Dorothy Rice, whom Peirce married in Spain in 1913. Rice had achieved notoriety in New York in 1907 for racing her motorcycle up Fifth Avenue; her personality was a good match for Peirce's.

When World War I broke out, Peirce attempted to enlist in the French Army. He was already having success with his painting in Paris and New York, where his work was exhibited along with that of George Bellows, John Sloan and Edward Hopper. In 1915 Peirce volunteered for the American Field Service, and he served as an ambulance driver from 1916-1918, winning the Croix de Guerre for his bravery at Verdun. His moving writing in Friends of France suggests that he might have had a career in writing as well as painting.

Meanwhile Peirce and Rice may have been too much for each other. She moved back to the United States in 1914, where she took up flying. The couple divorced in 1917. Peirce married Ivy Troutman in Paris in 1920. She was an actress who appeared in many Broadway productions. She and Waldo were part of a circle of American expatriates in Paris in the 1920s, meeting Ernest Hemingway in the middle of the decade. Peirce and Hemingway were indeed kindred spirits and maintained a relationship until Hemingway's death in 1961. Indeed some of the ambulance-driving exploits that appear in Hemingway's writing were likely retelling of tales from Peirce's experiences.

By 1929 Peirce was divorced from Ivy. He met Alzira Handforth Boehm at a Matisse show in New York, and took her to visit Hemingway in Key West. The couple was married in 1930. The daughter of a wealthy developer, she had studied at the Art Students League and published poetry in The New Yorker. She delivered their twin children Michael and Mellen in the same Paris hospital where Waldo had brought wounded soldiers during the war.

Waldo and Alzira moved back to Bangor in 1931. Their daughter Anna was born in 1934. Peirce was gaining increasing popularity with his still lifes and portraits, his fame peaking in the 1930s. During this time he often visited Hemingway in Key West, joining a group that included John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish and Maxwell Perkins. Peirce's father died in 1937, leaving an inheritance that gave him complete financial freedom.

In 1937 Time magazine used Peirce's portrait of Hemingway for its cover story on the writer. Waldo and Alzira joined the WPA in 1938. She painted Post Office murals "Ellsworth, Lumber Port" for Ellsworth, ME and "Shipwreck at Night" for South Portland, ME. He painted the murals "Legends of the Hudson" and "Rip Van Winkle" for the Troy, NY Post Office, "Old Bull Pen" for the Peabody, MA Post Office, and "Woodsmen in the Woods of Maine" for the Westbrook, ME Post Office.

The extent of Peirce's renown at this time was reflected in the January, 1939 issue of The London Studio, which featured Peirce's work alongside that of Matisse and Picasso. A book Waldo Peirce was published by Margit Varga in 1941. And his paintings won prizes at several national exhibits in 1944.

After the war, Peirce and Alzira divorced. Alzira moved to New Mexico to work for the United Mine Workers. During the war Waldo had lunched with a model of his at a cafe where the model's friend, Ellen Antoinette Larsen, was waitressing. This encounter led to a relationship that culminated in Waldo's fourth marriage in 1946. Ellen and the two children she had with Waldo (Jonathan in 1946 and Karen in 1948) served as models for many of his subsequent paintings (which numbered in the hundreds).

Peirce's last meeting with Hemingway was in Tucson in 1959. Lehigh University held an exhibit in 1960 that featured Peirce's work along with the ceramics of Raymond Gallucci and the paintings of Charles Ward (another Depression Era muralist). Peirce died in Newburyport, MA in 1970.

Critical Analysis

Peirce's first major influence was probably Cezanne. He adopted an Impressionist style in his early work. He also owed a lot to Matisse, with Matissean patterns decorating many of his paintings. Critics of Peirce's work in the 1930s suggested a progression from Zuloaga to Goya to Matisse, knowing that Peirce had studied with Zuloaga in Spain and first encountered Goya's work while in Spain. Zuloaga's work appears very brittle compares to Peirce, although Zuloaga was probably a superior draftsman. Peirce did describe his work from 1912-1914 as his Zuloaga period. Peirce's later debt to Matisse is, fairly obvious.

It's interesting how highly Peirce was ranked by critics in the 1930s - and how abruptly he disappeared from view after World War II. Part of this is due to the rise of Abstract Expressionism, which wiped Regionalist art away from the shelves of art dealers in the 1950s. And part may be due to Peirce's move toward domesticity. Initially critics compared his children's portraits to the work of Renoir, but this comparison was clearly overblown, and perhaps the same critics fled from their initial evaluation. In any case the sentimentality of these portraits was evident, enhanced by the speed with which Peirce liked to work. That spontaneity of his was the secret to his charm, but it may have limited the powers of his expression.

Peirce's sister-in-law had an explanation for the lack of Peirce's lasting success, blaming it on the fact that he was always financially independent. She suggested that, had Peirce been a little more desperate to make a public impression, he might have made an effort to put greater depth into his paintings and developed a more significant oeuvre. But, whether or not Peirce was a 20th Century Renoir, his paintings have a joyous nature that makes them an enduring pleasure to behold.

Murals

• Portland, Maine - Portland Museum of Art: Woodsmen in the Woods of Maine
• Peabody, Massachusetts - Former Post Office: Old Bull Pen
• Troy, New York - Post Office: Legends of the Hudson
• Troy, New York - Post Office: Rip Van Winkle

References

1. Wayne E. Reilly, Bangor artist jumped ship and into history books, Bangor Daily News October 30 (2010).
2. Sarah Sargent, A Bit of Blueberry, Artnosh June 9 (2011).
3. Jeffrey Meyers, Ernest Hemingway and Waldo Peirce, The Article November 28 (2023).
4. Colin W. Sargent, So Much More Than Waldo’s Wives, Portland Monthly September (2018).
5. Croix de Guerre, Uniform Grouping of Waldo Peirce, U.S. Militaria Forum September 17 (2010).
6. Jim Lane, Waldo Peirce, Art Now and Then May 24 (2015).
7. Waldo Peirce (Wikipedia).
8. Waldo Peirce (Citizdendium).
9. William Gallagher, Waldo Peirce, Harvard Magazine January-February (2002).
10. Waldo Peirce (Waldo Peirce).
11. William Gallagher, Waldo Peirce and Ernest Hemingway: Mirror Images, The Hemingway Review Volume 23, Number 1, Fall (2003).
12. Waldo Peirce, Painter, Is Dead; Toured Spain With Hemingway, New York Times March 9 (1970).