Joseph Pennell

Joseph Pennell was one of the most prolific and successful practitioners of etching and lithography during the so-called golden age of American illustration, at the turn of the twentieth century. The only child of Philadelphia Quakers, he developed a passion for drawing that his father, a shipping company employee, encouraged. As a youth, Pennell worked selling coal while attending night classes at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art and he began to make etchings. He then enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, studying under famed teacher and figural painter Thomas Eakins, but showed little interest in painting, preferring to draw and etch. Pennell left the Academy in 1880 and opened his own studio. He soon found abundant commissions for magazine illustrations, which took him to Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, and to Florence, Italy, to make etchings to accompany a series of articles by American writer William Dean Howells.

In 1883, while back in the United States, Pennell married Philadelphia writer Elizabeth Robins, and he returned with her to Europe with a commission to make etchings of the cathedrals of England. Intending to stay until their funds ran out, the Pennells spent most of the next three decades abroad, based in London. The artist was in constant demand for his etchings, lithographs, and illustrations. Specializing in city and architectural views, he favored elevated viewpoints and an economical, even sketchy approach to rendering them that demonstrates his deep admiration for American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler, with whom he maintained a close friendship. In 1908, the Pennells published a biography of Whistler, and they collected his prints, books, and letters, later donating them to the Library of Congress. The couple published other books, including manuals on book illustration and printmaking technique.

With the outbreak of World War I, the Pennells returned to the United States, settling in New York. The artist made a series of lithographs showing war work on the home front, and he also began making his celebrated views of New York City skyscrapers and vistas, often employing a vertical format and plunging perspective. Pennell taught at the Art Students League in New York. He also maintained an active presence in his native city, where he was a founder of the Philadelphia Society of Etchers, but his irascible temper often led him into controversy. Pennell worked in oils, pastels, and watercolors, but his name has remained synonymous with printmaking.