4994

George Eastman 1926

Seated three-quarter length to the left, wearing a dark three-piece suit and blue tie, his left hand on a book on his lap, his right arm resting on a table beside him on which stands a figure of the Greek god Atlas holding aloft a globe of the world, a green curtain behind

Oil on canvas, 127 x 101 cm (50 x 39 ¾ in.)

Inscribed upper right: de László / 1926 / I 

Sitters’ Book II, f. 47: Geo Eastman Dec 30/25 / [in the artist’s hand: (Codak-) [sic]]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A.

From October 1925 to April 1926 de László made his third trip to the United States. To secure American commissions and to make his presence in America known to his potential clientele, the artist sent twelve of his portraits to the Doll & Richards Galleries, Boston,^[1] where they were exhibited between the first and 10 October, the day before he left England on board the Aquitania. De László’s strategy was rewarded, as he was commissioned through the gallery to paint this three-quarter-length portrait of George Eastman to be hung at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.).

A contemporary article in Rochester’s Journal, which mentions that the portrait was shown at the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester for five days before being sent to M.I.T., also notes that “the commission to paint Mr. Eastman’s portrait was given without his knowledge. Five sittings took place in New York and two in his home, with Mr. and Mrs. Lazlo his guests.”^[2]

A few years later, de László recorded his impressions of Eastman: “as a self-made man, [he] achieved immense wealth and applied it most beneficially in scientific research. He is largely responsible for the creation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, and for much cultural work in his native city of Rochester, on which he spent millions. It was that Institute which, wishing to honour its great benefactor, asked me to paint his portrait. He started as a boy in a chemist’s shop and invented the sensitive photographic film for the Kodak camera, employing several thousand men in Rochester, where he manufactures films and cameras. He gave Rochester their museum, their hospitals, their dentistry, their city choir, their permanent concerts, and has not forgotten to support their churches. He has always remained single, and lives in a modest villa by himself.”^[3]

Here, the artist refers back to the traditional portrayal of the man of science: he shows Eastman with an antique globe by his side, holding a book, and refrains from representing any modern objects pertaining to his pioneering inventions in the field of photography.

During the sittings de László also painted a study portrait of Eastman, head and shoulders only, as a token of his admiration for his sitter. This was presented by the artist to the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York [4990]. At the time of the painting of these portraits, Eastman gave de László one of the first motion-picture cameras, the Ciné-Kodak model B, introduced in 1925. From then until the artist’s death in 1937, he, his sons and his studio assistant, Mr Harwood, filmed a unique record of his life on 16mm film, which was sent to America to be processed.  

In 1930, the artist painted posthumous portraits of the sitter’s parents from daguerreotypes, which indicates the artist’s admiration for Eastman, as he very rarely worked from photographs [5001] & [5004].

George Eastman was born on 12 July 1854 in Waterville, upstate New York, the youngest of three children of George Washington Eastman (1815-1862) and Maria Kilbourn (1821-1907). When he was five, the family moved to Rochester, where his father worked to establish Eastman Commercial College. The elder Eastman died young and the college failed, leaving the family in dire financial straits. George remained in school until he was fourteen, when he was forced to get a job in the insurance business to support his mother and two sisters, one of whom was wheelchair-bound. In 1874 he went to work for the Rochester Savings Bank. While working for the bank, he became interested in photography. He was inspired by the bulky photographic implements and difficult photographic processes of the time to begin experimenting with alternative solutions. He became a pioneer in the world of photography through the developments in that field by his Rochester-based firm, which in 1889 produced a transparent and flexible film. Further developments, such as the introduction of a daylight-loading film in 1891; the production of a pocket Kodak camera in 1895; and the development of an inexpensive camera for the average man made the Eastman Kodak Company into one of America's most successful firms. His business success enabled him to become one of the country’s leading philanthropists, with many of his contributions going to institutions in his hometown of Rochester. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology received an anonymous gift from him of $2.5 million in 1912, to which he added another $9 million in stock in 1924. In current dollar value remains the Institute’s largest donor ever.

Eastman shunned publicity, and, ironically, though his name became synonymous with photography, relatively few photographs were taken of him. He could walk down the main street of Rochester without anyone recognising him. He visited Europe annually, touring art galleries, and began making purchases of his own, eventually amassing a fine private collection of paintings. Later in life he began to suffer from a progressive disability resulting from a hardening of the cells in the lower spinal cord. Frustrated at his inability to remain active, he took his own life on 14 March 1932. His philanthropies continued through his will, which raised his total benefactions to various organisations to over $75 million.

PROVENANCE:

Commissioned through the Doll & Richards Galleries;

Presented to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

LITERATURE:

•Democrat, Rochester, N.Y., 26 January 1926, ill.

•Times-Union, Rochester, N.Y., 26 January 1926

•Journal, Rochester, N.Y., 26 January 1926

•Journal, Rochester, N.Y., 5 February 1926

•The Art News, N.Y., 6 February 1926

•Transcript, Boston, Mass., date unknown, ill.

•Evening Transcript, Boston, Mass., 18 March 1932

•The Tech [M.I.T. publication], Vol. LII, No. 15 (16 March 1932), p. 1, ill.

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 258-9

•Brayer, Elizabeth, George Eastman: A Biography, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996, p. 495

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 199-200

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 11

•DLA 1926 parcel, Democrat-Chronicle (Rochester, NY), undated [1926]

•DLA016-0029, letter from the artist to an unidentified “friend,” giving his personal reflections on Eastman and his charitable gifts

•DLA122-0043, Coupures Scrapbook, photograph of the artist with Eastman and the portrait

MD & CC 2011