The River Artist of Kentucky: Paul Sawyier - Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives

Paul Sawyier, one of Kentucky's most renowned artists, was born in 1865 to parents Nathaniel J. and Ellen (Wingate) Sawyier at Table Rock Farm in Madison County, Ohio. Five years later, the Sawyiers took up residence in Frankfort on Broadway in a genteel neighborhood described as "a very select part of town" occupied by "a choice group of families."

Considered affectionately as "the flower" of the five children, young Sawyier was encouraged early to pursue a career in the arts. Ellen, his mother, was an accomplished pianist who taught all of her children to play an instrument. (In his later years, Paul was considered an accomplished pianist as well as guitarist.) His father, Nathaniel Sawyier, wished to be an artist in his youth; however, lack of parental support caused him to be pushed into a career as a physician instead. Throughout his life, Dr. Sawyier was often seen in the backyard of his Broadway home painting with watercolors or creating clay sculptures. The birth of Paul was considered to "be the answer to a prayer that had been stifled."

Sawyier's artistic talent became apparent while attending Second Street Elementary School, when Principal Browder was walking past a classroom just as Sawyier was adding the finishing touches to a blackboard cartoon of his professor. Instead of punishment, the mischievous youngster received his first public acclaim. Soon afterward, a private art tutor was employed by the Sawyiers to instruct Paul.

After graduating from high school, Sawyier attended the Cincinnati Art Academy, where he studied life drawing under Kentucky artist Thomas S. Noble. The next year, Sawyier dropped out of the academy, and attempted to support himself by selling charcoal portraiture. Lack of financial success caused Paul to return to Frankfort to work as a hemp salesman. His career did not last long: Sawyier resigned a few months later, having distaste for labor.

Sawyier also wanted free time to pursue Mary Thomas (Mayme) Bull. Both appreciated art, and spent many an afternoon canoeing along the Kentucky River, sketching and painting. Because of their mutual desire to take care of their ailing parents and Sawyier's struggle to financially survive as an artist, they postponed marriage for an indeterminate amount of time.

In 1889, Sawyier furthered his art studies under William Merritt Chase at the New York Art Students League. During this time, Sawyier adopted Chase's impressionistic style although Chase insisted that Sawyier retain his own style: "Be yourself Paul -- be your individual self [;] be Paul Sawyier." Sawyier was also able to observe the famous portrait painter John Singer Sargent. Sawyier studied with Chase only one year before dropping out and traveling to Cincinnati to receive instruction under Frank Duveneck. Under Duveneck, he studied artistic composition. After this course, he returned to Frankfort to primarily paint portraits of members of well-to-do families in the community. He also started to paint scenes of the Elkhorn Creek and Kentucky River.

In 1908, Sawyier bought a houseboat on the Kentucky River, which served not only as his studio but also as his home. Some of his finest watercolors were painted aboard the boat while docked at river cities such as Frankfort, Highbridge and Camp Nelson. His watercolors frequently depicted calm waters, rolling hills, and light effects created by a rising or setting sun. Sawyier's paintings incorporated the style of Impressionist master, Claude Monet, with their misty hazes and opalescent tints. The Louisville Courier-Journal once described Sawyier's works as "shades of delicate color and sometimes rugged beauty that are met on many a twist and turn of the Kentucky River..." (Alan Trout)

Besides being works of art, Sawyier's paintings are also considered historical documentation of the Kentucky River at the turn of the century. His depictions of bridges that have been long torn down, steamboats which were retired or destroyed, and landscape which has long ago been altered by development are pivotal to the pictorial annals of Frankfort and Central Kentucky history.

The majority of Sawyier's paintings were sold as home accessories in Frankfort, Lexington and Cincinnati furniture stores. However, some were commissioned works for art patrons John J. King, Dr. Orrin Leroy Smith, and John Wilson Townsend.

Collections of his works were featured in local exhibitions, however Sawyier did not promote his works outside of his home state. In fact, he despised marketing of any sort. Unfortunately, Kentucky was not known as being an art center, and Sawyier's works were only restricted to local acclaim.

Sawyier refused all opportunities of supplemental income outside of painting; the sales of his artwork were to be his only source of income. During most of Sawyier's life, he lived in virtual poverty. Often, patrons bought works simply to make sure that the always struggling and prideful Sawyier would have food on the table.

In 1908, Sawyier's mother passed away, followed by his father in 1910. Sawyier inheirited the estate, which he eventually sold to pay several creditors for expenses he had incurred during his lazy days on the river. With neither family obligation nor financial backup left in Frankfort, Sawyier chose to leave Kentucky in 1913 to take up residence with his widowed sister, Lillian, in New York. He hoped to use the move as an opportunity to expand his career and receive recognition in established museums and galleries. He also planned to acquire enough money from the venture to marry Mayme Bull, still living in Frankfort.

Before moving to New York, he made thousands of sketches and acquired boxes of photographs of Kentucky for use in his New York studio. His period in New York is considered one of his most prolific, composing of hundreds of watercolors and experimental oil paintings of both scenic New York and Kentucky nostalgia. While in New York, Sawyier kept many of his Kentucky ties, and exhibitions of his works remained immensely popular.

In 1914 Sawyier received word that Mayme Bull, his longtime sweetheart, had passed away from "nervous prostration." Sawyier's last visit to Kentucky was for Bull's funeral, after which he remained in the Frankfort cemetery to paint the scene of the gravesite. Under the picture, in watercolors, he etched the lyrics to the song, "Absent." Sawyier never returned to the Commonwealth after Bull's death. In a description by his sister, Mary Campbell, Sawyier had lost "all his desire to live" after the loss.

The last few remaining years of Sawyier's life were spent living in a converted chapel at "Highpoint," the estate of art patron Mrs. Marshall L. Emory in the New York Catskills. Highpoint was known as a fashionable retreat for artists and was near Woodstock, the major art colony and center for American Impressionism.

Sawyier's stay at Highpoint was dismal. Since Bull's death, his need for isolation had increased, and he was destitute. Many of Sawyier's paintings were produced solely for the trade-in value for food, cigarettes, or bus fare to city galleries. Also, he turned to alcohol as a means of forgetting his misery. A social drinker in his younger days, Sawyier in his later years was rumored to sell paintings in order to purchase bourbon whiskey and "stay to himself" until sober again.

Despite his declining living conditions and increasing alcoholism, he still retained his professional ambitions. Sawyier remained very active in the planning and organization of his exhibitions, which spanned upper New York to Kentucky. He also tried working as a private art teacher.

In 1916, he left Highpoint to live rent-free in a boarding house in the neighboring village of Flieschmanns. About a year later, on November 5, 1917, Sawyier suffered a fatal heart attack. He was buried in a cemetery in Fleischmanns. Later that year, his body was brought back to Kentucky and re-interred in the Frankfort cemetery, to rest in his "sweet old town."

It is estimated that at the time of his death at the age of 52, Paul Sawyier could be credited with 3,000 works, mostly watercolor landscapes, a few oils, and fewer than 100 portraits.

Image Credits:
Old Capitol Hotel in the Rain, donated by Russell W. McRery, Kentucky Historical Society collection
Wilson Store at Keene, donated by Ann Thomas, Kentucky Historical Society collection

Black & white photos provided by the Kentuckiana Digital Library/University of Kentucky.

*Zembrod, Frances Farra. "Paul Sawyier." Kentucky Women's Journal, Feb. 1918, pp. 19-28.

**Niess-Warner, Mary Campbell Sawyier. "Paul Sawyier Ranks Great Kentucky Artist." Transcript: Original speech, Atlanta, 1928. Reprinted: State Journal, August 27, 1939.

***Zembrod, Frances Farra. "Paul Sawyier." Kentucky Women's Journal, Feb. 1918, pp. 19-28.

****Zembrod, Frances Farra. "Paul Sawyier." Kentucky Women's Journal, Feb. 1918, pp. 19-28.

Zembrod, Frances Farra. "Paul Sawyier." Kentucky Women's Journal, Feb. 1918, pp. 19-28.

Niess-Warner, Mary Campbell Sawyier. "Paul Sawyier Ranks Great Kentucky Artist." Transcript: Original speech, Atlanta, 1928. Reprinted: State Journal, August 27, 1939.

Jones, Arthur F. The Art of Paul Sawyier. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. 1976. Call number: K759.13 Jone

Steger, Annie Pierce. "Paul Sawyier Ate and Slept on 'Float,' Rescued Girls." State Journal, October 19, 1965.

Crawford, Byron. "Sawyier Paintings Keep Turning Up -- and They're Valuable." Courier-Journal, November 15, 1991.

Jones, Arthur F. "The Eclectic Paul Sawyier." Antiques. vol. 105, March 1974.

Kleber, John E., Thomas D. Clark, Lowell H. Harrison, James C. Klotter. Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1992. Call number: K 976.9003 Kent

"Paul Sawyier: American Impressionist (1865-1917)" Frankfort: Paul Sawyier Art Galleries. http://psag.burnsoft.org/About_Paul_Sawyier.html

"Paul Sawyier: A Kentucky Impressionist" Kentucky Historical Society. http://www.kyhistory.org/Museums/sawyier.htm

"Kentucky's Favorite Painter." KET. http://www.ket.org/kentuckylife/600s/kylife606.html

Etched on Sawyier's painting of Mayme Bull's Gravesite:

"Sometimes between long shadows on the grass,
The little truant waves of sunlight pass!
My eyes grow dim with tenderness, the while --
Thinking I see thee smile!

"And sometimes, in the quiet gloom, apart, --
The tall trees whisper - whisper heart to heart...
From my fond lips the eager answers fall --
Thinking I hear thee call!