John
Sartain (October
24, 1808 – October 25, 1897) was an English-born American artist who
pioneered mezzotint engraving in
the United States. John Sartain was born in London, England. He learned line
engraving, and produced several of the plates in William Young Ottley's Early
Florentine School (1826). In 1828, he began to make mezzotints.
He studied painting under John Varley and Henry James Richter. In 1830, at the age of 22,
he emigrated to the United States and settled in Philadelphia.
There he studied with Joshua Shaw and Manuel J. de Franca. For
about ten years after his arrival in the United States, he painted portraits in
oil and miniatures on ivory. During the same time, he found employment in
making designs for banknote vignettes, and also in drawing on wood for book
illustrations. He was a 33 degree Mason. He pioneered mezzotint engraving in
the United States. He engraved plates in 1841–48 for Graham's Magazine, published by George Rex
Graham, and believed his work was responsible for the publication's
sudden success.[2] Sartain
became editor and proprietor of Campbell's Foreign Semi-Monthly
Magazine in 1843. He had an interest at the same time in the Eclectic
Museum, for which, later, when John H. Agnew was alone in charge, he simply
engraved the plates. In 1848, he purchased a half interest in the Union
Magazine, a New York City periodical. He transferred it to Philadelphia,
where it was renamed Sartain's Union Magazine, and from 1849–52 he
published it with Graham. It became very well known during those four years. During
this time, besides his editorial work and the engravings that had to be made regularly
for the periodicals with which he was connected, Sartain produced an enormous
quantity of plates for book illustrations. Sartain was a colleague and friend
of Edgar Allan Poe. Around July 2, 1849, about
four months before Poe's death, the author unexpectedly visited Sartain's house
in Philadelphia. Looking "pale and haggard" with "a wild and
frightened expression in his eyes", Poe told Sartain that he was being
pursued and needed protection; Poe asked for a razor so that he could
shave off his mustache to become less recognizable. Sartain offered to cut it
off himself using scissors.[4] Poe
had said he had overheard people while on the train who were conspiring to
murder him. Sartain asked why anyone would want to kill him, Poe answered it
was "a woman trouble." However, later when Sartain let Poe stay the
night with him at his house, Poe informed him that he may have been
hallucinating. This incident was four months before Poe's death.[3] Poe
gave Sartain a new poem, The Bells,
which was published in Sartain's Union Magazine in November
1849, a month after Poe's death. Sartain's also published the
first authorized printing of Annabel Lee,
also posthumously. After his arrival in Philadelphia, Sartain took an active
interest in art matters there. He held various offices in the Artists' Fund
Society, the School of Design for Women,
and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
and was actively connected with other educational institutions in the city. He
had visited Europe several times, and on the occasion of his second visit in
1862 he was elected a member of the society "Artis et Amicitiæ" in Amsterdam.
Sartain
had charge of the art department of the Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia, in 1876. In recognition of his services there, the king of Italy
conferred on him the title of cavaliere of the Order of the Crown of Italy. His
architectural knowledge was frequently requisitioned: he took a prominent part
in the work of the committee on the Washington Memorial by Rudolf
Siemering in Fairmount
Park, Philadelphia, and he designed medallions for the monument
to George Washington and Lafayette erected in
1869 in Monument Cemetery, Philadelphia. His Reminiscences
of a Very Old Man (New York, 1899) are of unusual interest. Upon his
death in 1897, Sartain was buried in Monument Cemetery.[8] Shortly
before his death, The Philadelphia School of Design for
Women created the John Sartain Fellowship in recognition of his
28 year tenure as Director In 1956 the cemetery was condemned by the city and
given to Temple University which cleared it for a
parking lot. Sartain's body was not claimed and he and approximately 20,00 The
tombstones, including the cemetery's 70 feet high central monument to George
Washington and General
Lafayette and his family monument (all designed by Sartain)
were dumped into the Delaware River to serve as the foundations
for the Betsy Ross Bridge.