Frederick Melville Dumond

Frederick Melville DuMond, born July 16, 1867, in Rochester, New York, was the younger of two sons of Alonzo DuMond, a manufacturer of sheet metal architectural cornices. Frank Vincent DuMond, his older brother, was also a painter. Frederick Melville DuMond began his formal art studies at twenty-one, attending the Académie Julian in Paris along with his older brother, accompanied for the first year by their mother, who kept house in Paris for them. Later, he attended the Beaux-Arts de Paris. He had works shown in many Paris Salons, winning some prizes. He and his first wife, Louise Adele Kerr DuMond—also a painter whom he met at the Académie Julian and who died in her twentieth year—had a son, Jesse William DuMond (1892–1976), who went on to have a distinguished career in physics. Camille DuMond (1900–1986), a daughter by a second wife, Clémentine Theulier DuMond, lived with the artist until his death and was also a painter.

Relocating from France to the United States in 1908, DuMond lived and worked in New York City but struggled to make sufficient income from his art. While there he converted to Christian Science. To extend his career, the artist undertook a series of painting trips in the American Southwest during summers between 1910 and 1914. This period of creativity found special recognition in a show of 34 paintings at the American Museum of Natural History in 1912. By 1910 DuMond had relocated to Monrovia, California, later building an artist's home there that he called Le Château des Rêves, recently restored by its present owners. He painted there and in other Western locations until 1924. During two extended periods between 1924 and 1926, he again painted in France and Italy. • Illustration — Frederick Melville DuMond "Legend of the Desert" (1894)

Under the influence of his academy training and seeking his own special emphases, DuMond painted typically quite large canvases featuring historical/dramatic subjects of considerable action or even violence: Roman amphitheater scenes of animals in combat or animals attacking people. These were attributed to a small movement, the Genre Feroce, so identified by contemporary art critic Sadakichi Hartmann. His Legend of the Desert (1894) features a biblical theme in a symbolist style and was displayed at the celebrated 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. • Illustration — Frederick Melville DuMond's painting "Sunrise at Walpi" (1911)

In late 1924 and early 1925, seeking new inspiration after his years in the American West, Frederick Melville DuMond decided to relocate to France or Italy. He obtained a studio in Florence, Italy, and Camille undertook singing lessons there. They returned to California upon news of his mother's illness in May, 1925, but her condition improved and they were able to return to Europe. Early in 1926 the artist again returned to California, learning that his mother was seriously ill. She died in May, and the artist remained to settle her affairs. Unexpectedly, on May 24, 1927, just short of his sixtieth birthday, Frederick Melville DuMond himself died. The Paris Salon had just hung his late work, The Dawn, and his son Jesse attached a memorial wreath to it there. • Illustration — Frederick Melville DuMond's oil painting, "The Dawn" (1927)

DuMond is best known for his work of this period, in part due to his own extensive efforts to promote the 1912 show of 34 of his paintings at the American Museum of Natural History. He gave a number of interviews that appeared in newspapers and magazines, one written by noted journalist and aviator Harriet Quimby. He kept a diary of his first southwestern trip and recorded somewhat fictionalized accounts of his painting adventures in two manuscript drafts, one including a tale of lost treasure. A painting trip to the White House Ruin was funded by Lorenzo Hubbell. These accounts formed the basis for a True West Magazine article published after his death. One painting looks out from inside the Mesa Verde cliff dwelling ruins, where the artist camped for a few nights. His painting Sunrise at Walpi (1911) recorded a visit to a still-occupied site. • Illustration — Frederick Melville DuMond "Grand Canyon at Sunset," in "National Magazine" 1915 Frederick Melville DuMond worked in a number of popular art styles, sometimes quoting from others' works—notably, his academy teacher Fernand Corman and American painter William Merritt Chase. He was modern in applying aspects from the decorative arts, especially from muralists, emphasizing design and pattern. While accurate to geology and archeology, his landscapes especially of mountains and native ruins heightened dramatic effects to convey grandeur and spiritual impact. His Grand Canyon paintings were notable for these tendencies and for modern style.

While the artist made his living from sales of his art, he also undertook various projects to make money. Typical of artists of the time, he sold many illustrations to magazines and for published books. In work for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway and other enterprises, he engaged in tourism promotion, evoking themes of scientific and archeological exploration and celebration of the vanishing west. He became a founding member of the art colony at Laguna Beach, California, receiving a prime lot at Arch Beach Heights in exchange for four paintings that the promoters used for billboards. DuMond assisted his brother Frank Vincent DuMond in some art projects, notably the illustrations to Mark Twain's 1896 novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, in co-teaching and co-directing summer schools for young American artists, and in painting especially the animals for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition murals. The artist proposed to do a panorama of the Grand Canyon and to build a hotel in the Los Angeles hills modeled on ancient Indian ruins