As we are preparing this portrait of former English professor Francis C. MacDonald to be hung on the 2nd floor, it is a good time to remember how well loved he was by his students. Here is a section from his obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

“By the death of Frances [sic] Charles MacDonald on March 26, 1952, Princeton lost one of her most devoted sons and the Faculty a teacher of exceptional gifts. He was born on Sept. 24, 1874, in Bangkok, where his father was at once a missionary and the representative of the United States at the Siamese court. At the age of ten he was brought to this country to prepare for college, but he never lost his command of the tongues he first learned and proved his mastery of it in middle life by using the language at least on one occasion when he delivered a public address in Siam.”

Daniel Garber (1880-1958), Portrait of Francis Charles MacDonald, no date. Oil on canvas. Princeton Portraits, Graphic Arts Collection.

After his graduation from Princeton in 1896 he held a position for a time in the University library; then, from 1902 to 1905 he was an instructor of English in Lake Forest College. President Wilson recognized his outstanding merits by recalling him to Princeton in the latter year as one of the original preceptors, and he continued to serve on the Faculty until 1936 when he retired because of ill health. From 1917 until 1929 he was on leave in Japan as assistant to his classmate Ambassador Morris and with him took an important part on the momentous negotiations in Siberia which followed the First World War

Following his return to this country he was in 1921 made an Associate Professor of English and had much to do in shaping the work of his department, notably by advocating and arranging opportunities for serious practice in writing. He had a phenomenal capacity to inspire students to read the best literature and to write up to their highest abilities. Countless men look back upon him as the professor who gave them most. He himself published in 1919 a novel of considerable distinction entitled Sorcery and in 1922 a volume of verse Devices and Desires, of which the poet La Gallienne said in a review: “It is long since I read a book so full of the avid spirit of youth,” that spirit never failed him. Those who knew him from his early days spoke constantly of his infections gaiety and ready wit. . . .

The books he cherished and taught them to enjoy he left to the university and it is singularly appropriate that the poetry room in the new library given by one of his many admiring students should henceforth bear his name.” –“Memorials: Francis Charles MacDonald, class of 1896,”
Princeton Alumni Weekly May 30, 1952

Visit Prof. MacDonald on the 2nd floor along with William Seymour (1855-1933), Arnold Henry Guyot (1807-1884); and Mathew Carey (1760-1839).

The last of sixty-six oil portraits made of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) during his lifetime was a half-length pose painted by the French society painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1684-1745). The artist enjoyed considerable success in London between 1738 and 1742, and this work was painted at the end of that period. Several copies were commissioned directly from Van Loo and many others were painted or engraved by other artists, making this image the best known of all his portraits. Although he looks quite elegant, disease had left Pope’s body deformed with a severe hunchback.

Unidentified artist, after a painting by Jean-Baptiste van Loo (French, 1684–1745), Portrait of Alexander Pope (British, 1688–1744), 1800s. Oil on canvas, original ca. 1742, author’s age fifty-four. Robert H. Taylor Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections

Ode to Solitude by Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

Thanks to the collecting efforts of Alfred Bush, retired Curator of Western Americana, the Princeton University Library has a small but choice collection of paintings by Awa Tsireh (1898-1955, also known as Alfonso Roybal, also known as Cattail Bird).

Tsireh was born and raised at the San Ildefonso pueblo in New Mexico. He received a sponsorship from the School of American Research within the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. Among the benefits was a studio in the museum where he could concentrate on his painting full-time.

Represented in a number of American art exhibitions throughout the years, Tsireh is being singled out in a retrospective at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum in Washington beginning later this week. For more information, see that study guide from 1993 at: http://americanart.si.edu/education/pdf/pueblo_indian_watercolors.pdf.

“The paintings of Awa Tsireh (1898–1955), represent an encounter between the art traditions of native Pueblo peoples in the Southwestern United States and the American modernist art style begun in New York, which spread quickly across the country. Tsireh, also known by his Spanish name, Alfonso Roybal, decorated pottery as a young man on the San Ildefonso Pueblo near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Later, at the encouragement of Anglo patrons, he translated the forms and symbols of his pottery designs into watercolor paintings on paper. His stylized forms echoed the Art Deco aesthetic that was so popular between the two world wars, and his linear compositions appealed to modernist sensibilities.”–American Art Museum. http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2015/tsireh/

Unidentified Artist, Elihu Spencer Sergeant, 1787-1824, no date. Miniature painted on ivory. Princeton Portrait Collection no. 184. Graphic Arts GA 2005.00107. Gift of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, son of the subject, presented before 1907.

Elihu Spencer Sergeant, Class of 1804, was the son of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, Class of 1762, a member of the Continental Congress, and attorney-general of Pennsylvania. According to Donald Egbert, “Young Sergeant, whose mother was the daughter of the Rev. Elihu Spencer of Trenton, a trustee of the College of New Jersey, was born at Philadelphia on May 29, 1787, the eighth child and fifth son of his parents. He entered the College at Princeton, became a member of Whig Hall, and graduated high in his class in 1804, delivering the physical science oration at commencement. Admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1808, he practiced law in that city until his death on August 4, 1924 at the age of only thirty-seven.”

This image is slightly out of focus due to the heavy glass over the painted ivory surface. The frame might be contemporary to the portrait, although the thumbtacks holding it together are not.