Arthur Beecher Carles

Arthur Beecher Carles (1882-1952) was an American modernist painter who was born in Pennsylvania in 1882, and raised in Philadelphia. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1900 and 1907. He studied with Hugh Breckenridge, Henry McCarter, Cecilia Beaux, and William Merritt Chase. He won the Henry P. Thouron prize in 1903 for his painting and the Cresson Travelling Scholarship in 1905 and 1906 which allowed him to travel to France and remain there until 1909. In France, Alfred Henry Maurer introduced him to art collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein and he became interested in Impressionism. He became close friends with Eduard Steichen and was greatly influenced by the work of Henri Matisse. He accepted a commission from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to create a copy of Raphael's Transfiguration.

He returned to Philadelphia in 1910. In March 1910 his work was included in the “Younger American Painters” show held at Alfred Stieglitz’s New York City gallery, 291. Stieglitz gave Carles his first one-man show at 291 in January 1912. He also had one-man shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cosmopolitan Club of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

He returned to France from June to October 1912 and exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne. After his return to America he exhibited at the Armory Show of 1913. During World War I, he directed the camouflage painting of Navy ships at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

He taught at PAFA from 1917 to 1925 and was a proponent of modernism. He was fired from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1925 after several warnings about missing classes. In the 1930s, he taught students privately including Jane Piper and Morris Blackburn.

He married Mercedes de Cordoba in 1909 and they were divorced in 1926. Their daughter, Mercedes Matter was a painter and writer. Carles married Caroline Robinson in 1927 and they had a daughter also named Caroline. His sister, Sara Carles Johns, was an artist and fashion illustrator.

He suffered from depression after the death of his mother in 1927 and was hospitalised multiple times for alcoholism. In December 1941, he was partially paralyzed from a stroke. He could no longer paint and was wheelchair bound until his death in 1952 in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.

After his death, his art has been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Parrish Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1983, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Woodmere Art Museum in 2001.