Portraiture in Pennsylvania. .

In 1959 the pioneering American art historian Edgar P. Richardson wrote: "Jacob Eichholtz is a problem which we must look to people in Pennsylvania to solve. His career and his works are there; and his life is part of the story of the arts in that state." Ten years later Rebecca J. Beal of Pittsburgh, a descendant of the artist, published a large catalogue raisonne of Eichholtz's known works, which includes 924 entries, 889 of which are portraits. Now another Pennsylvania-based scholar, Thomas R. Ryan, executive director of the Lancaster County Historical Society, has organized an exhibition that is split between three institutions in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In its entirety it enables visitors to understand not only the evolution of Eichholtz's career but also see his achievements in the context of the region in which he worked. The umbrella title of the exhibition is The World of Jacob Eichholtz Portrait Painter of the Early Republic.

The shows' openings are sequential. The first is Jacob Eichholtz from Artisan to Artist, which may be seen at the Lancaster Historical Society starting on April 10. On April 15 Jacob Eichholtz's Lancaster opens at the Heritage Center Museum of Lancaster County, and finally on April 25 The Artistic World of Jacob Eichholtz opens at the Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin and Marshall College. All three exhibitions remain on view until the end of December.

The three-part show includes more than one hundred paintings as well as objects made during the period that Eichholtz was painting his forthright like-nesses of friends, family and other patrons. Eichholtz left us a large volume of documentation, some of which is today only available in transcripts, as the originals have been lost. The papers include his ledger covering the years 1809 to 1817, his commonplace book, and letters. Like others, Eichholtz also contributed his own biographical write-up for William Dunlap's landmark work, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, published in New York City in 1834.

Lancaster, where Eichholtz was born in 1776, ...