As I stood in front of my Great, Great Grandfather’s paintings, Sunrise and Sunset, in the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, looking at the mountains, people, and scenery that he dedicated his life to, I wondered how I could go the majority of my life, thus far, and not know anything about him, despite him being “America’s greatest artist.”1 His subjects were painted from a distance, observed in a very general and vague way,2 just as I had experienced him all my life. Strangers knew him better than I knew him and I felt disappointed in myself.

They knew him more as the great artist and a “madman,” but I wanted to know him as a person, father, husband, and relative. I couldn’t call myself his Great, Great Granddaughter unless I got to know him a little more intimately. I simply knew that someone in my family was an artist, someone lived in a mental institute, and someone was involved with the circus, but little did I know that two of these people were the same person and the third was his wife.
Ralph Albert Blakelock was considered by some a genius and by others a madman. With nine children, he was a loving husband, father and grandfather, (although not many got to know him personally as the latter, only calling him Grandpa and never actually meeting him). This is where my story picks up. R. A. Blakelock was my grandfather’s, Douglas Blakelock’s, grandfather.
Ralph Albert Blakelock was born on October 15, 1846 to Ralph and Caroline Blakelock, their first.3 As a baby, Ralph’s father was not around much, working eighteen and fourteen hour shifts, with only sixteen hours off between the two. Because of the common absence of his father, Blakelock needed some kind of a father figure that he could look up to. Enter James Arthur Johnson, married to Blakelock’s Aunt Emily. Johnson was a musical teacher and an amateur artist. He lived across the street from the Tenth Street Studio Building, where many well-known artists’ paintings resided when it opened in 1858. Living across from the Studio building, Blakelock was exposed to artistic expression at the early age of twelve years old.

Thanks to his Uncle James, he was even able to view Frederic E. Church’s famous painting, Andes.

In 1861, Ralph’s father began the family tradition of physicians when he became a homeopathic physician and worked out of their house. The medical life had influenced Blakelock’s life more than some have credited him.

“In the homeopathic asylum where Blakelock ended up forty years later, he complained to his physicians and attendants that he knew more about medicine than they did. He could, he said, prescribe his own medication and spouted Latin medical jargon to prove it. It was in puttering about his father’s office, and perhaps, at times, in assisting him, that he learned a great deal about the practice and metaphysical musings of homeopathy.”

In a family of doctors, (his father and brother being doctors), there was a lot of pressure on Ralph to follow the family lines and become a doctor. But after studying medicine for two years at Free Academy in New York City, he soon realized that medicine was not where his heart was. He was always more interested in his literature, history, and art classes, and ranked sixth in his school at drawing.

He left the university and went to live with his Uncle James and Aunt Emily, which would end up being the only formal art teachings that he received. And this is where he met his future wife, Cora Rebecca Bailey. At the time, Cora was only nine years old and Ralph was seventeen years old when they first met. She was attracted to his particular good looks and charming personality. Blakelock had gentle eyes, with slick black hair and a full dark mustache -any woman’s dream at the time. Vincent tells of Cora writing, “We roamed the country together all that summer; he sketching and painting while I sat by his side.” This same description could be said of their later marriage, Blakelock painting and Cora by his side, watching, supporting, and taking care of their family.

Cora Rebecca Bailey was described by many as the shadow behind the figure. She always stood by Blakelock, no matter what. While Blakelock was busy trying to become a famous artist, she herself was a bit famous. James A. Bailey was her father. James co-founded the well-known “Barnum and Bailey Circus”4 and now half of the famous “Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus” -also known as the “Greatest Show on Earth”.5 He was the first person to bring elephants to the United States, bringing yet more fame to his name. Although Cora was of famous and well-to-do blood, she stood by Ralph like a rock, not once wishing for the limelight nor the wealth for herself.

Blakelock and Cora got married on February 22, 1875, making what some people would call “a handsome couple.”4 They bore nine beautiful children; Carl Emil, Marian, Claire (who died in infancy) and Ralph Melville (twins), Mary Florence, Louis Roy, Allen Osborne, Ruth and Douglas Albert, (my grandfather’s father).4

Despite Cora’s well-to-do family, the Blakelocks had quite a hardship with their money. They were broke and had to still support nine children somehow. While most people would completely fall apart, or run to their parents for help, Cora remained steady and dedicated to her love, Ralph. She was dedicated in being the best wife and mother that she knew to be. Ralph Melville speaks of his mother’s strength and influence. “…the first thing that comes to my mind is the way mother has borne her misfortunes and disappointments and the good influence she has always had on us children. Her lot has indeed been a hard one, but she has always accepted the inevitable in a most uncomplaining manner.”4

Blakelocks’ symptoms began as early as the 1880s when Cora described him as being paranoid and feeling persecuted. She loved him dearly and still remained by his side, never letting on that he was beginning to become “nervous.” Then the symptoms began to grow worse and he was found wandering around the streets by his brother, George.4 These wanderings lead to the inevitable hospitalization.

On the day that Douglas Albert was born, September 12, 1903, Blakelock was taken to Kings Park State Hospital. Cora recalls this day, “I was never afraid of him but at last the doctors said it was unsafe to have him at home, that it was absolutely necessary to have him taken away.

That day I can never forget… On that day my youngest son was born.”4 This was the beginning of what some people called his mental instability.

On June 25, 1901, he was diagnosed with “dementia praecox” (now known as schizophrenia) and transferred to the Middletown State Hospital for the Insane.3 In hospital records, it shows that he became crazier and crazier; going from dressing and sometimes acting like the Native Americans he saw when he was out west, to believing that he was “fabulously wealthy” -making his own “dollar bills” out of torn shirts. He once claimed that he sent $9 million to the National Academy of Design and that someone stole the “Blue Diamond of Brazil” from him.3 All of this time, Cora still staying by his side, not wavering her love for him nor going to her (or his) family for help.

Maybe his “imagining of tremendous wealth” was just a symbol for what he could have been, had he not been in the Institute. While he was institutionalized, the value of his paintings began to rise and within three years, two records of value were broken, both by him.

“In March 1913, Senator William A. Clark purchased at auction Blakelock’s Moonlight for $13,900; at the time, it was the most ever paid for a work by a living American artist. In February 1916, that record was broken when the Toledo Museum of Art purchased Brook by Moonlight from a collection for $20,000. (Blakelock had asked $1,000 for it, but only got about $500 when he originally sold it.)”3

Even though he was thought of as “crazy,” his paintings became famous and popular.
This tremendous value for his paintings was great, however; his family wasn’t fortunate enough to see this wealth, despite the fact that the “rescuer,” Beatrice Van Rensselaer Adams, established the “Blakelock Fund Inc.” It was supposed to help out Blakelock’s family, but they never saw a penny of the $35,000 raised.3 And once he was released to Adams, he was shut out from his family. Cora was only allowed to see him upon many days notice and only under the supervision of Mrs. Adams. (Ironically, no one had heard from Mrs. Adams for twenty-two years after Blakelock’s death, until a report came out that she was hospitalized at the very same hospital that Blakelock was once at, Kings Park State Hospital, and diagnosed with the same disease that Blakelock was, “dementia praecox.”)3

Blakelock was a visionary for his time; he created his own style of painting, different from any other before him.

“Neither the Hudson River style [which he is often associated with] nor the western genre provided Blakelock with the natural vehicle for the expression of his own point of view. Both manners required a kind of objectivity with which he was ill at ease. Both of them were focused on the variety and wonder of the subject itself. For Blakelock the wonder lay in his own identification with the experience of nature. His inspiration was personal, intimate. It lay entirely within the bounds of filtering experience through imagination. He was, in simple terms, a romantic personality seeking to transcend reality.”2

It is believed that his inspiration, at many times, didn’t come from the art itself, or the monetary gain (since he didn’t receive any), but instead it was from letters from his family and visits from Cora, his shadow.

Ralph Albert Blakelock was a man of wisdom and genius. His paintings were unique and opened a door to a whole new genre of painting, they sold for unheard of prices for their time. An appropriate ending to his life, there were speculations about the cause of his death, accusations that Mrs. Adams had killed him, due to bruises all over his body. Many distinguished people mourned Blakelock’s death including the famous sculptor, Daniel C. French, William M. Kendall, Francis Jones of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Augustus Healy, (millionaire arts partron), and Dr. Ashley, from Middleton. It is said that even President Woodrow Wilson was invited to the funeral, but was unable to make it and sent his regrets. Despite all of these famous people, Cora stood there still supporting her husband like she always did.

Today I see some of Blakelock’s personality traits carried over to me. I like to say that my creative sense, although not in painting but in writing, was due to his amazing creative sense. He will always be one of my inspirations, no matter what people say about him.

Works Cited
1. Vincent, Glyn. The Unknown Night; The Genius and Madness of R. A. Blakelock, An American Painter. New York: Grove Press, 2003.
2. Geske, Norman A. Ralph Albert Blakelock 1847-1919. Lincoln, NE: Nebraska Art Association, 1974.
3. Davidson, Abraham A. “The wretched life and death of an “American Van Gogh”.” Smithsonian   18.9 (Dec. 1987): 80-81.
4. Davidson, Abraham A. Ralph Albert Blakelock. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
5. Ringling Bros.. 28 Nov. 2007 <http://www.ringling.com/>.