Marshal+Ferdinand+Foch

Date: 1920
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1923/1923.6.20_1a.jpg?itok=injf2ENt width="313" height="310" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/marshal-ferdinand-foch-23703"]] || Title: **Marshal Ferdinand** **Foch **

Artist: **Edmund C. Tarbell** Born: West Groton, Massachusetts 1862 Died: New Castle, New Hampshire 1938

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 78 1/8 x 78 1/4 in. (198.5 x 198.7 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the National Art Committee

Accession: 1923.6.20 || Ferdinand Foch was born on 2-Oct-1851. He was born in the city of Tarbes, France and was the son of a lawyer. Ferdinand was the commander in chief of the Allied armies in France. In the final stages of World War I he helped to bring about the Allied victory.
 * About Marshal Ferdinand Foch: **

 Ferdinand was a Roman Catholic with exceptional training. Early in his life he decided to become a soldier and he joined the army in 1871. At the early age of twenty he entered Ecole Polytechnique. Shortly after graduating from there he enrolled at the Ecole de Guerre, France's war college. He was such an inspiration that he was asked to be a teacher there. He went on to teach military tactics and achieved the rank of major. His lectures were so superior that they were made into two works, The Priciples of War, and De la Conduite de la Guerre. He served as a line officer with the French army from 1901 until 1907. He was called back and made director of Ecole de Guerre from 1908 to 1911. This time he was a commandant. Ferdinand was forced out of retirement to command the Eighth and the Twentieth Army Corps. Eventually he became chief of the French general staff in 1917.

At the start of World War I, Ferdinand commanded France's Ninth Army during the battle of Marne, which was the first major engagement of the war. He also commanded an army group in the battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916. Later, his generalship at Ypres saved the channel ports for the Allies. Ferdinand was eventually given unified command of all the Allied troops in France. He halted the German advance during the second battle of Marne in July of 1918. On 18-Jul-1918, Ferdinand mounted the counter attack that turned the tide of the war. Several months later he accepted the German's surrender, which took place in November of 1918. Meanwhile, on 7-Aug-1918, he was made Marshal of France. After the war he served in advisory capacities and later went on to die in Paris on 20-Mar-1929.

Born: West Groton, Massachusetts 1862 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Died: New Castle, New Hampshire 1938
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> About Edmund Charles Tarbell **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A leading Boston painter in the style of Impressionism, Edmund Tarbell was born in West Groton, Massachusetts, and raised in Boston where as a teacher at the Boston Museum School influenced a succeeding generation of Impressionists who became known as the Boston School. However, he always retained an element of realism in his work. His early paintings are most known for depictions of well-bred upper class women, fashionably dressed and at leisure, and his work was "among the most advanced in color and aesthetic of light of any American artist." (Gerdts 92).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Biography: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> However, as Tarbell moved into the 20th century, his palette became more conservative with less emphasis on color vibration and more on indoor figure arrangements with elegantly appointed interiors. He also was a much sought after portrait painter in Washington DC where his subjects included Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> When he first arrived in Boston, he was only fifteen. His father had died, and his mother remarried, and he was sent to live with his Boston grandparents. He took a job as an assistant at the Forbes lithography firm and then studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School as a student of Otto Grundman, Frank Benson, and Robert Reid. In 1883, he went to Paris with Benson, and both worked under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre at the Julian Academy. However, his major influence was Impressionism, a style that was becoming increasingly influential among French artists.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> In 1885, in Boston, he began a life-long career as a portrait painter but gained his early recognition with his figural works, many of them posed in interiors. From 1889, he began a twenty-four year career at the Boston Museum School where, "despite the placid nature of his paintings, he was a peppery, assertive man with strong opinions. He became one of the most respected and feared art instructors of his day,..." (Zellman 570). In 1918, he moved to Washington D.C. and focused increasingly on portrait painting and also became Director of the Corcoran School.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Edmund Charles Tarbell
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Related Resources: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Artist Biography <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Links: **