Royal Cortissoz

“The career of one of America’s distinguished diplomats and journalists, valuable as biography, as history, as a study in the development of American journalism, and in connection with other biographies — John Hay, Henry Adams and Joseph Choate.” — A.L.A. Catalog 1926 “Perhaps no man can be named who had a more complete ‘inside’ knowledge of Republican party politics in the United States from Lincoln to Roosevelt. He had a stirring career as editor and (after Greeley’s death) proprietor of the New York Tribune, at that time the leading Republican paper of the country. Later he served as Ambassador to France, and during the administrations of Roosevelt and Taft was Ambassador to Great Britain. The correspondence on which the author has freely drawn in preparing these volumes covers a period of more than fifty years.” “He has, in fact, written the political history of a period, with Reid as its central figure—a record painstaking and exact, showing the man in his setting.” – The Book Review Digest

American art flows not from tradition but, in a specially marked sense, from the individuality of the artist. The men who have played a constructive part in the building up of our school have in many cases received their training abroad, but have used it in a fresh, very personal manner. It is in appreciation of some of these men that the following pages have been composed; in some cases to recall figures not always remembered at the present day. My chapters have been written on various occasions. I hope, however, that they have the unity which should come from years of faithful study of American art and from Whole-hearted delight in the manifestations of its.