The picture of success: Sketch Club a thriving Philly institution for 150 years

N.C. WYETH never had the advantage of posting his latest work to his Facebook page.

Still, the patriarch of the renowned Chadds Ford family of artists would likely recognize the camaraderie and concerns exhibited by current members of the Philadelphia Sketch Club recently as they mingled in the very room where Wyeth enjoyed his first solo exhibition in 1912.

He'd even recognize the artists' beverage of choice, as the Yuengling brewery was already 31 years old when the Sketch Club was founded in 1860.

Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, the Philadelphia Sketch Club proudly calls itself "America's oldest continuing artist organization," a resource and watering hole for creative types from across the spectrum of visual media and at all experience levels. Its membership has included notable Philly artists including Wyeth, Thomas Eakins, Joseph Pennell, Thomas Anschutz and Maxfield Parrish.

"The Sketch Club's mission is to support and nurture visual artists, art education and visual arts history," explained President William C. Patterson. "It does that through a number of programs and just as a general meeting place for artists."

On a recent late-January evening, more than a dozen professional artists gathered in the upstairs gallery of the Sketch Club's historic building on Camac Street, Philadelphia's famed "Little Street of Clubs." The informal group included a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, a Newbery Award-winning children's book illustrator and Gov. Rendell's official portraitist, among other local painters, photographers and illustrators.

At least half of the meeting was spent in casual conversation, with these renowned artists huddled around the piano (not coincidentally the staging site for beer, wine and sandwiches). Even after the group settled into a more formal semicircle, much of the discussion dwelled on the value of this social setting.

When children's book artist Gene Barretta mentioned how much time he spent working in isolation, a collective laugh of recognition went up around the room.

"I value being around people who do what I do or see the world the way I see it," Barretta said. "Artists definitely are unique in the way they look at things. That's what makes them artists. In my everyday life, it's rare for me to encounter other artists, and sometimes that can get a little bit boring."

Photographer Kyle Cassidy, whose most recent book is "Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes," agreed. "There's a shared language between photographers and painters that you just don't find at the 7-Eleven."

The benefits of Sketch Club membership, Cassidy explained later, extend beyond collegiality into inspiration. "I don't think that any successful artist has grown up in a vacuum," he said. "A place like this is inspirational and motivational because you don't want to be the person with nothing at show-and-tell. You don't want to come to a meeting and be the person who's done nothing in the past month."

Painter James Toogood, whose work primarily consists of gorgeously rendered, hyperrealistic watercolors, touted previous meetings where members had brought in work for peer critique. "It's a wonderful opportunity to see other artists that you respect," he said. "You get a lot of really good minds thinking about things that you may have a blind spot for."

That's just what the Sketch Club's founders had in mind.

The club was born on Nov. 20, 1860, the offspring of six former Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts students who gathered weekly to compare each other's works on a single chosen subject. Before long, the club's mission would grow to include artists who worked in other mediums, as well as classes for novice artists.

The Civil War broke out within a month of the Sketch Club's founding and would have a historic impact on the fledgling organization. Members created works supporting the abolition of slavery and encouraging enlistment, including an enormous, illuminated transparency hung at 12th and Chestnut in 1864 to celebrate Maryland's newly adopted abolitionist constitution.

Life drawing classes began in 1863. Beginning in 1874 they were taught by Thomas Eakins, recently returned from European travels to find PAFA closed during the construction of its now-historic building on Broad Street. One of his students was Thomas Anschutz, who became an influential member for the remainder of his life. The club's library is ringed by 44 portraits of members painted by Anschutz in the early 20th century.

"I think it's the most unique organization in the world," declared Donald Meyer, a 15-year member and former vice president of the club. "Through its history, really fundamental things happened here - and it was all over beer, not through official channels. From Eakins in the late 1800s through the '30s, when a lot of members were major modern art collectors, these were really heavy-duty shock troops of art. And in between they all got drunk and had meals and talked."

For its first 40 years, the club met in temporary spaces around Philly. A pair of rowhouses on Camac Street were purchased as a permanent home in 1903. The club expanded into a third house in 1915, then an architect member helped combine the three into the current single building.

The upstairs gallery hosts regular exhibits and the first-floor library houses numerous antique art volumes. The basement, resembling an old-fashioned guild hall, is home to the monthly dinner meetings, open to members both professional and amateur, where guest speakers discuss their work, or perhaps some technological advance in their craft against a backdrop of the fireplace and ornate wood carvings.

As Barretta pointed out, the building's own history can be inspirational.

"One of the reasons I love Philadelphia is because I love Colonial American history," he said. "I get a charge just from walking down the streets of the city, let alone being in a building that feels this authentic. Maybe there's a spirit here that will rub off."

The club's current membership numbers around 280, and is roughly 50 percent female - despite being an all-male club until 1990. (Next door is the home of the Plastic Club, formerly the Sketch Club's all-female equivalent, founded in 1897.)

"Twenty years ago, the club was a bunch of old white guys over 70," Robert Byrd, the Newbery-winning children's book illustrator, said, laughing. "But it's expanding."

Despite its increasing inadequacy to describe the organization's actual activities, the name "Sketch Club" has persisted throughout its 150-year existence.

"If someone doesn't know the club and hears the name, they think that either we get together and do pencil sketches or we're a theatrical group," Patterson said. "But it's a historic name and there's no desire to change it."

Instead, the Sketch Club's diversity is being showcased in a number of exhibits stretching across the city and beyond during its anniversary year.

Chestnut Hill's Woodmere Art Museum has works by several generations of Sketch Club members from its permanent collection on display throughout the year; the National Constitution Center is currently hosting an exhibit of World War I posters by Sketch Club members (including Howard Chandler Christy's comely Navy recruitment models); and Haddonfield, N.J.'s, Markeim Arts Center is running a show of South Jersey members.

In the months to come, exhibitions are scheduled to open at the Brandywine River Museum (recreating that initial N.C. Wyeth show), the Atwater Kent Museum, an Eakins show at the Art Museum, PAFA, and City Hall among many other institutions and galleries.