Elmer Garnsey’s Murals
About Elmer Garnsey
Like many of the artists and craftsmen involved in the Custom House, the painter Elmer E. Garnsey was well known to Cass Gilbert before work began. They had most recently worked together at the Union Club in New York and at the Minnesota State Capitol, both of which Gilbert designed and Garnsey decorated. When Gilbert was planning the interior for the Custom House, he again chose the esteemed Garnsey to paint the plaster surfaces of the Main Hall, Rotunda, stairways and vestibules.
Born in Holmdel, New Jersey in 1862, Garnsey studied art at Cooper Institute and at the Art Students League. In 1893, he received a bronze medal at the Chicago Exposition and a silver medal seven years later at the Paris Exposition. Highly recognized professionally, Garnsey began a career in decorative painting on the walls and ceilings of many of the major architectural monuments of his day such as the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library, the Rhode Island State House, Carnegie Institute in Pittsburg, the New York Stock Exchange, the Union and University Clubs in New York, the capitols of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Andrew Carnegie’s home in New York.
In 1908, Gilbert wrote Garnsey of the Treasury Department’s readiness to decorate the Collector’s Suite. Gilbert suggested a possible theme to focus on the important ports of the ancient and modern world. Garnsey followed these directions with very few changes. It was not until 1911 when an appropriation of $35,000 was made to Garnsey that he was able to complete these murals.
Description of Murals
In 1910, Garnsey first turned his attention to the vaults of the main hall and the mezzanine walls. He created low relief murals in earth colors of rust, burnt sienna and dull gold. These murals resemble Spanish leather work. Garnsey’s motifs consist of broad bands of color and Pompeian floral designs and arabesques. While Garnsey was working on the Main Hall murals, Collector Loeb obtained an appropriation to complete the decoration of his suite. For this suite, Gilbert and Garnsey settled on a complex scheme for the ceiling walls and panels which would unify the rooms. Garnsey carefully researched his themes for the ten panels. They depict ten important ports of 1674, the last year the Dutch flag flew over Fort Amsterdam. The ports depicted are Fort Amsterdam, Curacao, the most important Dutch West Indian port in the 17th century, Fort Orange, now Albany, New Amsterdam, La Rochelle, France, London, Port Royal, Jamaica, Plymouth, England, Cadiz, Spain, and Genoa.
The main panel on the south wall is that of New Amsterdam’s Weeper’s Point, where tearful relatives sent off visitors to New Amsterdam. The next panel is Fort Amsterdam, in which small sloops, single-masted sailing vessels, float in the foreground, carrying beaver skins. The next panel, London, shows Billingsgate Market and the old custom house, includes an example of the earliest designed yachts. Curacao, a much smaller panel, was included because Peter Stuyvescent was the Governor here before coming to New Amsterdam. It was also a major port for the Dutch West Indian Company. La Rochelle, France, another panel, was an important port for traders from London or Amsterdam, wishing to avoid French or Spanish Privateers. The panel Port Royal, Jamaica shows a large English trading ship. It was the best known port for buccaneering expeditions. In the Plymouth, England panel, an English warship is present. Finally, the panel representing Cadiz, Spain has Spanish Treasure ships filled with valuables from the New World.
In 1912, Garnsey completed the ceilings and walls of the main staircases in the northeast and northwest angles of the building, from the first to seventh floors.
