Jean Jacques Pfister. Royal Poinciana Bloom, oil on canvas, 25 by 30 inches.

Jean Jacques Pfister. Royal Poinciana Bloom, oil on canvas, 25 by 30 inches.

 

Jean Jacques Pfister was born in 1878 in Basle, Switzerland and immigrated to the United States in 1898. Pfister studied art at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco, the Art Students League and the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. In the early 1920’s he established a studio in Laguna Beach, California, where he painted, “en plein air,” impressionistic landscapes of Carmel, Monterey, and Laguna Beach.

His thickly painted, richly colored oil paintings relate closely to the style of Mary DeNeale Morgan, a contemporary, who was also an exhibiting member of the Laguna Beach Art Association. Pfister came to Rollins College in Winter Park in 1932 as associate professor and head of the art department. At Rollins Pfister worked with Hugh McKean years before McKean became president of the school. He remained there two years. Pfister gave talks to art associations and women’s clubs all over Florda. In Miami the Woman’s Club was packed to standing room only. In Tampa Pfister spoke four times and had an exhibition of his paintings at the Tampa Bay Hotel. In 1933 Pfister joined with Henry Salem Hubbell and Col. and Mrs. Henry S. Doherty to start an art exhibit at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. At the opening of the First Annual Exhibiton of the Art Institute of Miami at the Biltmore, Pfister had a one man exhibition and gave a demonstration of painting. In the middle of the Depression, the painting was raffled off for the benefit of the Milk Fund. In 1936 Pfister was art instructor in Miami at Miss Harris’ Florida School, teaching there until 1942. He painted the portraits of many Miamians including Dr. Ernest Lorenzen of the University of Miami Law School and Harry Morgenthaler, founder and first president of the Coral Gables Youth Center.

Doris Reno in the Miami Herald, June 16, 1946, said of Pfister, “A devoted Miamian… has spent a great portion of his American residence traveling across country to put on canvas the contours of hundreds of American mountains, is perfectly content with Florida’s flatlands…. For as long as we’ve been doing art shows in Miami we’ve been seeing Jean Jacques Pfister’s big lovely canvases of mountains and lakes in muted blues and greens.” His best known work, We At Daybreak, records the trans-Atlantic flight of Charles Lindberg.

Born: July 10, 1878, Basle, Switzerland.
Died: 1949.
Education: Mark Hopkins Fine Arts School, San Francisco; Gwerbe School; Art Students League, NYC; Grand Central School of Art, NYC; Art School of Bremen, Germany; with Wayman Adams; Nicola Fechin.
Membership: Blue Dome Fellowship, Miami, director, 1947; Florida Federation of Art; Palm Beach Art League; Florida Painters Association; National Arts Club; American Water Color Society; Salmagundi Club; New York Water Color Society; Laguna Beach Art Association; Carmel Art Association; Yonkers Art Association; Westfield Art Association.
Exhibits: Art Institute of Miami, 1st Annual, Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, 1933, East River-New York, Florida Moonlight, Michigan Dunes and Birches, In The Adirondacks; Students’ Art Club, lecture and exhibition, March 15, 1933, Students’ Art Club of Tampa, and Rollins College, Presenting the Paintings of Jean Jacques Pfister, Tampa Bay Hotel, March 1934, Old Fashioned Flowers, The Great Live Oak, Iris, The Flame Vine, Dawn-Lake Virginia, Lake Maitland, The Last Glow, The Bok Tower, Vista of the Martin Villa, The Ripples Garden, October Snow-New Hampshire; Florida Federation of Art 9th Annual, Tampa, November 1935, Mountain Scene, Alps, Maine Coast, chosen for annual circuit; Blue Dome Fellowship, Annual Exhibition, Miami Beach Library and Art Center, January 1937; Hotel Pancoast, Miami Beach, January 1937, one man exhibit; Students’ Art Club, Tampa, April 21, 1937; Florida Federation of Art, 11th Annual Exhibition, St. Augustine, December 2-5, 1937, Miner’s Cabin- Bannock-Montana, Sunset After The Storm-Jackson Hole-Wyoming; Miami Woman’s Club, Exhibit, January 31, 1938; Coral Gables Junior Woman’s Club, one man exhibit, February 1938, 1939; Miami Woman’s Club, 11th Annual Artists Breakfast, March 1938, three large canvases; Palm Beach Art League Annual, March 1938, best portrait or figure painting, professional, Portrait Sketch; Florida Federation of Art, All Florida Show, April 1938, Castor and Pollux, Wild Flowers on Long Inland Sound; Palm Beach Art League, March 1939, 2nd best professional portrait, Peggy in Costume; Washington Art Studio, Miami Beach, Florida Room, April 1941; Florida Painters Association, 2nd Annual, Miami Beach, December 1941, Swamp Rhythm; Blue Dome Fellowship, Miami Beach Public Library, member of jury, January 1942, Michigan Birches; Housekeepers’ Club annual, Coconut Grove, February 1942; The Group, Miami Beach Public Library, February 1942, Birches at Bon; Casa Loma Hotel, Coral Gables, November 1942; Miss Harris’ School, November 1942, twelve paintings; Palm Beach Art League, Norton Gallery, March 1944; Florida Federation of Art, 19th Annual Exhibition, Miami Beach, December 7, 1945, The Camper, Lucille Nott Award, best Florida landscape, St. Johns River; Blue Dome Fellowship, first exhibit after World War II, in cooperation with Miami Woman’s Club, Miami Art League, Burdine’s Department Store, February 1947; Blue Dome Fellowship, at Housekeeper’s Clubhouse, 2985 Bayshore Drive, January-February 1948; Miami Boat Show, 1st award, 1948; Poinciana Festival Art Show, Miami, 1948, best painting; Vermont Historical Museum; Columbia University Chapel, New York City; Elk Temple, Passaic, New Jersey.
Directory: Listed in the Miami City Directory, 1938 to 1949, as an artist with studio at 806 East Ponce de Leon Blvd. in 1938, 1939; 806 Douglas Road in 1940; 614 Aledo Avenue, 1945 to 1949, all in Coral Gables.

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