R. H. Ives Gammell

Robert Hale Ives Gammell (1893 – 1981) was an American artist best known for his sequence of paintings based on Francis Thompson's poem "The Hound of Heaven". Gammell painted symbolic images that reflected his study of literature, mythology, psychology, and religion.

Early life and education Gammell was born into a wealthy family in Providence, Rhode Island and attended Groton School. He spent much time alone drawing, and by his teens expressed his desire to pursue art. He went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where his teachers included Edmund C. Tarbell, Joseph DeCamp, and Philip Leslie Hale, all members of the Boston School of painters. He went to the Académie Baschet where he studied with Henri Royer and William Laparra in Paris, but his studies were interrupted by World War I, during which he served with the U.S. military.

Returning to Boston, Gammell painted murals, portraits, and landscapes. He aspired to more imaginative subjects, but he felt restricted by what he considered his inferior drawing and compositional skills. He apprenticed to painter and teacher William McGregor Paxton, also of the Boston School, who was considered an expert in these skills. Paxton had been a student of the French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, who was himself a student of Paul Delaroche.

The Hound of Heaven In the 1930s Gammell's skill caught up with his ambition. Unlike many of his Boston School peers, he was less interested in portraits and landscapes than in symbolic and mythological images. Another student was Richard F. Lack, the founder of Classical Realism. Lack recalled that Gammell wanted his students to be immersed in culture. He was a member of the Boston Athenæum and encouraged them to borrow books, attend museums, the symphony, and the opera.