Visionists
The Visionists were an informal social club based in Boston, Massachusetts in the late 19th century, focused on the members' shared interests in artists, writers, and cultural movements. Participants included:
- Writer/architect Ralph Adams Cram
- Publisher/photographer F. Holland Day
- Poet Louise Imogen Guiney
- Designer/architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
- Poet Bliss Carman
- Poet Richard Hovey
- Writer Alice Brown
- Musician/composer Frederic Field Bullard
- Editor/Publisher/Entrepreneur Herbert Small (also co-founder of the world's first public relations firm)
- Publisher Herbert Copeland
- Publisher/photographer Francis Watts Lee
- Illustrator/painter Thomas Buford Meteyard
- Playwright/actor John C. "Jack" Abbott
- Writer Jonathan Thayer Lincoln
According to Cram's autobiography, the Visionists were a "social-controversial-inspiration group" that never numbered more than twenty, made up of the "madder and more fantastic members" of a similar but larger group called "The Pewter Mugs". They held periodic meetings in their "hideout" on Boston's Province Court, as well as gatherings in suburban locations such as Day's house in Norwood, Massachusetts.
The members' shared interests included medieval art and architecture, Aestheticism, the Decadent movement, Christian Socialism, the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Theosophy. Favorite writers and artists included Oscar Wilde, William Morris, John Ruskin, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. From 1892-1893 the group edited a literary journal titled The Knight Errant, published by Francis Watts Lee.
References
- Cram, Ralph Adams (1936). My Life in Architecture. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company. p. 90-93.
- Fanning, Patricia J. (2008). Through an Uncommon Lens: The Life and Photography of F. Holland Day. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1558496688.
- "Thomas Buford Meteyard". Berry-Hill Gallery Website. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
- Cutlip, Scott (1994). The Unseen Power: Public Relations: A History. Routledge. ISBN 978-0805814651.
- Shand-Tucci, Douglass (1996). Boston Bohemia, 1881-1900: Ralph Adams Cram: Life and Architecture, Volume 1. University of Massachusetts Press.
- Josh Kastorf (Director) (30 August 2016). The Visionists of Boston (Motion Picture). Retrieved 26 October 2016.