Taber Sears

Few artists have been moved as was Taber Sears to do so much for other artists.

Few have been so modest as he in claiming credit for fathering projects helpful to his profession. In reading through the minutes of a nation-wide art group which he served for years as an officer and for nearly twenty years as a member of its National Executive Committee, it was a revelation to find, time and again, some motion by Taber Sears discussed and not passed; but the seed of thought had been planted. A year or two later the same idea was advanced in but slightly changed words by another board member, passed, and put into effect with startling success, winning wide-spread regard for the Society. In no instance did Taber Sears remind his fellow board members that credit for this was due him. He was satisfied to get the matter done.

His strengths of body and mind and spirit are what we like to associate with the founders of New England. The Sears forebears early settled in Plymouth; the Tabers lived in Sandwich, and followed the sea.

In his profession he was well grounded in technical matters by study in Boston at the Art School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and in Paris in the atelier of Jean Paul-Laurens, at the Academie Julien. While in Paris he shared a studio high up above a court-yard off the rue Buonaparte with young Nelson Goodyear. Florence and Rome widened his horizon.

Back in America, now in New York, he began a notable series of religious paintings—murals and panels framed as altar pieces—that now are in churches from coast to coast. We have seen one of these, a triptych painted for Trinity Parish, New York, taken out of its frame and laid flat for cleaning. The perfection of its technique was memorable. The largest painting in the City Hall is the ceiling mural by Taber Sears in the Council Room.

In the days of John LaFarge, Edwin H. Blashfield and Kenyon Cox, Taber Sears served as an officer of the National Society of Mural Painters. He became a member of the Century in 1906, and in the days of the presidency of Elihu Root was a Trustee for a three year period. He was a painter-member of the Art Commission of the City of New York, and will long be remembered as an outstanding president and board member of the Municipal Art Society.

To associate with him was a delight. His thought was generous, and his mind well-stocked with facts by a wide and rich experience. The first person singular never intruded to turn the talk to ashes. His eyes were luminous, and in discourse he seemed to become effulgent. Such rare hours are cherished always. Alas, that physical limitations must bring them inevitably to an end.

George W. Martin
1951/1952 Century Association Yearbook