DeWitt M. Lockman

DeWitt Lockman was born in Brooklyn in 1870. He was an artist, a portrait painter, all his life; and his pictures are represented in more than thirty permanent collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum, the National Academy of Design, and Yale University.

He was a pupil of James H. Beard, of Nelson N. Beckford, and of William Sartain. He also studied in Europe for several years. He was not only a painter, but an officer in a myriad of professional undertakings. He was a trustee of the Metropolitan, president of the National Academy of Design, a director of the Municipal Art Society, and a less important member of all kinds of associations of artists and sculptors. He was a reliable person. He did what was expected of him. He was also a really good portrait painter, and, among others, did President Coolidge, General Pershing, Cardinal Hayes, Mr. Root, and President Butler.

The societies and associations that he belonged to, and worked over, were connected with art much more closely and continuously than is the Century. DeWitt was an artist rather than a clubman, and he never became a familiar figure among Centurions. He served on the Admissions Committee for a term; and it was discovered by his co-members that he was blackballing artist-candidates because they were inferior painters, or ultra-moderns, or cubists, or worse. The members remonstrated gently with him about this, and he was good-natured about it and confined the exercise of his veto to less technical grounds.

He was a pleasant, civilized gentleman and gave the impression of being somewhat removed from the general hurly-burly, for he had a detachment in his approach and a courtliness in his manner that are bred in the cloister rather than the market place.

George W. Martin
1958 Century Association Yearbook