News of All the World

Like the best of Dubreuil’s paintings, News of All the World contains hidden messages and offers a cautionary tale about the need to avoid repeating mistakes of the past. Thus, it is much more than what appears at first glance to be a charming trompe l’oeil composition of a smiling newsboy, surrounded by a variety of newspapers and journals, handing over a French paper. As will be revealed, the newspaper Courrier des États Unis and the periodicals Puck and Judgecontain key clues to unlocking the meaning behind this fascinating painting.

Much of our knowledge of Victor Dubreuil’s life and career comes from the article “Paints Millions But Hasn’t a Cent,” that appeared on page 26 of the New York World of October 8, 1893. Art historian Dorinda Evans, who discovered the article, has noted that it is “a seminal source for understanding [Dubreuil] as well as his sometimes-cryptic images” (“Toward Understanding Victor Dubreuil,” American Art, vol. 26, no. 3 (Fall 2012): 66). Even with the article’s discovery the artist remains a mysterious and enigmatic figure. Dubreuil was born near Paris, France on November 8, 1842. In the 1860s he joined the French army and fought in the French and Mexican War. Upon returning to France he worked as a bank clerk, financier, organizer, authored texts on banking, and in ensuing years became “a socialist agitator, published a short-lived newspaper called La Politique d’Action, and tried to found an African development company.” Dubreuil hoped that “the workingman, not the capitalist” would reap the financial rewards from this company.

Around 1880 Dubreuil stole more than five hundred francs from the bank where he was working (an action he seems to have considered to be a loan rather than a theft). By the autumn of 1881 he was
reported to be missing and thought to be living in Holland, and an extradition warrant was issued against him for forgery and misappropriation of funds. In June 1882 he moved to New York.

As the article in the New York World reported, following his settlement in the city he “toiled daily for the money ‘to return to France, liquidate his indebtedness centime for centime, crush his enemies and reorganize his African Development company.’”

In New York, Dubreuil found short-term employment as a stable boy for the banker Théophile Keck. After four months at this job he decided to teach himself to paint. Most of the artist’s known works are still lifes, but genre scenes, landscapes, portraits and a history painting also have surfaced. For a brief time Dubreuil was one of the most original and accomplished painters of “trompe l’oeil” still life in America, frequently featuring imaginative compositions of paper currency, subject matter that was also favored by such leading American painters of the period as William Harnett, John F. Peto and John Haberle. Most of his works feature single bank notes or arrangements of a group of notes – sometimes in a geometric configuration. His works are more roughly and heavily painted than those by his more famous contemporaries. They are also more strident, political and socially critical in content, and, as art historian and journalist Alfred Frankenstein noted, often reveal a “vein of stark brutality” (After the Hunt: William Harnett and Other American Still Life Painters, 1830-1900 [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1953], p. 151). Dubreuil also was active as an inventor. He invented a pulley- controlled pair of suspenders, and attained two patents, including one for a ball-bearing device. Dubreuil became a United States citizen in 1888. The year and place of his death remain unknown. Several authors have speculated that he may have died in Europe around 1900. Dorinda Evans has suggested that he may have been motivated to depart the United States because of suspicion on the part of legal authorities that he was engaged in some form of counterfeiting. Other American artists who specialized in the painting of currency faced the same presumption.

News of All the World dates from about 1891. The painting first surfaced in 1964 when it was partially reproduced in an article in the Miami Herald. The article was based on an interview with the daughter-in-law of William Roach, who as noted above, was one of the artist’s major patrons and the original owner of the work. By 1964 it was in the collection of his son and daughter-in-law Mr. and Mrs. William M. Roach. It was then acquired by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, through Kennedy Galleries in New York. The painting brings together Dubreuil’s joint interest in still life, genre and portraiture, to which he has applied his mordant wit, inventive and theatrical flair, and interest in economic and political issues of the day revolving around United States and foreign currency. He features a compendium of New York newspapers and arranges them in makeshift piles at the bottom of the canvas where they entice the eye of the viewer (who plays the role of customer and observer) with their typographic variety and verisimilitude.

Puck and Judge are displayed at either side of the newsboy. Published from 1871-1918, Puck was America’s first successful humor magazine of cartoons, caricatures and political satire, as well as the first weekly to successfully adopt full-color lithographic printing. It featured the work of many leading cartoonists of the day, including Charles Taylor, who created the cartoon pictured in the painting. Puck crusaded for good government and the triumph of American constitutional ideals. The painting features the cover of the February 11, 1891 issue which portrays President Benjamin Harrison sprawling on the ground surrounded by the words

“RECIPROCITY”, “STOLEN SENATE” and “REPUBLICAN GREED”. Below the image are the words “ALL SHE HAS TO HANG ON TO” which refers to the female figure (symbolizing the Senate) who clings to Harrison’s shirt.

Benjamin Harrison was President of the United States from 1889-1893. In 1888 he defeated the Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats, who vigorously opposed the economic policies favored by the Republican Party, among them high tariffs, Free Silver, and the providing of subsidies to businesses, farmers and veterans. Cleveland’s 1887 State of the Union address called for the reduction of the tariff, and the absolution of duties on raw materials. The speech led to the tariff (and specifically the idea of protectionism) becoming the central issue of the Presidential election of 1888. Harrison would go on to defeat Cleveland as a consequence of the Republican Party’s success in motivating droves of protectionist-inclined voters to turn out in the major industrial states of the North.

The Tariff Act of 1890 (commonly called the McKinley Tariff) was enacted under Harrison’s administration. The law imposed historic protective trade rates and raised the average duty of imports by almost fifty percent. The tariff’s purpose was to protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competition. The cover image of Puck refers to the subject of reciprocity, which, as described in the Tariff Act of 1890, gave President Harrison the authority and power over the lawmakers in congress to place a tariff on sugar, molasses, tea, coffee and hides when they were exported from countries which treated U.S. exports in a “reciprocally unequal and unreasonable” fashion. The idea behind the measure was to secure reciprocal trade by allowing the executive branch to use the mere threat of tariffs on these products as a means to get other countries to lower their tariff on United States imports.

As a result of the Tariff Act of 1890 there was a steep increase in the cost of products to consumers, which led a growing number of Americans to cry out for tax reform. At the same time the tariff brought in so much revenue that the government was running a high surplus. The fifty-first United States Congress was referred to by critics of the period as the “Billion Dollar Congress” because of its lavish spending of this surplus – – under Harrison’s presidency federal spending for the first time reached one billion dollars. The growing unpopularity of the high tariff and high federal spending led to Harrison’s defeat and the return to the presidency by Cleveland in the election of 1892.

The cover of the February 21, 1891 issue of Judge pictured in Dubreuil’s painting comically alludes to the signs that were beginning to surface regarding Grover Cleveland and New York State Governor David B. Hill’s interest in securing the 1892 Democratic Presidential nomination. Judge appeared from 1881 to 1947. In the late 1880s and 1890s the magazine was published by William J. Arkell, a leading financial supporter of the Republican Party, who encouraged staff cartoonists to satirize the Democratic administration. Cleveland, who took a position with a New York law firm after his loss to Harrison, spoke out in early 1891 regarding his concerns about the economic effect of the Tariff Act of 1890 in an open letter to political reformers in New York. The letter thrust Cleveland back into the national spotlight and sparked the idea of his again running for President. His pronouncements on monetary issues made him a leading contender for the nomination, and he defeated David B. Hill, who served as Lieutenant Governor in New York under the governorship of Cleveland, and assumed the duties of governor upon Cleveland’s resignation in January 1885 to become President. Hill was re-elected later that year and again in 1889. In February 1891, the date of the cartoon in Judge, he was elected to the United States Senate from New York. He took his seat after the end of his term as governor ended the following January. During the course of the next year and a half he became the leading opponent of Cleveland for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Hill sought unsuccessfully to unite the anti-Cleveland elements of the Democratic Party and create a coalition large enough to deny Cleveland the presidential nomination. Hill would gain a degree of retaliation by blocking Cleveland’s two appointments to the United States Supreme Court, William B. Hornblower and Wheeler H. Peckham, who opposed his political machine in New York State.

The newsboy in Dubreuil’s painting holds out a copy of the French-American newspaper Courrier des États-Unis. The newspaper, published by French-Americans in New York, was the leading French- language journal published in the United States during its existence from 1828 to 1939.
The founders sought to provide a new world voice for civil and religious freedom in France, and promoted republican and Bonapartist ideals. In addition to New York the journal was widely circulated in Canada, Louisiana and the Southwest. The issue that appears in Dubreuil’s painting is dated March 5, 1862. From the article in the New York World, we know that Dubreuil fought from 1862-1867 in the French and Mexican War. He was among the earliest group of soldiers to figure in the conflict.

In early 1862, France joined with Spain and Britain in taking military action on Mexico following the country’s decision to suspend repayments of foreign loans. They hoped to force Mexico to establish a permanent stable government and thereby ensure the honoring of the loans. France proved to have more global ambitions than either Britain or Spain, and wanted to deal with Mexico in a more
aggressive and confrontational manner that the other two countries. France moved ahead with its own agenda; on March 5th the French army, acting under the command of Major General Charles de Lorencez, landed and began operations in the country. Shortly thereafter the army occupied the city of Orizaba. A month later the tripartite alliance collapsed between France, Britain and Spain.

The French army successfully established a client state in Mexico, but following the end of the American Civil War in 1865, and the financial backing by the United States of liberal forces in Mexico, the tide turned and France faced a series of military losses. This led Napoleon III to abandon his support of Maximilian of Habsburg, Archduke of Austria, whom he had installed as Emperor of Mexico, and, following demands by the United States, to withdraw France’s forces. The 1862 issue of Courrier des États-Unis that appears in the painting serves as an autobiographical reference and a symbolic warning. The artist was not averse to creating paintings that touch on his own past. Such is the case in his painting A Prediction For 1900; or, a Warning to Capitalists (also known as Don’t Make a Move, 1893, Private Collection), in which he portrays himself posing as a bank robber. Viewed in the context of the covers of Puck and Judge, the 1862 issue of the Courrier des États-Unis can be also considered as a call for America to act more sympathetically and diplomatically with foreign governments in international financial matters, or the United States might experience a fallout or fatesimilar to the one the French faced in Mexico.