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Subject: [CASANFRA] JIC Bio of J. E. D. Trask
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 19:29:51 EDT

JOURNALISM IN CALIFORNIA

BY JOHN P. YOUNG

Pacific Coast and Exposition Biographies

CHRONICLE PUBLISHING COMPANY
San Francisco, California
1915

Page 227

Great Men and Great Men's Achievements
Form the Background for
California's Progress
Page 328

John E. D. Trask


WHAT any city needs, more even than a propaganda for higher morality, more
ever than political reform or municipal ownership of public utilities, is an
appreciation of art and art work- without which life is dry and sordid indeed."
These few words are the key to the philosophy of John E. D. Trask,
Director-in-Chief of the Department of Fine Arts of the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
He is an art connoisseur, one might say an executive artist; and his peculiar
aim in life is to draw together and amalgamate the interests of the artist
himself and the art lover, to weld a bond of sympathy between them.
In how far he has succeeded in doing this Is testified to by the words on
a great square of parchment presented to him upon his resignation from the
managership of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to accept the honor offered
him by the Exposition. This testimonial, dated Philadelphia, February 4,
1913, and signed by 86 artists, is worded:
"To John E. D. Trask on the eve of his retirement from the office of
Secretary and Manager of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. We, the
undersigned members of the artistic fraternity, desire to express our appreciation of
his services to the cause of
American Art; of his loyalty and unselfish devotion to the best interests of
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; of his sympathetic understanding
and support of the artistic spirit in all its vagaries, and of his many
qualities of mind and heart which have endeared him to us as a man, a comrade and a
good sport."
Were he not too modest to advance them, Mr. Trask might make three distinct
claims to fame as an art director. He is a native of Brooklyn, New York, born
February 18, 1871, and following his graduation from college in 1888 engaged
in newspaper and magazine work until 1896. In the latter year he be- came
affiliated, in the capacity of assistant manager, with the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, founded in 1805, the oldest art institution in the country. In
1905, when the Academy celebrated its centennial. It chose Mr. Trask as its
secretary and manager, and such he continued to be until February 1913. He had
resigned to become the Exposition's fine arts director in November 1912, but
the Pennsylvania Academy would not let him go until after he had arranged its
annual exhibition.
As executive head of the Academy Mr. Trask found his forte. "Under his
direction the annual exhibitions of the institution came to be recognized as the
best in the country. He was especially Interested in the Academy's schools,
and in the development of talent of the youthful and aspiring artists, those who
needed an encouraging word. Philip L. Hale of Boston, son of Edward Everett
Hale, once characterized the Pennsylvania Academy under Mr. Trask's management
as "the only institution of it kind in the country that was almost human."
Mr. Trask gained widespread recognition in 1910 as United States
Commissioner General to the Exposicion Internacional de Arte del Centenario at Buenos
Aires, Argentina, and to the Exposicion Internacional de Bellas Artes at
Santiago, Chile, as well as to a special art exhibition at Montevideo, Uruguay. These
events did probably more than anything else to familiarize the South American
peoples with American art and artists. The United States sections, though not
the largest, received the greatest number of awards, and more than
twenty-five per cent of the works that were for sale were sold and remained on view.
Also, a considerable part of the appropriation made for this work by Congress was
returned, unexpended.
The whole world, by this time, knows of the excellence of the display of
fine arts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, so it is needless to
dilate upon it. Mr. Trask, who conceived it, then carried out his conception,
says of it just this: "The Pine Arts exhibition has received many compliments
it hasn't deserved and some knocks that it also has not deserved. But it is the
most intelligent representation of modern art ever shown in America, and it
was made possible because American artists are today doing better work than
ever before."
Mr. Trask now has seen art expositions from the outside in and from the
inside out. And this well-rounded experience, with that as manager of the
Pennsylvania Academy, should make him one of the foremost art directors In America.

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