Francis Henry Dart Collection, 1849-1984
| Oberlin College Archives
Administrative/Biographical History
Francis Henry Dart was born in Brecksville, Ohio on August 1, 1845 to Duranson Dart and Helen Mary Kellogg Dart (later Mrs. Helen M. Leonard). His family moved to Ilion, New York (near Saratoga Springs) when he was a child, but returned to Ohio before 1864, when Dart enrolled in the Preparatory Department and the College in Oberlin. During these years he also worked as a teacher in the local schools. In 1868, he had to leave Oberlin for financial reasons.
Dart spent the next few years, 1868-70, traveling around the country. He lived in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Illinois, and Kansas, and kept sketchbooks of the sights he saw. Once again, Dart returned to Ohio, this time to Mt. Union College in Alliance, where he finished his education, receiving both AB (1877) and AM degrees (1880). In 1877, Dart took a job as a janitor in the Mt. Union Art Museum where he eventually worked his way up to a position as curator (according to his account).
In 1879, Dart headed out West to mine for gold near Breckenridge, Colorado. His journals from this trip are filled with stories of adventures. Before long, he moved back to Oberlin in 1880, where he opened his first professional studio. That same year, he married Mary T. Leonard (1872-77 Prep. & Lit.), a former Oberlin College student, and daughter of Harvey Leonard who was his mother’s second husband. The 1880s were good years for Dart, working as a successful landscape and portrait painter. In 1890, he moved to Paris to study art for a time, planning upon his return to open a school for painting and photography in Oberlin with A.C. Falor. While Dart was in Paris, Falor moved away from Oberlin. Dart decided to move to Saratoga Springs, New York, and owned a downtown studio for the next two years.
In 1892 he moved to Elmore, Ohio, where he farmed and painted. In 1900, Francis, Mary and their two children, Sidney and Helen, moved for the last time—to Oberlin. Dart again opened a studio, and worked in Oberlin until his death in 1935 at the age of 89.
Sources Consulted
Haverstock, Mary Sayre, Jeannette Mahoney Vance, and Brian L. Meggitt, eds. Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary. Kent, OH & London: Kent State University Press, 2000.
Oberlin College Archives, RG 28 Alumni Records.
Author: Roland M. Baumann Subjects (links to similar collections) Forms of Material (links to similar genres)daguerreotypes
diaries
drawings (visual works)
gelatin dry plate negatives
glass plate negatives
letters (correspondence)
manuscripts
paintings (visual works) - oil paintings
photographic prints
photographs
photographs - ambrotypes
photographs - daguerreotypes
photographs - gelatin dry plate negatives
photographs - photographic prints
photographs - tintypes
sketchbooks
Administrative Information
The Francis Henry Dart Collection is arranged into six series. Series 1 Biographical consists of Dart's account of his life titled "Myself " (typescript, 45 pp.); his recollections of his parents (typescript, 6 pp.); and his mother's autobiography (typescript, 9 pp.). The typescripts (copies) recount the great hardships Dart faced as a pioneer in Kansas and the many financial and other difficulties that befell his family. He writes of his painting and efforts for an education.
Series 2 holds sixteen F.H. Dart diaries (1880, 1890, 1922‑35), an address book, and notes and orders for paintings. The 1890 diary contains brief accounts of his daily activities including study abroad. Series 3, Correspondence from F. Sidney Dart, comprises letters written by F.H. Dart’s son Sidney and his wife Clara while in Rhodesia, South Africa as missionaries. It also includes two copies of a compilation by Ruth Dart Smith, “From Rhodesia with Love: A Family Saga,” 1994. For additional correspondence by F.H.D. and his son and daughter-in-law, see the Little Family Papers.
Materials in Series four through six comprise original drawings, photographs and paintings by F.H. Dart, as well as later documentation of two Dart paintings by an Oberlin professor in 1984. The photographs include portraits of F.H. Dart and certain family members with one daguerreotype, one ambrotype and one tintype, and several photographic prints. The collection includes fifteen of Dart’s glass plate negatives, some of which are copy negatives, from which contact prints were made in the 1990s. There are a number of Dart’s photographs of his studio, both exterior and interior shots. The photographs of Dart’s paintings are especially useful as documentation of his artistic output. The largest number of photographs were taken in natural and scenic areas, some with persons engaged in recreational activities. These may have served as studies for paintings; the collection holds four landscape oil sketches from 1882-84 of areas in Brecksville and Birmingham, Ohio. An additional oil painting is a formal portrait of Helen M. Leonard, Dart’s mother.
SERIES
Series 1. Biographical, 1879, 1881, 1927, 1947, 1984, n.d.
Series 2. Diaries, Address Book, Notes and Orders for Pictures, 1880-86, 1890,
1922-35
Series 3. Correspondence from son F. Sidney Dart, 1911-17
Series 4. Sketch Book and Drawing, 1866-68
Series 5. Cased Images, Tintype, and Photographs, mid- to late 19th century,
early 20th century, 1984
Subseries 1. Daguerreotype, Ambrotype and Tintype, 1849, c. 1863, 1876
Subseries 2. Glass Plate Negatives, c. 1903, 1908-09, n.d.
Subseries 3. Photographs, late 19th and early 20th centuries, 1984, n.d.
Series 6. Oil Paintings on Canvas by F.H.D., c. 1880s, 1882-84