Charles Frederic Ramsey
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Charles Frederick Ramsey in his home, c. 1950, photo by Jon Vochon, photo courtesy New Hope Gazette.
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PAINTER
BORN: September 23, 1875, Pont-Aven, Brittany, France
DIED: May 21, 1951, River Road, New Hope, Pennsylvania
Born in Pont-Aven, Brittany, France, Charles Frederic Ramsey was the son of painter Milne Ramsey (1846-1915). In 1899 he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later became the Curator of Schools at the Academy until 1912. Ramsey moved to Minneapolis in 1916 to serve as the Director of the Minneapolis School of Art. After his dismissal for alleged socialist views, Ramsey and his family settled permanently in New Hope. During WW1, Ramsey, camouflaged ships for the war effort. In New Hope Ramsey's work began to move towards abstraction. He was a founder of The New Group in 1930, a collection of artists that seceded from the Phillips Mill exhibitions due to their dissatisfaction with the jurying process and the conservatism of the New Hope School of Impressionist painters who ran the Phillips Mill exhibitions. The group evolved into The Independents by 1932. In 1938 Ramsey became involved in the Cooperative Painting Project, in which artists sought to submerge their singular identities in joint artistic ventures. Influenced by improvisational jazz and collective political theories, Ramsey, Charles Evans and Louis Stone were joined by journalist William Chapman, poet Stanley Kunitz, and carpenter Karl Roos.
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