In 1884, the same year as his sketching trip to Breckinridge, Thomas G. Moses decided to stay at Sosman & Landis Studio for another year. He also moved to a new home, writing, “Mr. Landis prevailed on us to move to Centre Avenue, next flat to theirs. We did so, and it cost us considerable to furnish the flat, including a piano. We thought we deserved it; as the old one that was given to us as a wedding present had become impossible. We had saved considerable money.” The stability provided by a steady income at the studio allowed the young couple to financially thrive for the first time in their marriage. Moses could now attend art school. As a freelance artist, the financial commitment for training had very been cost prohibitive.
Chicago was working well for Moses and his small family. The previous year his father had left Sterling and moved to Chicago. Moses recorded, “Father attempted to carry on the harness and collar business, but didn’t have the capital, and had to give it up. He opened a little cheap grocery store on Randolf Street. We bought our groceries from him, and he was very attentive to Ella’s orders.” By 1884, Moses wrote, “Father was almost a daily visitor to our new home. He was highly pleased when he heard of the progress I had made and took pleasure in telling friends and others what his “son Tom” had done. He enjoyed taking the children for a short ride in his old Concord wagon that was now doing duty as a grocery delivery wagon.”
While Moses was working at Sosman & Landis that year another artist was brought on to the staff -Henry C. Tryon. He was Lem Graham replacement after Graham left for Kansas City to start his own studio. Moses wrote: “[Tryon] enthused Young and I more than anyone ever had. He was a pupil of Thos. Moran and James and William Hart and was very clever, but awfully eccentric.”
Tryon was nine years older than Moses, born in Chicago during 1847. At the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the army in a regiment attached to the Second Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, serving until the close of the Civil War. He later became a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Design and intended to become a landscape painter, studying with both Thomas Moran (1837-1926) and William M. Hart (1823-1894). Tryon also worked with Louis Malmsha (1863-1882) at Wood’s Theatre in Cincinnati and later with him at McVicker’s Theatre in Chicago. In 1882, Tryon had published a tribute to Malmsha heralding him as “the greatest scenic painter in the world.”
In the early 1880s. Tryon had moved to Salt Lake City where he became active as a scenic artist, well known for his drop curtain at the Salt Lake Theatre entitled, “The Return of a Victorius Fleet.” Sadly, this prized drop curtain disintegrated from use.
He also produced 25 sets of scenery for the Salt Lake Theatre. Harry Miner’s American Dramatic Directory notes that the theatre had a seating capacity of 1,850 with a stage measuring 65’ x 70’ and a proscenium opening of 28’ x 32.’ The height from the stage to the grooves was 18’ with the height from the stage to the rigging loft measuring 52.’
The “Salt Lake Daily” on July 22, 1883 (Vol. XIV, No. 41) published, “The improvements which have been in progress at the Salt Lake Theatre during the past nine or ten months, under the direction of Henry C. Tryon, the noted scenic artist, have attracted a great deal of attention from theatrical men generally. Especially is this true of those professionals who had been here prior to the changes (referred to in detail from time to time in these columns) as they have progressed. It is needless to say surprise is universal when the marked change that has taken place is noticed, and the expression invariably is that one would never have believed such important improvements could have been effected in so brief a period.” The “old” theatre was renovated and the article noted that “the changes which have been effected in that building would strike the attention with greater force than that of a casual observer, or even a theatrical man whose opportunities noticing the difference have been less favorable.”
The well-known theatrical manager, Marcus R. Mayer, commented on the work that had been done under the direction of Tryon and the “metropolitan advantages.” Mayer said, “I can imagine the surprise and delight with which the Kiralfys will look about them when they first set foot on the stage. We will be able to present our scenery here with its full effect, and that is something and that will be something we will be able to do in very few places after leaving here. Tryon is evidently a man who knows much about stage requirement as any person since, as I am informed, the extensive changes have been made by his direction and mainly under his supervision.”
The author of the article then asked Mayer, “By the way, what do you think of Tryon as an artist?” Mayer’s response, “Tryon? We he has a national reputation. The fact that he is engaged to paint the scenes is a guaranty that the scenes outfit will be on par with any theatre in the United States. He is none of your fellows who depend on village theatre for a livelihood; his services are in demand all the time and the only thing that beats my penetration is that so expensive an artist could be obtained to come to Salt Lake. The scenes already painted are the equal of anything in stock in the country.” Mayer would finish the article with saying, “The management of the Salt Lake Theatre foresaw just what I’ve told you, and knowing the companies now coming could not endure the old arrangements, they determined to fit the stage up first-class modern style, and Tryon was just the man for the conspiracy.”
I believe that Tryon was not only hired at Sosman & Landis studio in 1884 for his painting abilities, but also for his knowledge of stage machinery. I was looking at Tryon’s theatrical contributions during 1882 and 1883 in the Salt Lake area when his work for Scottish Rite theaters and degree productions popped up. What a small world.
To be continued…
