Howard Butler and Herbert Tschudy Drew June 8, 1918, Total Solar Eclipse

Summary: Artists Herbert Tschudy and Howard Butler drew the June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse from their respective observation sites in Colorado and Oregon.

colored crayon drawing of Saturday, June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse, viewed from Boulder, north central Colorado, by American landscape and portrait artist Herbert Bolivar Tschudy (Dec. 28, 1874-April 15, 1946); Brooklyn Museum Quarterly (July 1918), opposite page 129: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Artists Herbert Tschudy and Howard Butler drew the June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse from their respective observation sites in Boulder, north central Colorado, and Baker City, southeastern Oregon.

American landscape and portrait painter Herbert Bolivar Tschudy (Dec. 28, 1874-April 15, 1946) witnessed the Saturday, June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse as museum artist for New York's Brooklyn Museum. He was museum artist from 1899 to 1925 and spelled his surname as Judy until 1914, according to the museum's finding aid, Guide to the Records of the Departments of European Painting and Sculpture, American Painting and Sculpture, Contemporary Art 1897-2005 (page 5). In 1925, he became Brooklyn Museum's Curator of Painting and Sculpture. Then, from September 1934 through December 1936, he was the museum's Curator of Contemporary Art. He was Curator Emeritus from January 1937 until his death in April 1946.

Tschudy reported his observation of the June 1918 solar eclipse in the July 1918 issue of The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly. He noted the rarity of the eclipse's visibility across the United States, from Washington in the northwest to Florida in the southeast. Such conditions would not ". . . prevail again in the United States for a hundred years" (page 129). Indeed, the next Pacific-to-Atlantic traversal of the contiguous United States, known as the Great American Eclipse, did not take place until Monday, Aug. 21, 2017.

Tschudy's original expectation was that he would make his observations from Colorado's state capital, Denver. North central Colorado's Mile High City's unfavorable weather conditions, however, occasioned his nearby relocation to Boulder, to a promontory opposite Mt. Lookout. The lack of "clear weather" made the sun invisible and the solar eclipse a "failure" in Denver (pages 130, 132). Fortunately, Tschudy's observation site in the mountains at Boulder gave him a satisfactory view, even though ". . . a film of cloud . . . partially obscured the sun at totality . . ." (page 131).

Tschudy noted color and temperature changes announcing the approach of the eclipse's maximum phase, totality. The blue sky transitioned to "warm indigo" while black, low rain clouds contrasted with the western and northern horizon's "sulphur yellow and burnt orange" (page 131). He described the darkened sun's ashening of his observation site as wrapping plants and rocks "in a cloak of death" (page 131). He equated the darkness to ". . . the ominous gloom of an impending storm at sunset . . ." (page 132).

Time and Date website gives local circumstances for the June 1918 solar eclipse at Boulder, Colorado. The solar event's partial eclipse began, with lunar contact with the edge of the solar disk, at 4:10:54 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time (22:10:54 Coordinated Universal Time; 6:10 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). The solar event's total phase began, with total obscuration of the sun, at 5:21:54 p.m. MDT (23:21:54 UTC; 7:21 p.m. EDT). Maximum eclipse, with the lunar disk closest to the sun's center, took place at 5:22:33 p.m. MDT (23:22:33 UTC; 7:22 p.m. EDT). The solar event's total eclipse ended at 5:23:11 p.m. MDT (23:23:11 UTC; 7:23 p.m. EDT). The Saturday, June 8, 1918, solar eclipse completed its partial eclipse at 6:26:44 p.m. MDT (Sunday, June 9, at 00:26:44 UTC; Saturday, June 8, at 8:26 p.m. EDT).

American landscape and portrait painter Howard Russell Butler (March 3, 1856-May 20, 1934) witnessed the Saturday, June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse as a member of the United States Naval Observatory's Eclipse Expedition. He reported his experience and detailed his technique in March 1919 issue of Natural History.

Butler's observation site was southeastern Oregon's Baker City. The observation station was located in the fair grounds, about one and one-half miles from the town's center.

Butler's painted capture of the total solar eclipse represented the first rendition of the solar corona from direct observation. He noted that the time constraint of 112 seconds contrasted with his usual portrait time frame of ". . . ten or twelve sittings of two hours each . . ." (page 264).

Cloudiness at first contact, at 2:47 p.m., seemed to preclude observation of the event. Fortunately, cloud thinning at 3:30 p.m. transitioned to blue sky to the right of the sun at 3:50 p.m. The sky then cleared rapidly until only a thin cloud covered the sun. Despite disappointment at the absence of a cloudless setting, Butler noted the artistic advantage of picturesque mystery created by the coronal burning ". . . through the thin veil as if it were not there" (page 270). Butler's color observations included pinkish and fiery red prominences, greenish- and yellowish-toned outer corona, and glowing rose-colored lower right limb. Baily's beads, in which the moon's jagged topography breaks sunlight into beads, awed Butler with the appearance of ". . . a miniature sun radiating in all directions" (page 271).

Time and Date website gives local circumstances for the June 1918 solar eclipse at Baker City, Oregon. The solar event began with a partial eclipse at 2:46:57 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (21:46:57 UTC; 5:46 p.m. EDT). The solar eclipse's total eclipse started at 4:03:54 p.m. PDT (23:03:54 UTC; 7:03 p.m. EDT). The total eclipse reached maximum eclipse at 4:04:50 p.m. PDT (23:04:50 UTC; 7:04 p.m. EDT). The total eclipse ceased at 4:05:46 p.m. PDT (23:05:46 UTC; 7:05 p.m. EDT). The Saturday, June 8, 1918, solar eclipse closed its partial eclipse at 5:15:10 p.m. PDT (Sunday, June 9, at 00:15:10 UTC; Saturday, June 8, at 8:15 p.m. EDT).

The takeaways for June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse drawings by Howard Butler and Herbert Tschudy are that the two American artists portrayed the solar event from their respective observation sites in Baker City, southeastern Oregon, and Boulder, north central Colorado; that the thin cloud veiling of the eclipse did not interfere with Butler's or Tschudy's artistic renderings; and that almost 100 years elapsed between Butler's and Tschudy's June 1918 solar artworks and August 2017, the next all-visibility of a total solar eclipse across the entire contiguous United States.

view of Saturday, June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse from Baker City, southeastern Oregon, by American landscape and portrait painter Howard Russell Butler (March 3, 1856-May 20, 1934): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

colored crayon drawing of Saturday, June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse, viewed from Boulder, north central Colorado, by American landscape and portrait artist Herbert Bolivar Tschudy (Dec. 28, 1874-April 15, 1946); Brooklyn Museum Quarterly (July 1918), opposite page 129: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_Quarterly_(1916)_(14773320231).jpg; Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/brooklynmuseumqu46broouoft/page/n409/mode/1up

view of Saturday, June 8, 1918, total solar eclipse from Baker City, southeastern Oregon, by American landscape and portrait painter Howard Russell Butler (March 3, 1856-May 20, 1934): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HowardRussellButlerEclipse.JPG; Open Access, CC BY 4.0 International, via Apollo -- University of Cambridge Repository @ https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/ae547389-73ef-4e5a-9101-b7e5f082fced

For further information:

Abbot, C.G. (Charles Greeley.Samuel Alfred Mitchell 1874-1960. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir. Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1962.
Available via NASOnline @ http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mitchell-samuel.pdf

Butler, Howard Russell. "An Ideal Astronomic Hall." Natural History, vol. XXVII, no. 4 (July-August 1926): 392-98.
Available @ https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/6349

Butler, Howard Russell. "Chapter XIV Painting the Solar Eclipse." Pages 162-178. Painter and Space; Or, The Third Dimension in Graphic Art. New York NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books?id=AbRCAAAAYAAJ

Butler, Howard Russell. "Painting Eclipses and Lunar Landscapes." Natural History, vol. XXVI, no. 4 (July-August 1926): 356-362.
Available @ https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/6349

Butler, Howard Russell. "Painting the Solar Corona." Natural History, vol. XIX, no. 3 (March 1919): 264-271.
Available via Harvard ADSABS (NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstracts) @ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1921PMcCO...2..165M
Available via Harvard ADSABS (NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstracts) @ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1921PMcCO...2..165M

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Available @ https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KCXN-GK5/herbert-bolivar-tschudy-1874-1946

Hammond, John. "The Naval Observatory Eclipse Expedition, June 8, 1918." Popular Astronomy, vol. XXVII, no. 1, whole no. 261 (January 1919): 1-6.
Available via Harvard ADSABS (NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstracts) @ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1919PA.....27....1H
Available via Harvard ADSABS (NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstracts) @ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1919PA.....27....1H

Lawrence, Deirdre; Deborah Wythe; Laura Peimer; Ed McLoughlin; and Dr. Linda Ferber, consult. Guide to the Records of the Departments of European Painting and Sculpture, American Painting and Sculpture, Contemporary Art 1897-2005. Brooklyn NY: Brooklyn Museum.
Available @ https://d1lfxha3ugu3d4.cloudfront.net/archives/P&S_final.pdf

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Available via Natural History Magazine @ https://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/master.html?https://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/features/0200_feature2.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Saturday, June 8, 1918, Total Solar Eclipse Belongs to Saros Cycle 126." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, June 23, 2021.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/06/saturday-june-8-1918-total-solar.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Total Solar Eclipse June 8, 1918, Was First of Two 1918 Solar Eclipses." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, June 16, 2021.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/06/total-solar-eclipse-june-8-1918-was.html

Mitchell, S.A. (Samuel Alfred). "The Total Solar Eclipse of 1918." Natural History, vol. XIX, no. 3 (March 1919): 244-263.
Available via Harvard ADSABS (NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstracts) @ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1921PMcCO...2..165M
Available via Harvard ADSABS (NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstracts) @ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1921PMcCO...2..165M

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Available @ https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/1918-june-8

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Available @ https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/boulder?iso=19180608

Tschudy, Herbert B. (Bolivar). "How the Eclipse Struck the Artist." The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, vol. V, no. 3 (July 1918): 129-133.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/brooklynmuseumqu46broouoft/page/n409/mode/1up?view=theater