L'Île de la Cité, Pont Neuf is an etching from 1913 by American artist Roi George Partridge. It was printed by Frederick T. Reynolds on a sturdy cream wove paper and is pencil signed by the artist in the lower center margin. L'Île de la Cité Pont Neuf was published by the Chicago Society of Etchers and the references for this work are Chicago Society of Etchers 3 and White 49. The edition is estimated to be 275. It was published in a portfolio along with Charles K. Gleeson’s etching, An Old Piece of Masonry: Point Neuf, Paris which was accompanied by the essay “Two Etchings of a Bridge” by Thomas E. Tallmadge. The platemark measures 10 x 7-7/8 inches.
This early etching is signed ‘Roy Partridge’ as it was created prior to his changing the spelling of his name to Roi. The etching would have been created in Paris and shows how quickly Partridge mastered the medium under the direction of Bertha Jaques. Construction of the Pont Neuf (New Bridge) was begun in 1578 and is the oldest bridge spanning the Seine in Paris. The bridge is composed of two separate spans, one of five arches joining the left bank to the Île de la Cité, and the other of seven arches joining the island to the right bank.
Roi Partridge, printmaker, draftsman, photographer, and teacher, was born to Archibald and Florence Partridge on 14 October 1888 in the Territory of Washington. He studied at the Fine Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1909, he was in the northwest when the Seattle Public Library mounted an exhibition of prints by James Whistler, Francis S. Haden, Joseph Pennell, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, and Old Masters. It was pivotal for Partridge as he left to study at the National Academy of Design in New York.
In 1910, Partridge began a European journey which ended in Paris. Unable to afford the academies, he was primarily self-taught but he found a mentor in the Chicago-based printmaker Bertha Jaques. Through her efforts his etchings were published by and exhibited with the Chicago Society of Etchers. Partridge returned to the Northwest in 1914 where he wed photographer Imogen Cunningham in February 1915 and they eventually settled in San Francisco in 1917. He began teaching at Mills College in 1920 and later served as the first director of the Mills College Art Gallery.
Partridge was included in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition where forty-two of his etchings were displayed. Solo exhibitions of his work were mounted at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution. He was a member of and exhibited with the California Society of Etchers, the Chicago Society of Etchers, the Northwest Printmakers, and the Society of American Etchers. In 1949 Partridge was elevated to full Academician in the National Academy of Design.
Roi Partridge’s work is represented in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; the permanent collection of Centralia College, Washington; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Grinnell College Museum of Art, Iowa; the British Museum, London; the Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Monterey Museum of Art, California; the Brooklyn Museum, the National Academy of Design, and the New York Public Library, New York; the Mills College Art Museum, Oakland and the Oakland Museum of California; the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Seattle Art Museum, Washington; the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
