William Savery Bucklin, artist, was inspired by the woods and streams of the area of the New Jersey Phylanx movement. 

William Savery Bucklin was born in 1851 in Red Bank, New Jersey, where his father was a prime mover of the Phylanx movement. The Phylanx movement (see our note on the Phylanx) attracted a number of intellectuals, and the North American Phylanx group produced several authors and artists. Although active throughout the eastern half of the country as an artist during his working life, at the age of 77, he still was a resident of the Phylanx (near Red Bank, New Jersey ), where he died in 1928. (In the Joseph Bucklin Society database his reference number is Buck291.)

William Savery Bucklin's career as a painter started when he was 11 years old, at which time he sold a painting to the poet E.C. Stedman. William  studied at the Normal Art School in Boston and the Art Students League in New York City, which became one of the country's most important art schools. He was a member of the Art Students League; Greenwich Society of Artists, and the Professional League.

William Savery Bucklin exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fire Arts, 1880-1881; Brooklyn Art Association, 1883-85; Boston Art Club; National Academy of Design, 18990; Art Institute of Chicago, 1891, 1894-96, 1901-03; 1913-14; and 1916.

William Savory Bucklin has been listed in a number of standard art reference works, including Mallett, Fieldings, Who's Who, and Davenports.

On this page are images of two items of great interest to those of us trying to construct an extended  biography of William Savery Bucklin and to find out more about his time spent with the Phalanx group in New Jersey.   First is an oil painting titled "The Trail at Phalanx", approximately 29" x 14".  It suggests, as do many of William's titled works, that the wooded areas near the Phalanstery were of interest to him.

Below is a pencil sketch on paper.  The paper is stationary embossed with the words 'The Phalanx Red Bank, NJ'.  Information on this sketch comes from the efforts of David M. Buckley of Troy, NY, who acquired the sketch from an estate. Mr. Buckley says: 

'I have discovered a W.S. Bucklin pencil sketch of the Phalanstery of the North American Phalanx. This was discovered in Albany, NY . [Written on the reverse of the frame is] . . .'Phalanx Woolcott family home NJ'.  It is signed 'W.S. Bucklin "08"'. . . . After some research I have determined that this scene [may be or is similar to]...a watercolor done by William Savery and given to the father of Edmund Wilson, who had it hanging in his stone house in Talcottville, NY.  The watercolor owned by Wilson was titled "Phalanstery at Moonlight" and is depicted in Wilson's memoirs on the death of Alexander  Woolcott, See, The Nation (1943)."

More Paintings by William Savery Bucklin -- our "William's Pictures Catalog."