CUTLER, Miss and Master

A double portrait, painted in 1913. Certainly the children of Otis Henderson Cutler who was born in New York, May 15, 1866, and was educated and grew from a child to manhood at Suffern, in Rockland county. He built a house in Suffern called Rockrest in 1906, an English Tudor-style mansion (destroyed by fire 1968). He was Chairman of the Board, American Brake Shoe & Foundry Company, and President of the Ramapo Foundry, New York, 1903-1916. He was a member of the New York state assembly from Rockland County, 1894-96; delegate to Republican National Convention from New York, 1900, 1920; and Presidential Elector for New York, 1908, 1920.

He had three children: William Frye Cutler (1888-1957), Mrs. Alexander S. Banks and Robert Frye Cutler (1903-1976), the future founder and former managing director of the County Theater at Suffern. The double portrait was presumably the two youngest.

The following letter, in the artist’s papers, written from 30, Church Street, New York, is dated March 31, 1913:

‘Dear Kleiner Meister –

The enclosed check for twenty five hundred dollars in payment for the beautiful portrait of our children doesn’t begin to evidence the deep appreciation felt for all your hard work and patient kindly interest, nor express at all our value of the picture, which is wonderful in its conception and splendid in execution.

          With more than a thousand thanks and good wishes

                       Sincerely your friend, Otis Cutler.’

The appellation ‘Kleiner Meister’ was used by the Havemeyer family, and Otis Cutler must therefore have been a close associate of theirs.