Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait
1819-1905

Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, A British born landscape artist, was one of the nineteenth century’s most popular painters. A good story-teller on canvas, Tait was able to instill in his genre paintings a strong sense of drama and conflict.

Although he never traveled further West than Chicago, he acquired a reputation as a frontier artist, painting scenes of hunters and wildlife, mainly from his experiences in upstate New York. The Quail and Young (date unknown, Corcoran Gallery of Arts), is a typical example.

Tait was born in 1819 in Liverpool, and schooled in Lancaster. By his mid-teens, he was working at Agents, an art dealer in Manchester. In his spare time, he taught himself how to paint by copying works at the Royal Institute.

During these years, he was able to assist George Catlin with his traveling Indian gallery in England and Paris. Tait was impressed with Catlin’s interpretation of the American West; it provided the impetus for his own immigration to the United States in 1850.

Tait worked out of New York City, but spent considerable time in the Adirondack Mountains, becoming a proficient marksman and woodsman. Using this rugged setting as a background, Tait focused much of his art on capturing the drama of a man against nature. His style, which combined misty, atmospheric landscape settings with detailed renderings of human figures, reminds one of that of George Caleb Bingham.

The period 1850 to 1860 was a prolific time for Tait. His paintings were accepted by Easterners as definitive views of life on the frontier. Currier and Ives reproduced much of his work, making him one of the most popular artists of the period.

These genre paintings were not his only source of success. Tait mastered still lifes of dead game, influencing a whole generation of artists, beginning with William Michael Harnett 25 years later. He also did barnyard landscapes, a pastoral departure from his frontier scenes.

Tait’s style did not change from 1860 until death in 1905; he continued to work in the style which he had found successful.

Memberships:
National Academy of Design

Public Collections:
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Denver Art Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Museum of the City of New York
R.W./ Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut

Thomas Worthington Whittredge
1820-1910

Thomas Worthington Whittredge, an important member of the later Hudson River School, specialized in landscapes, although he also painted some portraits and still lifes. His mature style incorporates both European and American influences, and celebrates the Catskill Mountains in New York and the American West, particularly the Great Plains.

Worthington Whittredge, as he called himself after about 1855, was born on a farm in Springfield, Ohio in 1920. He received little formal education. In 1837, he moved to Cincinnati, where he worked with his brother-in-law, a house and sign painter, while teaching himself to paint portraits and landscapes. He experimented with daguerreotypes in Indianapolis, and opened a portrait studio in Charlestown, West Virginia before returning to Cincinnati.

After about 1843, he devoted himself to landscapes. Works from this period, reveal the romantic influence of Thomas Cole and Thomas Doughty.

Cincinnati at this time boasted a large and wealthy community of art lovers. A number of patrons, headed by Nicholas Longworth, sent Whittredge to Europe to study and paint in 1849. He spent five years in Dusseldorf, where he studied under Carl Lessing and Andreas Achenbach. For a time he adopted the hard, relatively monotone palette of the Dusseldorf School.

He also visited Switzerland and Paris, where he viewed- but was not impressed by- the naturalistic landscapes of the barbizon painters. He than spent five years in Rome, where he was part of an artists’ colony that included Frederick Church and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Upon returning to the United States in 1859, Whittredge settled in New York City. He opened a studio and began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design, to which he was elected in 1861: he served briefly as the Academy’s president.

Gradually he abandoned the Dusseldorf manner, painting large, tonally harmonious canvases of woodlands and streams. He became particularly adept at rendering sunlight filtered through dense foliage. He also produced a few still lifes, showing richly colored living fruit on tree branches. A series of trips to the West and Mexico, beginning in 1865, introduced Whittredge to the grandeur of the frontier scenery, which he reflected in broad, spacious paintings. His use of horizontal masses and golden, variegated light suggest vastness and serenity.

Whittredge died in 1910 in Summit, New Jersey.

Member:
National Academy of Design

Public Collections:
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas
Century Association, New York City
Cincinnati Museum
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Denver Art Museum
Joslyn Art Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Reynolda House, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Pierre Gaston Rigaud
(1874-1949)

Pierre Gaston Rigaud was born in Bordeaux, April 4, 1874, died 1949. Rigaud was mainly known for his marine scenes, landscapes and church interiors. He studied with d’Albert Maignan and with Bonnat. Rigaud became a member of the Society des Artistes Francais in 1906.

After this appointment, he became a main figure in the Salon exhibitions and began exhibiting with the Independents. Rigaud was invited to have a National exhibition with the Salons de Automne at the Tuileries in 1920 where he was awarded a Silver medal. In 1923, Rigaud was awarded a Gold medal.

Pierre Gaston Rigaud dedicated his entire life achieving and developing his unique style. He also became very active and involved in the artistic society in Paris. He was a teacher who spent a great deal of energy helping young artists achieve their career dreams. He and Henri de Toulause-Lautec shared a studio in Paris to help each other through difficult times.

Rigaud had very little concern with public opinion of his paintings. He painted plein-aire around his home in Corse. He sold very few paintings during his lifetime because he remained so dedicated to the truth of nature, style and subject. He was considered a purist, so most of his very important impressionistic paintings remained with the family and a few small French museums.

Exhibitions:

1906 Socitaire de Artists Francais

1920 Silver Medal

1923 Gold Medal

1909 Galerie Georges Petit

1925 Galerie Charpentier

Museums:

Musee Carnavalet, Paris

Le Luxembourg, Paris

Musee La Tour Du Pin

Musee de Limoges

Musee de Bourdeaux

Muse de Mulhouse

Carle Blenner was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1864, and educated in Marburg, Germany.  After graduating from the Art School at Yale University in c.1885, Blenner moved to Paris for six years.  There he attended the Academie Julian, where he studied under the great French Salon artists William Adolphe Bouguereau, Robert Fleury & Aman-Jean.

 

Blenner’s work has always been well received.  As a portrait painter, he was especially known for his attention to the details sur­rounding his sitter.  He had a special knack for knowing what to eliminate from the surroundings so as not to detract from the focus of the painting.  He is also known for his expert depiction of flowers which are true to life (and science) and seem to sit in his pictures commanding the presence of real flowers.

 

As an active member in several art clubs throughout America, including, The Alliance for American Artists, Salmagundi Club (1890), Newport Art Association, Washington Art Club, The Academy of Fine Arts, and the New Haven Paint and Clay Club (which awards a “Carle J. Blenner” award to contemporary artists) Blenner made many contributions to the international art scene.  He was a frequent exhibitor in the States and abroad, receiving several medals and honorable prizes.  He also taught at the Fine Arts departments at Columbia University, New York and at Yale Univer­sity, New Haven.

 

Blenner’s paintings are in the collections of the University of Cleveland; Columbia University in New York; Univer­sity of Vermont; Rutgers University; Houston Museum of Fine Art and the Fort Worth Museum of Fine Art.

Born in Portsmouth, N.H. on April 10, 1837 Alfred T. Bricher received his early education at the Academy of Newburyport, Mass.  In 1851 he began working in a mercantile house in Boston and may have studied art at the Lowell Institute during his leisure hours.  By 1858 he had taken up painting as a profession – opening a studio in Newburyport.  For the next 10 years he continued working out of his studio and traveling around the New England coast.

 

By 1868 Bricher had moved to New York City and married Susan A. Wildes.  He exhibited his first work at the National Academy of Design that same year and began submitting works to the American Water-color Society for exhibition.  He was elected a member of the American Water-color Society in 1873 and an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1879.

 

Bricher made his first trip to Grand Manan Island in 1875.  This island’s rocky coastline was to become a constant source of inspiration to the artist. During the late 1870’s examples of his work were exhibited in London and at the Paris Exhibition.  The Art Journal in November of 1875 noted that:

 

 Bricher, although among the younger men belonging to the American school of painting, has already assumed a leading position as an artist, not only as a marine painter but also in the delineation of landscapes.

 

By 1882 Bricher had moved to Southampton, L.I. where he built a studio and painted for the next 8 years.  In 1890 he built a home in New Dorp, Staten Island where he remained till his death in 1908. 

Marcel Dyf 1899-1985

Dyf was born in Paris, October 7, 1899. He was considered a figure, still life, and landscape painter from the French School. Frost and Reed of London represented Marcel Dyf for most of his entire career. It was during their 1987 exhibition that Marcel Dyf’s untimely death was announced. His death brought ever closer the end of an era. Dyf was one of the few true post-impressionist still living. The 1987 exhibition was closed until the estate could be properly sorted. In 1990 Frost and Reed organized a Retrospective Exhibition which was overwhelmingly received.

Dyf like many other young French artist, was heavily influenced by Pierre A. Renoir. Dyf took the influence of Renoir and developed his own definite style. During his early career, Marcel Dyf started exhibiting at the Salon des Artists Francois, Salon d’Automore and Salon Des Tulleries (at the Louvre). His acceptance was immediate and his career became more than ever expected. It was during these exhibitions that Marcel Dyf was introduced to Frost and Reed of London. Frost and Reed’s interest may have been the single most important event in his career. It was through them and their contacts that Marcel Dyf began exhibiting in London, New York, Dallas, San Francisco, and many other international cities. It was through them and their efforts and Marcel’s popularity that prints of all his work were being produced and sold throughout the world.

Listed:
E.Benezit,Volume IV, pg. 85

Guy C. Wiggins  (1883-1962)

Guy C. Wiggins was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1883, the son of Carleton Wiggins, who had a long and highly acclaimed career as a landscape painter. The younger Wiggins, who first studied with his father, continued the American landscape tradition, winning many prestigious prizes from 1916 on.
Around 1900, Guy C. Wiggins studied architecture and drawing at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, but went on to study painting at the National Academy of Design. Early recognition came at age 20, when he was the youngest American to have a work accepted into the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Old Lyme, Connecticut became Wiggins’s summer home around 1920, and he became one of the younger members of the group of painters in Old Lyme who were developing their version of impressionism by fusing French technique with American conventions. Though American art was moving more and more toward realism, Wiggins was dedicated to maintaining his own style; it was based on French impressionism but influenced by Childe Hassam and other American impressionists of The Ten.
Wiggins earned a fine reputation in the 1920s for his city snow scenes, often painted from the windows of offices in Manhattan. His Washington’s Birthday (1930, New Britain Museum) expresses the feeling of snow quietly hushing the bustling city street.
In her American Art Review article of December, 1977, Adrienne L. Walt said of Wiggins that “his resolution was to constantly emphasize color, elevating it above all else and achieving luminosity through it….”
In 1937 Wiggins moved to Essex, Connecticut and founded the Guy Wiggins Art School. During the following years, in addition to teaching, he traveled widely throughout the United States and painted scenes of Montana, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
With the permission of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he completed two paintings of the Executive Mansion from the lawn of the White House, one of which eventually was placed in the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas, after hanging in the president’s office.
Wiggins died in Florida in 1962.
MEMBERSHIPS:
Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts
National Academy of Design
National Art Club Lotus Club
Lyme Art Association
Salmagundi Club
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:
Art Institute of Chicago
Beach Memorial Gallery, Storrs, Connecticut
Brooklyn Museum; Dallas Art Association
Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, Michigan
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Reading Museum, Pennsylvania
Syracuse Museum, New York
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut

 

George Inness 1825-1894

Many rank George Inness with Homer, Eakins and Ryder as a master of nineteenth century American painting. Certainly, he profoundly influenced the landscape painters who followed him.

 

Inness’s early work was very much the prevailing style of the Hudson River School. Several trips to Europe brought him in contact with the work of the Barbizon painters and brought stronger color and a new looseness into his own compositions.

 

In 1863, he was introduced to the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, the Scandinavian theologian. Here at last was the link between the spiritual and real world that he was striving to realize in his work. In his late work, from 1880 on, he achieved the melding of the natural world with the spiritual that he sought, and created landscapes of extraordinary power.

 

Inness was a frenzied painter. He would work and rework a canvas, sometimes painting an entirely different imaginary scene on top of an almost finished work. While the quality of Inness’s output varied widely, His best paintings stand as some of the finest landscapes ever painted in America.

 

 

Member:
National Academy of Design

 

Public Collections:
Art Institute of Chicago
Cincinnati Art Museum
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Gallery of Arts, Washington D.C.
Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri
Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut

 

Albert Bierstadt, (1830-1902)

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) was like most painters of the Rocky Mountains in the nineteenth century, he was foreign born. He was born in 1830 in Soligen, near Dusseldorf, Germany and died in New York in 1902. He and his family immigrated to the United States when he was two. He grew up in New Bedford, Mass.

In 1853, Bierstadt returned to Dusseldorf, to study under the landscape painters Andreas Aschenbach and Karl F. Lessing. Under the influence of the Dusseldorf school, and in the company of his fellow painters Emmanuel Leutze and Thomas Whitteridge, Bierstadt learned attention to detail, the respect for drawing and the numerous tricks and effects of technique which he utilized, essentially unchanged, for the rest of his life. Bierstadt traveled though Germany, Switzerland and Italy during his four years of European study, and produced some competent and pleasing of acceptably picturesque Old World scenes.

After his return to the United Stated in 1857, he traveled and painted the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He also began to employ a camera, then not used by artists. It was not until 1858 that he was to discover the subject matter, which he would make his own. In that year, Bierstadt joined a survey expedition to the American West led by Col. F. W. Lander. Bierstadt made numerous studies, working swiftly, of the spectacular Western scenery, Indians and wildlife. He patiently set to work in his studio to produce paintings of the West which filled a seemly insatiable hunger of the American and European public.

Public Collections:
Brooklyn Museum, NY                                  
Capitol Building, Wash., D.C.                         
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia   
High Museum, Atlanta, Ga.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.
Museum of Fine Art, Boston
St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, VT.
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
Amon Carter, FWT
Gilcrease, Tulsa

Thomas Moran
(1837-1926)
Thomas Moran was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England in 1837. His family came to the United States when he was seven; of the seven children, three of his brothers, Edward, John and Peter, became artists of renown. Edward, his older brother, shared a studio with him and served as his teacher.
In Philadelphia, Moran worked for a wood engraver, sketching designs on wood blocks for printing and experimenting, in various media in his spare time. By age 21, Thomas Moran’s determination to become an artist was rewarded by his exhibition of an oil painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
In the 1850’s, Moran was introduced to the work of J. M. W. Turner, the noted English landscape artist, by James Hamilton (known as “the American Turner”) but Turner’s full influence on Moran’s work came after the European study trip, taken with his new wife, Mary Nimmo (who later became an etcher of note), and his brother, Edward, in 1862. Moran was greatly impressed with Turner, and French landscape painter, Claude Lorrain.
In 1871 Moran joined the Ferdinand V. Hayden Geological Survey Expedition to Yellowstone Territory and on seeing the magnificent grandeur of the area, his inspiration soared. In 1876, Louis Prang of Boston issued a portfolio of 15 large chromolithograph illustrations by Moran from a report of Hayden’s Expedition. Moran lived in Newark, New Jersey in 1872, but New York City eventually became his base until later years. Well established by 1884, he was one of the first artists to build a summer home in East Hampton, a Long Island Resort. Figures were rarely included in his work, however, on a trip to New Mexico, he did paint Indians in their surroundings. Moran lived in Santa Barbara, CA from 1916 until his death in 1926.
Public Collections:
The Thomas Gilcreast Institute
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Milwaukee Art Center Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Museum of Art
Newark Museum
Philadelphia Museum
Smithsonian Institute