Susan Hannah Macdowell Eakins (September 21, 1851 – December 27, 1938[1]) was an American artist and wife of Thomas Eakins. She was the fifth of eight children of a Philadelphia engraver, well known in the artistic community. She was a student of Eakins while he was an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and married him in...

Born in New Haven in 1820, the son of a Connecticut stationer, George Henry Durrie remained in that city virtually his entire life. Married to a choirmaster's daughter, Sarah Perkins, in 1841, he immersed himself in the quiet pursuits of family and church. While he never achieved the fame of the most renowned nineteenth century American landscape...

John Durand's birth and death dates are unknown, and only a few of his portraits are signed and dated. The sketchy chronology of his life is based on these few signed works, as well as on account book entries and information about his sitters. Scholars place his first activity in Virginia in 1765, but by 1766 Durand was in New York City. In that year...

William Herbert Dunton, known later in life as “Buck,” was born in Augusta, Maine, in 1878. His lifelong passion for the outdoors was nurtured from an early age by his grandfather, who took him on expeditions, teaching him about hunting and fishing. Drawing the outdoors followed naturally. As a child, Dunton was self-taught, developing a precise...

Robert Scott Duncanson (1821 – December 21, 1872) was born in Seneca County, New York in 1821.[1] Duncanson’s father was a Canadian of Scottish descent and his mother was an African American, thus making him “a freeborn person of color.”[2] Duncanson, an artist who is relatively unknown today, painted America, both physically and figuratively,...

Clement Drew (1806-1889) was an artist and "dealer in picture-frames" in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th century.[1] He specialized in marine paintings. He kept a studio on Court Street (ca.1840s-1860s),[2][3] Tremont Street (in the Boston Museum building, ca.1873), Copeland Street (ca.1888),[4] and Tremont Temple (1889).[5] He married Elizabeth...

An innovative artist and influential art theorist and teacher, Arthur Wesley Dow was a proponent of pure design principles rather than literal naturalism as the basis for art. Dow was a native of Ipswich, Massachusetts, whose flat coastal landscape and subtly shifting light proved a powerful source of aesthetic inspiration. He studied art privately...

John Henry Dolph is one of America's finest animal painters and he is most famous for his depictions of playful kittens and puppies that frolic on oriental rugs within Victorian interiors. Playful terrier and Kittens shows Dolph’s expertise at handling, in an academic manner, how fur, woven wool and anatomy can be painted with sureness and...

Maria R. Dixon (fl. 1880-1895 / D. 1896)  Little is known about the circumstances of Maria R. Dixon’s life, including any record of birth or death. As early as 1886, the Complete Catalog of the 62nd Spring Exhibition of the National Academy of Design stated that she had studied at the Art Students League under Charles Yardley Turner.  The...

Thomas Dewing was born on May 4, 1851, in Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts. As a child he was interested in both drawing and in playing the violin; this early interest in music would later reappear in the themes of many of his paintings. By 1872, after a period of apprenticeship in a lithography shop, Dewing was listing his profession as "artist." He...

William Wallace Denslow (5 May 1856 – 27 May 1915) – usually credited as W. W. Denslow – was an illustrator and caricaturist remembered for his work in collaboration with author L. Frank Baum, especially his illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.[1] Denslow was an editorial cartoonist with a strong interest in politics, which has fueled...

Thaddeus Defrees was born in Boston, MA on September 27, 1855.  His parents were Georgianna and William, a machinist. Defrees's style of painting shows strong influence of the French Barbizon School.   He was active in the White Mountains from at least 1877 until his death.  He exhibited at the Boston Art Club in January, 1878.  He was...

Joseph Rodefer DeCamp was a successful portrait painter; he also created exquisite interior views with a soft-edged luminosity, as well as landscapes characterized by the broken brushwork, bright light and color, and contemporary subjects of impressionism. DeCamp began his art studies as a teenager at the McMicken School of Design in his native...

Henry Golden Dearth (22 April 1864 – 27 March 1918) was a distinguished American painter[1] who studied in Paris and continued to spend his summers in France painting in the Normandy region. He would return to New York in winter, and became known for his moody paintings of the Long Island area. Around 1912, Dearth changed his artistic style, and...

I. Biography Little is known about the life of French artist Victor de Grailly, famous for his Hudson River School-style landscapes of the United States. Born in France in 1804, he studied with neo-classical painter Jean Victor Bertin, who also mentored the great Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Surprisingly, it is unlikely that de Grailly ever traveled to...

Arthur Bowen Davies (September 26, 1863 – October 24, 1928) was an avant-garde American artist and patron. Biography He was born in Utica, New York and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882. He briefly attended the Art Institute of Chicago and then moved to New York City where he studied at the Art Students League. Davies was a...

Ann Sophia Towne Darrah was a pupil of Paul Weber.  She was a competent artist whose long career included executing pastel portraits, landscapes, and marine views.  Her later works were done in plein air. In 1858 she took part in the Bierstadt Exhibition in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  She exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum from 1855 to 1865 and at...

George Hewitt Cushman (June 5, 1814 in Windham, Connecticut-August 3, 1876 in Jersey City Heights, New Jersey), a top American engraver and painter of miniature paintings and portraits of his time (second only to Edward Greene Malbone), turned early to these professions after family financial misfortunes prevented him from entering West Point and...

Nathaniel Currier (March 27, 1813 – November 20, 1888) was an American lithographer, who headed the company Currier & Ives with James Ives. Early years Currier was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts to Nathaniel and Hannah Currier. He attended public school until age fifteen, when he was apprenticed to the Boston printing firm of William and...

Thomas Seir Cummings (1804-94) was an American miniature painter and author, born at Bath, England. He came to New York early in life and studied there with Henry Inman. He painted miniatures in water color, and many of his sitters were well-known contemporaries of the artist. In 1826 he helped to found the National Academy of Design, was its...

Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School. Biography Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New York, the oldest of eight children. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring periods of poor health. While absent from...

William C. Craig was born in Ireland in 1829.  Primarily a watercolorist, he came to the United States in 1863.  In 1866 he was one of the founding members of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors along with William Hart and Samuel Colman.  He painted mostly in the northeast in the style of the Hudson River School painters. He exhibited...

Eanger Irving Couse (1866–1936) was an American artist and a founding member and first president of the Taos Society of Artists. He is noted for paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico, and the American Southwest. His house and studio in Taos have been preserved as the Couse/Sharp Historic Site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic...

Michele Felice Cornè, considered to be Salem, Massachusetts’ most versatile early nineteenth century artist, arrived in America from Naples, Italy in 1800. Cornè worked and lived in Salem from 1800-06 when he moved to Boston. During his Boston tenure (1807-22) the artist was noted for painting portraits of Boston ships and naval battles of the...

Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American Impressionist painter, perhaps most renowned for his architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. An avid traveler, he was also known for his paintings of European and Asian landmarks, as well as natural landscapes,...

Delbert Dana Coombs was born in Lisbon Falls, Maine, on July 26, 1850. Primarily self-taught, Coombs did take painting lessons from Scott Leighton, an animal painter, and he studied landscapes with Harrison Bird Brown.  Coombs painted actively for over fifty years.  His subjects included portraits, landscapes, and cattle.  Coombs painted in the...

Nelson Cook (rarely, Cooke, seen esp in Canada) was the son of furniture-maker Joseph Cook (b. ca 1768, Wallingford, CT - d. 22 Dec 1864) and Mary Ann Tolman (Tallman?), b. Guilford, MA; the parents moved to the Ballston Spa/Malta area of Saratoga County around 1800 from Wallingford. Cook's birthdate given here is derived from his death...

Samuel Colman (March 4, 1832 – March 26, 1920) was an American painter, interior designer, and writer, probably best remembered for his paintings of the Hudson River. Born in Portland, Maine, Colman moved to New York City with his family as a child. His father opened a bookstore, attracting a literate clientele that may have influenced Colman's...

Charles Caryl Coleman resided on the breathtaking Italian island of Capri from 1886 until his death in 1928, becoming an individual leader in the local art community. Coleman’s paintings from this period depict Capri’s flawless beauty and reveal his devotion to the island’s historical legacy. Born in Buffalo, New York, Coleman to many...

A versatile nineteenth-century painter, Edmund C. Coates created landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and history paintings. Born in England, Coates spent his adult life in New York City, where he was a frequent exhibitor at the National Academy of Design. Working in the style of the Hudson River School, Coates produced beautiful, idealized images of...

Remembered widely for his pioneering work in optics and astronomy, Alvan Clark is less well known as an artist, although he is thought to have executed some 500 oil portraits and miniatures during his lifetime. Clark was born in in 1804 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, where he spent his early years on his father's farm, working at the family mill....