Portraitist and genre painter John O'Brien Inman was the son of painter Henry Inman. Although his reputation has been overshadowed by that of his father, the younger Inman had a successful artistic career.  Born in 1828 in New York City, Inman studied under his father, who painted landscapes and miniatures, as well as portraits and genre scenes....

James Peale (1749 – May 24, 1831) was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale. Peale was born in Chestertown, Maryland, the second child, after Charles, of Charles Peale (1709–1750) and Margaret Triggs (1709–1791). His father died when he was an...

Douglas Volk, named Stephen Arnold Douglas Volk (23 February 1856 - 1935)[1] was an American portrait and landscape painter. He helped establish the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. After 1904 he and his wife Marion created an artists' retreat at their family home, Hewnoaks, in Maine. She became active in the production of woolen textiles and rugs...

Robert Edge Pine was an English portraitist and history painter who spent the last four years of his life in the United States. He was one of the first artists to paint history paintings of the events of the American Revolution. Pine was born in London, around 1730, the son of engraver John Pine. His exact birth date has never been discovered, and...

Jeremiah Paul ( fl 1795; d nr St Louis, MO, 13 July 1820). American painter. He was a minor yet versatile artist whose career began in Philadelphia, PA, in the 1790s. The son of a Quaker schoolmaster, Paul received his early training from Charles Willson Peale and in 1795 participated in the founding of the Columbianum, Peale's ill-fated attempt to...

Eunice Pinney is the earliest known American primitive watercolorist. She was born into a large, wealthy family in Simsbury, Connecticut. Well-educated, she and her seven siblings enjoyed performing plays for neighbors, and Pinney's flair for drama surfaces in the poses, gestures, and facial expressions of the people in her...

Gimbrede was born in Agen, France in 1781 but emigrated to America, where he worked in New York and Baltimore as an engraver and miniature painter, before taking up a position as teacher of drawing and of French at the West Point Military Academy, where he died 24 Dec 1832. Judging by the comments on his grave at West Point, where it is recorded...

GREEN, JAMES (1771-1834), portrait-painter, born at Leytonstone in Essex, 13 March 1771, was son of a builder. He was apprenticed to Thomas Martyn, a draughtsman of natural history, who resided at 10 Great Marlborough Street. Here Green remained several years, and showed great talent in the imitation of shells and insects. Having higher aims in...

Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. While committed to the natural sciences, he was "always concerned with including a spiritual dimension in his works."[1] Biography Beginnings The...

Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (November 2, 1850 – February 2, 1921) was a Danish-born American maritime artist known as the "Audubon of Steam Vessels".[1] Biography Jacobsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Jacobsen attended the Royal Academy of Design before heading across the Atlantic Ocean.[1] He arrived in the United States in 1871 and...

Paul Emil Jacobs (August 20, 1802, in Gotha - January 6, 1866) was a German painter. Jacobs, son of the philologist Frederick Jacobs, received his art training at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and first became known for his painting of Mercury and Argus (from Classical mythology). In 1824 he went to Rome, where he attracted great critical...

William Jennys (1774–1859), also known as J. William Jennys, was an American primitive portrait painter who was active from about 1790 to 1810. He traveled throughout New England seeking commissions in rural areas and small towns. His early works are characterized by broadly modeled faces with a minimum of costume detail and bare backgrounds....

Paul LaCroix, an immigrant from France, appeared in New York some time before 1855. Urban centers such as New York and Philadelphia witnessed an influx of foreign artists at mid-century who left “to escape the turmoil of the revolutions of 1848” (1). European immigrants such as LaCroix brought with them the Dutch, German, and French traditions...

Ellen Robbins is best known for her watercolor paintings of flowers and autumn leaves. Primarily a self-taught watercolorist, Robbins was born in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1828. During her youth, she spent hours copying lithographs from drawing books. During the 1940s, she studied briefly at the New England School of Design and Manchester...

Julian Ruggles Seavey was one of the most prestigious artists to have called Hamilton his home. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 24, 1857 and studied art in New York, Paris, Rome, and Germany before coming to Hamilton in 1879. During the time he lived here, Seavey was a major force in promoting local art and culture. Seavey was a...

Jefferson David Chalfant painted still-life images and scenes of everyday life that celebrate the ideal of manual craft in their subjects and in their technique. Chalfant was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the son of a cabinetmaker. He followed his father’s trade and worked with him decorating railroad cars. In 1879 he moved to Wilmington,...

James Sharples (1751 or 1752 in Lancashire – 26 February 1811 in New York [1]) was an English portrait painter and pastelist, who moved to the United States in 1794. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779. History James was first intended for the Catholic priesthood, but became an artist instead.[3] Sharples headed a family...

Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783 – November 5, 1872) was a well-known American (English-born) painter, mostly of portraits. Life and career Early life Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Thomas’s uncle...

Oscar Bluemner (June 21, 1867 – January 12, 1938), born as Friedrich Julius Oskar Blümner[1] and since 1933, known as Oscar Florianus Bluemner,[2] was a German-born American Modernist painter. Early life Bluemner was born as Friedrich Julius Oskar Blümner in Prenzlau, Germany on June 21, 1867.[1] Architecture Bluemner moved to Chicago in...

John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation. He was a member of "The Ten",...

Born in Utica, New York, in 1861 the portraitist Irving Ramsey Wiles first studied art with his father, landscape painter Lemuel Maynard Wiles (1826-1905). In 1879 he followed his father's advice and moved to New York. He entered the Art Students League, where he spent two years studying with Thomas W. Dewing, J. Carroll Beckwith, and William Merritt...

Theodore Robinson (July 3, 1852 – April 2, 1896) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close friendship with Claude Monet. Several of his works are considered masterpieces of...

Harper Pennington was born in Baltimore to a prominent Maryland family. After studying drawing at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with the renowned teacher and artist Jean Leon Gérome, in 1880 he traveled to Munich, where the American artist Frank Duveneck's school was well known. Pennington was advised to join Duveneck's winter art class in...

John Vanderlyn (October 18, 1775 – September 23, 1852) was an American neoclassicist painter. Biography Vanderlyn was born at Kingston, New York. He was employed by a print-seller in New York, and was first instructed in art by Archibald Robinson (1765–1835), a Scotsman who was afterwards one of the directors of the American Academy of...

John Mackie Falconer (1820–1903) was a Scottish-born American etcher, painter, and watercolorist. Born in Edinburgh, he came to the United States in 1836. A full member of the New York Etching Club, he was made an honorary member of the National Academy of Design in 1856. He is known for studies of older buildings and ruins. Falconer was a...

John Neagle (4 November 1796 – 17 September 1865) was a fashionable American painter, primarily of portraits, during the first half of the 19th century in Philadelphia. Biography Neagle was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His training in art began with instruction from the drawing-master Pietro Ancora and an apprenticeship to Thomas Wilson,...

Daniel Huntington (October 4, 1816 – April 19, 1906), American artist, was born in New York City, New York, the son of Benjamin Huntington, Jr. and Faith Trumbull Huntington; his paternal grandfather was Benjamin Huntington, delegate at the Second Continental Congress and First U.S. Representative from Connecticut. From 1833 to 1835 he studied at...