19th Century American Art
Alfred Jacob Miller was an American artist best known for his paintings of trappers and Native Americans in the fur trade of the western United States. He also painted numerous portraits and genre paintings in and around Baltimore during the mid-nineteenth century.
Alfred Jacob Miller was an American artist best known for his paintings of trappers and Native Americans in the fur trade of the western United States. He also painted numerous portraits and genre paintings in and around Baltimore during the mid-nineteenth century.
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.
Sanford Robinson Gifford was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly-regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its emphasis on light and soft atmospheric effects.
John Frederick Kensett was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works are landscape paintings of New England and New York State, whose clear light and serene surfaces celebrate transcendental qualities of nature, and are associated with Luminism. Kensett's early work owed much to the influence of Thomas Cole, but was from the outset distinguished by a preference for cooler colors and an interest in less dramatic topography, favoring restraint in both palette and composition. The work of Kensett's maturity features tranquil scenery depicted with a spare geometry, culminating in series of paintings in which coastal promontories are balanced against glass-smooth water. He was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
John Frederick Kensett was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works are landscape paintings of New England and New York State, whose clear light and serene surfaces celebrate transcendental qualities of nature, and are associated with Luminism. Kensett's early work owed much to the influence of Thomas Cole, but was from the outset distinguished by a preference for cooler colors and an interest in less dramatic topography, favoring restraint in both palette and composition. The work of Kensett's maturity features tranquil scenery depicted with a spare geometry, culminating in series of paintings in which coastal promontories are balanced against glass-smooth water. He was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Frederic Edwin Church was an American artist of the second half of the 19th century. He is known as a romantic landscape painter, a prominent representative of the Hudson River School.
Frederic Church was considered one of the most famous artists in the United States during the heyday of his career. He emphasized realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views in his paintings, while continuing the tradition of the Romantic era and idealizing nature. Some of Church's paintings are attributed to Luminism, the landscape style of nineteenth-century American painting.
Alfred Thompson Bricher was a painter associated with White Mountain art and the Hudson River School.
In the 1870s, he primarily did maritime themed paintings, with attention to watercolor paintings of landscape, marine, and coastwise scenery. He often spent summers in Grand Manan, where he produced such notable works as Morning at Grand Manan (1878). In 1879, Bricher was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member.
William Trost Richards was an American landscape artist. He was associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement.
In the 1870s, he produced many acclaimed watercolor views of the White Mountains, several of which are now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Richards exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1861 to 1899, and at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1863 to 1885. He was elected a full member of the National Academy in 1871.
Fitz Henry Lane (born Nathaniel Rogers Lane) was an American painter and printmaker of a style that would later be called Luminism, for its use of pervasive light.
A contemporary of the Hudson River School, he enjoyed a reputation as America's premier painter of marine subjects during his lifetime, but fell into obscurity soon after his death with the rise of French Impressionism. Lane's work would be rediscovered in the 1930s by the art collector Maxim Karolik, after which his art steadily grew in popularity among private collectors and public institutions. His work can now command at auction prices ranging as high as three to five million dollars.
James Edward Buttersworth was an English painter who specialized in maritime art and is considered among the foremost ship portraitists in the United States of the nineteenth century. His paintings are particularly known for their meticulous detail, dramatic settings, and grace in movement.
James Edward Buttersworth was an English painter who specialized in maritime art and is considered among the foremost ship portraitists in the United States of the nineteenth century. His paintings are particularly known for their meticulous detail, dramatic settings, and grace in movement.
John Frederick Peto was an American trompe-l'œil ("fool the eye") painter who was long forgotten until his paintings were rediscovered along with those of fellow trompe-l'œil artist William Harnett.
William Michael Harnett was an American painter of the second half of the 19th century. He became known as a master of still life. William Harnett was famous for his pictures of deception with extremely accurate depictions of everyday objects, which the viewer often could not distinguish from real things.
William Harnett, unlike most of his colleagues, never sought fame and popularity, so he forever remained faithful to the still life genre he had chosen as a young artist. His biography is a typical example of a successful career of a self-taught artist without academic education.
Harnett's best masterpieces are now preserved in museums in the United States.
Martin Johnson Heade was an American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, and depictions of tropical birds (such as hummingbirds), as well as lotus blossoms and other still lifes. His painting style and subject matter, while derived from the romanticism of the time, are regarded by art historians as a significant departure from those of his peers.
Severin Roesen was a Prussian-American painter known for his abundant fruit and flower still lifes, and is today recognized as one of the major American painters in that genre from the nineteenth century.
While Roesen's paintings reveal a meticulous attention to detail in their precise arrangements and close brushwork, his subject matter, even down to specific motifs, did not change throughout his career. Sometimes he made near-identical copies of paintings, but usually he merely rearranged and reassembled stock elements.
Severin Roesen was a Prussian-American painter known for his abundant fruit and flower still lifes, and is today recognized as one of the major American painters in that genre from the nineteenth century.
While Roesen's paintings reveal a meticulous attention to detail in their precise arrangements and close brushwork, his subject matter, even down to specific motifs, did not change throughout his career. Sometimes he made near-identical copies of paintings, but usually he merely rearranged and reassembled stock elements.
George Henry Hall was an American still-life and landscape artist. He studied art in Düsseldorf and Paris and he worked and lived in New York City, the Catskills of New York and in Europe. His works are in museum collections in the United States and Europe. Over the course of his career he sold 1,659 paintings.
Levi Wells Prentice was an American still life and landscape painter. Prentice was associated with the Hudson River School.
Self-taught artist Levi Wells Prentice is best known for his realistic still life compositions of fruit arranged within a landscape, or abundantly spilling from bushel baskets. Early in his career, he painted portraits and landscapes of the Adirondack Mountain region of Lewis County, New York, his birthplace.