Anderson, Alexander (21 April 1775–17 January 1870), engraver, was born in New York city, the son of John Anderson, a printer and publisher, and Sarah Lockwood. By 1790 the Andersons were living on Wall Street; they were Episcopalians, of moderate means, with varied interests and social contacts. The family was close-knit and affectionate....
Article
Anderson, Alexander (1775-1870), engraver
Jane R. Pomeroy
Article
Arms, John Taylor (1887-1953), architectural etcher
Christopher Caines
Arms, John Taylor (19 April 1887–13 October 1953), architectural etcher, was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John Taylor Arms, a real estate broker, and Kate Watkins. Born into a long line of businessmen, clergymen, and teachers descended from a seventeenth-century Massachusetts stocking-knitter, Arms was the first in his family to become an artist....
Article
Barrymore, Lionel (1878-1954), actor, composer, and artist
William Stephenson
Barrymore, Lionel (28 April 1878–15 November 1954), actor, composer, and artist, was born Lionel Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Herbert Blythe, an actor who adopted the stage name Maurice Barrymore, and Georgiana Drew (Georgie Drew Barrymore), an actress. His mother’s family had been in the theater for generations. Lionel was raised chiefly in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandmother, actress-manager ...
Article
Bellows, George Wesley (1882-1925), painter and printmaker
Marianne Doezema
Bellows, George Wesley (12 August 1882–08 January 1925), painter and printmaker, was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of George Bellows, a builder and contractor, and Anna Smith. In 1901 Bellows entered Ohio State University, where his extracurricular activities included athletics and art. He dropped out of college near the end of his third year and in the fall of 1904 headed for New York City, where he intended to train for a professional career as an illustrator. Bellows enrolled in the New York School of Art, where ...
Article
Biddle, George (1885-1973), artist
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Biddle, George (24 January 1885–06 November 1973), artist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Algernon Sydney Biddle, a lawyer, and Frances Robinson. Though the Biddles were a leading family of Pennsylvania, George’s own immediate family, though quite comfortable, was never wealthy. Biddle attended Groton School in Massachusetts and Harvard College. After graduation in 1908, he spent a year in Texas and Mexico working on a cattle ranch to build up his fragile health. Returning to Harvard, he received a law degree in 1911, but, although he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, he never practiced....
Article
Birch, William Russell (1755-1834), enamelist, engraver, and painter
Carol Eaton Soltis
Birch, William Russell (09 April 1755–07 August 1834), enamelist, engraver, and painter, was born in Warwickshire, England, the son of Thomas Birch, a successful surgeon, and Mary Russell. Because Birch was unsuccessful at Latin school, his wealthy and paternalistic cousin, William Russell of Birmingham, took him into his care and eventually apprenticed him to his friend, the London jeweler and goldsmith Thomas Jeffreys. After six years, Birch left to study enamel painting with Henry Spicer. In 1775 he exhibited two enamel miniatures at the Society of Artists....
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Bodmer, Karl (1809-1893), artist
William J. Orr
Bodmer, Karl (11 February 1809–30 October 1893), artist, was born in Zurich, Switzerland, the son of Heinrich Bodmer, a cotton merchant, and his second wife Elisabeth Meier. After a brief elementary education, Bodmer was apprenticed to his uncle Johann Jakob Meier, from whom he learned sketching, engraving, and watercolor, the medium of his finest works....
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Chapman, John Gadsby (1808-1889), artist
David Meschutt
Chapman, John Gadsby (11 August 1808–28 November 1889), artist, was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Charles T. Chapman, a businessman, and Sarah Margaret Gadsby. He was named for his maternal grandfather John Gadsby, a well-known tavern keeper. Chapman grew up in Alexandria and attended the academy there. Early on he displayed an interest in art, which was encouraged by the artists ...
Article
Doolittle, Amos (1754-1832), engraver
Kate Steinway
Doolittle, Amos (18 May 1754–31 January 1832), engraver, was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, the son of Ambrose Doolittle and Martha Munson (occupations unknown). Doolittle apprenticed under Eliakim Hitchcock, a silversmith, but he may have taught himself to engrave copper plates. By 1774, he was living in New Haven, where he remained until his death. He appears to have prospered, owning a house and shop on College Street in which he rented out a large room to individuals and organizations, including the Masons, who met there from 1801 to 1826. Doolittle was himself a dedicated Mason from 1792 until his death....
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Doughty, Thomas (1793-1856), lithographer and landscape painter
Britt Steen Zuñiga
Doughty, Thomas (19 July 1793–22 July 1856), lithographer and landscape painter, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of James Young Doughty, a ship carpenter, and Mary Young. He was apprenticed to a leather merchant when he was sixteen and continued in this occupation for approximately ten years. Doughty apparently taught himself how to paint, and around 1816 he painted his first landscapes. It was also at this time that he listed his occupation as “painter” in the Philadelphia register, among the first American artists to do so. He was an avid hunter and fisherman whose intense love of nature inspired him to capture the serenity and joy he experienced in the wooded hills and along the quiet streams of the Northeast....
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Durand, Asher Brown (1796-1886), engraver and painter
Franklin Kelly
Durand, Asher Brown (21 August 1796–17 September 1886), engraver and painter, was born in Jefferson Village (now Maplewood), New Jersey, the son of John Durand, a watchmaker and silversmith, and Rachel Meyer Post. Following five or six years of study at the village public school and summers spent working in his father’s shop, where he learned engraving, from 1812 to 1817 he was apprenticed to the New Jersey engraver Peter Maverick. In 1817 he formed a partnership with Maverick and opened a branch of the firm in New York. Around 1818 Durand began informal study and drawing from plaster casts at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York, where his work came to the attention of the academy’s president, ...
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Durand, Asher Brown (1796-1886)
In
Asher Brown Durand. Daguerreotype from the studio of Mathew B. Brady. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-109970).
Article
Edwin, David (1776-1841), engraver
Wendy Wick Reaves
Edwin, David ( December 1776–22 February 1841), engraver, was born in Bath, England, the son of John Edwin, a famous comic actor, and Mrs. Walmsley (first name unknown), a milliner. He learned his trade as an apprentice to the Dutch printmaker Christian Jossi, who was in England studying the art of stipple engraving. This intaglio technique, which was particularly suitable for portraiture, created tonal effects through a profusion of small dots on the plate. In 1796 Jossi returned to Amsterdam, taking his apprentice along but, after a short while, Edwin decided to leave his master. Since ships to England were unavailable, he earned his passage as a sailor on board a ship bound for Philadelphia....
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Eichenberg, Fritz (1901-1990), illustrator and woodcut artist
Dennis Wepman
Eichenberg, Fritz (24 October 1901–30 November 1990), illustrator and woodcut artist, was born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Siegfried Eichenberg, a merchant, and Ida Marcus, a merchant after her husband's death in 1915. At about the age of sixteen, after eleven years of traditional Gymnasium schooling that he described as “brutal in demanding unconditional obedience” ( ...
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Gifford, Robert Swain (1840-1905), artist
Elton W. Hall
Gifford, Robert Swain (23 December 1840–15 January 1905), artist, was born on Nonamesset Island near Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts, the son of William Tillinghast Gifford, a boatman, and Annie Eldridge. He was named for Robert Swain, the late invalid son of William W. Swain, a prosperous New Bedford merchant who employed Gifford’s father. When he was two, Gifford’s family moved to Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where he spent his youth attending the local school and working around the wharves. As the son of an impecunious waterman, Gifford would have had an education limited to the grammar school of Fairhaven had it not been for the kindly encouragement of Mrs. Swain, who saw to it that he studied French, literature, and music and acquired the manners and bearing of a gentleman....
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Golub, Leon (23 January 1922–8 August 2004), painter and printmaker
Christopher Lyon
Golub, Leon (23 January 1922–8 August 2004), painter and printmaker, was born Leon Albert Golub in Chicago, the son of Sara Golub and Samuel Golub, a physician who died when Golub was twelve. As a child he attended an art program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for several years, and from ...
Article
Gropper, William (1897-1977), painter and caricaturist
Norma S. Steinberg
Gropper, William (03 December 1897–07 January 1977), painter and caricaturist, was born in New York City, the son of Harry Gropper and Jenny Nidel, both workers in garment-trade sweatshops in New York’s Lower East Side. When he completed grammar school, he won a scholarship to the National Academy of Design but stayed only a few months. Their requirement for drawing from casts disappointed Gropper, already experienced in drawing from life in classes at the Ferrer School with ...
Article
Hall, Frederick Garrison (1878-1946), artist
Elton W. Hall
Hall, Frederick Garrison (22 April 1878–16 October 1946), artist, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Joseph Thomas Hall, a clerk, and Myra Isabelle Garrison. Although he was descended from many generations of Marylanders, Hall did not remain there long. His parents separated in 1887 and his mother took him and his younger brother to live with her sister in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he spent his childhood. He entered Harvard College in 1899....
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Hassam, Childe (1859-1935), painter, illustrator, and graphic artist
Marcia B. Dinneen
Hassam, Childe (17 October 1859–27 August 1935), painter, illustrator, and graphic artist, was born Frederick Childe Hassam in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of Frederick Fitch Hassam, an antiques dealer and cutlery merchant, and Rose Delia Hawthorne. The family name was a derivation of the original Puritan name Horsham....
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Hassam, Childe (1859-1935)
Maker: Arnold Genthe
In
Childe Hassam. Photograph by Arnold Genthe. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-G39-T-8043-014).
