1796-1886 Asher Brown Durand Galleries His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School. Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth." Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..." Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.  Related Paintings of Asher Brown Durand :. | Represent | Oberwesel on the Rhine | Dover Plains,Dutchess County | Adirondacks | Kaaterskill Clove |
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Sebastian Stoskopff
Strasbourg 1597-Idstein 1657 was an Alsatian painter. He is considered one of the most important German still life painters of his time. His works, which were rediscovered after 1930, portray goblets, cups and especially glasses. The reduction to a few objects, which is characteristic of early still life painting, can again be recognized in Stoskopff's painting. His chief works hang in Strasbourg and in Saarbr??cken. Sebastian Stoskopff was born in 1597 in Strasbourg. His father was employed by the city since 1590 and acted as a mounted courier or royal escort, driving a one-horse-carriage. In 1614, Stoskopff's father asked the Strasbourg council for help for his 17-year-old son. He wanted him to be able to learn the craft of painting, since Sebastian had already been extremely talented in drawing and painting since he was 15. The council agreed to provide their support and probably sent the young artist at first to the Strasbourg painter and copper engraver, Friedrich Brentel. However, he only learned how to further refine his drawing and was not, as hoped, introduced to the art of painting. In 1615, Stoskopff's father died and his widowed mother went to the Strasbourg council once again to ask for support for training from a recognized painter. Stoskopff was then sent to Daniel Soreau, a painter who was active in Hanau. In the beginning, Soreau was not very enthusiastic, since he usually chose his apprentices from among his relatives and close friends. However, he finally complied with the request of the council and assured them that would "make an Albrecht Derer of this apprentice". There is not a single definite picture by Daniel Soreau existing. It is only possible to draw conclusions about how well the master passed on his artistic skills to his students through the works of his sons, other apprentices of his workshop and through Stoskopff's works. After Soreau's death in 1619, Stoskopff took over his workshop with the apprentices, as well as his function as the master. One of the apprentices was Joachim von Sandrart, who later became a successful painter and who wrote the first important work on the history of art in the German language: "Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild,- und Malerey- Kenste". This work contains descriptions of the lives of earlier and contemporary artists, including descriptions of the time in Hanau with his master, Sebastian Stoskopff. After his attempt to get permission to settle in Frankfurt failed, Stoskopff went to Paris. He stayed there from about 1622 until 1639, which can be reconstructed from indirect reports and property inventories of Parisians. His first works in larger format were also created here, such as "Summer" or "Winter" (now both in Strasbourg).
BROEDERLAM, Melchior
Netherlandish Gothic Era Painter, ca.1355-1411 South Netherlandish painter. Broederlam's family, long-established in Ypres, provided three aldermen for the city and sided with the French Counts of Flanders against the Flemish populace. After a training that may have included contact with Jan Boudolf in Bruges before 1368 or Paris after 1370 and an extended visit to Italy, the artist became, by 1381, an official painter of the reigning count, Louis de M?le (reg. 1346-84), painting leather chairs, pennons and banners. On 13 May 1384, directly after Louis's death, he was appointed a valet de chambre to the count's heir, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
Charles Wilson Peale
1741-1827 Charles Wilson Peale Galleries Finding that he had a talent for painting, especially portraitures, Peale studied for a time under John Hesselius and John Singleton Copley. Friends eventually raised enough money for him to travel to England to take instruction from Benjamin West. Peale studied with West for two years beginning in 1767, afterward returning to America and settling in Annapolis, Maryland. There, he taught painting to his younger brother, James Peale, who in time also became a noted artist. Peale's enthusiasm for the nascent national government brought him to the capital, Philadelphia, in 1776, where he painted portraits of American notables and visitors from overseas. His estate, which is on the campus of La Salle University in Philadelphia, can still be visited. He also raised troops for the War of Independence and eventually gained the rank of captain in the Pennsylvania militia by 1777, having participated in several battles. While in the field, he continued to paint, doing miniature portraits of various officers in the Continental Army. He produced enlarged versions of these in later years. He served in the Pennsylvania state assembly in 1779-1780, after which he returned to painting full-time. Peale painted in the trompe l'oeil style,[1] and was quite prolific as an artist. While he did portraits of scores of historic figures (such as John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton), he is probably best known for his portraits of George Washington. The first time Washington ever sat for a portrait was with Peale in 1772, and there would be six other sittings; using these seven as models, Peale produced altogether close to 60 portraits of Washington. In January 2005, a full length portrait of "Washington at Princeton" from 1779 sold for $21.3 million dollars - setting a record for the highest price paid for an American portrait. Peale had a great interest in natural history, and organized the first U.S. scientific expedition in 1801. These two major interests combined in his founding of what became the Philadelphia Museum, and was later renamed the Peale Museum. This museum is considered the first. It housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens. Most notably, the museum contained a large variety of birds which Peale himself acquired, and it was the first to display North American mammoth bones. The display of the mammoth bones entered Peale into a long standing debate between Thomas Jefferson and Comte de Buffon. Buffon argued that Europe was superior to the Americas biologically, which was illustrated through the size of animals found there. Jefferson referenced the existence of these mammoths (which he believed still roamed northern regions of the continent) as evidence for a greater biodiversity in America. Peale's display of these bones drew attention from Europe, as did his method of re-assembling large skeletal specimens in three dimensions. The museum was among the first to adopt Linnaean taxonomy. This system drew a stark contrast between Peale's museum and his competitors who presented their artifacts as mysterious oddities of the natural world. The museum underwent several moves during its existence. At various times it was located in several prominent buildings including Independence Hall and the original home of the American Philosophical Association. The museum would eventually fail in large part because Peale was unsuccessful at obtaining government funding. After his death, the museum was sold to, and split up by, showmen P. T. Barnum and Moses Kimball.