American overview
colonial art
post-civil war art

American Art
from the
Revolution to the Civil War

1750 to 1865

The Peale Family

  Charles Willson Peale

born: Queen Ann's County, Maryland; 15 April 1741
died: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 27 February 1827

Washington and His Generals at Yorktown about 1781 Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore

Raphael Peale

born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 1774
died: Baltimore, Maryland; 1825

Rembrandt Peale

born: Bucks, County, 22 February Pennsylvania; 1778
died: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 3 October 1860

  Gilbert Stuart

born: North Kingston, Rhode Island; 3 December 1755
died: Boston, Massachusetts; 9 July 1828

George Washington 1796 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Thirteen more Stuart pictures.

John Trumbull

born: Lebanon, Connecticut, 6 June 1756
died: New York, New York, 10 November 1843

Thirty-six of the original members of the original forty-seven members of the first Congress were painted from life, years after 1776. Trumbull spent a quarter of a century tracking down people and painting them from "life".

John Vanderlyn

born: Kingston, New York, 15 October 1775
died: Kingston, New York, 23 September 1852

Ariadne Asleep on Naxos 1814 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Caius Marius in the Ruins of Carthage 1807

Murder of Jane McCrea 1804

 

 

Thomas Sully

born: Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England; 19 June 1783
died: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 5 November 1872

John James Audubon

born: Saint-Dominque, West Indies [now Haiti]; 26 April 1785
died: New York, New York; 27 January 1851

Seven more Audubon bird pictures.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse

born: Charlestown, Massachusetts; 27 April 1791
died: New York, New York; 2 April 1872

American painter who, also invented an electric telegraph (1832-35) and in 1838 he developed a code to work with it, the Morse Code.

Asher Brown Durand

born: Jefferson Village, New Jersey; 21 August 1796
died: Jefferson Village, New Jersey; 17 September 1886

He was a painter and engraver. In the 1830s, he turned increasingly to painting. At first he did portraits, but then devoted himself to landscape. Thomas Cole was a major source of inspiration, and Durand's most famous painting, Kindred Spirits (1849, currently in the New York Public Library), was painted as a memorial to him.

One of the founders of the Hudson River school of landscape painting.

Genesee Valley

The Beeches

Kindred Spirits New York Public Library

 

 

George Catlin

born: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; 26 July 1796
died: Jersey City, New Jersey; 23 December 1872

	Sun Dance
Sioux Dog Feast 1869	Sioux Bear Dance 1835

 

 

Thomas Cole

born: Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England; 1 February 1801
died: Catskill, New York; 11 February 1848

Seven more Cole pictures.

Fitz Hugh Lane

born: Gloucester, Massachusetts; 19 December 1804
died: Gloucester, Massachusetts, 18 August 1865

William Sydney Mount

born: Setauket, Long Island, New York; 26 November 1807
died: Setauket, Long Island, New York; 19 November 1868

Cider Making

Raffling the Goose

Saul and the Witch of Endor

 

 

  Karl Bodmer

born: Riesbach, Switzerland; 1809
died: Barbizon, France; 1893

Bodmer is not really an American artist, but because these drawings are so typically American he is listed here. He visited the US (1832 to 1834), and he made important sketches of Indians. He was best known for his painting in France as a part of the Barbizon school of painting, working with Millet and Theodore Rousseau. The picture of Bodmer above is a sketch by Millet.

Blackfoot Makuie Poka

First Chain of the Rocky Mountains 1833

George Caleb Bingham

born: Augusta county, Virginia; 20 March 1811
died: Kansas City, Mo.; 7 July 1879

John Frederick Kensett

born: Cheshire, Connecticut; 22 March 1816
died: New York, New York; 14 December 1872

Leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School of landscape painters.

  John Faed

born: Scotland; 1820
died: 1902

Faed is a Scot painter who did miniatures, portraits, and religious and historical painting. He never came to the US. But Andrew Carnegie, who owned a castle as a summer home for his family in Scotland, commissioned him to do this painting of a familiar American subject.

George Inness

born: Newburgh, New York; 1 May 1825
died: Bridge of Allen, Stirling, Scotland; 3 August 1894

Thirteen more Inness pictures.

American overview
colonial art
American post-civil war art