1801-1888 Quidor was born in Gloucester Co., N. J., and in 1826 moved to New York City where he studied painting under John Wesley Jarvis and Henry Inman. Afterward he lived on a farm near Quincy, Illinois, but returned to New York City in 1851. He was obliged to support himself by painting the panels of stage coaches and fire engines and died in abject poverty. Although Quidor was little appreciated in his own time, after his death he was accorded a place among the best early American artists. His paintings establish a mysterious romantic setting for scenes in which he mingled macabre elements with an earthy humor. Many of his works, such as Ichabod Crane Pursued by the Headless Horseman, in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, were inspired by the writings of Washington Irving, who was a personal friend. Irving's A History of New York gave Quidor the subjects for the four paintings in the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Institute: Dancing on the Battery (c. 1860), Peter Stuyvesant's Wall Street Gate (1864), Voyage of the Good Oloff up the Hudson (1866), and The Voyage from Communipaw to Hell Gate (1866). These show Quidor's characteristic mellow and harmonious color, poetic imagination, and naïve humor. He is represented in the Brooklyn Museum by three paintings: Dorothea, Money Diggers, and Wolfert's Will. He also painted religious subjects such as Jesus Blessing the Sick.  Related Paintings of John Quidor :. | The Money Diggers | The Return of Rip van Winkle | The Money Diggers | Dorothea | The Money Diggers |
Related Artists:
Frederic james Shields,ARWS
1833-1911
BREGNO, Antonio
Italian Early Renaissance Sculptor and Architect, active ca.1425-1457
Herbert William Weekes
Herbert William Weekes (fl. 1864 - 1904) was a well-known British genre and animal painter of the Victorian Neoclassical period who specialized in portraying animals in humorous, human-like situations. Weekes was born ca. 1842 in Pimlico, London, England to a prominent artistic family: the youngest of five children, his father, Henry Weekes, Sr. (1807 - 1877), was a sculptor and Royal Academician; his brother, Henry, Jr. (fl. 1850 - 1884), was also a genre painter known for his animal studies; and his brother, Frederick (1833 - 1920), was an artist and expert on medieval costume and design. Weekes appears to have used his middle name, William, for all but formal purposes. He lived and worked for most of his life in London, at 21 Oppidans Road, Primrose Hill. In 1865, he married Caroline Anne Henshaw (born ca. 1844), of Hammersmith. "Suspicion (ca. 1900)", oil-on-canvas "Fowl Talk", oil-on-canvas Weekes' signatureKnown as an animal and genre painter of the Victorian Neoclassical style, Weekes' work was popular, and helped expand 19th century animal painting from its traditional role of simply recording beasts into a way of reflecting human life. He frequently personified animals and placed them in situations particular to humans. His work shows a sensitive understanding of his subject matter, and part of his success in capturing the peaceful country atmosphere depicted in so many of his paintings lay in his affection for it. He was greatly influenced by one of the foremost animal painters of the nineteenth century, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer. Weekes contributed illustrations for The Illustrated London News in 1883, and exhibited extensively in various London and provincial galleries. His works were well received - although not by everyone: a contemporary wit described his paintings as eWeekes' Weak Squeakse.