1775-1852 John Vanderlyn (October 18, 1775 ?C September 23, 1852) was a American neoclassicist painter, was born at Kingston, New York. He was employed by a print-seller in New York, and was first instructed in art by Archibald Robinson (1765-1835), a Scotsman who was afterwards one of the directors of the American Academy. He went to Philadelphia, where he spent time in the studio of Gilbert Stuart and copied some of Stuart's portraits, including one of Aaron Burr, who placed him under Gilbert Stuart as a pupil. He was a proteg?? of Aaron Burr who in 1796 sent Vanderlyn to Paris, where he studied for five years. He returned to the United States in 1801 and lived in the home of Burr, then the Vice President, where he painted the well-known likeness of Burr and his daughter. In 1802 he painted two views of Niagara Falls, which were engraved and published in London in 1804. He returned to Paris in 1803, also visiting England in 1805, where he painted the Death of Miss McCrea for Joel Barlow. Vanderlyn then went to Rome, where he painted his picture of Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage, which was shown in Paris, and obtained the Napoleon gold medal there. This success caused him to remain in Paris for seven years, during which time he prospered greatly. In 1812 he showed a nude Ariadne (engraved by Durand, and now in the Pennsylvania Academy), which increased his fame. When Aaron Burr fled to Paris, Vanderlyn was for a time his only support. Vanderlyn returned to the United States in 1815, and painted portraits of various eminent men, including Washington (for the U.S. House of Representatives), James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Governor Joseph C. Yates, Governor George Clinton, Andrew Jackson, and Zachary Taylor. He also exhibited panoramas and had a "Rotunda" built in New York City which displayed panoramas of Paris, Athens, Mexico, Versailles (by himself), and some battle-pieces; but neither his portraits nor the panoramas brought him financial success, partly because he worked very slowly. In 1842, through friendly influences, he was commissioned by Congress to paint The Landing of Columbus. Going to Paris, he hired a French artist, who, it is said, did most of the work. It was engraved for the United States five-dollar banknotes. He died in poverty at Kingston, New York, on 23 September 1852. Vanderlyn was the first American to study in France instead of in England, and to acquire accurate draughtsmanship. He was more academic than his fellows; but, though faithfully and capably executed, his work was rather devoid of charm, according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. His Landing of Columbus has been called (by Appleton's Cyclopedia) "hardly more than respectable." His other works include portraits of Monroe, and Robert R Livingston (New York Historical Society).  Related Paintings of John Vanderlyn :. | Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles | Ariadne | Andrew Jackson | Adriadne Abandoned on the Island of Naxos | Landing of Columbus |
Related Artists:
William Meade Prince
American , 1893-1951
Ludovic Piette
French Painter, 1826-1878.French painter. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the 1850s under Isidore Pils and Thomas Couture. He attended classes at the Acad?mie Suisse and made his Salon d?but in 1857 with The Scorpion Broom (ex-Mus. B.-A., Rouen). His early works were often based on literary sources and include The Phantoms (exh. Salon 1859) and The Witches Appearing to Macbeth (exh. Salon 1861). Piette only exhibited at the Salon on two further occasions (1872 and 1876), preferring instead to sell his work at auction in the H?tel Drouot. In the early 1860s he abandoned literary subjects in favour of working directly from nature, a shift that probably relates to his developing friendship with Camille Pissarro. This association is first documented by Pissarros portrait of Piette in his Studio (1861; Dr and Mrs Jordan H. Trafimow priv. col.) and an important correspondence between the two artists from 1863 to 1877 survives. Piette portrayed Pissarro painting out of doors (c. 1870; priv. col., see Pissarro, exh. cat., ACGB, 1980, no. 322).
William Frederick Yeames,RA
1835-1918 English painter. The son of a British consul in Russia, Yeames was sent to school in Dresden after the death of his father in 1842. He also studied painting there. The collapse of the Yeames family fortune resulted in a move to London in 1848, where Yeames learnt anatomy and composition from George Scharf (1788-1860). He later took lessons from F. A. Westmacott. In 1852 he continued his artistic education in Florence under Enrico Pollastrini and Raphael Buonajuto, from whom he learnt the methods of the Old Masters. He drew from frescoes by Ghirlandaio, Gozzoli and Andrea del Sarto and painted in the Life School at the Grand Ducal Academy. He then went to Rome and made landscape studies and copied Old Masters, including Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican. His extensive study of Italian art gave him a precision and facility that assisted his artistic success upon his return to London in 1859. There he set up a studio in Park Place and became involved with the ST JOHN'S WOOD CLIQUE. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution from 1859 and became an ARA in 1866.