German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902 Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career. Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.  Related Paintings of Albert Bierstadt :. | Buffalo Bill Historical Center | Lake Louise | Canadian_Rockies_Asulkan_Glacier | Estes Park, Colorado | The Wolf River, Kansas |
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Francis Towne
English Painter, 1739-1816 was an English water-colour painter. He was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, the son of a corn chandler. Apprenticed to a coach painter in London, he won a design prize from the Society of Arts, and studied for a while at St Martin??s Lane Academy. In 1763 he was employed by a coach painter called Thomas Watson, and went to Exeter on business. He had already begun painting in oils and also taught drawing, and now he began to accept commissions from wealthy families in Devon. After a tour of north Wales in 1777, undertaken with his friend, the lawyer John White, he began to specialize in water-colours. In 1780 he travelled to Rome and from there to Naples. On his return to Devon, he was asked by Sir Thomas and Lady Acland of Killerton to paint some views in Devon and North Wales, and in 1786 he went on a painting tour of the Lake District
Arthur Pond
Arthur Pond (1705?-1758) was an English painter and engraver. Born about 1705, was educated in London, and stayed for a time in Rome studying art, in company with the sculptor Roubiliac. He became a successful portrait-painter. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1752, and died in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 9 September 1758. His numerous original portraits include Alexander Pope, William, Duke of Cumberland, and Peg Woffington. Pond was also a prolific etcher, and used various mixed processes of engraving by means of which he imitated or reproduced the works of masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Salvator Rosa, Parmigiano, Caravaggio, and the Poussins. In 1734-5 he published a series of his plates under the title Imitations of the Italian Masters. He also collaborated with George Knapton in the publication of the Heads of Illustrious Persons, after Jacobus Houbraken and George Vertue, with lives by Thomas Birch (London, 1743-52); and engraved sixty-eight plates for a collection of ninety-five reproductions from drawings by famous masters, in which Knapton was again his colleague. Another of his productions was a series of twenty-five caricatures after Pier Leone Ghezzi, republished in 1823 and 1832 as Eccentric Characters.
Abbott Handerson Thayer
American Painter, 1849-1921 American painter and naturalist. He spent his youth in rural New England, where his earliest paintings were wildlife subjects, reflecting his interest in hunting and fishing. While in his teens Thayer achieved some success doing portraits of family pets, which he continued after a move to New York. He attended classes at the Brooklyn Art School and National Academy of Design, but in 1875 he settled in Paris, studying under Henri Lehmann and Jean-L?on G?r?me at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. While abroad he produced landscapes in the Barbizon style and genre scenes, but on his return to New York in 1879