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America of course has a very recent art history. Here some of the most valuable work was done by primitive or naive artists in the late 17th and early-mid 19th century before the advent of photography. These artista while their perspective was often weak often did provide very detailed reproductions of clothing in their portaits which is of emense value in assessing historical fashion trends. Perhaps the American artist most associated with children is Mary Cassat. Of course the greatest American portratist has to be John Singer Seargent, but unfortunately he painted only a small number of children. This is, of course, only a preliminary list. We hope that HBC readers will suggest other American artists that we should included on this list.
The British settlement of America began with Jamestown (1607) and Plymouth (1620). By the end of the 17th century, the British were well established along the eastern seaboard of North America. There were, however, no artists other than journeymen painters in the 1th 17th century. This only changed in the mid-18th century when a remarable group of artists began to leave a wondeful collection of 18th century colonial life and figures of the Revolutuinary period. The most important The most important were Charles Wilson Peale, Peale's son Rembrandt, John Trumbull, and Gilbert Stuart. They producd art at the European standard and each painted George Washington and may other Revolutoinary figures. [Howard] One of the best aruist of the day, John Singleton Copley, had to leave America because of his political leanings.
Here are the American artists that we have found which have left portraits and other paintings with images of children that can be useful in assssing period fashions. This is of course especially important in the period before the inventin of photograpy.
We note a painting, "Portrait of a Boy" done about 1905 by Elizabeth Gowdy Baker. She was particularly known for her portraits. We know thing about Baker except that she was the founder and president of the Society of Acquarellists.
We have little information about American artist George Baker Jr., other than his life span. We do note a beautiful portrait done of four American children done in 1853. We do not yet know which the childrn are. The children look go be four boys, but we are not positive about the younger child wearing a white dress.
This prolific American artist was born in Salem, Massachusetts during the Civil War, 1862. He is noted as an impressionist painter of New England seascapes and landscapes. He commonly posed his wife and children in his landscapes to add a human dimension. He also did many hunting scenes, making his work notable to a community that often does not concern itself with art. He lived much of his life in Salem. the Massachusetts port famous for the 17th century witchcradt trials. He would endlessly trek through through the
countryside around Salem looking for suitable subjects, especially wildlife. Art historians credit him for establishing the American sporting print a distinctive art form. His work with his family in particular provide several useful images of children's clothing. Although not what he was best known for, he produced several striking images of childhood.
This American primitive artist painted many New England portraits, providing valuable information on individual fashion in a period in which photography was just beginning to provide images.
John Brewster was an naive American artist. He was born in Hampton, Connecticut. He was a deaf-mute who was able to work with some success as an itinerant portraitist. He was especially noted for children's portraits. He was active in coatal areas of New England. One 1804 portrait shows a todler boy in an Empire dress.
Mary Cassat was the first great American woman artist. She is ceratinly the American artist most associated with children is Mary Cassat. For HBC's purposes, however, Cassat's wonderful works offers little information on children's. She often painted infants aor very young children. She also often focused the children being bathed or other intimate moments in which clothing was not depicted.
William Merritt Chadse is an important American portrait artist. He was born in 1849. (1849-1916). American painter. He studied art in Munich. At the time there were few places for serious artists to study in America. Munich was an important art center in Europe. He returned to America to both paint and teach art. He was tremendously influential. He taught at the Art Students' League of New York, a major influence on American art. He founded his own school--the Chase School of Art (1896). He promoted the idea of painting in the open air.
Chase is noted for vigorous brush work and bold colors. This approach can be seen in the work of many early 20th century American artists. Some of his best known students students were Demuth, O'Keefe, and Sheeler. Chase produced more than 2,000 paintings making him one of the most prolific American artists. His work included still lifes, portraits, interiors, and landscapes, but is probably best known for his portraits. We know only a few portraits of children. One is of child star Elsie Leslie Lyde who played Little Lord Fauntleroy on the stage (1889).
We note a painting by Isabel Coll. We know nothing about her at the time, except that she painted portraits in the 1920s. We note a sensitive portrait of a boy in a short-sleeved yellow shirt and tie done in 1924.
Most art historians consider Copley to be the most accomplished painter in colonial America. Some have called him America's first great painter. He did both portarits and historical scenes. Copley was born in Boston, but his parents had recently arrived from Ireland. His stepfather was an engraver. He left many wonderful portraits of colonial America. His success in New England, however, did not satisfy him. One the basis of the success of his portrait "Boy with a Squirrel", Copley moved to England, but achieved only moderate success there.
Ralf Early is an important American portratist, providing wonderful images of important Americans and American families in the period following the Revolution. He also did landscapes but his portraits are his most notable works. His work is much more nuanced than the naive art more common in America at the time. His striaghtforward portrits are seen as "very American". Earle was born in Massachusetts. Earle was a young man when the Revolution broke out. He was a Loyalist, siding with the British. As a result, with his life in danger he fled to Britain and while there dramatically improved his artistic skills. After the Revolution he returned to America and was promptly jailed for debts. He managed to gain his freedom by painting portraits of important officials. His work combined with that of his son (Ralph E.W. Earl) provide some of the most important images of important families in the earliest period of the American nation.
John Ebersberger is a contemprary American painter who describes himself as an impressionist painter. He graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art in l977. His work has been featured in several art journals. His fascination with impressionism to his interest in teaching. He has Artist-in-Residence status at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts where he teaches drawing and painting. Ebersberger's oil paintings have an impresionist flair, but retain a great deal of realistic detail. He does both portraits and landscapes. His work is notable for their intensity of color, especially his landscape work. The use of color is also clearly destinguisgable in his portraits. We are not familiar with a graet deal of his work, but notice a wonderfully crafted portrait of a boy.
We know little about May Fairchild except that she was American and her dates, 1872-1959. The only thing else we know about her is that she produced some charming portraits of children. The image here of a toddler looks to have been painted in the 1920s or early 30s. All we know about the boy was that his name was Albert Cary. He wears a blue one-piece outfit with large buttons and a ruffled collar and sleeve trim. Note his marvelous stuffed dog.
We note a very impressive woman artists, Frances Wiley Faig from Cincinnati, Ohio . Mrs. Faig studied with Frank Duveneck and with Charles Hawthorne. She was a member of the McDowell Society, the Cincinnati Women's Art Club and the Southern States Art League
We note a very impressive portrait she did opf a boy in an Etion collasr and floppy bow. The boy is unidentified, but we believe he is from Cincinatti and probably painted about 1915, although thisd is only a guess.
We do not know very much about Aaron Dean Fletcher other than he was an American. He work has the look of a primitive or naive artist. Yet thet depicted clothing in great detail and is thus of some interest to us. The only painting we have is an unsigned work, but is attributed to Fletcher. We would date the portrait to about the 1850s. Interestingly theboy holds a copy of The Boys Week Day Book which might help date the portrait.
We have no information on the artist James Green, except that he wa American an active in the mid-19th century. The portrait was a miniature on ivory. The portrait depicts two young children. The older child with protective arm around her younger who's holding a toy ball. They are the children of C. Ross Esquire and they were painted in 1839. One source believes the children are girls. This may well be the case, but the older child looks rather like a boy to me and the ball the younger child holds suggests a boy.
Winslow Homer was one if not the greatest of America's artists. And what times he lived in to portray. When he was born America had a small population and was little regarded around the world. Homer saw the opening of the West, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the industrial revolution, and the emergence of America as a great world power. Throughout all this tumualt Homer has left us simple, but powerful images of rural life in a still kargely agrarian country during the mid-19th century. There is no better depiction of rural American childhood during this period than Winslow Homer. The most famous is probably "Cracking the whip", but our favorite is "Huntsman and dogs".
American primitive artist Joshua Johnson was born about 1763. He was active as an artist from 1796 through 1824. One of his best known work showing boys' clothes was of the the Westwood Children which he painted in 1807.
We notice an American artist in the mid-19th century named P.H. Keely. We know nothing about him at this time. He is a naive artist, but quite competent. His rendering of the clothing is quite detailed. We note one portrait of a boy in 1856. The portrait shows the boy seated on a log and holding his cap, mountains and lake in background. The boy is unidentified, but the portrait is signed LR "painted by P.H. Keeley 1856".
William Lewis Lester was a painter and and art teacher. He was leader in the development of a Texas Regionalist style. During the Depression he was a staff artist with the Civilian Conservation Corps. He taught art at the University of Texas at Austin for 30 years. Grafually he acquired an abstract appraoch. His subject matter included landscapes, buildings, and people. He exhibited widely and many museums both in Texas and outside the state have his works in their collection. We have noted a 1964 portrait of "A boy with a guitar". The boy seeems to show Texas' Hispanic heritage.
George Luks is associated with the Ashcan School. Portraits of urban city types were a favorite subject for painters of the Ashcan School. Luks painted many studies of street characters, often holding or playing with animals.
Luks often dealt with his subjects with seeminly brusque techniques. He tirelessly walked the streets of the city in searching of motivationa and subjects. He saw beauty and nobility in what others saw a squalor and ugliness. He had a particular fondness for scenes featuring street urchins, whom he depicted with enormous charm and spontaneity.
We have found a portrait of a boy in a sports collar, probably painted in the 1930s. We date it based on the open sports collar that the boy wears. We believe the boy is a German boy. All we know for sure is that the portrait was dated by O. Merkell. We are sure about this because the portrait is signed "O. Merkell". We were not familiar with this artist. (One auction house thought he was German.) Hapily one of our well informed HBC readers tells us that Merkell is an American artist. He writes, " Otto Merkel was an American painter. I have seen a woman's portrait painted in 1921, simular to the one of this boy. Unfortunately I have no more information about the artist." We nothing more about him.
J.T. Mitchell was a well-known British-American miniaturist who exhibited in London between 1798 and 1830 and was also active in the United States. We note some portraits of children. We do not have confirmed portraits by him. We do note a minature that one dealer attributes to Mitchell, "Portrait of a Boy" (1801). The boy is unidentified, but we believe that he is English
HBC has virtually no information on this primative (naive) artist. We believe that he was American. We have one portrait done in 1853. It is of interest because it shows a boy wearing a tunic in what appears to be an early sailor style. This is one of the earliest American images that HBC has which shows that the sailor style that began in Britain had spread to America.
American prinitive artist Noah North painted many portraits, including families and children. Although he did not master perspective well, his detailed paintings provide a good record of early 19th century fashions before photography was developed.
Charles Willson Peale is one of tghe best known early American artists, regarded as the "artist of the American Revolution". He was born in Queen Anne's County, Maryland in 1741. He came to Annapolis at the age 9 to apprentice to a local saddler. He received no actual art training and taught himself to paint by watching portraitist John Hesselius work. He observed John Singleton Copley on a visit to Boston. At this time he began to get commissions for portraits from the the Annapolis gentry. We note a painting of the Stewart children which we believe was done by him, probably in the 1770s.
I have little informaion about Maurice Pendergast at this time. We do note a lovely image of chidren sailing their sailboats in a park.
American primitive painter was born in was born in Bath, Maine in 1806. He advertised his painting skills in the Maine Inquirer in 1827 and 1828. Prior prepared his own canvases, ground his own paints, and with the help
of his sons made some of his own frames. The artist produced some landscapes, but because of public demand, he was primarily a portrait painter. Prior's work is startling in the stlistic variations. His portraits range from near academic compositions to very primative naive works. The many portraits provide a very useful view of children's clorhes in the early 19th centuty.
John Singer Sargent is known for his dazling and often daring portraits portraits of British and American high society at the turn of the century. Most of his best known works are glamorous portraits of eminent or socially prominent people of the period and helped to shape our view of the era. At first he was considered to modern and to French in both England and America, but he was ecentually sought after by the rich and famous. He is now widely regarded as the leading portrait painter of his generation. He showed remarkable technical precocity as a painter. Sargent was often criticized for what some believed to be a superficial brilliance and his portraits were largely dismissed after his death. In more recent years, however, Sergent's works have been acclaimed for their naturalism and masterly technical skill. Sargent's work, unfortunately, includes few portraits of boys. Thus while there are many portraits illustrating the dress of women, girls, and men, there are only a few of boys to illustrate fashions in the late 19th and early 20 th Century. The two most interesting are Livingston Davis in a white sailor suit (1890) and ??? Meyer in a grey velvet jacket and ruffled collar (18??). For those of us who admire beauty in art, Sargents legacy are paintings of daziling technical skill, often showing radiently beautiful images of the Gilded Age.
Rosina Sherwood was a recognized artist and illustrator from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Rosina grew up in New York in an artistic family. Her mother self taught her. After a trip to Europe in the 12870s, she began formal art lessons. She worked in several mediums. Here we have a pastel of a boy wearing a short pants white sailor suit painted in 1922.
This American primitive artist painted many New England portraits, providing valuable information on individual fashion in a period in which photigraphy was just beginning to provide images.
Thomas Sully is one of the most impoprtant American portratists. He painted individuals as diverse as Lafayette, President Andrew Jackson and a very young Queen Vuctoria. He is particularly noted for his full-lenghth portraits and sensitive depictions of women. He also painted many portraits with theatrical themes. We only know of one portrait of a boy at this time, but surely there must be more among his many portraits.
Slavery was not a common subject for American artist, but one artist did address the topic, William Aiken Walker. Unfortunaletly we have been unable to find any biographical information about him at this time. We note a paintaing of a slave mother and child done in 1862.
This female American primitive artist painted into the mid-19th century. A painting of two brothers in rural America is a wonderful depection of children's fashions. There is often a wonderful depiction of the Lincoln children, not the president's children.
Benjamin West was the first American painter to rise to international prominence. He lead an astonishing life that led him from the American backwoods to the English Royal Academy and acceptance into the
glitering halls of English aristocracy. This was an amazing accomplishment for a self-taught, largely uneducated colonial boy. He painted some important portraits, but he lavisged great attention to historical and alegorical scenes.
Grant Wood is an important American artist. He was not an artist I was very familiar with, except for "American Gothic". Another important painting is his ssartyrical painting of three Daughters of the American Tevolution (DAR). Wood like Mrs. Roosevelt had a iunplesant experiebce with the DAR. The Renwick Gallery in Washington during had an important exhibition on Wood which surveyed his impressive body of work. He did both portaits and pastoral landscapes. The portraits included a few children, done in is earlier period before he evolved into more styilized landscape painting. Wood is usually classed with other American painters such as Thomas Hart Benton and John Stuert Curry in a group known as "The American Scene" who were attracted to American rural subject matter. They became popular in the early 1930s during the Great Depression.
We note a naive American artist in the mid-1850s. He signed his name Wybrant. I'm not sure what his proper name was or if that was his last name. Wybrant was a rather elusive watercolor portrait artist that painted out of the Boston area in the 1850s. There are only a few known portraits. Here we have a portrait of an unidentified boy, presumably from the Bodton area. The portrait was painted in 1853. The boy wears a dress and holds a hat.
Many fascinating American primitives exist providing a wealth of information about children's fashions. While the artist is not known, in some cases the children depicted and the approximate date of the paintings are known.
We have noticed a number of interesting paintings, but have no idea who the artists are. Many may be artists who did not sign their works and are not well recognized. Even so they are valuable for HBC's assessment of clothing styles.
We have noted some paintings that seem to have been made from photographs. Some may even have been painted over photographs, I'm not sure prescisely how this was done. Others may simply have been painted in a very realistic photograph-like style. Some photographic studios may have had contracts or business associations with local artists. It sees to have been popular to paint portraits of younger children in formal attire. We note quite a few of these formal portraits. They were often done before the children reached school age. A good example is an unidentified portrait painted about 2005.
Howard, Hugh. The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art.
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