Paintings Exhibited at the Fair page 7

Thomas Moran was born on February 12, 1837 in Bolton Lancestershire England and was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Thomas Moran along with Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, and William Keith are sometimes referred to as belonging to the Rocky Mountain School of landscape painters because of all of the Western landscapes made by this group.

Moran's family emigrated from England in 1844 and settled in Pennsylvania. He began his artistic career as a teenage apprentice to the Philadelphia wood-engraving firm Scattergood & Telfer. After two years of training, he produced illustrations and works in watercolour and began developing lithographs of landscapes around the Great Lakes in the 1860s. Moran was introduced to the work of J. M. W. Turner while studying in England in 1862, and acknowledged Turner's influence on his use of color and choice of landscapes.

Moran was married to Scottish born Mary Nimmo Moran , an etcher and landscape painter. The couple had two daughters and a son.

Thomas Moran's vision of the Western landscape was critical to the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Moran's pencil and watercolor were presented to members of Congress by park proponents. The image to the left is entitled- Solitude.

He died on August 25, 1926.

Gerrit Dou was born on April 7, 1613 was a Dutch Golden Age painter, who specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe l'oeil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro.

Dou's first instructor was Bartholomew Dolendo, an engraver; and he afterwards learned the art of glass-painting under Peter Kouwhoorn. At the age of 15 he became a pupil of Rembrandt, with whom he continued for three years. From the great master of the Dutch school he acquired his skill in coloring, and in the more subtle effects of chiaroscuro; and the style of Rembrandt is reflected in several of his earlier pictures.

Detail-minded, is has been said that Dou

spent five days in painting a hand; and his work was so fine that he found it necessary to manufacture his own brushes.

He was fond of representing subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with a fidelity and skill which no other master has equaled.

Dou died on February 9, 1675). The image to the right is properly entitled- A Woman Playing a Clavichord, (not a Harpsichord as it says in Fair listings.

William Merritt Chase was born in Williamsburg (now Nineveh), Indiana, to the family of a local merchant. Chase's father moved the family to Indianapolis in 1861 and employed his son as a salesman in the family business. Chase showed an early interest in art, and studied under local, self-taught artists Barton S. Hays and Jacob Cox.

After a brief stint in the Navy, Chase's teachers urged him to travel to New York to further his artistic training. He arrived in New York in 1869, met and studied with Joseph Oriel Eaton for a short time, then enrolled in the National Academy of Design

under Lemuel Wilmarth, a student of the famous French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme.

In 1870 declining family fortunes forced Chase to leave New York for St. Louis, Missouri, where his family was then based and Chase worked to help support his family, selling art and winning prizes. Chase's talent elicited the interest of wealthy St. Louis collectors who arranged for him to visit Europe for two years, in exchange for paintings and Chase's help in securing European art for their collections.

In Europe Chase settled at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, a long-standing center of art training that was attracting increasing numbers of Americans. He studied under Alexander von Wagner and Karl von Piloty, and befriended American artists Walter Shirlaw, Frank Duveneck, and J(oseph) Frank Currier, whom he began collecting.

His portrait- "Keying Up" – The Court Jester (now in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), won a medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and this success gained Chase his first fame. The picture above is entitled- `A friendly Call,' and was painted in 1895 and was exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair.

Chase married Alice Gerson in 1886 and together they raised eight children during Chase's most energetic artistic period. His eldest daughters, Alice Dieudonnee Chase and Dorothy Bremond Chase, often modeled for their father.

In addition to his painting, Chase actively developed an interest in teaching. On the urging of a patron, Chase opened the Shinnecock Hills Summer School on eastern Long Island, New York in 1891 and taught there until 1902.

Chase worked in all media. He was most fluent in oil painting and pastel, but also created watercolor paintings and etchings. He is perhaps best known for his portraits,

Chase's creativity declined in his later years, especially as modern art took hold in America, but he continued to paint and teach into the 1910s. During this period Chase taught such up and coming young artists as Arthur Hill Gilbert. One of his last teaching positions was at Carmel, California in the summer of 1914. Chase died on October 25, 1916 in his New York townhouse.

Irving Wiles, was one of the most successful portrait painters in the United States in the first quarter of the twentieth century. He was born in Utica, New York, he first studied with his father, Lemuel Maynard Wiles, who enjoyed a modest success as a landscape painter. Wiles then attended the Art Students League in New York City, where his teacher was William Merritt Chase. During a sojourn in Paris, Wiles then studied at the Académie Julian and also with the portrait painter Carolus-Duran (who was John Singer Sargent's teacher).

Returning to New York in 1884, Wiles maintained a studio and also taught painting at the Art Students League and the Chase School, in addition to drawing illustrations for magazines such as Harper's and Scribner's. He catapulted to art stardom in 1902 when his portrait of the famous actress Julia Marlowe was exhibited at the National Academy of Design. Lauded for his dazzling brushwork and ability to capture the likeness of the subject, Wiles became the artist of choice for a socially prominent clientele, as well as important businessmen and political figures. Among his sitters were William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt. The painting to the left- `Miss Julia Marlowe', was created in 1901, and was exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair.

In 1915 Wiles was awarded a gold medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition. He continued to exhibit and win awards for his work during the next several decades. He died in 1948.

Gari Melchers, was born on August 11, 1860 and was one of the leading American proponents of naturalism.

The son of German-born American sculptor Julius Theodore Melchers, Gari Melchers was a native of Detroit, Michigan, who at seventeen studied art at Düsseldorf under von Gebhardt, and after three years went to Paris, where he worked at the Académie Julian, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he studied under Lefebvre and Boulanger. Attracted by the pictorial side of Holland, he settled at Egmond. His first important Dutch picture, The Sermon, brought him favorable attention at the Paris Salon of 1886.

He became a member of the National Academy of Design, New York; the Royal Academy of Berlin; Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris; International Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, London, and the Secession Society, Munich; and, besides receiving a number of medals, his decorations include the Legion of Honor, France; the order of the Red Eagle, Germany; and knight of the Order of St Michael, Bavaria. In 1889, he and John Singer Sargent became the first American painters to win a Grand Prize at the Paris Universal Exposition. His paintings from the World Columbian Exposition (1893) held in Chicago.

The picture to the right is- The Sisters, painted in 1895.

In 1904 he was named an Officer in the French Legion of Honor. In 1909 he was appointed Professor of Art at the Grand Ducal Saxony School of Art in Weimar, Germany. In 1915 he returned to New York City to open a studio at the Beaux-Arts building at Bryant Park. From 1920 to 1928 he served as the president of the New Society of Artists. He spent his final years at Belmont Estate in Falmouth, Virginia, near Fredericksburg, where he died on November 30, 1932 of a heart attack.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist born on February 25, 1841, in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France; he was leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a child of a working class family. As a boy, he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talents led to him being chosen to paint designs on fine china. He also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorations on fans before he enrolled in art school.

In 1862, he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet. At times during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Although Renoir first started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864.

Renoir experienced his initial acclaim when six of his paintings were hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. In the same year, two of his works were shown with Durand-Ruel in London.

On 15 January 1882 Renoir met the composer Richard Wagner at his home in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir painted Wagner's portrait in just thirty-five minutes. In the same year, Renoir convalesced for six weeks in Algeria after contracting pneumonia, which permanently damaged his respiratory system.

In 1887, the year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, and upon the request of the queen's associate, Phillip Richbourg, he donated several paintings to the "French Impressionist Paintings" catalog as a token of his loyalty.

In 1890, he married Aline Victorine Charigot, who, along with a number of the artist's friends, had already served as a model for Le Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881), and with whom he already had a child, Pierre, in 1885. The oil above- `Odalisque', was painted in 1870 and displayed at the 1904 World's Fair.

Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of "Les Collettes," a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer, close to the Mediterranean coast and painted during the last twenty years of his life, even when he was wheelchair-bound. He developed progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right shoulder, requiring him to adapt his painting technique.

During this period, he created sculptures by cooperating with a young artist, Richard Guino, who worked the clay.

In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his paintings hanging with those of the old masters. He died in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, on December 3.

Frederick Oakes Sylvester- Frederick Oakes Sylvester was born on October 8, 1869, in New England, the son of Charles Frederick Sylvester, a hardware dealer, and Mary Louise, who died two weeks after his birth.

Sylvester's father did not encourage his son's artistic aspirations, and Sylverster as a boy sold newspapers to buy art supplies. He entered Massachusetts Normal Art School in 1888 and took the six-year Teacher's Course.

From 1891 to 1892 he was the acting director of the Art Department of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College at Tulane University, New Orleans.

In June 1892 Frederick O. Sylvester moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and took the position of art director at the Central High School. In 1899 he was admitted to the Society of Western Artists and later became its vice-president. He was also member of the Two-by-Four Club, the Artists' Guild and the St. Louis Art League. The paintings of this period focus on the St. Louis' riverfront, specifically the area surrounding the Eads Bridge. In 1900 Sylvester exhibited twenty-five paintings of Eads Bridge at the St. Louis Exposition. By 1904 the paintings of the Eads Bridge amounted to over 100, and Sylvester became known as "the painter of the Eads Bridge". He was an impressionist documenting the growth of St. Louis' industrial life.

In 1902 Sylvester went to work part-time for Principia, a young private school located at Page and Belt Avenues, St. Louis. In 1904 Sylvester won a bronze medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and a silver medal at the Portland Exposition.

In 1906 Sylvester spent a period in Europe. Back from Europe, Sylvester started his second period, focused his paintings on the Elsah's area. Elsah is a historic river town in Illinois and Sylvester owned a summer home, Oak Ledge, there that he bought in 1902.

In 1906 Sylvester was awarded the Fine Arts Building of Chicago Prize by the Society of Western Artists. In 1909 and 1910 he served as president of the St. Louis Artists' Guild.

He died in March 1915 and, according to his wishes, a boat set out from Elsah upriver to the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, where his wife and Kajiwara sprinkled his ashes on the water. His legacy has been preserved by The Principia, which has the largest collection of his works. Starting in 1910, he invited Principia art students to his cottage for a day of sketching and painting. One of those students was the son of the school’s founder and it is said that when The Principia was looking for a location for a new college campus, that student recalled his time with Sylvester on the bluffs above Elsah and suggested The Principia look there. Today, Principia College’s campus includes the site of Sylvester’s cottage and one of its dormitories is named in his honor.