Robert william vonnoh biography sample
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Robert Vonnoh (1858–1933)
During the last decade, Mr. Vonnoh’s sight had failed, and he had virtually given up painting except in a desultory way.
—The New York Times, December 29, 1933
Biography
A pioneering figure in the development of American Impressionism, Robert Vonnoh was born in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, a German immigrant, was a cabinetmaker. As a child, Vonnoh moved to Boston with his family and began his art studies at fourteen, working in a lithography shop and taking mechanical drawing classes at the Boston Free Evening Drawing School and the Massachusetts Normal Art School.
Vonnoh graduated from Massachusetts Normal in 1879 and began teaching there and at several academies in Boston while exhibiting his portrait drawings at the Boston Arts Club. In 1881 he moved to Paris to continue his training at the Académie Julian under Jules-Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger. Two years later, his portrait of fellow art student John Severinus Conway was accepted for the Salon des Beaux-Arts exhibition in Paris, at that time one of the most prestigious annual art events in the world. Vonnoh returned home to Boston and began teaching, first at the Normal School and the Cowles Art School, and then, starting in 1885, at the Museum of Fine Arts School. At t
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Until recently, I had never heard of him. Which is sad, because he was very competent. On the other hand, I don't think of his work as being outstanding: no painting stands out, his style was not distinctive.
Below are examples of his work.
Margaret French - 1913
I came across Vonnoh while visiting Chesterwood in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in June. Chesterwood was where sculptor Daniel Chester French lived and worked. Above is my iPhone photo of a display case. The painting of the woman in red is by French, the subject being his daughter Margaret. The painting to its left is by Vonnoh, also of Margaret French.
Daniel Chester French - c.1913
Here is Vonnoh's portrait of French, who his best known for his seated Abraham Lincoln sculpture in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
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Robert Vonnoh, Earth Impressionist
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