John Ward Dunsmore (February 29, 1856 - 1945) was an American painter who during his career was known as one of the United States' most prominent painters of murals and historical subjects.
Dunsmore was in Paris from 1875 to 1879, where he studied at the Petite Ecole with Aimée Millet and privately with Thomas Couture. [1] In 1879, Dunsmore drew a deathbed portrait of Couture. [2]
Dunsmore painted a number of murals depicting various scenes from the American Revolution for Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan. [3] [4] [5] His works are known for their exacting painstakingly researched historical detail and for the elaborate staging and dressings of models the artist produced in his studio. His painting of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart titled Mozart was exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. [6]
Works by Dunsmore are in the permanent collections of among other institutions and venues the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., [7] The Fraunces Tavern Museum, and the New York Historical Society.
Dunsmore's was president of the Cincinnati Art Club from 1899 to 1902. [8]
Thomas Couture was a French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, John Ward Dunsmore, Karel Javůrek, William Morris Hunt, and Joseph-Noël Sylvestre.
Events from the year 1879 in art.
Julius Garibaldi Melchers was an American artist. He was one of the leading American proponents of naturalism. He won a 1932 Gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Robert Lewis Reid was an American Impressionist painter and muralist. His work tended to be very decorative, much of it centered on depiction of young women set among flowers. He later became known for his murals and designs in stained glass.
Thomas Satterwhite Noble was an American painter as well as the first head of the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Theodore Clement Steele was an American Impressionist painter known for his Indiana landscapes. Steele was an innovator and leader in American Midwest painting and is one of the most famous of Indiana's Hoosier Group painters. In addition to painting, Steele contributed writings, public lectures, and hours of community service on art juries that selected entries for national and international exhibitions, most notably the Universal Exposition (1900) in Paris, France, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904) in Saint Louis, Missouri. He was also involved in organizing pioneering art associations, such as the Society of Western Artists.
Otto Stark was an American Impressionist painter, muralist, commercial artist, printmaker, and illustrator from Indianapolis, Indiana, who is best known as one of the five Hoosier Group artists. Stark's work clearly showed the influence of Impressionism, and he often featured children in his work. To provide a sufficient income for his family, Stark worked full time as supervisor of art at Emmerich Manual High School in Indianapolis from 1899 to his retirement in 1919, and as part-time art instructor on the faculty of the John Herron Art Institute from 1905 to 1919. Stark frequently exhibited his paintings at international, national, regional, and local exhibitions, including the Paris Salon of 1886 and 1887; the Five Hoosier Painters exhibition (1894) in Chicago, Illinois; the Trans-Mississippi Exposition (1898) in Omaha, Nebraska; the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904) in Saint Louis, Missouri; and international expositions (1910) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. He also supervised the Indiana exhibition at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition (1915) in San Francisco, California. Stark remained an active artist and member of the Indianapolis arts community until his death in 1926.
Elizabeth Nourse was a realist-style genre, portrait, and landscape painter born in Mt. Healthy, Ohio, in the Cincinnati area. She also worked in decorative painting and sculpture. Described by her contemporaries as "the first woman painter of America" and "the dean of American woman painters in France and one of the most eminent contemporary artists of her sex," Nourse was the first American woman to be voted into the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She also had the honor of having one of her paintings purchased by the French government and included in the Luxembourg Museum's permanent collection. Nourse's style was described by Los Angeles critic Henry J. Seldis as a "forerunner of social realist painting." Some of Nourse's works are displayed at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Stephen Arnold Douglas Volk was an American portrait and figure painter, muralist, and educator. He taught at the Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York, and was one of the founders of the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. He and his wife Marion established a summer artist colony in western Maine.
Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low (1858–1946), born in New Haven, Connecticut was an American painter who specialized in landscapes, genre paintings, and portraits.
Henrietta Mary Ada Ward was a British historical and genre painter of the Victorian era and the early twentieth century.
Charles Yardley "C. Y." Turner was an American painter, illustrator, muralist and teacher. His genre scenes and American historical paintings were popularized through engravings and book illustrations.
Lucia Fairchild Fuller was an American painter and member of the New Hampshire Cornish Art Colony. She was inspired to pursue art by John Singer Sargent. Fuller created a mural entitled TheWomen of Plymouth for the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Best known for her portrait miniatures, she was a founding member and treasurer of the American Society of Miniature Painters.
Oliver Dennett Grover, was an American landscape and mural painter, the son of lawyer Alonzo Jackson Grover.
Louise Howland King Cox was an American painter known for her portraits of children. She won a number of prizes throughout her career, notably a bronze medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition and a silver medal at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.
Lydia Amanda Brewster Sewell was a 19th-century American painter of portraits and genre scenes. Lydia Amanda Brewster studied art in the United States and in Paris before marrying her husband, fellow artist Robert Van Vorst Sewell. She won a bronze medal for her mural Arcadia at The World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. She continued to win medals at expositions and was the first woman to win a major prize at the National Academy of Design, where she was made an Associate Academian in 1903. She was vice president of the Woman's Art Club of New York by 1906. Her works are in several public collections.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson was an American-born artist who was recognized as one of the leading American women artists in Paris during the 1880s, and whose artwork was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.
Gabrielle de Veaux Clements was an American painter, print maker, and muralist. She studied art at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and in Paris at Académie Julian. Clements also studied science at Cornell University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. She created murals, painted portraits, and made etchings. Clements taught in Philadelphia and in Baltimore at Bryn Mawr School. Her works have been exhibited in the United States and at the Paris Salon. Clements works are in several public collections. Her life companion was fellow artist Ellen Day Hale.
Pauline Dohn Rudolph (1865-1934) was an American painter. She was also a founder of the Chicago Palette Club.
Martha Susan Baker was an American painter, muralist and teacher born in Evansville, Indiana, United States.