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James Carroll Beckwith
1852–1917
BirthplaceHannibal, Missouri, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyJames Carroll Beckwith was a figure- and portrait painter whose style evolved from the firm modeling and clear outlines of academic practice to the vibrant, dashed brushwork and pure colors of the newer mode of impressionism. Beckwith was born in Hannibal, Missouri, but as a young child moved with his family to Chicago. There he received his first art instruction from painter Walter Shirlaw (1838–1909), an exponent of the dark tonalities typical of contemporary painting practiced in Munich, Germany. In 1871, Beckwith went to New York City for two years of further study at the prestigious art school, the National Academy of Design, before departing for Paris, where he worked primarily under famed figure painter Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran (1838–1917). In 1877 he joined another talented pupil, John Singer Sargent, in assisting their teacher in painting a large ceiling mural for the Palais du Luxembourg that was later installed in the Louvre Museum in 1890. During his five years in Paris, Beckwith studied the works of the great Italian and Spanish masters of the seventeenth-century Baroque period exhibited at the Louvre.
On his return to the United States, Beckwith settled in New York and became an important figure among the growing circle of young American artists trained abroad. Active in the city’s art life, he exhibited widely. As an instructor at the newly established Art Students League in New York beginning in 1878, Beckwith, along with his friend William Merritt Chase, was instrumental in introducing the freer brushwork and modern subjects of impressionism to young artists. In 1883, to raise funds for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, he helped Chase organize an exhibition that was one of the first opportunities for many Americans to see the then-radical works of the French impressionist painters.
Beckwith achieved considerable success as a painter of portraits in oils, but he also was among the first American artists to work seriously in pastel, a dry, dense stick of saturated color, the use of which was then enjoying a resurgence. In addition to portraits, he made figure studies, usually of women, and undertook mural commissions for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The following year he was elected a member of the National Academy of Design. A longtime resident of Manhattan’s Sherwood Studios building, a lively center of artistic life, Beckwith summered in upstate New York. He also made numerous return visits to Europe. Many of these were devoted to copying the works of the old masters for the edification of young American painters, while his own work occasionally reflected the stimulus of newer approaches in its broad brushstrokes and informal compositions of figures posed outdoors. Ranging widely from impressionism to the carefully modeled, idealizing figural mode typical of the so-called American Renaissance, Beckwith’s work embodies the stylistic dichotomy of a generation of American artists who sought a balance between academic tradition and newer artistic ideas.
On his return to the United States, Beckwith settled in New York and became an important figure among the growing circle of young American artists trained abroad. Active in the city’s art life, he exhibited widely. As an instructor at the newly established Art Students League in New York beginning in 1878, Beckwith, along with his friend William Merritt Chase, was instrumental in introducing the freer brushwork and modern subjects of impressionism to young artists. In 1883, to raise funds for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, he helped Chase organize an exhibition that was one of the first opportunities for many Americans to see the then-radical works of the French impressionist painters.
Beckwith achieved considerable success as a painter of portraits in oils, but he also was among the first American artists to work seriously in pastel, a dry, dense stick of saturated color, the use of which was then enjoying a resurgence. In addition to portraits, he made figure studies, usually of women, and undertook mural commissions for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The following year he was elected a member of the National Academy of Design. A longtime resident of Manhattan’s Sherwood Studios building, a lively center of artistic life, Beckwith summered in upstate New York. He also made numerous return visits to Europe. Many of these were devoted to copying the works of the old masters for the edification of young American painters, while his own work occasionally reflected the stimulus of newer approaches in its broad brushstrokes and informal compositions of figures posed outdoors. Ranging widely from impressionism to the carefully modeled, idealizing figural mode typical of the so-called American Renaissance, Beckwith’s work embodies the stylistic dichotomy of a generation of American artists who sought a balance between academic tradition and newer artistic ideas.