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Edward Henry Potthast
1857–1927
BirthplaceCincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyLandscape and figural painter Edward Henry Potthast is remembered almost entirely for his cheerful, brightly colored oil paintings of women and children at the beach. Potthast was born in Cincinnati, the son of a German immigrant cabinetmaker. He studied at the McMicken School of Design and the Art Academy of Cincinnati while apprenticing and working for lithographic printing companies in his native city. In 1882, Potthast went to Europe for further training, studying briefly in Antwerp, Belgium, before spending three years in Munich, Germany, then a popular site for American, especially Midwestern, artists.
On a second trip to Europe, in 1887, Potthast spent three years in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. He exhibited his work at the prestigious Paris Salon and in Munich, where he was awarded a bronze medal. In the French village of Grez-sur-Loing, an internationally important summer art colony, he studied with American painter Robert Vonnoh, who influenced Potthast’s turn in the direction of impressionism, the use of bright color and tactile brushwork to convey transient effects of light in scenes of contemporary life. Like many other American impressionist painters, Potthast’s early works, typically views of Dutch peasant life and landscape, combine impressionist color and paint application with a strong sense of decorative composition and quiet, contemplative, rural subjects.
Potthast returned to Cincinnati in 1893 and settled in New York City three years later, supporting himself at first as a magazine illustrator. He soon became active in the city’s artistic community and joined numerous arts organizations. Potthast painted landscapes, nocturnal views, and seascapes in watercolors and in oils; in 1910, he made views of the Grand Canyon commissioned by the Santa Fe Railway. Because he rarely dated his paintings, determining the chronology of his stylistic development is difficult, but apparently in the 1910s he began to paint beach scenes, using more active subjects and brushwork. In these works he applied paint in vibrant, sun-saturated tones rapidly and thickly for seemingly spontaneous effects, capturing the pleasurable experience of families, especially women and young children, on the beach and in the waves. Potthast painted at popular summer resorts of the day, notably Gloucester and Provincetown, Massachusetts, but he also portrayed New York’s own beaches and the ordinary citizens who visited them for a respite of freedom and sunshine from the confinement of apartment living and busy city streets. His attention to such ordinary urban types links him with the contemporary social realist painters known as the Ashcan School, for whom the popular city beach was an important theme. Potthast’s joyful interpretations, however, stressed impressionist light, color, and movement rather than social realities. His beach scenes were widely popular and brought the artist numerous honors. Never married, Potthast was devoted to painting and died suddenly in his studio, surrounded by his paintings, just before his seventieth birthday.
On a second trip to Europe, in 1887, Potthast spent three years in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. He exhibited his work at the prestigious Paris Salon and in Munich, where he was awarded a bronze medal. In the French village of Grez-sur-Loing, an internationally important summer art colony, he studied with American painter Robert Vonnoh, who influenced Potthast’s turn in the direction of impressionism, the use of bright color and tactile brushwork to convey transient effects of light in scenes of contemporary life. Like many other American impressionist painters, Potthast’s early works, typically views of Dutch peasant life and landscape, combine impressionist color and paint application with a strong sense of decorative composition and quiet, contemplative, rural subjects.
Potthast returned to Cincinnati in 1893 and settled in New York City three years later, supporting himself at first as a magazine illustrator. He soon became active in the city’s artistic community and joined numerous arts organizations. Potthast painted landscapes, nocturnal views, and seascapes in watercolors and in oils; in 1910, he made views of the Grand Canyon commissioned by the Santa Fe Railway. Because he rarely dated his paintings, determining the chronology of his stylistic development is difficult, but apparently in the 1910s he began to paint beach scenes, using more active subjects and brushwork. In these works he applied paint in vibrant, sun-saturated tones rapidly and thickly for seemingly spontaneous effects, capturing the pleasurable experience of families, especially women and young children, on the beach and in the waves. Potthast painted at popular summer resorts of the day, notably Gloucester and Provincetown, Massachusetts, but he also portrayed New York’s own beaches and the ordinary citizens who visited them for a respite of freedom and sunshine from the confinement of apartment living and busy city streets. His attention to such ordinary urban types links him with the contemporary social realist painters known as the Ashcan School, for whom the popular city beach was an important theme. Potthast’s joyful interpretations, however, stressed impressionist light, color, and movement rather than social realities. His beach scenes were widely popular and brought the artist numerous honors. Never married, Potthast was devoted to painting and died suddenly in his studio, surrounded by his paintings, just before his seventieth birthday.