Julian Alden Weir
1852
–1919
BirthplaceWest Point, New York, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyJulian Alden Weir worked in a variety of styles and approaches in his portraits, figural works, and landscapes, but he was known for his impressionist paintings. Weir received his first training from his father, Robert Walter Weir (1803–1889), longtime professor of drawing at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. Weir studied at New York’s National Academy of Design between 1870 and 1872, and in 1873 he departed for four years in Paris as a pupil of French academic painter Jean-Léon Gerôme (1824–1904). He also traveled in Europe to study the works of admired artists of the Baroque era. With his thorough grounding in academic method, he was baffled by impressionist painting when he first encountered it in Paris in 1877, finding the new art’s rejection of drawing in favor of direct application of paint especially shocking.
Within a few years, Weir’s attitude toward impressionism shifted, possibly under the influence of the fresh aesthetic of Japanese prints, which he greatly admired. By the early 1880s, when he visited Paris to show his work in the prestigious Salon exhibitions, he also acquired paintings for a New York collector by French painter Edouard Manet (1832–1883), whose work influenced his own. In New York, Weir painted commissioned portraits and stil lifes and taught art to support himself. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design while also becoming active in the independent Society of American Artists. Following his marriage in 1883, Weir divided his time between New York, the farm he purchased in Branchville, Connecticut, and his wife’s family home in Windham, Connecticut. These rural locales provided the setting in which Weir, along with such friends and colleagues as John Henry Twachtman and Theodore Robinson, helped develop an American approach to impressionist landscape painting.
In the late 1880s, Weir began to experiment with pastel and printmaking. In 1897 he was a founding member of the impressionist artists’ group known as Ten American Painters, with which he exhibited for the next two decades. He earned numerous awards and served as President of the National Academy starting in 1915. Weir Farm, the artist’s rural residence, is open to the public as a National Park Service property.
Within a few years, Weir’s attitude toward impressionism shifted, possibly under the influence of the fresh aesthetic of Japanese prints, which he greatly admired. By the early 1880s, when he visited Paris to show his work in the prestigious Salon exhibitions, he also acquired paintings for a New York collector by French painter Edouard Manet (1832–1883), whose work influenced his own. In New York, Weir painted commissioned portraits and stil lifes and taught art to support himself. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design while also becoming active in the independent Society of American Artists. Following his marriage in 1883, Weir divided his time between New York, the farm he purchased in Branchville, Connecticut, and his wife’s family home in Windham, Connecticut. These rural locales provided the setting in which Weir, along with such friends and colleagues as John Henry Twachtman and Theodore Robinson, helped develop an American approach to impressionist landscape painting.
In the late 1880s, Weir began to experiment with pastel and printmaking. In 1897 he was a founding member of the impressionist artists’ group known as Ten American Painters, with which he exhibited for the next two decades. He earned numerous awards and served as President of the National Academy starting in 1915. Weir Farm, the artist’s rural residence, is open to the public as a National Park Service property.