Skip to main content
Karl Anderson
1874–1956
BirthplaceOxford, Ohio, United States of America
Death placeWestport, Connecticut, United States of America
BiographyA master of painting the figure posed out-of-doors, Karl Anderson belongs to the second generation of American artists who adopted the brilliant color and fluid, spontaneous brushwork associated with impressionism. Anderson was born into modest circumstances in Oxford, Ohio, the eldest of seven siblings who also included realist writer Sherwood Anderson. Karl worked as a house-painter, portrait photograph retoucher, and magazine illustrator in Cleveland, Chicago, and Springfield (Ohio), and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Midwest’s premier art school, beginning in 1893. He sailed to Europe in 1900 for further study, enrolling in art academies in Paris and joining a painting class in Holland conducted by American painter George Hitchcock (1850–1913), who specialized in brilliant natural light effects in his images of peasants posed out-of-doors in strong sunlight. In 1903 Anderson exhibited with success at the prestigious annual exhibition known as the Paris Salon. The following year he returned to the United States, where he continued to support himself as an illustrator, painting on weekends.
Anderson made a study tour in Holland, Italy, and Spain in 1909. Encouraged by impressionist painter Frederick Frieseke, a former classmate at the Art Institute of Chicago, he spent that summer in the French rural village of Giverny, since the mid-1880s an international colony of impressionist painters. He and Frieseke were among several Americans then working in Giverny who exhibited together as the “Giverny Group” in 1910 in a show at New York’s Madison Gallery that met with critical acclaim. Anderson began to specialize in images of women, especially nudes, posed outdoors in dappled sunlight and shade and painted with vibrant, flickering brushwork.
In 1912, Anderson moved permanently to Westport, Connecticut, then newly attracting artist-residents. He began to introduce elements of myth and fantasy into his figural paintings while continuing to make popular illustrations and commissioned portraits. He contributed six works to the International Exhibition of Modern Art, known as the Armory Show, which toured New York, Chicago, and Boston in 1913. Anderson had little sympathy for the radical modernist works included in the exhibition, but his own paintings thereafter often combined an expressive use of color and texture with symbolic content, a departure from the impressionist emphasis on the transient reality of everyday life. Increasingly, he focused on children and adolescents, painting fantasies of an ideal youth, often with a mythological gloss. His works met with increasing favor, winning several awards at prestigious annual exhibitions in Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York.
In 1923, Anderson was elected to the National Academy of Design, where he taught in the 1930s. He continued to experiment in his later decades, adopting elements from advanced formalist painting styles; he also composed representational figural works in the accessible manner typical of so-called American Scene painting, as in two post office murals he painted under the auspices of the Depression-era federal government’s artists’ relief programs. Best remembered as a member of the American colony in Giverny, Anderson was a multifaceted artist whose work has yet to be fully assessed.
Anderson made a study tour in Holland, Italy, and Spain in 1909. Encouraged by impressionist painter Frederick Frieseke, a former classmate at the Art Institute of Chicago, he spent that summer in the French rural village of Giverny, since the mid-1880s an international colony of impressionist painters. He and Frieseke were among several Americans then working in Giverny who exhibited together as the “Giverny Group” in 1910 in a show at New York’s Madison Gallery that met with critical acclaim. Anderson began to specialize in images of women, especially nudes, posed outdoors in dappled sunlight and shade and painted with vibrant, flickering brushwork.
In 1912, Anderson moved permanently to Westport, Connecticut, then newly attracting artist-residents. He began to introduce elements of myth and fantasy into his figural paintings while continuing to make popular illustrations and commissioned portraits. He contributed six works to the International Exhibition of Modern Art, known as the Armory Show, which toured New York, Chicago, and Boston in 1913. Anderson had little sympathy for the radical modernist works included in the exhibition, but his own paintings thereafter often combined an expressive use of color and texture with symbolic content, a departure from the impressionist emphasis on the transient reality of everyday life. Increasingly, he focused on children and adolescents, painting fantasies of an ideal youth, often with a mythological gloss. His works met with increasing favor, winning several awards at prestigious annual exhibitions in Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York.
In 1923, Anderson was elected to the National Academy of Design, where he taught in the 1930s. He continued to experiment in his later decades, adopting elements from advanced formalist painting styles; he also composed representational figural works in the accessible manner typical of so-called American Scene painting, as in two post office murals he painted under the auspices of the Depression-era federal government’s artists’ relief programs. Best remembered as a member of the American colony in Giverny, Anderson was a multifaceted artist whose work has yet to be fully assessed.