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Joseph H. Boston
1860–1954
BirthplaceBridgeport, Connecticut, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyJoseph H. Boston was a Brooklyn, New York, painter of landscapes, genre scenes (scenes of everyday life), and portraits. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Boston studied in New York City at the National Academy of Design, then one of the nation's premier art schools, between 1875 and 1880; he also studied with Brooklyn painter John Barnard Whittaker (1836–1926). In 1883, when he took up residence in Brooklyn, he made his debut at the Brooklyn Art Association's annual exhibition. The following year he first exhibited at the National Academy's prestigious annual, where his work would appear every year until 1949. He also showed at the Society of American Artists, a more progressive venue, beginning in 1892. Boston was elected a member of the Society four years later, and in 1909 he was awarded associate membership status at the National Academy. He exhibited in Philadelphia and Chicago as well, and he was a member of several artists' clubs in New York and Brooklyn.
Beginning in 1887, Boston maintained a studio in Brooklyn's Ovington Building, where several other artists, among them Harry Roseland, also worked. In 1893, he began a long career as an instructor at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; he also taught at the Brooklyn Art School and the Brooklyn Art Students' Association and held summer classes at several locales on the Connecticut and Long Island shores.
Boston showed a large, full-length portrait of a child in the great art display at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Figural works and landscape paintings predominated in his early career. He soon developed a brushy, evocative style reminiscent of the intimate, romantic manner of the mid-nineteenth-century French landscape painters known as the Barbizon School. After the turn of the twentieth century, Boston painted many of his landscapes in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, and he also made a specialty of moonlit scenes. At this time, he turned increasingly to painting commissioned portraits. Perhaps to be closer to potential sitters, he moved his studio to Carnegie Hall in Manhattan in the 1920s. He worked there until 1951, when poor health ended his painting activity three years before his death at the age of ninety-four.
Beginning in 1887, Boston maintained a studio in Brooklyn's Ovington Building, where several other artists, among them Harry Roseland, also worked. In 1893, he began a long career as an instructor at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; he also taught at the Brooklyn Art School and the Brooklyn Art Students' Association and held summer classes at several locales on the Connecticut and Long Island shores.
Boston showed a large, full-length portrait of a child in the great art display at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Figural works and landscape paintings predominated in his early career. He soon developed a brushy, evocative style reminiscent of the intimate, romantic manner of the mid-nineteenth-century French landscape painters known as the Barbizon School. After the turn of the twentieth century, Boston painted many of his landscapes in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, and he also made a specialty of moonlit scenes. At this time, he turned increasingly to painting commissioned portraits. Perhaps to be closer to potential sitters, he moved his studio to Carnegie Hall in Manhattan in the 1920s. He worked there until 1951, when poor health ended his painting activity three years before his death at the age of ninety-four.