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Worthington Whittredge
1820–1910
BirthplaceSpringfield, Ohio, United States of America
Death placeSummit, New Jersey, United States of America
BiographyDepicting landscapes ranging from Italy to the American West, Worthington Whittredge was a successful painter whose long career embraced some of the major developments in American landscape painting from the pre-Civil War era to the turn of the twentieth century. Born in a log cabin on his father’s farm near Springfield, Ohio, Whittredge learned house and sign painting from his brother-in-law in Cincinnati. After failing as a taker of daguerreotypes, an early form of photography, and as a portrait painter, in 1843 Whittredge turned to landscape painting. Within five years, the critical success of landscapes he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York City and the support of wealthy patrons in Cincinnati enabled him to travel to Europe.
During his decade abroad, Whittredge worked in the circle of expatriate American artists gathered around history painter Emanuel Leutze (1816–1868) in the German art center of Düsseldorf, and lived in Italy, where he gathered materials for paintings for his American patrons. After his return to the United States, he established a studio in New York’s Tenth Street Studio Building and joined an important circle of American landscape painters. On sketching expeditions in New England and the Catskill Mountains of New York, he worked to turn skills honed in Europe to convey a celebration of the American landscape, drawing inspiration from the nature poetry of American writer William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) and the art of such contemporaries as landscape painter Asher B. Durand (1796–1886). Whittredge rose to prominence on the New York art scene: elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1861, he later served as that institution’s president. During the Civil War, Whittredge painted a series of quiet domestic interiors as well as the woodland scenes that are among his best-known works.
In 1866 Whittredge made the first of three trips to the American West, where the plains and mountains impressed him deeply. Expansive, serene, and preoccupied with light, Whittredge’s mature landscapes of the 1860s and early 1870s place him in the second generation of the Hudson River school, a movement of native landscape painting that also included his associates Frederic Edwin Church, Sanford Gifford, and John F. Kensett. Beginning in 1876, however, his painting shifted toward greater texture and a new sense of mood as he came under the influence of the French pastoral landscape painters known as the Barbizon school. Whittredge’s work became more introspective after 1880, when his move to Summit, New Jersey, brought him into contact with landscape painter George Inness. In 1893, he visited Mexico with Church. Whittredge continued to paint until 1903, experimenting with a modified impressionism characterized by broken brushwork and pure color, and returning occasionally to his roots in the Hudson River school mode.
During his decade abroad, Whittredge worked in the circle of expatriate American artists gathered around history painter Emanuel Leutze (1816–1868) in the German art center of Düsseldorf, and lived in Italy, where he gathered materials for paintings for his American patrons. After his return to the United States, he established a studio in New York’s Tenth Street Studio Building and joined an important circle of American landscape painters. On sketching expeditions in New England and the Catskill Mountains of New York, he worked to turn skills honed in Europe to convey a celebration of the American landscape, drawing inspiration from the nature poetry of American writer William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) and the art of such contemporaries as landscape painter Asher B. Durand (1796–1886). Whittredge rose to prominence on the New York art scene: elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1861, he later served as that institution’s president. During the Civil War, Whittredge painted a series of quiet domestic interiors as well as the woodland scenes that are among his best-known works.
In 1866 Whittredge made the first of three trips to the American West, where the plains and mountains impressed him deeply. Expansive, serene, and preoccupied with light, Whittredge’s mature landscapes of the 1860s and early 1870s place him in the second generation of the Hudson River school, a movement of native landscape painting that also included his associates Frederic Edwin Church, Sanford Gifford, and John F. Kensett. Beginning in 1876, however, his painting shifted toward greater texture and a new sense of mood as he came under the influence of the French pastoral landscape painters known as the Barbizon school. Whittredge’s work became more introspective after 1880, when his move to Summit, New Jersey, brought him into contact with landscape painter George Inness. In 1893, he visited Mexico with Church. Whittredge continued to paint until 1903, experimenting with a modified impressionism characterized by broken brushwork and pure color, and returning occasionally to his roots in the Hudson River school mode.