Skip to main content
Thomas Waterman Wood
1823–1903
BirthplaceMontpelier, Vermont, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyIn his portraits and genre paintings, Thomas Waterman Wood combined realism and moralizing narrative to document life in the United States during the Civil War era. While apprenticing to his father, a cabinetmaker, in his native Montpelier, Vermont, Wood learned to draw from art manuals; he may also have studied painting briefly with portraitist Chester Harding (1792–1866) in Boston. He painted portraits in Vermont before opening a studio in 1852 in New York City, from which he traveled to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Canada to fulfill commissions.
Wood’s portraits brought him moderate financial success, but he gradually turned to painting genre, or scenes from everyday life, which won critical success. In 1858, Wood departed for Europe, where he traveled and studied the work of contemporary artists and the old masters in museums and galleries. On his return to the United States in 1859, Wood settled in Nashville, Tennessee, then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, before returning to New York in 1866. The South provided Wood with important subject matter: he executed a series of paintings of character types, including Civil War soldiers and African Americans, that secured his reputation. Elected an associate member of the National Academy in 1869 and a full member two years later, Wood served the institution as a visiting instructor, as vice-president, and finally as president, from 1891 to 1899. In the 1870s he took up etching and watercolor painting, two media that were experiencing a revival at the time; Wood was a founding member of the New York Etching Club and served as a long-time president of the New York-based American Watercolor Society.
As urbanization and industrialization transformed America in the late-nineteenth century, Wood’s stylistically old-fashioned images of rural life became increasingly sentimental. They remained widely popular, however, making Wood one of the most financially successful painters of his era. In the 1890s, he founded the Wood Gallery of Art (now the T. W. Wood Gallery and Arts Center) in his native Montpelier, endowing it with many of his works, including copies of old-master paintings he executed in Europe on several trips in the 1890s. By that decade, the aging artist had abandoned genre painting for portraiture. Soon after Wood’s death in New York at the age of seventy-nine, his art fell into disfavor for its old-fashioned realism and sentimentality. However, Wood is now recognized as a talented painter who left a perceptive social record of his time.
Wood’s portraits brought him moderate financial success, but he gradually turned to painting genre, or scenes from everyday life, which won critical success. In 1858, Wood departed for Europe, where he traveled and studied the work of contemporary artists and the old masters in museums and galleries. On his return to the United States in 1859, Wood settled in Nashville, Tennessee, then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, before returning to New York in 1866. The South provided Wood with important subject matter: he executed a series of paintings of character types, including Civil War soldiers and African Americans, that secured his reputation. Elected an associate member of the National Academy in 1869 and a full member two years later, Wood served the institution as a visiting instructor, as vice-president, and finally as president, from 1891 to 1899. In the 1870s he took up etching and watercolor painting, two media that were experiencing a revival at the time; Wood was a founding member of the New York Etching Club and served as a long-time president of the New York-based American Watercolor Society.
As urbanization and industrialization transformed America in the late-nineteenth century, Wood’s stylistically old-fashioned images of rural life became increasingly sentimental. They remained widely popular, however, making Wood one of the most financially successful painters of his era. In the 1890s, he founded the Wood Gallery of Art (now the T. W. Wood Gallery and Arts Center) in his native Montpelier, endowing it with many of his works, including copies of old-master paintings he executed in Europe on several trips in the 1890s. By that decade, the aging artist had abandoned genre painting for portraiture. Soon after Wood’s death in New York at the age of seventy-nine, his art fell into disfavor for its old-fashioned realism and sentimentality. However, Wood is now recognized as a talented painter who left a perceptive social record of his time.