biography of Joseph Henry SHARP (1859-1953)

Birth place: Bridgeport, OH

Death place: Pasadena, CA

Addresses: Cincinnati, OH; Taos, NM, 1912-/Pasadena, CA (1947)

Profession: Painter, illustrator, teacher

Studied: McMicken Sch. Design, 1873; Cincinnati Art Acad.; C. Verlat, in Antwerp, 1881; von Marr at Munich Acad., 1886; Duveneck, in Spain and Italy; Académie Julian, Paris with J.P. Laurens and Constant, 1895-96.

Exhibited: PAFA Ann., 1891, 1900-01; Paris Salon, 1896; NAD, 1897-98; Dept. Ethnology, Pan-Am. Expo, Buffalo, 1901 (medal); Cincinnati AC, 1901 (prize); Corcoran Gal biennials, 1907, 1928; Pan-Calif. Expo, San Diego, 1915 (gold), 1916 (gold); Calif. Art Exh., Pasadena AI, 1930 (prize); AIC; Taos SA, 1915-on; Cincinnati Art Mus., 1915-c. 1930 (solo exhibitions held every Christmans for fifteen years), also showed at annuals

Member: Taos SA (charter mem. since 1915); Cincinnati AC; Calif. AC; SC; Calif. PM; AFA; Soc. of Western Artists

Work: Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Gilcrease Mus., Tulsa; Univ. Calif. (Anthropology Dept., nearly 100 portraits of Indians); NMAA; Stark Museum of Art, Orange, TX; Butler Mus.; Houston MFA; Phillips Mus., Bartlesville, OK; Amon Carter Mus.; Wyoming State Gal.; Herron AI; Cincinnati Art Mus.; Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila.; Houston MFA

Comments: One of the founders of the Taos Society of Artists, he specialized in American Indian subjects and was an accomplished illustrator. Sharp began his study of art at the age of 14, when he left public school after an accident caused a hearing loss. He made a sketching trip out West to Santa Fe and California in 1883, and first visited Taos, NM, in 1893, producing sketches and commentary for Harper's Weekly. In 1901 Sharp was commissioned by the Crow Agency (of the U.S. government) to build a studio near the Custer battlefield in Montana and make a visual record of the Indians who had fought against Custer; over the next several years he completed over 200 Indian portaits (painted from life) and photographed an additional 400 more. He regularly visited Taos every summer from about 1900, and for many years split his time between his summers there (he established a permanent residence in Taos in 1912)., his teaching at the Cincinnati Art Academy, and painting on the plains. Sharp's romanticized depictions of Pueblo Indians engaged in traditional activities such as grinding corn or gathering for a ceremonial dance reflected his concern (and those of other Taos artists) that the traditions of Indian culture were disappearing and should therefore be preserved pictorially. Sharp visited Hawaii several times in the 1930s, painting seascapes and still lifes. He also visited the Orient. Teaching: Cincinnati Art Academy, 1892-1902.

Sources: WW47; P&H Samuels, 436; Sotheby's, The American West: the John F. Eulich Collection," May 20, 1998; Cincinnati Painters of the Golden Age, 100-02 (w/illus.); Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945, 207; Forbes, Encounters with Paradise, 251; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 389; 300 Years of American Art, 545; Schimmel, Stark Museum of Art, 84--87; Suzan Campbell, "Taos Artists & Their Patrons," American Art Review (June, 1999): pp.112-27; Falk, Exh. Record Series.