biography of Shepard Alonzo MOUNT (1804-1868)

Birth place: Setauket, Long Island, NY

Death place: Setauket

Addresses: NYC (1826-41); Stony Brook, LI (1841-on)

Profession: Portrait, landscape, and still life painter

Studied: NAD, 1826

Exhibited: NAD,1829-68; Brooklyn AA, 1869

Member: ANA, 1833; NA, 1842

Work: museums at Stony Brook, LI, NY

Comments: One of the three Mount brothers (with Henry Smith Mount and William Sidney Mount), he was primaily a portrait painter but also exhibited landscapes as well as still lifes of flowers, fish, and small animals. Early in his career he worked for a carriage builder in New Haven, CT, but by 1830 had gained a reputation as a portrait painter and kept his studio in NYC until 1841. In 1837, he married a sister of the prominent portrait painter Charles Loring Elliott.

Sources: G&W; A.D. Smith, Shepard Alonzo Mount; Cowdrey, The Three Mount Brothers; Cowdrey and Williams, William Sidney Mount; Cowdrey, NAD; Cowdrey, AA & AAU; 8 Census (1860), N.Y., XLV, 422. Gerdts, Painters of the Humble Truth, 71-72 (repro); For Beauty and for Truth, 80 (w/repro.); 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1, 132