biography of Asher Brown DURAND (1796-1886)

Birth place: Jefferson Village (now Maplewood, NJ)

Death place: Jefferson Village, NJ

Profession: Landscape, figure, and portrait painter, engraver

Studied: Peter Maverick

Exhibited: NAD, 1861-74; PAFA, 1890; Brooklyn AA, 1862-75; Boston Ath.; Md. Hist. Soc.; Paris Salon, 1866

Member: NY Drawing Assoc., 1825 (co-founder); NA (founding member, 1826, pres., 1845-61 ); NY Sketch Club, 1827 (co-founder); Century Assoc., 1847 (co-founder)

Work: MMA; NYPL; Shelburne (VT) Mus.; Heckscher Mus., Huntington, NY; Mus. City of NY; NAD; NY Hist. Soc.; PAFA; Waltesr AG, Baltimore; Worcester MA; Yale Univ. Art Gal.

Comments: Best known as the "father" of the Hudson River School of landscape painting. From 1812-17, he was apprenticed to the noted engraver Peter Maverick (see entry) with whom he became a partner from 1818-21. From 1820-23, he spent nearly three years completing an engraving of John Trumbull's famous historical painting, "Declaration of Independence;" This popular engraving launched Durand"s reputation as one of the leading engravers of the country ó specializing in portraits, landscapes, and banknote vignettes. He went on to head several engraving companies: A.B. & C. Durand (1824); A.B. Durand & C. Wright & Co. (1826-27); and Durand, Perkins & Co. (1828-31) (see entries on each firm). He also had many pupils, including J.F. Kensett, T.P. Rossiter, J.W. Casilear, G.W. Hatch, J.W. Paradise, and Lewis P. Clover (see individual entries). Durand enjoyed his position as a leading engraver until about 1835 when he gave up the business almost completely in order to paint. He began with portraiture, but soon turned to landscapes and became the leader of the Hudson River School. In 1840, he made a painting tour of Europe with three of his engraving pupils (J.F. Kensett, T.P. Rossiter, J.W. Casilear). In 1848, he and his friends John Kensett and John Casilear went on a painting excursion to the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York state, a region to which he returned several times. He retired in 1869 to his childhood home in New Jersey. His nine famous Letters on Landscape Painting," were printed in The Crayon in 1855.

Sources: G&W; John Durand, Life and Times of Asher B. Durand; Sweet, "Asher B. Durand"; DAB; NYCD 1818-69; Cowdrey, NAD; Cowdrey, AA & AAU; Rutledge, PA; Swan, BA; Rutledge, MHS; Sherman, "Asher B. Durand as a Portrait Painter;" Kellner, "The Beginnings of Landscape Painting in America;" Cowdrey, "Asher Brown Durand;" Blanchard, "The Durand Engraving Companies." More recently, see Baigell, Dictionary; Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery, 50-53; Muller, Paintings and Drawings at the Shelburne Museum, 59 (w/repro.); Keene Valley: The Landscape and Its Artists; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 340; Falk, Exh. Record Series.