biography of John Martin TRACY (1843-1893)

Birth place: Rochester, OH

Death place: Ocean Springs, MS

Addresses: San Francisco, CA, 1870-72; St. Louis, MO, mid 1870s-81; Greenwich, CT, 1881-c.90

Profession: Animal painter

Studied: Oberlin College; Northwestern Univ.; …cole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, c.1867-69; on second trip to Paris, with Adolphe Yvon, I.A. Pils, Carolus-Duran, Paris, c.1873; San Francisco School of Des., c.1870

Exhibited: Paris Salon, 1876; NAD, 1880-91; Brooklyn AA, 1882-84; PAFA Ann., 1882

Work: Soc. of Calif. Pioneers

Comments: Best known for his paintings of trained gun dogs in the field, and for his paintings of thoroughbred horses. Although under-aged, he served in the Civil War. He made two trips to study in Paris, then established himself as a portrait painter in St. Louis. After moving to Greenwich, CT, in 1881, he focused upon his hunting dog paintings.

Sources: Hughes, Artists in California, 564; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 398; 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1, 396; Falk, Exh. Record Series.