John F. Peto
John Frederick Peto ( born May 21, 1854 in Philadelphia, † November 23, 1907 in New York City ) was an American painter who worked mainly as a still life painter in the style of trompe l'oeil and with William Michael Harnett and John Haberle the best-known American painters of this genre belongs.
Life and work
John Frederick Peto was born in 1854 in Philadelphia the son of the gilder and picture frame dealer Thomas Hope Peto and Catherine, nee Ham. He had three siblings. Peto was raised by his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. William Hoffman Ham, in Philadelphia and lived with them until about, 1879.
The earliest known image of the painter is from the 1875, 1876, he was out in the business directory of the city of Philadelphia as a painter. He was largely self-taught, the painting brought so even with, and studied briefly in 1877 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Despite this short write-in and its only sporadic participation in the annual exhibitions of the Academy from 1879 to 1887, this and the strong still life tradition in Philadelphia as an institution had a great influence on the artistic development of Peto. Even William Michael Harnett, who was regarded as a leading artist of the trompe l'oeil, and also lived and worked in Philadelphia, was one of the major influences for the work Peto. Both were friends since at least the late 1870s.
Peto rented 1879-1889 in different buildings of the then known as artists' quarter Chestnut Street studio one. He took over as Harnetts motives on the table lying newspapers, pipes and beer mugs and piles of books as the Job Lot Cheap and improved on them. There were arrangements on shelves, desks or hanging on walls and doors. In 1879 he began to paint pegboard and shelving images.
Take your Choice, 1885
Candlestick, Pipe, and Tobacco Box ( c. 1890)
1887 married Peto Christine Pearl Smith. He had met her on a trip to Ohio and moved two years after the wedding to Iceland Heights on the New Jersey shore, where they built a house and studio with her. 1893, the only daughter Helen was born. Due to the distance from Philadelphia Peto has been isolated from the artistic movements and withdrew more and more, his works he exhibited only rarely. However, he continued to paint and some of his most well-known works today come from this time. The result was the 1900 picture The Cup We all Race 4, which plays in a special way with different levels of perception. While the title is out working the surface of a wooden board and a Zinnbechers minutely on the one hand impaled on a metal plate on the picture and to confuse the viewer, who must also keep this for painted. In addition to the still lifes he painted a few portraits, and experimented with photography.
At the age he increasingly suffered from a painful and chronic nephritis, also came because of two aunts who had taken up with their house he and his wife and family to the lack of sales and financial difficulties. Peto died in 1907 at age 53 in New York City of complications from kidney surgery.
Job Lot Cheap, ca 1901-1907
Fish House Door, 1905
Style
Because of the same subject Peto is especially when compared with William Michael Harnett, but from which he differed in style. The main difference is that Peto less paid attention to the standing in the trompe l'oeil illusion in focus and his paintings were characterized picturesque. He painted mainly worn and often drawn from decay and aging objects of everyday life and refused to embellish objects through painting. This is very clear in which until 1905 formed Toms River, on the faded image of his grandfather on an old wooden door with scraps of paper and ailing hardware is painted. The title and the year are scratched into the wood.
The caused thereby undertone is highly nostalgic and romantic to eagerly, while the ranges span the association in his paintings from the gloomy melancholy to the comic impression. His colors were also warmer and darker than the Harnett and more in keeping the range of Thomas Eakins and Albert Pinkham Ryder.
They were also often autobiographical and at the same time closed, the observer gave to puzzles and contain references to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 1865.
Only a few images were signed by Peto, very often he used multiple screens and painted compositions, which he had abandoned.
Reception
Unlike other well-known representative of the trompe l'oeil John Frederick Peto came after his death largely forgotten. Images that were painted by him, his more famous fellow painter William Michael Harnett were attributed. Even before his death in 1907 appeared occasionally pictures of Peto under the name of Harnett on the art market.
Only through the research of Alfred Frankenstein trompe l'oeil in the late 1940s, Peto was known again. Today he is particularly true due to the differences of our technique compared to Harnett as its most original successor and one of the most important American still life painters of the 19th century.