William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt ( born March 31, 1824 in Brattleboro, Vermont, † September 8, 1879 in Appledore, Isles of Simals, New Hampshire) was an American landscape and portrait painter.

Life

William Morris Hunt was the second of five children of a wealthy member of Congress Jonathan Hunt and his wife Mary Jane Leavitt. His mother came from an influential family in Connecticut. After the early death of his father, he grew up with his siblings and his younger brother Richard, in Switzerland and France. Later he studied at the Dusseldorf Art Academy and in Villiers- le -Bel in Paris under the famous French painter Thomas Couture. His landscape painting was strongly influenced by the Barbizon painter Jean -François Millet and the Barbizon school. Karl Bodmer 1856 bought his house in Barbizon in 40, rue Grande for 4000 francs; the house is still received as an attachment to a hotel. 1855 Hunt went back to America and opened an art school in Boston. There he led an open-air painting and was instrumental in helping to bring the art studies in Paris in fashion, a tradition that is maintained until today. His students included the painter Walter Gay.

William Morris Hunt was drowned on September 8, 1879 between New Hampshire and Maine ( Isles of Shoals ) and was buried on the island of Appledore Iceland.

In 1872 a great fire raged in Boston, as well many paintings and sketches by William Morris Hunt was lost. As well as five paintings of his teacher and friend Jean -François Millet, he brought with him from France.

Works (selection)

Family Group, Oil on canvas, about 1861

Niagara Falls, oil on canvas, 1878

The Rapids, Sister Iceland, Niagara, oil on canvas, 1878

Autobiography

• William Morris Hunt: On Painting and Drawing, Dover Publications ( 1976)