Thomas Worthington Whittredge

Landscape, about 1886

oil on canvas

20 3/8 x 14 ½ in.

Gift of Dr. Charles Jordan

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Worthington Whittredge, as he called himself after 1855, was born on a farm in Springfield, Ohio.  He moved to Cincinnati in 1837, worked with his brother-in-law as a house painter, and taught himself to paint portraits and landscapes.  He experimented with daguerreotypes in Indianapolis, opened a portrait studio in Charlestown, West Virginia, and then returned to Cincinnati.  From 1843 on, he devoted himself to landscapes.  Through the efforts of wealthy Cincinnati art patron Nicholas Longworth, Whittredge was able to study for five years in Düsseldorf, Germany.  He also spent five years in Rome before returning to the United States in 1859.  Whittredge settled in New York City, where he opened a studio.  He experienced some difficulty adapting his European skills to the American scene.  The quality of light seemed different to Whittredge, who was accustomed to the frequently overcast skies of central Germany.  His search for an American style was aided by the example of Sanford Gifford, whom he had known in Düsseldorf and Rome. 

After Whittredge’s European trips, he settled in New York to devote himself to American landscape subjects, primarily along the Hudson River and New England.  The IMA owns two other landscapes by Whittredge, Summer Pastorale, produced in Germany and Lake Shawangunk, painted along the Hudson River.  This third landscape shows a New England scene by the artist that carries the theme of small figures within a large landscape begun in Whittredge’s German paintings and continued in his Hudson River scenes.  Here, instead of figures crossing a river by foot or boat, they travel down a path surrounded by large trees and a cloud-filled blue sky in a style.  This scene continues to reflect the view of mankind’s place within the vast landscape designed by his creator.

Reference

Cheryl A. Cibulka.  Quiet Places: The American Landscapes of Worthington Whittredge, Washington, D. C.: Adams Davidson Galleries, Inc., 1982. ASIN: B000KBJREO