Thomas Birch (1779 – January 3, 1851) was an English-born American portrait and marine painter.
Biography Birch was born in Warwickshire, England. He came to the U.S. in 1794, and assisted his artist father, William Birch, in preparing a 29-plate collection of engravings: Birch's Views of Philadelphia (1800).Birch's Views from ushistory.org. Subscribers to the series included President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson.William Birch, The City of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania as It Appeared in the Year 1800, (1799), endpiece. This sold well and went into multiple editions, inspiring similar collected views of New York City, and of suburban estates surrounding Philadelphia and Baltimore. The son's first major painting appears to have been a view of Philadelphia from the Treaty Elm in Kensington, which was also engraved and published in 1804.Munsing, Philadelphia: Three Centuries, p. 229. He painted portraits until about 1807, when he took up marine-painting, which characterized the main body of his work as a painter. Some of his most famous works depict naval battles of the War of 1812.Universal Cyclopædia & Atlas, 1902, New York, D. Appleton & Co.
According to curator Stephanie A. Munsing: "Birch was the first American ship portraitist, and his paintings were copied by countless artists and craftsmen in America and Europe."Munsing, Philadelphia: Three Centuries, p. 230. Historian David S. Lovejoy said he was "outstanding among the marine painters" of his time. Contemporary critic William Dunlap similarly felt that there was no better marine painter in the U.S. at the time. In addition to ships, they provide valuable images of bridges, lighthouses, docksides, and harbor fortifications in the Early Republic, especially those surrounding New York City and Philadelphia. His paintings of suburban mansions and rural snow scenes were often turned into engravings.
Historically, the Birches' most important work may be a circa-1801 engraving documenting the unfinished U.S. Capitol. Another, may be the son's painting depicting an 1812 naval battle between USS United States and HMS Macedonian, that hung in the Oval Office of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. It was sold at auction in 2008, setting a record price for the artist of $481,000.
An assessment from 1867 reads: Marine landscapes were painted thirty years ago by an Englishman in Philadelphia — Thomas Birch. The freshness of his atmosphere and clearly-painted waves were a marked feature. His delineation of the engagement between the U.S. frigate Constitution and the British frigate Guerriere, and that between the United States and the Macedonian — each four by two feet six inches — are fine specimens of this artist, and of rare historical value.Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, (New York, 1867), p. 551.
Birch exhibited regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for forty years, beginning in 1811, and managed the museum, 1812–17.Gerdts, Philadelphia Maritime Museum, pp. 12–13. He also exhibited nine paintings at the National Academy of Design. Three of his paintings were engraved and published in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir annual gift book in the 1820s and 30s, including Outward Bound.
Birch's work is collected at PAFA,PAFA ; accessed January 29, 2007 the Library Company of Philadelphia,LCP; accessed January 6, 2010 the Philadelphia Museum of Art,PMA; accessed January 6, 2010 the Smithsonian American Art Museum,si.edu; accessed January 29, 2007 the U.S. Naval Academy,USNA; accessed January 6, 2010 the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,mfa.org ; accessed January 29, 2007 and the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, among others. In 1833, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary member. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Gallery
References Citations
Sources Marian Carson, "Thomas Birch", Catalogue of the 150th Anniversary Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, (PAFA, 1955), p. 34. Doris Jear Creer, Thomas Birch: A Study of the Condition of Painting and the Artist's Position in Federal America, M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1958. William H. Gerdts, Thomas Birch (1779–1851), Paintings and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 1966. Richard Anthony Lewis, "Interesting Particulars and Melancholy Occurrences: Thomas Birch's Representations of the Shipping Trade, 1799–1850", 3 vols., Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1994. Tony Lewis, "Sleigh Ride on a Grey Day, 1832", "American Paintings", (Schwarz Galleries, 2003), pp. 36–38. Stefanie A. Munsing, "Thomas Birch (1779–1851)", Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976), pp. 229–30. Michael W. Schantz, Celebrating Philadelphia's Artistic Legacy, (Woodmere Art Museum, 2000), pp. 23–24. Martin P. Snyder, "William Birch: His Philadelphia Views", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 73 (1949), pp. 271–315. S. Robert Teitelman, Birch's Views of Philadelphia, with Photographs of the Sites in 1960 & 1982, (Free Library of Philadelphia, 1982, reprinted University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).
External links
Biography from ushistory.org artcyclopedia.com brooklynmuseum.org View of the Delaware near Philadelphia, 1831, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The Mariners' Museum