Edwin White (May 21, 1817 in South Hadley, Massachusetts – June 7, 1877 in Saratoga Springs, New York) was an American painter.
Life and career
Edwin White studied in Paris, Düsseldorf, Rome, and Florence and later taught at the National Academy of Design, in New York. He studied under several different American and European painting masters, attended lectures at a Medical College in New York City to study anatomy, and attended Amherst College where he received an A.M. by the end of 1856.Art and Artiest of Connecticut, H. W. French, 1879.
Works by White, mostly in storage, are in the collections of Yale; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum; and the New-York Historical Society.
A notable moment in White's career was noted in October, 1855, when he met the painter Sanford Robinson Gifford in Paris and told Gifford that he was about to return to New York, was destitute, had no commissions, and might have to return to portrait painting. However, when White did return to his New York studio, he went to work on his Mayflower painting, which he sold off the easel for $1,000, and a new and successful stage of his career was launched. His painting of Washington resigning was painted on commission by the state of Maryland, for $6,000, when White had returned to Paris.American Orientalists by Gerald M. Ackerman Vol. 10, 1994 ACR Edition International, Courbevoie/Paris.
The Mayflower painting was the basis for a 5-cent stamp issued in 1920 as part of the Pilgrim Tercentenary.Arago stamp catalogue Image of stamp available. An apparently later, unfinished painting of the same subject, from 1867, was left by the artist to Yale,Yale University Art Gallery eCatalogue Image included. and the university art museum has a collection of some 24 sketches White made preparatory to painting.Yale University Art Gallery eCatalogue Images included.
The artist was cousin to Andrew Dickson White, the first president of Cornell University.Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (D. Appleton and Company, 1889), pp. 467-8.
Influential works The Compact of the Mayflower 1855-56 Washington Resigning his Commission 1858 Pocahontas Informing John Smith of the Conspiracy of the Indians Major Anderson Raising the Flag at Fort Sumter 1862.
Gallery
Minor works Fisher boy, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut. A sentimental genre subject of a boy and his dog.
References