19-20th Century American

Joy Biddle quit her job at a bank in 1967, and has made her living painting ever since. Her gallery of tidal marshes, coastal dunes, snowy rooftops, and sap buckets offers a virtual glimpse into the brick-and-mortar gallery adjacent to her home in Kennebunkport.

The New England seascapes and landscapes she paints are sold in her gallery, which is attached to the house, and in other galleries and through agents in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Biddle at one time operated two other galleries, one in Sedgwick, Maine near Blue Hill, and the other at Rocky Neck Art Colony in East Gloucester in Massachusetts. She is known especially for the marshes she paints. Besides the marshes, she also paints dunes, beaches and just about anything that catches her eye, usually along the coast.

Percy Gray was a talented American painter whose career spanned over forty years from 1906 to 1952.  During these years of modernist turmoil in American art, Gray adhered to a single artistic goal -- to extract poetic reverberations from California's natural beauty.

Percy Gray was born in San Francisco in 1869 to a family with a rich artistic and literary heritage.  Gray's father emigrated from England to Australia, married and moved to San Francisco, where he thrived in the insurance business.  Percy grew up in the young city, which harbored ambitions to become a major cultural center. During a childhood illness, he discovered a talent for art.  He attended the California School of Design from 1886 - 1888 and began a career as a newspaper illustrator, ending up with a job at the "New York Journal" in 1895.

Gray spent the next eleven years as a newspaper artist in New York City but also found time to study at the Art Students League and with William Merritt Chase.

As a newspaper illustrator, Gray learned how to get the facts of a scene down quickly and correctly.  In 1906, Gray was dispatched to San Francisco to cover the catastrophe caused by the earthquake and fire that occurred in April of that year.  He then remained in the city of his youth, and launched into a career as an exhibiting artist.

Gray's first paintings, exhibited in 1907, depicted stretches of ocean with waves breaking against headlands.  Gray soon began to explore other subjects, including landscapes with eucalyptus trees swaying in the fog, their indistinct outlines full of ghostly suggestiveness.  His ability to extract emotional responses from real California scenery was praised in the press.

The San Francisco Examiner critic noted: "Although Gray is a painter-realist, he endows his pictures with the eerie charm of romance. He knows how to bring out the misty quality of the air, the mystery of clouds sailing by, the soul of trees and the fragrance of flowers."

In addition to eucalyptus trees, Gray watercolors often depict fields of California flowers seen in springtime.  This subject allowed Gray to apply to his watercolors the high-keyed palette and broken brushstrokes learned from William Merritt Chase. "Don't hesitate to exaggerate color and light!" Chase would expostulate to his students, and Gray sometimes added more flowers and brilliant color than the scene actually portrayed.

Although Gray often painted bright works in the impressionist mode, his primary inspiration was directed towards muted landscapes in the style now known as "tonalism." The emotions most typically expressed in his pictures were those of quiet, introspective pleasure, rather than sublimity or joy. He loved to paint clouds.  One time he was painting near the coast on a cloudy day when a farm boy approached. "It's a pity, Mister," the farm boy remarked, "that you did not come out to work on a clear day. Why, sometimes you can see all the way to the Farallones (twenty miles)." Replied Gray: "That's just what I don't want."

Gray's work became popular, and his paintings, exhibited at various San Francisco galleries, were sought after. In 1915, his watercolor, Out of the Desert, Oregon, won a bronze medal at the Panama Pacific International Exposition.  For most of the time between 1912 and 1923, Gray lived in Burlingame while maintaining a studio in San Francisco.

To the surprise of some of his friends, in 1923, at age 53, the "avowed bachelor" married and moved into the historic Bonifacio adobe in Monterey.  Some of Gray's best paintings from his Monterey years celebrate the fortitude of coastal cypress trees in their struggle to survive the constant battering of the elements symbolic of the struggles of human life.

In 1939, the Grays sold their Monterey home and returned to San Francisco.  In 1941, they settled in the quiet village of San Anselmo in Marin County, about fifteen miles north of San Francisco near the base of Mount Tamalpais.  Gray was in his seventies but continued to paint with considerable virtuosity.  After his wife died in 1951, he moved back to San Francisco and set up a studio where he died of a heart attack while at his easel on October 10, 1952.

Elihu Vedder was born February 26, 1836 in New York City, the son of Dr. Elihu Vedder Sr. and Elizabeth Vedder. His parents were cousins. His father, a dentist, decided to try his luck in Cuba and this had a profound impact on Elihu Jr.'s childhood. The remainder of his childhood was spent between his maternal grandfather Alexander Vedder's house in Schenectady and a boarding school. His mother supported his goals to be an artist while his father reluctantly assented, convinced that his son should try a different occupation. His brother, Dr. Alexander Madison Vedder, was a Navy surgeon who witnessed the transformation of Japan into a modern culture while he was stationed there.

Vedder trained in New York City with Tompkins H. Matteson, then in Paris with François-Édouard Picot. Finally, he completed his studies in Italy - where he was strongly influenced not only by Italian Renaissance work but also by the modern Macchiaioli painters and the living Italian landscape. He first visited Italy from 1858 until 1860, becoming deeply emotionally attached to fellow painter Giovanni Costa. Their idyllic trips through the Italian countryside were cut short because Vedder's father cut off his financial allowance.

Vedder returned to the USA, penniless, during the American Civil War, and made a small living by undertaking commercial illustrations. He was involved in the bohemian 'Pfaff's' coffee house group, and painted some of his most memorable paintings notable for their visionary nature, romantic imagery and often Oriental influences. Paintings of this time include 'The Roc's Egg', 'The Fisherman and the Genii' and one of his most famous works, 'Lair of the Sea Serpent.' In the USA he sought out and became friends with Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and William Morris Hunt. Vedder became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1865.

At the end of the Civil War he left America to live in Italy. He married Caroline Rosekrans on July 13, 1869 in Glen Falls, NY. Elihu Vedder and his wife had four children, only two of whom survived. His daughter Anita Herriman Vedder played a vital role in handling the business of her father, who was notorious for his general aloofness towards details. Elihu's son Enoch Rosekrans Vedder was a promising architect who married jewelry designer Angela Reston. Enoch died while visiting his parents in Italy on April 2, 1916. Elihu had a home in Rome and - after the financial success of his 1884 Rubaiyat work - on the Isle of Capri, then a haven for male aesthetes.

Vedder visited England many times, and was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, and was a friend of Simeon Solomon. He was also influenced by the work of English and Irish mystics such as William Blake and William Butler Yeats. In 1890 Vedder helped establish the In Arte Libertas group in Italy.

Tiffany commissioned him to design glassware, mosaics and statuettes for the company. He decorated the hallway of the Reading Room of the Washington Library of Congress, and his mural paintings can still be seen there.

Vedder occasionally returned to the USA, but lived only in Italy from 1906 until his death on January 29, 1923.

Norman Rockwell is perhaps the greatest American illustrator. He created countless scenes of proud family values and humorous subjects with just the right expressions or posture that tell a story instantly. Rockwell studied at the Chase Art School c.1908, The National Academy of Design (1909) and the Art Students League (1916) as well as being awarded three honorary degrees from other colleges. By the age of 18, Rockwell worked as the art director for the magazine Boys Life. He sold his first five covers to the editor of the Saturday Evening Post when he was only 22. At that point, Rockwell averaged 10 covers per year.

He began with a small sketch, then made individual drawings of each element in the scene and finally created a full-sized charcoal drawing of the entire scene before producing the painting. Rockwell produced over 322 covers for the "Saturday Evening Post" from 1916-63.

His work was used in Brown & Bigelow Calendars from 1924-76 as well as every major magazine. Rockwell’s illustrations for Mark Twain’s "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" are classics. Later in his career Rockwell used photography to project images onto his canvases. From 1960 until his death, Rockwell spent most of his time on large painted photomontages of contemporary personages and events.

He died in 1978.

A painter of landscape and figure subjects in Pennsylvania and Maine, Andrew Wyeth became one of the best-known American painters of the 20th century. His style is both realistic and abstract, and he works primarily in tempera and watercolor, often using the drybrush technique.

He is the son of Newell Convers and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and was home-schooled because of delicate health. His art instruction came from his famous-illustrator father, who preached the tying of painting to life--to mood and to essences and to capturing the subtleties of changing light and shadows.

The Wyeth household was a lively place with much intellectual and social stimulation.  Because of the prominence of N.C. Wyeth, persons including many dignitaries came from all over the country to visit the family.  Andrew's sisters Caroline and Henriette became noted artists as did his brother-in-law, Peter Hurd. The non-art oriented brother, Nathaniel Wyeth, achieved much success as a chemist for DuPont where, among many inventions, he created a durable plastic so plastic bottles could hold carbonated beverages.

Andrew Wyeth maintained a style strongly oriented towards Realism when Abstract Expressionism was all-prevalent. Adhering to his own path, he was snubbed by many prominent art critics. However, his paintings have elements of abstraction in that the work derives from his strong feelings about his subjects, which often appear in unusual positions, juxtapositions, and with features highlighted for emotional effect. His work usually suggests rural quiet, isolation, and somber mood and is devoid of modern-day objects such as automobiles.

In 1937, Wyeth's first one-man show of watercolors depicting scenes around Port Clyde, Maine, sold out at the Macbeth Gallery in New York.  In Maine, Andrew first spent his summers in Port Clyde with his family, but after his marriage to Betsy James in 1940, he and his wife went regularly to Cushing.

Christina Olson of Cushing, at the end of Hathorn Point, was his most famous model, but over the years, Wyeth formed close friendships with - and painted - several other Maine neighbors.  His closest friend, Walt Anderson, gradually ages before the eyes of viewers in numerous Wyeth drawings and paintings that show life's changes from the youthful Young Swede (1939) to the older man in Adrift (1982).

The Olson House, where Christina and her brother lived, is now owned and maintained by the Farnsworth Museum, where Wyeth had his first major exhibition in 1951 and where the Andrew Wyeth Gallery is now a permanent exhibition place for his paintings.  In 1964, the directors of the Farnsworth Museum paid $65,000 for Wyeth's painting Her Room, the highest price ever paid by a museum for the work of a living artist.  The Olson House is the first property ever named to the National Register of Historic Places for being recognized as the site of a painting, Christina's World, one of the most recognized paintings in American art.

After the death of Christina Olson, Wyeth used female models Siri Erickson of Cushing, and Helga Testorf of Chadds Ford.  Depictions of the nude Helga, a total of 240 works, provided grist for an avalanche of sensational publicity.  The Helga paintings were exhibited in 1987 at the National Gallery of Art, the gallery's first exhibition of works by a living artist.

Wyeth has received many official honors. In 1963, he was the subject of a cover story for Time magazine and, thanks to President John F. Kennedy, he became the first visual artist to be nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1990, Wyeth received the Congressional Gold Medal, the first artist to have that honor.

Andrew and his wife Betsy have two sons, Nicholas and Jamie Browning, the latter who has become a prominent American artist, and the former who shares with his father and his uncle, Nathaniel, a great fascination with machines, especially aviation.

Rhett lives and works in Alameda, New Mexico. In his thirty years as a professional artist, he has found expression in a variety of mediums, from hand-woven tapestries to sculpture, drawings, monotypes to paintings in oil and acrylic. He continues to experiment with various materials, always seeing a broader visual vocabulary, in order to bring more power, life, and intensity to his art. He has focused on a broad range of subject matter, depicted in realistic as well as abstract manner; from the human form to animals, landscapes, icons, archetypes, myth, and legend - subjects whimsical to mystical. Rhett refers to his work as a visual journal, recording his experiences as a tourist of life. He draws from the well of his Indigenous heritage and his work is a testament to the deeply powerful symbols found there; images conveying a universal message which crosses all cultural boundaries. Although varying greatly in medium and subject matter, all of Rhett's work contains a common thread: intensity of color and multifaceted intent. His paintings are deeply personal, complex and moving, sometimes disturbingly so, providing an interactive experience provoking thought, evoking emotion, and leaving a lasting imprint on the psyche. Rhett's work, which has appreciated consistently in value over three decades, attracts a broad range of collectors, veteran as well as neophyte, from entertainment and political personalities, to church parishes and corporations such as CNN.

Margaret D. H. Keane was born 1927 in Tennessee, a state in the Bible Belt. Margaret herself attributes her deep respect for the Bible and inspirations of her artwork to the relationship with her grandmother. She eventually became one of Jehovah's Witnesses, which she said changed her life for the better. [1]

In the 1960s, Margaret Keane's artwork was sold under the name of her husband, Walter Keane. Why she chose to do so has not been fully explained, but conflict over that issue was cited as one of the reasons they divorced. Neither wanting to relinquish rights to the artwork, Walter and Margaret's divorce proceedings went all the way to Federal court. At the hearing, Margaret created a painting in front of the judge to prove that she was the artist. Walter declined to paint before the court, citing a sore shoulder. In 1986, the courts sided with her, enabling her to paint under her own name.

Her works while living in her husband's shadow tended to depict sad children in a dark setting, but after divorcing, moving to Hawaii, and becoming one of Jehovah's Witnesses her paintings took on a happier, brighter style. Her website now advertises her work as having "tears of joy" or "tears of happiness".

Keane is a fixture in popular culture. Some of her well-known fans over the years have included actresses Joan Crawford and Natalie Wood, whom she painted portraits of; Filmmaker Tim Burton, who commissioned Keane to paint Lisa Marie; and animator Craig McCracken, whose characters, The Powerpuff Girls are based on Keane's 'waifs'; additionally the Girls' schoolteacher is named "Ms. Keane".

Currently Margaret makes her home in Napa County, California. She will be portrayed by Kate Hudson in the upcoming film Big Eyes (film).

William Woodward was born in Washington D.C. in 1935. He began his training at the Abbott Art School in 1949. He studied drawing with Eugene Weisz at the Corcoran School of Art in 1951, from 1953 to 1957 painting at American University with Sarah Baker, Robert Gates and Ben Summerford, and in 1958 he studied drawing at the Accademia di Belli Arti in Florence, Italy.

A Mary-Graydon Scholarship was awarded to him in 1953 by the American University. In 1959 he received a fellowship from The Leopold Schepp Foundation for independent study and travel abroad. During his residency in Florence, he was given permission to use the library and study the collection at Berenson Villa I Tatti. Returning to Washington in the fall of 1958 he received a Graduate Teaching Fellowship to the American University where he earned his Master of Arts degree in 1961. Represented in a two-man show at the Watkins Gallery, American University in 19601 his work has since been acquired by private collectors in America and Europe. He has been commissioned by architects to do murals and sculpture in prominent buildings in the United States. His work was recently shown at the Michelson Gallery in the International Graphics show and the gallery group Show, and in the Dimock Gallery at George Washington University.

Mr. Woodward has taught periodically at several schools in the area including The American University, The Madeira School and the St. Albans School. He also taught painting at the Corcoran School of Art.