Thomas Doughty (1893-1856)

View of the Hudson River from West Point

20 by 24 inches oil/canvas

Provenance:

            New-York Historical Society, New York, NY, until 1992.

             Born in Philadelphia, Thomas Doughty was the first American artist to work exclusively as a landscapist and was successful both for his skill and the fact that Americans were turning their interest to landscape.  He was known for his quiet, often atmospheric landscapes of the rivers and mountains of Pennsylvania, New York, especially the Hudson River Valley, and New England. A criticism of his work was that "there was often more of Doughty in his landscapes than there was of the location he painted." His landscapes were popular early in his career, but he was surpassed by Thomas Cole and other Hudson River painters in the view of a public that wearied of his work that was perceived as "over-mannered and too unspecific compared to that of his successors." Doughty was trained in leatherwork but turned to art as leisure activity and received only three months of training in India-ink drawing.  In 1820, he turned to art completely, and by 1822, was exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and two years later was elected an academician.  In 1827, he was elected an honorary member of the National Academy of Design. He was also a creative lithographer, and from 1830 to 1834, published with his brother a monthly journal called Cabinet of Natural History and American Rural Sports.  In this publication, birds and animals were drawn precisely with landscape backgrounds by Doughty.
            Doughty spent much of his life in Baltimore, Washington, Boston, and New York City, but for much of the time made his home in Philadelphia until 1832 when he moved to Boston.  After five years in Boston, he went to England for two years.  On his return to America in 1838, Doughty lived for a time in New York City, but in 1839-40 he was at Newburgh, New York on the Hudson River. He returned in 1841 to New York City, where he remained, except for a second trip to Europe (1845-46) and a brief residence in western New York (1852-54), until his death on July 22, 1856.  He spent the last 20 years of his career in New York City.
            Doughty's’s work can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; NY; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA: Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA; Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, CA; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; San Diego Art Museum, San Diego, CA; Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; National Academy of Design Museum, New York, NY; Vassar College Art Museum, Poughkeepsie, NY; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH; Toldeo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH and many more.