Robert S. Duncanson
Born
in
Fayette,
New
York
in
1821,
painter
Robert
S.
Duncanson
is
widely
considered
the
first
African-American
artist
to
be
internationally
renowned.
The
son
of
a
free
Black
tradesman
and
carpenter,
Duncanson
established
his
own
housepainting
business
in
Detroit
in
1828.
After
about
ten
years,
he
decided
to
close
the
business
to
pursue
portraiture
in
the
Cincinnati
area,
a
region
where
both
the
fine
arts
community
and
African-American
population
were
flourishing
at
the
time.
With
no
formal
art
education,
Duncanson
honed
his
skills
as
an
itinerant
portrait
painter,
establishing
an
influential
network
of
support
with
wealthy
abolitionist
patrons.
Inspired
by... Read More
the
Hudson
River
School
style,
Duncanson
began
to
progress
into
landscape
painting,
a
particularly
popular
genre
in
the
Ohio
River
area.
He
explored
the
midwest
region
extensively
with
fellow
artists
T.
Worthington
Whittredge
and
William
Louis
Sonntag,
and
in
1853
set
off
on
a
grand
tour
of
Europe,
finding
inspiration
in
new
environments,
Romantic
poetry,
and
the
Old
Masters.
Duncanson
left
the
United
States
at
the
onset
of
the
Civil
War,
settling
in
Montreal,
where
he
is
credited
as
inspiring
a
new
generation
of
Canadian
landscape
painters.
His
work
was
widely
praised
throughout
North
America
and
Europe
with
the
London
Art
Journal
declaring
him
a
“true
master
of
landscape
painting”
in
1865.
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