William Rickarby Miller

New York from Hoboken

1851

In 1852, twenty-nine year old William Bradford was a failing shopkeeper in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. With a wife and child at home, Bradford, by his own admission, “spent too much time in painting to succeed” in business. Rescued from insolvency by his well-to-do in-laws, this is not the beginning of a narrative that generally leads to a happy ending. Not so with Bradford, who ultimately found international fame and fortune as a painter of arctic seascapes and dramatic marine paintings. William Bradford, the artist, was a lineal descendant of the 17th-century Separatist leader William Bradford, a founder of the Plymouth Plantation, signer of the Mayflower Compact and Governor of the Plymouth Colony. Our Bradford born to a New Bedford ship outfitter in Fairhaven, Massachusetts By the nineteenth century, this line of Bradfords were Quakers, living on the tract purchased nearly two centuries earlier by their pilgrim ancestor. Fairhaven, across the mouth of the Acushnet River from the whaling center of New Bedford was described by a New York journalist in 1857 as “the Brooklyn of New Bedford” (Home Journal, January 3, 1857). Young Bradford displayed an early predilection for the arts, but his Quaker parents were disinclined to support this particular pursuit. After working in his father’s business and then for a dry goods merchant in New Bedford, by 1849 Bradford had set up in New Bedford as a “merchant tailor” offering outfits for “those going to California,” “seamen’s clothing,” custom-tailored “piece goods...

Joshua Shaw was a farmer’s son, born in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, and orphaned at the age of seven. After a boyhood of privation, he tried a number of occupations, until he finally apprenticed to a sign painter and found his métier. Shaw went to Manchester to study art, and by 1802 was in Bath, painting landscapes. In that year he began to exhibit his work at the Royal Academy in London. Essentially self-taught, Shaw achieved an impressive level of competence and versatility, producing portraits, floral compositions, still lifes, landscapes, and, cattle pieces. Shaw continued to send works for exhibition at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Suffolk Street Gallery, all in London, until 1841. (Although Shaw is regularly mentioned and frequently illustrated in a host of general books on American art history, as well as included in numerous historical survey exhibitions, the only monographic study of this artist is Miriam Carroll Woods, “Joshua Shaw [1776–1860]: A Study of the Artist and his Paintings” [M.A. thesis, University of California at Los Angeles, 1971]. Apart from short biographical sketches in various dictionaries and museum collection catalogues, the two most interesting references, both contemporary, are John Sartain’s personal recollections in The Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, 1808–1897 [1899; reprint 1969] and an article in Scientific American from August 7, 1869, “Joshua Shaw, Artist and Inventor.” The article quotes extensively from an autobiographical document in the possession of Shaw’s grandson that Shaw prepared for William Dunlap...

Charles Temple Dix was born in Albany, New York, the youngest son of the distinguished statesman and soldier, General John Adams Dix. Having already visited Europe as a child, Dix re...

Thomas Fransioli, born in 1906 in Seattle, Washington, trained as an architect at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked as an architect before his service in World War II. Largel...

It was Henry Cross's portraits of horses belonging to the prominent breeders and trainers of the second half of the nineteenth century that won the artist renown as an animal painter. Born and raised in upstate New York, Cross's proficiency in both drafting and caricature was revealed while he was still a student at the Binghamton Academy, New York. In 1852, when he was only fifteen years old, Cross joined a traveling circus that took him to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and to the first of many Indian encampments that he would draw upon for subject matter throughout his career. Biographers differ as to the year Cross left for Europe, however, he was in Paris from 1852 to 1853 or 1854, where he studied with Rosa Bonheur, a highly esteemed French painter of horses. Upon Cross's return to the United States he was commissioned to paint the studs of wealthy horsemen, including those of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Robert Bonner, the owner-publisher of The New York Ledger, and "Copper King" Marcus Daly, whose 18,000 acre stock farm was reputed to be the greatest and most valuable horse ranch in the world. Although Cross received the highest pay of any equine artist of his day (up to $35,000. for one order, according to The Horse Review of April 10, 1918, p. 328), he frequently joined traveling circuses and painted the locales where they visited. He also painted portraits of notable contemporaries, such as President Abraham Lincoln, ex-president Ulysses S. Grant, King Edward VII of England, W. F. "Buffalo Bill...

Thomas Fransioli’s cityscapes are crisp and tidy. Buildings stand in bold outline, trees are sharp, and saturated color permeates the scene. But Fransioli’s cities often lack one critical feature: people. His streets are largely deserted, save for the rare appearance of figure and the occasional black cat scurrying across pavement. Instead, humanity is implied. Magic Realism neatly characterizes Fransioli’s viewpoint. First applied to American art in the 1943 MoMA exhibition “American Realists and Magic Realists...

Frank Corso Biography American, b. 1952 Frank Corso was born in Syracuse, New York. Taking a keen interest in art at a very early age, he was inspired to draw and paint the landscap...

"Near Santa Fe New Mexico" showcasing in the brilliant colors of the southwest, from celebrated artist Willard Dixon, who has continued to capture the undeniable beauty of the west f...

Blue sky painting with sunlight shining through turbulent clouds with a warm hue. Created with a calm and etherial palette of blue, white, and lavender. Painted on a 5 foot circular canvas...

Barclay Rubincam (1920-1978). October Fog, 1966. Oil on canvas, 20 x 40 inches; 23.5 x 43.5 inches framed. Signed and dated lower right. Original label affixed verso. Excellent condition. original frame. Barclay Rubincam (1920-1978) was born and grew up in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he developed a life-long love for its charming landscape and fascinating history. Art was an early passion, and Rubincam spent hours drawing and painting murals, posters, and other decorations and projects during his school years. After graduating from Unionville High School in 1939, he attended the Wilmington Academy of Fine Arts (today the Delaware Art Museum) where he was taught by Gale Hoskins and Frank Schoonover, among others. He also studied with N.C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford. Army service during World War II delayed the start of Rubincam's professional career as a painter, but when he returned from duty, he set up a studio in his newly purchased house in West Chester...

An oil painting of a poppies in front of a rock wall. The setting sun shines through the petals making them glow golden orange against the darker foliage. The sun cuts shadows into t...

An oil painting of a winter scene. Soft short brushstrokes create a sense of movement in the icy water. Painting dimensions: 24 x 18 inches Framed dimensions: 30.5 x 24.5 x 1 inches Framed in a traditional-style frame (see pictures). Artist Bio Rachel Personett was born in Hawaii, but raised in Colorado. Being the daughter of a pilot she has always traveled extensively. She has studied part time at the Savannah College of Art and Design, The Angel Academy of Art, and finally settled on the Florence Academy of Art, graduating in 2015. In January 2016 she apprenticed the painter Odd Nerdrum...