Bucks County, Pennsylvania-born artist Martin Johnson Heade broke from capturing the topographically accurate landscapes for which his 19th-century peers were known and opted instead to paint salt marshes and exotic coastal scenes, placing considerable emphasis on light and creating atmosphere with moody color palettes and weighty shadows.
Heade studied with painter Edward Hicks, a Pennsylvania artist who frequently focused on religious subject matter, and for much of his early career, Heade primarily painted portraits. He debuted professionally at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1841 with his Portrait of a Little Girl. Two years later, the artist showed his Portrait of a Young Lady at New York’s National Academy of Design. Heade traveled extensively in his life to Rome, South America and Canada, and during a voyage to Europe in 1848, refined his work extensively. He began to exhibit frequently into the mid-1850s and increasingly experimented with landscapes and still lifes.
After settling in New York, in 1859, he met landscape artist Frederic Edwin Church, a prominent proponent of the Hudson River School who became a close friend to Heade.
Heade’s landscapes drew on the romantic movement and the painter was modestly praised for his ability to capture natural light and more. Church pushed Heade to seek out and mimic the elaborate South American landscapes on which Church built his reputation, and Heade traveled south in 1863 but again turned to painting intimate scenes and still lifes. His luminous depictions of tropical flora and hummingbirds in flight differed considerably from the dramatic natural surroundings that his contemporaries were endeavoring to capture in their work. The 1940s yielded a reappraisal of Heade’s paintings, and today scholars and collectors alike recognize him as a major figure in American art.
Heade’s paintings are held in the permanent collections of major American museums and other institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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Sunset - A Sketch
By Martin Johnson Heade
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
Sunset - A Sketch, 1895 Oil on board 6 x 12 inches (15.2 x 30.5 cm) Framed dimensions: 13 1/8 x 19 3/8 inches Signed and dated lower right: M.J.H. 95 Provenance Frederick Mont and ...
Oil, Board
Still Life with Flowers in a Vase
By Martin Johnson Heade
Located in New York, NY
Oil on canvas
Oil
$1,775
H 9 in W 12.5 in D 2 in
Antique American Hudson River School Luminous Coastal Sunset Seascape Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Signed and dated K. W. Newhall 1881, this luminous seascape by American painter Kate White Newhall (1840–1917) captures a dramatic coastal scene at sunset with refined academic techn...
Oil, Board
19th Century White Mountain Landscape, Unknown American School
Located in New York, NY
Unknown White Mountain Artist White Mountain Landscape, 19th Century Oil on board 5 x 9 1/4 in. Framed: 7 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.
Oil, Board
Folk Art American Hudson River School Landscape Figures Homes Rare 19th Century
Located in Buffalo, NY
A 19th century American landscape depicting a quiet coastal or lakeside scene at dusk, where a small cluster of houses rests along the water’s edge beneath a softly glowing sky. A n...
Oil, Board
$2,475
H 15 in W 21 in D 2 in
Antique American Hudson River School Coastal Sunset Seascape Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American sunset seascape beach scene oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Signed. Measuring: 15 by 21 inches overall, and 9 by 15 painting alone.. In excellent original cond...
Oil, Board
$9,500
H 9.5 in W 7 in
Dusk Forest Scene, Catskills by Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932)
By Lockwood DeForest
Located in New York, NY
"Dusk Forest Scene, Catskills," 1875 by Hudson River School painter Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932) is oil on artists card-stock and measures 9.5 x 7 inches. The work is signed by DeForest, and dated May 13, 1875 at lower right. The work is framed in an elegant, period appropriate frame, and ready to hang. Lockwood DeForest was born in New York in 1850 to a prominent family. He grew up in Greenwich Village and on Long Island at the family summer estate in Cold Spring Harbor. As was customary for a cultivated family in the Gilded Age, the DeForests made frequent trips abroad. Excursions to the great museums, which were prominent on the DeForests agenda, deepened the young Lockwood's familiarity with European painting and sculpture. Though he had begun drawing and painting somewhat earlier, it was during a visit to Rome in 1868 that nineteen-year-old DeForest first began to study art seriously, taking painting lessons from the Italian landscapist Hermann David Salomon Corrodi (1844–1905). More importantly, on the same trip, Lockwood met one of America’s most celebrated painters, (and his maternal great- uncle by marriage) Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), who quickly became his mentor. DeForest accompanied Church on sketching trips around Italy and continued this practice when they both returned to America in 1869. Early on in his career, de Forest made a habit of recording the date and often the place of his oil sketches, as to create a visual diary of his travels. Lockwood’s profession as a landscape painter can be primarily attributed to Frederic E. Church and his belief in the young artist’s talent. DeForest often visited Church in the Hudson River community of Catskill where, in addition to sketching trips and afternoons of painting, he assisted with the architectural drawings and planning of Olana. In 1872, DeForest took a studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York. During these formative years DeForest counted among his friend’s artists such as Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823–80), George Henry Yewell (1830–1923), John Frederick Kensett (1816–72), Jervis McEntee (1828–91), and Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932). Over the next decade DeForest experienced success as a painter. He exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design in 1872, and made two more painting trips abroad, in 1875–76 and 1877–78, traveling to the major continental capitals but also the Middle East and North Africa. His trip to the Middle East and the library at Church’s home, Olana, established his interest in design during his mid-twenties. From about 1878 to 1902, landscape painting was overshadowed by his activities and preoccupation with East Indian architecture and décor, a style that became quite fashionable in late nineteenth century America. From 1879-1883, de Forest founded Associated Artists along with Louis Comfort Tiffany, Candace Wheeler...
Oil, Board
$1,376
H 17.13 in W 14.18 in D 0.4 in
Classical Flower Bouquet Oil Painting, 19th Century Floral Still Life
Located in Genève, GE
Dimensions with frame: 55 x 47,5 x 5,5 cm This evocative antique floral still life oil painting depicts a lush bouquet of roses and wildflowers arranged in a delicate porcelain vase...
Oil, Cardboard
$1,150
H 12 in W 16 in D 1 in
Antique American Pastoral Hudson River Painting Farm Oxen 1890 19th Century Rare
Located in Buffalo, NY
A 19th century American landscape depicting a pastoral valley framed by autumnal trees, with distant mountains rising softly along the horizon. A river winds through the foreground, ...
Oil, Board
$11,800Sale Price|20% Off
H 16 in W 22 in D 3 in
Antique American Hudson River School Scalp Level Pennsylvania Landscape Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Impressive early American Hudson River School landscape oil painting by Jasper Holman Lawman (1825 - 1906). Framed. Oil on board. Signed. Image size, 10H by 16L.
Oil, Board
$12,500
H 16.5 in W 23 in D 2.25 in
“Manchester-by-the-Sea” Ann Sophia Towne Darrah, 19th C. Female Artist American
Located in Yardley, PA
About this work: “Manchester-by-the-Sea” by Ann Sophia Towne Darrah (American, 1819-1881). Darrah was among the earliest American women to establish a professional reputation as a p...
Oil, Board
$1,025
H 17.92 in W 17.92 in D 0.99 in
Single Hummingbird, Original Painting, Bird, Animal, Nature
Located in Deddington, GB
Single hummingbird, oil on panel by Angela Smith Hummingbird on a green background, perfectly painted with lots of detail. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Singl...
Oil, Wood Panel
$12,000
H 7 in W 10.5 in
Adirondack Landscape Painting, Oil on Board, Mid-19th Century
By Alexander Helwig Wyant
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This serene Adirondack landscape is a significant and deeply moving example of the work of Alexander Wyant, whose career marked a critical transition from the Hudson River School tow...
Board, Oil
$2,475
H 18 in W 24 in D 2 in
Antique American Sunset Seascape Giltwood Framed New England Harbor Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American sunset seascape oil painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Measuring: 18 by 24 inches overall, and 12.25 by 18 painting alone.. In excellent original condition. Ha...
Oil, Board
Sold
H 24 in W 34 in
"Quiet River at Dusk" Martin Johnson Heade, Salt Marsh, Luminist Landscape
By Martin Johnson Heade
Located in New York, NY
Martin Johnson Heade Quiet River at Dusk, circa 1859 Oil on canvas 15 x 25 inches Martin Johnson Heade was born in Lumberville, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on August 11, 1819. He...
Canvas, Oil
Cherokee Roses in an Opalescent Vase
By Martin Johnson Heade
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower left: M J Heade
Canvas, Oil
Cherokee Roses
By Martin Johnson Heade
Located in New York, NY
Signed (at lower right): M. J. Heade
Oil, Canvas