BathingPool ca1830 byCharlesCodman MFABoston

Charles Codman (1800 – September 11, 1842) was an American painter. A native of

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

, he was known for his

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

paintings.

Career

Codman was apprenticed to the ornamental painter

John Ritto Penniman __NOTOC__ John Ritto Penniman (1782–1841) was a painter in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He created portraits, landscapes, and allegorical paintings, as well as designs for engravings, such as the official seal of the city of Boston in ...

, where he began as a decorative painter with no formal training. He is classified as a

limner A limner is an illuminator of manuscripts, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration. One of the earliest mentions of a limner's work is found in the book ''Methods and Materials of Painting'' by Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865). ...

. He eventually produced more mature works of romanticized landscape views. One of his more important commissions was to paint five fireboards (decorative panels placed over hearths during the summertime) in the landscape style for the Portland mansion of shipbuilder

James Deering James Deering (November 12, 1859 – September 21, 1925) was an American executive in the management of his family's Deering Harvester Company and later International Harvester, as well as a socialite and an antiquities collector. He built ...

. He also filled commissions for both portraiture and decorative arts. In 1827 Codman received the first informed criticism of his work by eccentric and influential writer and critic John Neal. As his greatest promoter, and through his connections, Neal was likely most responsible for Codman becoming as established, patronized painter. Codman died on September 11, 1842, in Portland, Maine. He is buried in

Eastern Cemetery Eastern Cemetery is a historic cemetery at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Congress Street in the East Bayside neighborhood of Portland, Maine. Established in 1668, it is the city's oldest historic site, and has more than 4,000 marked ...

. Today, Codman's work can be found in various museums and institutions such as the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, and the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

References

External links

Profile
at Traditional Fine Arts Organization

at Portland Museum of Art 1800 births 1842 deaths Artists from Portland, Maine American landscape painters American marine artists 19th-century American painters American male painters 19th-century American male artists {{US-painter-1800s-stub