![George Henry Durrie self-portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/George_Henry_Durrie_self-portrait.jpg)
George Henry Durrie (June 6, 1820October 15, 1863) was an American landscape artist noted especially for his rural winter snow scenes, which became very popular after they were reproduced as
lithographic prints by
Currier and Ives
Currier and Ives was a New York City printmaking business that operated between 1835 and 1907. Founded by Nathaniel Currier, the company designed and sold inexpensive, hand painted lithographic works based on news events, views of popular cult ...
.
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Early life
Durrie was born in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
, one of six children born to John and Clarissa Clark Durrie, who were
Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
natives. The Durries moved to New Haven in 1818, where John Durrie became a partner in the printing firm of Durrie and Peck, stationers and book publishers. In 1837 John Durrie contracted with
Nathaniel Jocelyn
Nathaniel Jocelyn (January 31, 1796 – January 13, 1881)
was an American painter and engraver best known for his portraits of abolitionists and of the slave revolt leader Joseph Cinqué.
Family and education
Nathaniel Jocelyn was born in New H ...
, a noted New Haven engraver and portrait painter, for painting instruction for George Durrie and his brother John. By 1839, George Durrie was painting portraits professionally in Hartford and
Bethany, Connecticut
Bethany is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 5,297 at the 2020 census.
History
Bethany was first settled in 1717, but it was not until May 1832 that Bethany separated from Woodbridge to become incorporate ...
, and in 1840, he was working in
Meriden and
Naugatuck
Naugatuck is a consolidated borough and town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town spans both sides of the Naugatuck River just south of Waterbury and includes the communities of Union City on the east side of the river, wh ...
, Connecticut.
Marriage and children
Durrie was a very religious person who usually attended two or more church services each Sunday. He also liked to sing, and played the viol. While he was working in Bethany, he stayed with the Wheeler family, and attended services at Christ Episcopal Church, where he became friends with the choir-master, Archibald Abner Perkins. A frequent dinner guest at the Perkins home, Durrie fell in love with Sarah Perkins, Archibald’s daughter, who was a school teacher in Hartford at that time. They married on September 14, 1841, and lived on Elm Street in New Haven. The Durries had three children, George Boice Durrie, born in 1842; Benjamin Woodhouse Durrie, born in 1847; and Mary Clarissa Durrie, born in 1852.
Professional life
For many years, Durrie made a living primarily as a portrait painter, executing hundreds of commissions. After marriage, he made frequent trips, traveling to New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, fulfilling commissions and looking for new ones. His diary reveals that he was an enthusiastic railroad traveler, in the early days of the railroads. Durrie also painted what he called "fancy pieces", whimsical studies of still lives or stage actors, as well as painting scenes on window-shades and fireplace covers. But portrait painting commissions became scarcer when photography came on the scene, offering a cheaper alternative to painted portraits, and, as his account-book shows, Durrie rarely painted a portrait after 1851.
Durrie’s interest shifted to landscape painting, and while on the road, or at home, made frequent sketches of landscape elements that caught his eye. Around 1844 Durrie began painting water and snow scenes, and took a second place medal at the 1845 New Haven State Fair for two winter landscapes. Although he had some training in portrait work, Durrie was self-taught as a landscape artist. He was undoubtedly influenced both by the American
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
, and also by European artists, by studying exhibitions of their work at the New Haven Statehouse, the Trumbull Gallery, and at the
Wadsworth Atheneum
The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...
in Hartford, as well as in New York City. Durrie himself exhibited regularly, both locally, and in New York City at the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
and the American Artists’ Union, and his reputation grew. Durrie was especially known for his snow pieces, and would often make copies or near-copies of his most popular pieces, with modifications to order. The landscapes painted by Durrie offered a more intimate view than the panoramic landscapes painted by the Hudson River School, which was the leading school of American landscape painting. Colin Simkin notes that Durrie’s paintings took in a wide angle, but still "close enough to be within hailing distance" of the people who are always included in his scenes.
Currier and Ives
Durrie’s early landscapes were often of local landmarks, such as
East Rock
East Rock of south-central Connecticut, United States, with a high point of , is a long trap rock ridge located primarily in the neighborhood of East Rock on the north side of the city of New Haven. A prominent landscape feature and a popular ...
and
West Rock
West Rock Ridge or West Rock of south-central Connecticut, is a long trap rock mountain ridge located on the west side of New Haven with a high point of . The ridge forms a continuous line of exposed cliffs visible from metropolitan New Haven an ...
, and other local scenes, which were popular with his New Haven clients, and he painted numerous variations of popular subjects. As his portrait commissions declined, Durie concentrated on landscapes. He wanted a wider audience, and he seemed to have a good sense of what would sell. Durrie realized that his paintings would have a wider appeal if he made them as generic New England scenes rather than as identifiable local scenes, retaining, as Sackett said, "a sense of place without specifying where that place was". The New York City lithographic firm of
Currier & Ives knew their audience; the American public wanted nostalgic scenes of rural life, images of the good old days, and Durrie’s New England scenes fit the bill perfectly. Lithographic prints were a very democratic form of art, cheap enough that the humblest home could afford some art to hang on the wall. Durrie had been marketing his paintings in New York City, and Currier and Ives, who had popularized such prints, purchased some of Durrie’s paintings in the late 1850s or early 1860s, and eventually published ten of Durrie’s pictures beginning in 1861. Four prints were published between 1861 and the artist's death in New Haven in 1863; six additional prints were issued posthumously.
[National Museum of American Art & Kloss 1985, p. 191.]
''Home to Thanksgiving'', one of Durrie’s snow scenes, became one of Currier and Ives’ most popular prints, and is still being reproduced at holiday times. The popularity of Durrie’s snow scenes received an additional boost in the 1930s, when the Traveler’s Insurance Company began issuing calendars featuring Currier and Ives prints. Starting in 1946, the January calendar always featured a Durrie snow scene. Historian Bernard Mergen notes that "84 of the 125 paintings attributed to him are snowscapes, more than enough to make him the most prolific snow scene painter of his time."
Legacy
In Durrie’s time, winter landscapes were not popular with most curators and critics, but nevertheless, by the time of his death, Durrie had acquired a national reputation as a snowscape painter. Durrie died in 1863, at age 43, probably from
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...
, not long after Currier and Ives began reproducing his paintings as prints. Durrie’s paintings, depicting idyllic rural life, a world of stability and home comforts, held great appeal for the middle class and the working class, as an visual antidote for the growing industrialization of America, and the uncertainties of a boom-and-bust economy. The American ideal of a land of self-sufficient farmers, captured by Durrie’s paintings, was being replaced with factories belching smoke, along with a rise in urban populations, foreign immigration, and crime brought about by crowded conditions and poverty. The American descendants of the early English settlers felt that their values and way of life were threatened by these new developments, and turned to nostalgic images such as Durrie’s for comfort.
Durrie was dismissed by critics as a popular artist, an illustrator rather than a fine artist. Although Durrie’s Currier and Ives prints were popular, his name was still relatively unknown. But a revival of interest in Durrie began in the 1920s with the publication in 1929 of ''Currier and Ives, Printmakers to the American People'', by collector Harry T. Peters, Sr., who called Durrie’s prints "among the most valued In the entire gallery
f Currier and Ives prints, and says that Durrie was known as the "snowman" of the group. Peters called Durrie’s ''Home to Thanksgiving'' "perhaps the most widely known Currier and Ives print in this country today." Peters’ book, and the Traveler’s calendars, spurred new interest in Durrie, and his work was re-evaluated by the critics. Durrie’s work was included in an exhibit entitled ''
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
and the Early American Landscape Tradition'' at the
Art Institute of Chicago in 1945, followed by a one-man show of Durrie’s work at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in 1947. More one-man shows followed, at the
Dayton Art Institute in 1951,
New Jersey Historical Society
The New Jersey Historical Society is a historical society and museum located in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The Historical Society is housed in the former headquarters of the Essex Club. It has two floors of exhibition spac ...
in 1959, the New Haven Colony Historical Society in 1966, and at the
Lyman-Allyn Museum in 1968.
![George Henry Durrie - Hunter in Winter Wood - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/George_Henry_Durrie_-_Hunter_in_Winter_Wood_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
In the estimation of art historian Martha Young Hutson, Durrie’s "lack of academic training permitted him to develop an idiomatic style that was peculiarly suited to his theme. Instead of being absorbed by the Hudson River School, he … develop
da means of expression uniquely his own … he is neither in the academic camp nor among the amateurs." Art historian Wolfgang Born characterized Durrie’s work as "fresh, genuine, and thus convincing—qualities too often missing in the art of then-famous artists." While Durrie’s name is still relatively unknown, collector interest continues to grow; in 2018 his painting ''Hunter in a Winter Wood'' sold at auction for $312,500.00.
Collections holding paintings by Durrie include the
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...
; the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the
Portland Museum of Art
The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S. state of Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine.
...
, Portland, ME; the
Shelburne Museum
Shelburne Museum is a museum of art, design, and Americana located in Shelburne, Vermont, United States. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the museum grounds. It is located ...
, Shelburne VT; the
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...
; the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
in Washington, D. C.;
whitehousehistory.org
/ref> the New Haven Museum, New Haven, CT; the Lyman-Allyn Museum, New London, CT; the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, CT; the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT; and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT.
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Gallery
File:George Henry Durrie - A Christmas Party.JPG, ''A Christmas Party'', 1852
File:George Henry Durrie - Jones Inn, Winter.JPG, ''Jones Inn'', 1853
File:George Henry Durrie - Going to Church.JPG, ''Going to Church'', 1853
File:Farmyard in Winter by George Henry Durrie, 1858.jpg, ''Farmyard in Winter'', 1858
File:George Henry Durrie - Red School House, Winter.JPG, ''Red School House'', 1858
File:George Henry Durrie - Winter Scene in New Haven, Connecticut - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Winter Scene in New Haven, Connecticut'', ca. 1858
Notes
References
*Chieffo-Reidway, Toby Maria. “Nathaniel Jocelyn: In The Service Of Art And Abolition.” PhD. diss., The College of William and Mary in Virginia, 2005. Accessed November 10, 2021, https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-psph-pc43.
*Durrie, George Henry. “Diary of George Henry Durrie,” Jan. 1, 1845-July 1, 1846. MSS#19. G. H. Durrie papers, Box 1, Folder 6, Whitney Library, New Haven, Connecticut.
*Hutson, Martha Young. ''George Henry Durrie (1820-1863) American Winter Landscapist: Renowned Through Currier and Ives.'' Santa Barbara Museum of Art and American Art Review Press, 1977.
*Mergen, Bernard. ''Snow in America.'' Washington, D.C. and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
*Kloss, W. and the National Museum of American Art. ''Treasures from the National Museum of American Art''. Washington: National Museum of American Art,1985.
*Peters, Harry T''. Currier & Ives: Printmakers to the American People.'' Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942.
*Sackett, Kathryn Elizabeth. “Organized Nostalgia: G.H. Durrie’s Winter Landscapes and Nineteenth-century American Art Association’s Promotion of a National Identity.” Master’s Thesis, Michigan State University, 1999. Accessed November 10, 2021, https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/27931.
*Simkin, Colin. ”The Life and Works of George Henry Durrie 1820-1863,” in ''An Exhibition of Paintings by Durrie, Connecticut Artist.'' New Haven Colony Historical Society, 1966.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durrie, George Henry
1820 births
1863 deaths
19th-century American painters
American male painters
American landscape painters
Artists from New Haven, Connecticut
Painters from Connecticut
19th-century American male artists