James Augustus Suydam (March 27, 1819 – September 15, 1865) was an American architect, lawyer, and artist; as an artist was considered one of the premier Luminism painters. He is widely known as an American landscape painter and one of the leading members of the Hudson River School.

Family

James Augustus Suydam was born on March 27, 1819 and was descended from an old New York Dutch merchant family. His parents were Jane (née Mesier) Suydam and John Suydam, who was considered "one of the old Knickerbocker merchants" and was head of Suydam & Wycoff. His brothers included Henry P. M. Suydam and David Lydig Suydam. His brother, John Richard Suydam, was a principle in the firm Suydam and York. J.R. Suydam married Anne Middleton Lawrence; their daughter, Jane Mesier Suydam was named after her paternal grandmother. She later married a cousin,

Walter Lispenard Suydam Walter Lispenard Suydam (May 20, 1854 – August 10, 1930) was a prominent member of New York society during the Gilded Age. Early life Suydam was born on May 20, 1854 in New York City. He was the son of Anna White (née Schermerhorn) Suydam (18 ...

Early life

James A. Suydam attended New York University (then the University of the City of New York) with the intention of pursuing a career in medicine. Upon the death of his father in 1841, James received a substantial inheritance and made a Grand Tour of the Continent the following year. Upon his return, he began his career as a businessman but turned a significant portion of his energies to painting, studying under famed artist and portrait painter Minor C. Kellogg. At the age of thirty he was elected to the

Century Association The Century Association is a private social, arts, and dining club in New York City, founded in 1847. Its clubhouse is located at 7 West 43rd Street near Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It is primarily a club for men and women with distinction ...

. Suydam was also a member of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, and a life-member of the New York Bible Society. One of the "regulars" who gathered to paint at North Conway, New Hampshire, he exhibited ''Conway Meadows'' at the New York Athenaeum and Boston Athenaeum. He opened his studio at the noted 10th Street Studio Building, New York City, in 1858. The following year he was elected an honorary professional member in the prestigious National Academy of Design, which granted him full membership in 1861. He died suddenly in North Conway at the age of 46. The posthumous sale of his estate revealed that he owned works by "old masters such as

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

, Dürer, Ostade, and Raphael and contemporaries including Rosa Bonheur,

Ary Scheffer Ary Scheffer (10 February 179515 June 1858) was a Dutch-French Romantic painter. He was known mostly for his works based on literature, with paintings based on the works of Dante, Goethe, and Lord Byron, as well as religious subjects. He was als ...

, and George Caleb Bingham." In his will, he left $50,000 (equivalent to $ today) to the National Academy along with his collection of 92 paintings including works by Frederick E. Church,

John F. Kensett John Frederick Kensett (March 22, 1816 – December 14, 1872) was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works ...

Charles Edouard Frère Charles-Édouard Frère (July 10, 1837 – November 2, 1894) was a French painter of rural landscapes and daily life, known especially for paintings of horses and blacksmithing. Upbringing in Écouen Frère was born in Paris. He was the son of ...

, and Andreas Achenbach.

Paintings

James Suydam was described by his friend, the accomplished artist Sanford Robinson Gifford as a "thoroughly educated and accomplished man." In addition to his work as an artist, which he began only after working in law and architecture, he was widely read and well-versed in history, philosophy, and the sciences. His work as a landscape painter reflects this breadth of knowledge and reveals Suydam as a deeply spiritual individual. Using his familiarity with science, Suydam reduced nature to calm, clean, planar forms, and then distorted proportional relations so that God's creations loomed superior over the work of man. The National Academy has most of his works such as ''Paradise Rocks'' (1865), and the Taft family's Taft Museum also holds works. The Taft also has a podcast website for this artist. A painting of Gifford's from 1859 which Suydam, according to a report, "donated to the ationalacademy in 1865," became the subject of a

deaccession Deaccessioning is the process by which a work of art or other object is permanently removed from a museum's collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.Report from the AAMD Task Force on Deaccessioning. 2010. ''AAMD Policy on Deaccessioning' ...

controversy at the Academy in late 2008.

Legacy

In 2006, a retrospective of Suydam's work was held at the National Academy Museum.

References

External links

''Hudson River school visions: the landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Suydam (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Suydam, James Augustus 1819 births 1865 deaths 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists 19th-century American architects American male painters Luminism (American art style) Orientalist painters New York University alumni Hudson River School painters 19th-century American lawyers