John Robinson Tait (January 14, 1834 – July 29, 1909) was an American landscape painter, art critic, and travel writer. He spent many years in Germany, where he was associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule and the Munich School.

Biography

John Robinson Tait was born in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

on January 14, 1834. He received his higher education at Bethany College, where he published a student magazine called ''The Stylus''. In 1853, he made his first trip to Europe (primarily Italy) in the company of his teacher, William Louis Sonntag.Brief biography
@ Victorian Artists. He paid a short visit to

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

to see an old acquaintance, Worthington Whittredge. During his stay, he met

Emmanuel Leutze Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816July 18, 1868) was a German-American history painter best known for his 1851 painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography Leutze was born ...

and his student, fellow American

William Washington William Washington (February 28, 1752 – March 6, 1810) was a cavalry officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, who held a final rank of brigadier general in the newly created United States after the war. Primaril ...

, who encouraged Tait to study there. In 1855, he returned to the United States in the company of his childhood friend,

Thomas Buchanan Read Thomas Buchanan Read (March 12, 1822 – May 11, 1872), was an American poet and portrait painter. Biography Read was born in Corner Ketch, a hamlet close to Downingtown, in Chester County, Pennsylvania on March 12, 1822. Beside painting, ...

, whom he had met in Florence. Four years later, he wrote a book describing his experiences and, that same year, returned to Düsseldorf, where he remained until 1870 as a student of

August Weber Johann Baptist Wilhelm August Weber (10 January 1817, in Frankfurt am Main – 11 September 1873, in Düsseldorf) was a German painter; associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule. Life and work He began studying landscape painting in his ...

and Andreas Achenbach. He married Anna D. Tiernan in 1872. He worked with

Rudolf Wiegmann Heinrich Ernst Gottfried Rudolf Wiegmann (17 April 1804, Nordstemmen – 17 April 1865, Düsseldorf) was a German painter, archaeologist, art historian, graphic artist and architect. He worked in the Classical style and, as a painter, is best kn ...

at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and, between 1873 and 1876, took further lessons with

Adolf Heinrich Lier Adolf Heinrich Lier (21 May 1826, Herrnhut - 30 September 1882, Vahrn) was a German landscape painter. Life and work He was the son of a goldsmith from Mecklenburg. At the age of fifteen (after a problematic youth that included three years i ...

in Munich. He took two trips to the United States during this time, in 1866 and the early 1870s, where he exhibited at the "Cincinnati Industrial Exposition" of 1871 and was awarded first prize. He eventually settled in Baltimore and wrote art criticism for the '' New York Evening Mail''. Most of his extant paintings are in Europe. He died at his home in Baltimore on July 29, 1909.

Selected paintings

File:John Robinson Tait - Wildbach.jpg, ''Torrent'' (date unknown) File:Tait-Nonnewerth.jpg, ''Nonnewerth at the Drachenfels'' (1866) File:Tait-Evening.jpg, ''Evening at the Lake Shore'' (1876)

Writings

* ''Dolce Far Niente'', Parry and McMillan, Philadelphia 1859
Poetry, Online
* ''European Life, Legend, and Landscape'', James Challen & Son, Philadelphia 1859
Online
* ''Reminiscences of a Poet-Painter''. In: '' Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science'', XIX, 17, March 1877, pg.307 ff.
Memories of his friend, Thomas Read, Online

References

External links

ArtNet: More works by Tait.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tait, John Robinson 1834 births 1909 deaths 19th-century American painters 19th-century male artists American landscape painters American emigrants to Germany Bethany College (West Virginia) alumni Painters from Cincinnati