Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the

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 ...

Early life

Durand was born in, and eventually died in,

Maplewood, New Jersey Maplewood is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is an inner-ring suburban bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's populat ...

(then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth of eleven children. Durand's father was a watchmaker and a silversmith. Durand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 to 1817 and later entered into a partnership with the owner of the company, Charles Cushing Wright (1796–1854), who asked him to manage the company's New York office. He engraved ''Declaration of Independence'' for

John Trumbull John Trumbull (June 6, 1756November 10, 1843) was an American artist of the early independence period, notable for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, of which he was a veteran. He has been called the "Painter of the Re ...

during 1823, which established Durand's reputation as one of the country's finest engravers. Durand helped organize the New York Drawing Association in 1825, which would become 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 ...

; he would serve the organization as president from 1845 to 1861. Asher's engravings on bank notes were used as the portraits for America's first

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s, the 1847 series. Along with his brother Cyrus he also engraved some of the succeeding 1851 issues.

Painting career

Durand's main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the encouragement of his patron,

Luman Reed Luman Reed (1787–1836) was a successful American merchant and an important patron of the arts. His support for the painters George Whiting Flagg and Thomas Cole were particularly significant contributions to the development of American painting ...

. In 1837, he accompanied his friend

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the

Adirondacks The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular d ...

Mountains, and soon after he began to concentrate on

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 ...

painting. He spent summers sketching in the

Catskills The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...

, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the

. Durand is remembered particularly for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let he artistscrupulously accept whatever aturepresents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth." Brown Gray Durand 1850

Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general opinions on art in his essay "Letters on Landscape Painting" in ''The Crayon'', a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, " e true province of

Landscape Art Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent comp ...

is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..." Brooklyn Museum - The First Harvest in the Wilderness - Asher B

Durand is noted for his 1849 painting '' Kindred Spirits'' which shows fellow Hudson River School artist

and poet

William Cullen Bryant William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the ''New York Evening Post''. Born in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry ...

in a

Mountains

. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon Cole's death in 1848 and a gift to Bryant. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

in 1904, was sold by the library using

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

at an auction in May 2005 to

Alice Walton Alice Louise Walton (born October 7, 1949) is an American heiress to the fortune of Walmart. In September 2016, she owned over in Walmart shares. As of October 2022, Walton has a net worth of $59 billion, making her the 19th-richest person, and ...

for a purported $35 million (the sale was performed as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known). At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time. Another of Durand's paintings is ''Progress'' (1853), commissioned by a railroad executive. The landscape depicts America's progress, from a state of nature (on the left, where Native Americans look on), towards the right, where there are roads, telegraph wires, a canal, warehouses, railroads, and steamboats. In December 2018, it was purchased by an anonymous donor for an estimated $40 million and given to 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 ...

. In 2007, 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, Cro ...

exhibited nearly sixty of Durand's works in the first monographic exhibition devoted to the painter in more than thirty-five years. The show, entitled "Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape," was exhibited from March 30 to July 29, 2007. Durand is interred in Brooklyn, New York, in

Green-Wood Cemetery Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope/ Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, and lies several blo ...

Gallery

File:Declaration.JPG, 1823
''Declaration of Independence'' (engraving) File:Luman Reed.jpg, 1835
''Portrait of Luman Reed'' File:Asher Brown Durand - Ariadne - Google Art Project.jpg, 1835 Ariadne File:View near Rutland, VT.jpg, 1837
''View near Rutland, Vermont'' File:HRSOA AsherDurand-GatheringStorm.jpg, 1837
''Gathering Storm'' File:Asher Brown Durand's The Capture of Major Andre.jpg, 1845
''The Capture of Major Andre'' File:The Beeches MET DT75.jpg, 1845
'' The Beeches'' File:The Hunter by Asher Brown Durand.jpg, 1846 ''The Hunter'' File:The Indian's Vespers by Asher Brown Durand, 1847.jpg, 1847
''The Indian's Vespers'' File:Nature Study Trees Newburgh New York Asher B Durand.jpeg, 1849
''Nature Study, Trees, Newburgh, New York'' File:1850, Durand, Asher Brown, Kaaterskill Landscape.jpg, 1850
''Kaaterskill Landscape'',

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works ...

File:Asher Brown Durand - Landscape, Scene from %22Thanatopsis%22.jpg, 1850
''Landscape—Scene from "Thanatopsis"'',

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

File:Progress by Asher Brown Durand.jpg, 1853
''Progress'',

File:Asher Brown Durand - The Catskills - Walters 37122.jpg, 1859
''

The Catskills The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas cl ...

'', The Walters Art Museum File:1859, Durand, Asher Brown, Landscape.jpg, 1859
''Landscape'',

File:Rocky Cliff Asher Durand.jpeg, 1860
''Rocky Cliff'', c. 1860,

Reynolda House Museum of American Art The Reynolda House Museum of American Art displays a premiere collection of American art ranging from the colonial period to the present. Built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds To ...

External video

References

External links

Smithsonian Institution, Asher B. Durand Biography

at the New York Historical Society

* ttp://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/durand_asher_b.html Artcyclopedia: Paintings in Museums and Public Art Galleriesbr>Art Archive - Asher Brown Durand
*[http://blurblawg.typepad.com/files/property_progress_antebellum_landscape_art.pdf Alfred L. Brophy, "Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law," ''McGeorge Law Review'' 40 (2009): 601-59.]
Reynolda House Museum of American Art''Art and the empire city: New York, 1825-1861''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains extensive material on Durand (see index)
''American paradise: the world of the Hudson River school''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Durand (see index)
Green-Wood Cemetery Burial Search
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Durand, Asher Brown 1796 births 1886 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery Hudson River School painters American romantic painters American landscape painters People from Maplewood, New Jersey People from South Orange, New Jersey Davy Crockett Articles containing video clips