JAMES CARROLL BECKWITH PAINTINGS FOR SALE & BIOGRAPHY

JAMES CARROLL BECKWITH

American, 1852–1917

BIOGRAPHY
'James Carroll Beckwith was a student of Walter Shirlaw at the Chicago Academy of Design. In 1871, he studied at the New York National Academy of Design for two years. From 1873 to 1878, in Paris, Carolus-Duran was his main teacher and he was his assistant ('student in charge', or treasurer) until May 1874. He shared a studio with John Singer Sargent for three years. In 1891, he spent some time in Giverny, among the colony of American artists. On returning to New York, he was an instructor at the Art Students League for 18 years. He returned to Europe several times in summer. He was a member of the Society of American Artists and the American Society of Painters in Watercolors. In 1894 he became a member of the National Academy of New York, and belonged to numerous other associations.

During his study period in Paris, he and John Singer Sargent collaborated with Carolus-Duran in the painting of the ceiling of the Palais du Luxembourg. Like his French master, Beckwith was essentially a portraitist. One of his best-known portraits was that of Mark Twain, which he painted in 1890. His portraits of notable personalities of the era now hang in prominent institutions, such as Yale University, John Hopkins University, West Point Military Academy, and several private collections. At the same time, when in Europe, he enjoyed outdoor landscape painting, for which he succeeded in adopting the touch, the clarity and the lively coloration of the Impressionists. He also carried out many commissions, including the decoration for the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, in 1893.

Apart from New York societies, he also participated in exhibitions and Salons, for example in 1892 at the Royal Academy in London, and from 1887 to 1913 at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris. He received numerous awards: 1887, Paris, merit award; 1889, Paris, Bronze Medal at the Exposition Universelle; 1895, Atlanta, medal; 1900, Paris, Bronze Medal at the Exposition Universelle; and 1902, Charleston, medal.' (Benezit, Dictionary of Artists, Gründ, 2006).

Mark Murray Fine Paintings is a New York gallery specializing in buying and selling 19th century and early 20th century artwork.