Asher Brown Durand

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Asher Brown Durand

Asher Brown Durand, circa 1869, by Abraham Bogardus

Born

August 21, 1796

Maplewood, New Jersey

Died

September 17, 1886 (aged 90)

Maplewood, New Jersey

Nationality

American

Known for

Painting, Landscape art

Movement

Hudson River School

Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796 September 17, 1886) was
an American painter of the Hudson River School.
Contents
[hide]

1Early life

2Painting career

3Gallery

4External video

5See also

6References

7Further reading

8External links

Early life[edit]
Durand was born in and eventually died in Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson
Village), the eighth of eleven children; his 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, who asked him to manage the company's
New York office. He engraved Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull during
1823, which established Durand's reputation as one of the country's finest engravers.
Durand helped organize the New York Drawing Association during 1825, which would
become the National Academy of Design; he would serve the organization as president
from 1845 to 1861.

Painting career[edit]
His main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the
encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. During 1837, he accompanied his
friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in
the Adirondacks Mountains and soon after he began to concentrate
on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and
the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches
that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define
the Hudson River School.

Asher Durand, Kindred Spirits.

L-R: Henry Kirke Brown, Henry Peters Gray and Durand, 1850.

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 [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents 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."
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, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of
the work of God in the visible creation..."
Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River
School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in
a Catskills Mountains landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon Cole's death

during 1848, and as a gift to Bryant. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to
the New York Public Library during 1904, was sold by the library by means
of Sotheby's at an auction during May 2005 to Alice Walton 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 painting is his 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.
During 2007, the Brooklyn Museum 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.

Gallery[edit]

1823
Declaration of Independence (engraving)

1835
Portrait of Luman Reed

1837
View near Rutland, Vermont

1837
Gathering Storm

1845
The Capture of Major Andre

1847
The Indian's Vespers

1849
Nature Study, Trees, Newburgh, New York

1850,
Kaaterskill Landscape, Princeton University Art Museum

1853
Progress

1859
The Catskills, The Walters Art Museum

1859
Landscape, Princeton University Art Museum

1860
Rocky Clif, c. 1860, Reynolda House Museum of American Art

External video[edit]

asher brown durand

See also[edit]
Hudson Valley portal

List of Hudson River School artists

References[edit]
Further reading[edit]
Books

Howat, John K. (1987). American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River
School. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-87099-496-8.

Bedell, Rebecca (2001). The Anatomy of Nature: Geology & American

Landscape Painting, 1825-1875. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691-10291-0.

Durand, John (2006). The Life and Times of Asher B. Durand. Hensonville, NY:
Black Dome Press Corp. ISBN 978-1-883789-50-3.

Ferber, Linda (2007). Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American
Landscape. New York, NY: D. Giles Ltd. ISBN 978-1-904832-26-3.

Newspapers

Rosenbaum, Lee (2005-11-01). "At the New York Public Library, It's Sell First,
Raise Money Later". The Wall Street Journal. New York, NY: Les Hinton.
Retrieved 2011-02-27.

"An Old-Time Artist Dead: What American Art Owes to Asher Brown
Durand" (PDF). The New York Times. New York, NY. 1886-09-20. Retrieved 2011-0227.

Ray, Douglas (2011-02-27). "Fate of Warner's art collection in question with sale
of 'Progress'". The Tuscaloosa News. Tuscaloosa, AL. Retrieved 2011-02-27.

Cobb, Mark Hughes (2011-02-27). "Warner's highly respected collection loses

'Progress'". The Tuscaloosa News. Tuscaloosa, AL. Retrieved 2011-02-27.

Sjostrom, Jan (2011-02-18). "Society of the Four Arts exhibiting Hudson River
School paintings". Palm Beach Daily News. Palm Beach, FL. Retrieved 2011-02-27.

Di Piero, W. S. (2008-02-27). "Oversoul". San Diego Reader. San Diego, CA.

Retrieved 2011-02-27.

Online Publications

Avery, Kevin J. Asher Brown Durand (17961886). In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art

History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. (October 2009)