Abbott Thayer

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Abbott H. Thayer (around 1890)
Winged Figure (1889)

Abbott Handerson Thayer (born August 12, 1849 in Boston , Massachusetts , † May 29, 1921 in Monadnock , New Hampshire ) was an American painter.

Life

After attending school, Thayer came to New York to study art first at the Brooklyn Art School and later at the National Academy of Design . His teachers there were the painters HD Morse and Lemuel Wilmarth . At the age of 25, Thayer went to Paris in 1875 and continued his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts . He remained there for three years, the pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme and Henri Lehmann .

In 1879 Thayer returned to the USA and settled as a freelance painter in New York. His early artistic work consisted mainly of landscape and animal pictures and was oriented towards the Barbizon school . The writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson also had a great influence on Thayer. In New York, he turned into a sought-after portraitist over time . One of his earliest portraits was The Sisters , a celebrated double portrait of Clara and Bessie Stillman.

The National Academy of Design in New York elected him an associate member in 1889 , and in 1901 he became a full member . Like his compatriot Douglas Volk , who was also a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Thayer became a corresponding member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome .

1901, Thayer was with his family in Dublin ( New Hampshire down). There, in rural seclusion, he lived with his wife, the flower painter Emma and his children Gerald , who later became a writer, Gladys , who later became a miniature painter, and Mary, who often served him as a model. During this time, Thayer conducted lengthy correspondence with Charles Lang Freer , Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain, among others . In the same year Abbott Thayer was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design in New York .

Together with his son Gerald, Thayer published "Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom: An Exposition of the Laws of Disguise Through Color and Pattern" in 1909 , in which he proposed theories about camouflage in the animal world , for which he was taught by the former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt has been severely criticized in public. He later developed ideas for the use of the knowledge derived from this in a military context, which were applied from the First World War .

His compatriot Ben Foster is one of his few students.

Abbott Thayer died on May 29, 1921 in Monadnock at the age of 70. Thayer was one of the most important American painters of his time.

Works

  • Angel of the dawn (1919)
  • The sisters (1884)
  • Virgin enthroned (1891)
  • Stephenson Memorial (1903)
  • Peacock in the woods (1907)
  • Monadnock Angel
  • Caritas (1895)
  • Alina Wollerman (1903)

  • Landscape in the Forest of Fontainebleau (1876)

  • Angel (1889, model sat Thayer's daughter Mary)

  • A Virgin (1892-1893, shows his three children)

  • Monadnock in Winter (1904)

Web links

Commons : Abbott Handerson Thayer  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "T" / Thayer, Abbott Handerson NA 1901 ( Memento April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed July 17, 2015)
  2. ↑ Martin Stevens: Lost and Found: Abbott Thayer and the Study of Camouflage,  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / abbottthayer.com   on the Abbott Thayer Estate website from August 3, 2014, accessed September 27, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Thayer, Abbott
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thayer, Abbott Handerson (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1921
Place of death Monadnock , New Hampshire