Thomas Birch (painter)

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The Studious Artist: Portrait of Thomas Birch by John Neagle , 1836, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Thomas Birch (* 1779 in London , England , † January 3, 1851 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was a portrait and marine painter .

life and work

He came to the United States in 1794 and assisted his father, the painter William Birch , in the creation of a collection of 29 engravings : "Birch's Views of Philadelphia" (1799). Subscribers to the series included US President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson . The series sold well and was issued several times. Inspired by this, similar series emerged from New York City , the suburbs of Philadelphia and Baltimore .

His first major painting was likely a View of Philadelphia from the Treaty Elm in Kensington, also published as an engraving in 1804. He painted portraits until about 1807 and then began painting in the navy. Some of his most famous works depict battles from the war of 1812 .

United States Capitol, Completed Northern Wing (circa 1801), engraving, Library of Congress

"Birch was the first American ship portraitist, and his paintings were copied by countless artists and craftsmen in America and Europe." "Birch was the first American ship portraitist and his work has been copied by countless Americans and Europeans." In addition to ships, his pictures show bridges, lighthouses, docks and port fortifications from the early republic, especially from the area around New York and Philadelphia. His paintings of suburban and rural scenes often served as models for engravings.

From a historical point of view, his most important work was probably his copperplate engraving (circa 1801) of the unfinished Washington Capitol . Also significant is his painting of the 1812er battle between the USS United States and HMS Macedonian , which in the Office Oval of John F. Kennedy hung. It was auctioned in 2008 for a personal record price of US $ 481,000.

Since 1811 Birch exhibited regularly for 40 years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and directed the museum from 1812 to 1817. The PAFA collects his works, as does the Library Company of Philadelphia , the Philadelphia Museum of Art , the Smithsonian American Art Museum , the US Naval Academy, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston .

In 1833, Thomas Birch was elected an Honorary NA of the National Academy of Design in New York .

gallery

literature

  • Marian Carson: "Thomas Birch", Catalog of the 150th Anniversary Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts , (PAFA, 1955), p. 34.
  • Doris Jear Creer: Thomas Birch: A Study of the Condition of Painting and the Artist's Position in Federal America , MA thesis, University of Delaware, 1958.
  • William H. Gerdts: Thomas Birch (1779–1851), Paintings and Drawings , exhibition catalog, Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 1966.
  • Stefanie A. Munsing: "Thomas Birch (1779-1851)", Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art , (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976), pp. 229-30.
  • Michael W. Schantz: Celebrating Philadelphia's Artistic Legacy , (Woodmere Art Museum, 2000), pp. 23-24.
  • Martin P. Snyder, "William Birch: His Philadelphia Views," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography , vol. 73: 271-315 (1949).
  • S. Robert Teitelman: Birch's Views of Philadelphia, with Photographs of the Sites in 1960 & 1982 , (Free Library of Philadelphia, 1982, reprinted University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).

Web links

Commons : Thomas Birch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birch's Views from ushistory.org.
  2. ^ William Birch, The City of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania as It Appeared in the Year 1800 , (1799), endpiece.
  3. ^ Munsing, Philadelphia: Three Centuries , p. 229.
  4. ↑ Universal Cyclopædia & Atlas , 1902, New York, D. Appleton & Co.
  5. ^ Munsing, Philadelphia: Three Centuries , p. 230.
  6. ↑ USS United States vs. HMS Macedonian (1813) Sotheby's auction, May 22, 2008.
  7. ↑ Gerdts, Philadelphia Maritime Museum, pp. 12-13.
  8. ↑ PAFA ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on January 29, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pafa.org
  9. ↑ LCP ; accessed on January 6, 2010
  10. ↑ PMA ; accessed on January 6, 2010
  11. ↑ si.edu ; accessed on January 29, 2007
  12. ↑ USNA ; accessed on January 6, 2010
  13. ↑ mfa.org ( Memento of the original dated February 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on January 29, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mfa.org
  14. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "B" / Birch, Thomas Honorary 1833 ( Memento of the original from August 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 16, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
personal data
SURNAME Birch, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English-American portrait and marine painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1779
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1851
Place of death Philadelphia