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for Jerome Thompson
1814 - 1886
The son of the portraitist Cephas Thompson (1775-1856), Jerome Thompson became interested in painting during his boyhood. Despite his father's lack of encouragement, he developed his artistic skills in the attic of his family's home. By 1831 he had moved to Barnstable, MA, where he advertised his services as a decorative painter and portraitist. In 1835 he moved to New York City where he continued to work as a portraitist until 1842, when he began to ply his trade throughout the southern United States. Returning to New York in 1844 he turned his attention to genre painting, contributing to exhibitions at both the National Academy and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His interest in rustic subjects (ABG see your note of !!! with an arrow) was reinforced in 1852 during a trip to England where he was exposed to the work of such artists as Claude Lorrain, J.M.W. Turner and William Hogarth.
Thompson returned to New York City in 1854 and with the exception of several visits to New England and the Midwest, remained there for the next thirty years. While his work of the 1850s was dominated by picnic and harvest scenes, he later came to focus his attention on images of domestic life and the portrayal of children. During the 1860s he became widely known for his "pencil ballads," narrative genre scenes based on contemporary songs and verses. These were translated into engravings and chromolithographs by such firms as that of Louis Prange. Financially successful through the sales of his pictures and engravings Thompson left New York in 1884, settling in Glen Gardner, New Jersey, on an estate which was referred to as "Mount Jerome."
Jerome Thompson was elected an Associate of the National Academy in May of 1851. Although nominated several times over the next thirty-three years, he never achieved the rank of Academician, a possible explanation for his absence from the annual exhibitions between 1865 and 1883. (ABG: your note: no - the reverse) His obituary, as recorded in the Minutes, described him as
well-known and esteemed by his contemporaries as a painter of ideal and rural landscape subjects...He was in all ways a most excellent and worthy man, deservedly honored in his life and sincerely regretted in his death.
Thompson returned to New York City in 1854 and with the exception of several visits to New England and the Midwest, remained there for the next thirty years. While his work of the 1850s was dominated by picnic and harvest scenes, he later came to focus his attention on images of domestic life and the portrayal of children. During the 1860s he became widely known for his "pencil ballads," narrative genre scenes based on contemporary songs and verses. These were translated into engravings and chromolithographs by such firms as that of Louis Prange. Financially successful through the sales of his pictures and engravings Thompson left New York in 1884, settling in Glen Gardner, New Jersey, on an estate which was referred to as "Mount Jerome."
Jerome Thompson was elected an Associate of the National Academy in May of 1851. Although nominated several times over the next thirty-three years, he never achieved the rank of Academician, a possible explanation for his absence from the annual exhibitions between 1865 and 1883. (ABG: your note: no - the reverse) His obituary, as recorded in the Minutes, described him as
well-known and esteemed by his contemporaries as a painter of ideal and rural landscape subjects...He was in all ways a most excellent and worthy man, deservedly honored in his life and sincerely regretted in his death.
