No Image Available
for Charles Stanley Reinhart
1844 - 1896
Charles S. Reinhart attended school in Pittsburgh and at the Sewickley (Pa.) Academy. He became a telegraph operator in the Union Army in 1861. Following his war service he returned to Pittsburgh to work as a clerk in a steel factory and briefly took part in dam construction on the Ohio River. Although he came from an artistic family-he was a nephew of the painter Benjamin Franklin Reinhart-it was not until about 1867 that he began pursuing that profession, when he left for Europe to study. He spent an initial year at the Académie Suisse in Paris and two more at the Royal Academy in Munich.
Returning to New York in 1870, Reinhart secured a job as an illustrator at Harper's magazine, where he made a name for himself as a pioneer of "modern" illustration. While there, he met Edwin Austin Abbey, the other great illustrator of the period, whose work was often characterized as less straightforward and more fanciful than that of Reinhart. During the 1872-73 season, he worked in the Academy's antique class, and in 1874 he showed his first work in an Academy annual exhibition. Reinhart continued exhibiting regularly in Academy annuals for the next twenty years. Although he became known as a genre painter in New York and Paris, his fame always rested on his work in illustration.
After several years of working independently as an illustrator, Reinhart negotiated a new contract with Harper's and, in 1880, left for Paris. He traveled a great deal, usually spending summers in Normandy. A decade later he returned to New York and took a studio in the Chelsea Hotel. He was at work on a series of Civil War drawings when, as was recorded in Academy minutes of May 12, 1897, he "died suddenly of Bright's Disease at the Player's Club." "Mr. Reinhart," the Academy's memorial went on to recall, "was a great social favorite through his keen sense of humor and his remarkable powers of mimicry."
The portrait was almost surely executed in Paris, where both Dannat and Reinhart had studios on the avenue de Villiers. The reverse of the panel on which it is painted bears the stamp of Dubus, a Parisian supplier of artists' materials. Although the last figure of the date, which is scratched into the panel, is ambiguous, both optional readings are within the period of Reinhart's second stay in Paris.
Returning to New York in 1870, Reinhart secured a job as an illustrator at Harper's magazine, where he made a name for himself as a pioneer of "modern" illustration. While there, he met Edwin Austin Abbey, the other great illustrator of the period, whose work was often characterized as less straightforward and more fanciful than that of Reinhart. During the 1872-73 season, he worked in the Academy's antique class, and in 1874 he showed his first work in an Academy annual exhibition. Reinhart continued exhibiting regularly in Academy annuals for the next twenty years. Although he became known as a genre painter in New York and Paris, his fame always rested on his work in illustration.
After several years of working independently as an illustrator, Reinhart negotiated a new contract with Harper's and, in 1880, left for Paris. He traveled a great deal, usually spending summers in Normandy. A decade later he returned to New York and took a studio in the Chelsea Hotel. He was at work on a series of Civil War drawings when, as was recorded in Academy minutes of May 12, 1897, he "died suddenly of Bright's Disease at the Player's Club." "Mr. Reinhart," the Academy's memorial went on to recall, "was a great social favorite through his keen sense of humor and his remarkable powers of mimicry."
The portrait was almost surely executed in Paris, where both Dannat and Reinhart had studios on the avenue de Villiers. The reverse of the panel on which it is painted bears the stamp of Dubus, a Parisian supplier of artists' materials. Although the last figure of the date, which is scratched into the panel, is ambiguous, both optional readings are within the period of Reinhart's second stay in Paris.
