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for Henry Augustus Ferguson
American, 1842 - 1911
Henry Ferguson's date of birth is various reported to have been 1842 or 1845. It is also said in early biographical sketches that he attended an academy in Glens Falls and/or Trinity College (location unidentified) before going to Albany to study art with Homer Dodge Martin and George Boughton. Had Ferguson been born in 1845, he could have been no older than fifteen at the time he would have had the opportunity to study with Martin and Boughton, as both painters left Albany around 1861.
George Smillie remembered first meeting Ferguson "in New York in the early years of the Civil War," in the studio of James M. Hart, another of the group of artists who came from Albany. Doubtless, Ferguson had come to the city to further his training and ambitions as a landscape painter. However, it seems likely he soon returned to the area of Glens Falls and Albany, as his work of the first half of the 1860s, paintings of New York and New England scenery, are only recorded as being shown in exhibitions held in Albany, Troy, and Utica, New York.
Ferguson made his debut in an Academy annual exhibition in 1867 with View from Green Mountain--Mt. Desert, and Near Lake Sanford--Adirondack, the latter being lent by its owner, indicating Freguson had already attained some success. He did not show in an annual exhibition again until 1870, when he was represented by a scene of Keene Valley in the Adirondacks.
Some time in that year or early in 1871, Ferguson made the move which would distinguish his career from the generality of third-generation Hudson River School landscapist by following the example of Frederic Church in seeking his subject matter in South America. From the base of Santiago, Chile, he passed three years traveling and painting around western South America, favoring Peru. It was reported that his paintings found buyers in South America. He apparently returned to New York just at the end of 1873; there he set up a studio at 8 Astor Place, where he displayed his finished paintings of the spectacular South American scenery, and began to produce more works from the trove of sketches he had amassed during his travels. He developed paintings in watercolor as well as oil, as several of his South American scenes were included in the 1874 annual exhibition of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors.
If the New York press is to be believed, Ferguson's South American views were well received, and found buyers, however, he apparently did not stay in the city--or the country--for long. Nothing is heard of Ferguson from early 1874 until his work reappears in the Academy annual exhibition of 1879. On that occasion he showed three paintings: Door of a Mosque, Cairo; Bab el Suweylah; and Dogana and Mare, Venice, giving a clear idea of where he had passed the previous five years.
Ferguson was represent in every Academy annual from 1879 through the year of his death, excepting only 1883 and 1892. At first his contributions were almost entirely drawn from his studies made in South America, Egypt, and Venice. In 1884 Mexico was added to his repertoire of subjects (suggesting where he may have been in 1883); he showed a Roman scene in 1888, and a view of Switzerland's Jungfrau in 1889. By the mid-1890s, however, Ferguson's shows only domestic landscapes of favorite artists' locales in New Jersy, New York State, and New England, such as Franconia Notch, New Hampshire and Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. In the twentieth century scenes from Sheffield and Ashfield, Massachusetts are prominent in the titles of his paintings. His exotic Egyptian subjects occasionally reappear, but these may have been earlier works brought out again late in his career. In these later years Ferguson also gained a reputation for being a fine art restorer.
This portrait of Ferguson was used as a frontispiece in the 1917 Anderson Gallery sale of Ferguson's paintings, captioned as the work of Oliver Lay, however the 1911 catalogue of the Academy collection lists the portrait as the work of Lazarus.
George Smillie remembered first meeting Ferguson "in New York in the early years of the Civil War," in the studio of James M. Hart, another of the group of artists who came from Albany. Doubtless, Ferguson had come to the city to further his training and ambitions as a landscape painter. However, it seems likely he soon returned to the area of Glens Falls and Albany, as his work of the first half of the 1860s, paintings of New York and New England scenery, are only recorded as being shown in exhibitions held in Albany, Troy, and Utica, New York.
Ferguson made his debut in an Academy annual exhibition in 1867 with View from Green Mountain--Mt. Desert, and Near Lake Sanford--Adirondack, the latter being lent by its owner, indicating Freguson had already attained some success. He did not show in an annual exhibition again until 1870, when he was represented by a scene of Keene Valley in the Adirondacks.
Some time in that year or early in 1871, Ferguson made the move which would distinguish his career from the generality of third-generation Hudson River School landscapist by following the example of Frederic Church in seeking his subject matter in South America. From the base of Santiago, Chile, he passed three years traveling and painting around western South America, favoring Peru. It was reported that his paintings found buyers in South America. He apparently returned to New York just at the end of 1873; there he set up a studio at 8 Astor Place, where he displayed his finished paintings of the spectacular South American scenery, and began to produce more works from the trove of sketches he had amassed during his travels. He developed paintings in watercolor as well as oil, as several of his South American scenes were included in the 1874 annual exhibition of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors.
If the New York press is to be believed, Ferguson's South American views were well received, and found buyers, however, he apparently did not stay in the city--or the country--for long. Nothing is heard of Ferguson from early 1874 until his work reappears in the Academy annual exhibition of 1879. On that occasion he showed three paintings: Door of a Mosque, Cairo; Bab el Suweylah; and Dogana and Mare, Venice, giving a clear idea of where he had passed the previous five years.
Ferguson was represent in every Academy annual from 1879 through the year of his death, excepting only 1883 and 1892. At first his contributions were almost entirely drawn from his studies made in South America, Egypt, and Venice. In 1884 Mexico was added to his repertoire of subjects (suggesting where he may have been in 1883); he showed a Roman scene in 1888, and a view of Switzerland's Jungfrau in 1889. By the mid-1890s, however, Ferguson's shows only domestic landscapes of favorite artists' locales in New Jersy, New York State, and New England, such as Franconia Notch, New Hampshire and Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. In the twentieth century scenes from Sheffield and Ashfield, Massachusetts are prominent in the titles of his paintings. His exotic Egyptian subjects occasionally reappear, but these may have been earlier works brought out again late in his career. In these later years Ferguson also gained a reputation for being a fine art restorer.
This portrait of Ferguson was used as a frontispiece in the 1917 Anderson Gallery sale of Ferguson's paintings, captioned as the work of Oliver Lay, however the 1911 catalogue of the Academy collection lists the portrait as the work of Lazarus.
