1836 - 1923
Vedder was educated in New York and spent part of his youth in Cuba where his father, a dentist, had moved. In about 1854 he began to study art under the painter Tompkins Matteson and within two years had decided upon an artistic career. To that end he went to Paris in 1856 to study with Francois Edouard Pico. After three years there, he went on to Florence where he lived and studied under Raffaello Bonaiuti and came under the influence of the Italian Impressionists known as the Macchiaioli. He was back in the United States in 1860 and, unable to enter the military due to an arm injury, spent the Civil War years supporting himself by doing magazine illustrations. Meanwhile, he attended the antique classes at the Academy school during the 1862-63 academic year and exhibited six works in the Academy's 1862 annual exhibition. He continued to show at the Academy spoardically into the 1880s.
The call of Italy was too great, however, and in 1869 Vedder sailed for Europe, eventually settling in Rome where he lived for the rest of his life. For the next few decades, much of his time was taken up with the creation of proto-symbolitist and visionary paintings, a number of which were shown at the Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston in 1879 bringing Vedder critical and popular attention. He continued to illustrate texts and the work he did for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published in 1884, furthered his renown. Always experimenting, he executed a number of murals for Bowdoin College and the Library of Congress in the 1890s, designed stained glass for Tiffany and Company, and created a number of relief sculptures. His autobiography, which remains one of the best of its kind by an American artist, was serialized in part in the periodical The World's Work in 1910 and was published as The Digressions of V that same year.
The call of Italy was too great, however, and in 1869 Vedder sailed for Europe, eventually settling in Rome where he lived for the rest of his life. For the next few decades, much of his time was taken up with the creation of proto-symbolitist and visionary paintings, a number of which were shown at the Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston in 1879 bringing Vedder critical and popular attention. He continued to illustrate texts and the work he did for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published in 1884, furthered his renown. Always experimenting, he executed a number of murals for Bowdoin College and the Library of Congress in the 1890s, designed stained glass for Tiffany and Company, and created a number of relief sculptures. His autobiography, which remains one of the best of its kind by an American artist, was serialized in part in the periodical The World's Work in 1910 and was published as The Digressions of V that same year.
