1847 - 1917
Although he attended public school, Albert Pinkham Ryder's impaired vision prevented his completion of his education. He studied painting briefly with a local amateur artist before his family moved to New York in 1870.
Ryder was at first refused admission to the school of the National Academy of Design, gaining admittance after some instruction from the portraitist William E. Marshall. He registered for the Antique school on January 30, 1871, remaining for four years. His principal instructor was Lemuel E. Wilmarth, although Raymond Dalb, William Page, James Renwick Brevoort, Waterhouse Hawkins and Thomas Le Clear also lectured during this period. Ryder was also enrolled in the Life School during the 1871-1872 term.
In 1877 Ryder travelled to London for about a month with his friend and dealer Daniel Cottier. That same year he was a founding member of the Society of American Artists, where he exhibited Barbizon-influenced landscapes. Ryder rarely dated his work, although by the mid-1880s his major subjects were seascapes and scenes drawn from literary sources, especially the Bible and classical mythology, and the opera. These romantic, visionary and often abstract compositions were created by unorthodox techniques, including repeated overpainting, glazings and experimentation with often unsound mediums like wax, candlegrease and alcohol. These often unsound methods subsequently caused the darkening and destruction of Ryder's surfaces and color.
Ryder again went to England with Cottier in 1882, the two joined Olin Levy Warner (for bio, see page xx) in Paris, then touring Holland, Italy, Spain and Tangier. Ryder made two later ocean voyages, in 1887 and 1896, spending a few weeks in London.
Although his reputation grew in 1880s, Ryder's output declined. There are as few as one hundred and sixty works in his total oeuvre. He became increasingly reclusive and eccentric in the 1890s. After being hospitalized for a serious illness in 1915, the artist lived with his friends Charles and Louise Fitzpatrict in Elmhurst, Long Island.
The reverance with which Ryder was regarded by contemporaries and the younger generation of painters is evident in the Academy's obituary. Calling Ryder "a Philosopher as well as a lover of his Art," it notes: "he was so gentle, shy and sweet a nature, so lovable and yet withall having that inner secret strength which comes with genius, that he makes a great impression and in his going leaves a vacancy in the group that knew him and really in the world. He had that character of impressiveness which comes from ability of any sort, and a color that belongs to the unique: (NAD minutes, May 21, 1917).
Ryder was at first refused admission to the school of the National Academy of Design, gaining admittance after some instruction from the portraitist William E. Marshall. He registered for the Antique school on January 30, 1871, remaining for four years. His principal instructor was Lemuel E. Wilmarth, although Raymond Dalb, William Page, James Renwick Brevoort, Waterhouse Hawkins and Thomas Le Clear also lectured during this period. Ryder was also enrolled in the Life School during the 1871-1872 term.
In 1877 Ryder travelled to London for about a month with his friend and dealer Daniel Cottier. That same year he was a founding member of the Society of American Artists, where he exhibited Barbizon-influenced landscapes. Ryder rarely dated his work, although by the mid-1880s his major subjects were seascapes and scenes drawn from literary sources, especially the Bible and classical mythology, and the opera. These romantic, visionary and often abstract compositions were created by unorthodox techniques, including repeated overpainting, glazings and experimentation with often unsound mediums like wax, candlegrease and alcohol. These often unsound methods subsequently caused the darkening and destruction of Ryder's surfaces and color.
Ryder again went to England with Cottier in 1882, the two joined Olin Levy Warner (for bio, see page xx) in Paris, then touring Holland, Italy, Spain and Tangier. Ryder made two later ocean voyages, in 1887 and 1896, spending a few weeks in London.
Although his reputation grew in 1880s, Ryder's output declined. There are as few as one hundred and sixty works in his total oeuvre. He became increasingly reclusive and eccentric in the 1890s. After being hospitalized for a serious illness in 1915, the artist lived with his friends Charles and Louise Fitzpatrict in Elmhurst, Long Island.
The reverance with which Ryder was regarded by contemporaries and the younger generation of painters is evident in the Academy's obituary. Calling Ryder "a Philosopher as well as a lover of his Art," it notes: "he was so gentle, shy and sweet a nature, so lovable and yet withall having that inner secret strength which comes with genius, that he makes a great impression and in his going leaves a vacancy in the group that knew him and really in the world. He had that character of impressiveness which comes from ability of any sort, and a color that belongs to the unique: (NAD minutes, May 21, 1917).
