1823-1894
William Hart's family emigrated from Scotland in 1831, settling in Albany, New York. What is known of Hart's formative years is largely owed to Tuckerman. At the age of ten Hart went to work in a woolen factory, but at fourteen was introduced to art and design in the Eaton and Gilbert Carriage Company of Troy, N.Y., where he was apprenticed as a decorator of carriage panels. Within a few years his interest in art expanded to more imaginative decorative work, and to sketching directly from nature. In 1840, serious illness forced Hart, age seventeen, to leave the coachmaker's shop. His decision to become an artist is attributed to his reading Dunlap's History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, published in 1834, while he was recuperating. He became an itinerant portrait painter, traveling as far as Michigan in search of commissions. In 1845 he returned to Albany and devoted himself to landscape painting.
The opportunity for serious study was offered him four years later by a patron, a Dr. J. H. Armsby, who provided funds to support three years of studying and sketching from nature in Scotland. On his return in 1852 he established his professional studio in Albany, and became part of the group of young, aspiring artists who gathered in the studio of Erastus Dow Palmer and the back room of the Annesley Art Store; these including Launt Thompson, Homer Dodge Martin, Lemuel Wiles, Edward Gay, George Boughton, and William's younger brother James; Martin and Wiles studied with William Hart.
In 1853 Hart left Albany for New York. From its opening in 1857 to 1870 he occupied rooms in the Tenth Street Studio Building; he then removed to the YMCA Building directly opposite to the Academy at Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street, which remained his studio address to the end of his life. Probably from the time of his marriage, he made his residence in Brooklyn.
Hart was an energetic contributor to the wide range of exhibitions organized in smaller communities throughout the East and Middle West, as well as the annual art events in the major cities. His work had first appeared in an Academy annual exhibition in 1848, while he was still living in Albany. He did not show at the Academy again until 1853 shortly following his return from the extended stay in Scotland. Over the remaining forty-two years of his life he went unrepresented in an Academy annual exhibition only in the years 1866, 1872, 1873, and 1890. His representation in the annuals of the 1850s was especially prolific, reaching a high quantity of ten canvases in the exhibition of 1857. In these years picturesque Scottish landscape, with and without literary associations, far exceeded the number of his Hudson valley subjects. Scottish scenery had apparently disappeared from Hart's oeuvre by 1860. Thereafter his choice of landscape theme was consistently American, with titles identifying sites around Ulster and Dutchess counties, New York; Bennington, Vermont; Nahant, Massachusetts; and Grand Manan Island, Maine, suggesting some of his favorite summer habitats.
Hart was notably active in artists associations. Besides being elected to one-year terms on the Academy Council in 1861 and 1870, in 1865 he became the first president of the Brooklyn Academy of Design. A founding member in 1866 of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors (as the organization was first named), Hart served as its president from 1870 to 1872.
The Academy's eulogy read into the official record of next annual meeting after Hart's death, summarized the principle events of his life--with some minor inaccuracies of dating--but focused on his long professional success:
We sadly miss today the well remembered countenance of our good friend and fellow member Mr. William Hart, who rarely failed to be present at these annual Meetings. His positive character, strong individuality, unflinching courage, and quaint speech always to the point, made him one of the most interesting of men. In his Art, Mr. Hart possessed one valuable quality to a remarkable degree, the knowledge of picture making. His work was always full of knowledge to the public, which no doubt was one secret of his success. Then too he was devoted to his work, and found the greatest pleasure in studying for advancement in his art, and this constant earnest study carried him to the front rank in the profession. . . . His fine painting of the "Golden Hour" is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The loss of his Wife must have affected him deeply, for he did not long survive her. Mr. Hart died at his home in Mount Vernon June 17th 1894.
The year after his death, in recognition of William Hart's close affiliation with the NAD, his son donated his father's studio effects to the Academy.
The opportunity for serious study was offered him four years later by a patron, a Dr. J. H. Armsby, who provided funds to support three years of studying and sketching from nature in Scotland. On his return in 1852 he established his professional studio in Albany, and became part of the group of young, aspiring artists who gathered in the studio of Erastus Dow Palmer and the back room of the Annesley Art Store; these including Launt Thompson, Homer Dodge Martin, Lemuel Wiles, Edward Gay, George Boughton, and William's younger brother James; Martin and Wiles studied with William Hart.
In 1853 Hart left Albany for New York. From its opening in 1857 to 1870 he occupied rooms in the Tenth Street Studio Building; he then removed to the YMCA Building directly opposite to the Academy at Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street, which remained his studio address to the end of his life. Probably from the time of his marriage, he made his residence in Brooklyn.
Hart was an energetic contributor to the wide range of exhibitions organized in smaller communities throughout the East and Middle West, as well as the annual art events in the major cities. His work had first appeared in an Academy annual exhibition in 1848, while he was still living in Albany. He did not show at the Academy again until 1853 shortly following his return from the extended stay in Scotland. Over the remaining forty-two years of his life he went unrepresented in an Academy annual exhibition only in the years 1866, 1872, 1873, and 1890. His representation in the annuals of the 1850s was especially prolific, reaching a high quantity of ten canvases in the exhibition of 1857. In these years picturesque Scottish landscape, with and without literary associations, far exceeded the number of his Hudson valley subjects. Scottish scenery had apparently disappeared from Hart's oeuvre by 1860. Thereafter his choice of landscape theme was consistently American, with titles identifying sites around Ulster and Dutchess counties, New York; Bennington, Vermont; Nahant, Massachusetts; and Grand Manan Island, Maine, suggesting some of his favorite summer habitats.
Hart was notably active in artists associations. Besides being elected to one-year terms on the Academy Council in 1861 and 1870, in 1865 he became the first president of the Brooklyn Academy of Design. A founding member in 1866 of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors (as the organization was first named), Hart served as its president from 1870 to 1872.
The Academy's eulogy read into the official record of next annual meeting after Hart's death, summarized the principle events of his life--with some minor inaccuracies of dating--but focused on his long professional success:
We sadly miss today the well remembered countenance of our good friend and fellow member Mr. William Hart, who rarely failed to be present at these annual Meetings. His positive character, strong individuality, unflinching courage, and quaint speech always to the point, made him one of the most interesting of men. In his Art, Mr. Hart possessed one valuable quality to a remarkable degree, the knowledge of picture making. His work was always full of knowledge to the public, which no doubt was one secret of his success. Then too he was devoted to his work, and found the greatest pleasure in studying for advancement in his art, and this constant earnest study carried him to the front rank in the profession. . . . His fine painting of the "Golden Hour" is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The loss of his Wife must have affected him deeply, for he did not long survive her. Mr. Hart died at his home in Mount Vernon June 17th 1894.
The year after his death, in recognition of William Hart's close affiliation with the NAD, his son donated his father's studio effects to the Academy.
