Thomas Worthington Whittredge

Art Brokerage: Thomas Worthington Whittredge American Artist: b.1820-1910 Born on a farm near Springfield, Ohio, Thomas Worthington Whittredge started out as a house and sign painter in Cincinnati, then worked briefly as a photographer and portraitist in Indiana and West Virginia before turning to landscape painting in 1843. Backed by wealthy Cincinnatians, he went to Europe in 1849, where he studied at the Royal Academy in Dusseldorf. From 1854 to 1859 he worked in Rome and afterward settled in New York City to produce views of New York and New England.Whittredge's European landscapes were not well received, however, and it was not until he started painting typical Hudson River School scenes depicting landscapes of savage beauty and wondrous promise that he began to have success. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, civilization had encroached considerably upon the eastern landscape and Whittredge finally had to journey westward with John Frederick Kensett and Sanford Robinson Gifford to Fort Kearny in Nebraska and then the Rockies to find his source of inspiration. In 1865-66, with Gifford and Kensett, Whittredge accompanied Major General John Pope from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, up the south branch of the Platte River through Denver, then south along the eastern Rockies into New Mexico.