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Charles Bird King
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Born September 26, 1785 -Newport, RI; Died March 18, 1862 -Washington, DC.
American painter. He was encouraged to paint by his grandfather, Nathaniel Bird (d 1796), an amateur painter, and took lessons with Samuel King, a portrait painter. In 1800–05 he was apprenticed in New York to Edward Savage, whose curious studio–museum and period of study abroad with Benjamin West impressed him deeply. King’s first Self-portrait (c. 1805; Oliver, BC, Mrs E. Stanley Dickson priv. col.) and that of his uncle, David King (c. 1805; Newport, RI, Redwood Lib.), show promise, but limited training.
From 1806 to 1812 King studied with Benjamin West at the Royal Academy in London, where he absorbed the latter’s enthusiasm for history painting, something of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s skill in portraiture and developed a lifelong taste for English and Dutch still-life, and the genre paintings of such artists as Sir David Wilkie. Still-life, Game (1806; Armonk, NY, IBM Corp.) reveals his early interest in trompe l’oeil.
After his return from England in 1812, King worked for seven years as an itinerant portrait painter in the major cities from Newport to Richmond, VA. The Poor Artist’s Cupboard (c. 1815; Washington, DC, Corcoran Gal. A.) is one of his most technically brilliant and sardonic works and is based on the 17th-century Dutch Vanitas. He was the first American to turn the message of the vanitas into a metaphor of cultural poverty, lamenting the artist’s lowly social status. In 1819 King moved to Washington, DC, where he built a large studio–gallery, which became a centre for artists, students and tourists. He painted portraits of scores of national figures and many still-lifes, genre and ‘fancy pieces’, as well as landscapes. Best known are his portraits of American Indian delegates to the capital, painted for Thomas L. McKenney’s ‘Indian Gallery’, which were almost entirely destroyed by fire at the Smithsonian Institution in 1865. His works are highly detailed and compressed towards the picture plane to create an imposing presence. His considerable skill in composition and the use of colour can be seen in the portrait of Mrs John Quincy Adams (c. 1823; Washington, DC, N. Mus. Amer. Art) and the group of American Indian warriors entitled Young Omaha, War Eagle, Little Missouri and Pawnees (1822; Washington, DC, N. Mus. Amer. A.).
His Catalogue with Landscape (1828; Newport, RI, Redwood Lib.) shows sporting lovers obscured by an illusionistic catalogue and toys with notions of human mortality and repressed desires in a landscape in the style of Salvator Rosa. The Interior of a Ropewalk (1845; Charlottesville, U. VA, A. Mus.) was one of the first industrial scenes in American art.
King was a close friend of such leading artists as Thomas Sully, Rembrandt Peale, Samuel F. B. Morse, Charles Robert Leslie and John Gadsby Chapman (one of his students), several of whom used his American Indian and other images in their paintings. He was the first American artist to specialize in portraying the American Indian, and he foreshadowed by 50 years the late Victorian fascination with the iconic power of objects. He was a member of the National Academy of Design and of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and he served on the first government art commission.
King died on March 18, 1862, a few years before the fire at the Smithsonian Institution. He left a large bequest to the Redwood Library, including some fine books, a sum of money and his personal collection of paintings. The Redwood Library Collection was later broken up at the Parke Bernet Sale # 3056 Thursday May 21, 1970.
Sources:
Clement and Hutton: Artists of the Nineteenth Century. Boston, 1880.
J. Elliot: Historical Sketches of the Ten Miles Square Forming the District of Columbia (Washington, DC, 1830)
W. Dunlap: History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, 2 vols (New York, 1834, rev. 2/1965, ed. A. Wyckoff, 3 vols)
T. L. MacKenney and J. Hall: The Indian Tribes of North America, 3 vols (Philadelphia, 1836–44, rev. Edinburgh, 1933–4, ed. F. W. Hodge, 3 vols)
H. J. Viola: The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King (Washington, DC, 1976)
Cosentino, Andrew J. The paintings of Charles Bird King. Washington : Published for the National Collection of Fine Arts by the Smithsonian Institution Press : for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1977.
Moore, Robert J. Native Americans: A Portrait: The Art and Travels of Charles Bird King, George Catlin, and Karl Bodmer. New York : Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1997.
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