'Seascape, 1885' by Darwin Styles, New York, National Academy of Design, Syracuse, Royal Academy London

Description

Signed lower right, 'D. Styles' for Darwin Styles (American, 1827-1909) and dated 1885.

Portrait, animal, and landscape painter, Darwin Styles, … more Signed lower right, 'D. Styles' for Darwin Styles (American, 1827-1909) and dated 1885.

Portrait, animal, and landscape painter, Darwin Styles, was, by 1846, living and working in a small artist colony in New York City which included George H. Boughton (1833-1905), Charles Elliott (1812-1868), William Hart (1823-1894), George Inness (1825-1894), Eastman Johnson (1824-1906), and Sanford Thayer (1820-1880). Styles exhibited widely and with success including at National Academy of Art & Design (1848-1849, 1851-1852), The Royal Academy of Art (London, 1845), The Oswego Falls Fair (Fulton, NY, 1885), Central New York Society of Artists (Syracuse, NY, 1905), among others. He apparently hated publicity, and was known to have avoided exhibited his works publicly when possible. By the early 1860s, he decided that he preferred the unspoiled countryside to city life, so he traveled upstate, where he eventually settled in the small village of Fulton, Oswego County, New York.

One publication noted: "His independence and individuality have perhaps been the greatest barriers to the progress of his fame for he has only painted when the spirit has moved [him]..." Another remarked: "Modest and retiring by nature, he has always been more averse than his friends have wished, to exhibiting the works of his brush..." His lack of interest in the "... commercial instincts and motives..." of the art world also hurt his ability to become better known.

In 1902, just a few years before his death, an old friend said of him: "He is a gentleman of the old school and if ever there was a courtier at heart then indeed it is Darwin Styles. He is an artist from the top of his head to the soles of his feet and he is imbued with an artistic temperament which is expressed in everything he paints. He is a poet of nature."

Reference:
Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 3, page 3214; et al. less