Hunt, William Morris
Hunt, William Morris,
1824–79, American painter, b. Brattleboro, Vt., studied in Düsseldorf and Paris. He was greatly influenced by the Barbizon schoolBarbizon school, an informal school of French landscape painting that flourished c.1830–1870. Its name derives from the village of Barbizon, a favorite residence of the painters associated with the school.
..... Click the link for more information. and by J. F. MilletMillet, Jean François,
1814–75, French painter. He was born into a poor farming family. In 1837 an award enabled him to go to Paris, where he studied with Delaroche.
..... Click the link for more information. . During the Civil War he established himself in Boston, where he introduced the ideals and methods of the Barbizon school. As teacher and painter, Hunt exerted a widespread influence upon American art. He is thought to be the first American master to admit female students into his classes. His earliest works were usually figure pieces; he then turned to portraits and in his later years devoted himself chiefly to landscapes. Among his best-known paintings are Girl at a Fountain, The Bathers, and a landscape (Metropolitan Mus.); a portrait of Chief Justice Shaw (courthouse, Salem, Mass.); and The Flight of Night (Pennsylvania Acad. of the Fine Arts).
Bibliography
See biography by his granddaughter, Diana Holman-Hunt (1969).