biografia di Martin Johnson HEADE (1819-1904)

Birth place: Lumberville, Bucks County, PA

Death place: St. Augustine, FL

Addresses: NYC

Profession: Landscape, portrait, and still life painter

Studied: studied and worked with Edward and Thomas Hicks, c.1838; Italy, France, and England for two years, c.1838-43

Exhibited: Artists Fund Soc., 1841, 1844; PAFA, 1849-on; NAD, 1843-90; Westminster Gal., Providence (Vose), 1860s; Brooklyn AA, 1864-81; PAFA, 1880-81

Work: MMA; NMAA; Yale Univ. Art Gal.; BMFA; Shelburne (VT) Mus.; BM; TMA

Comments: One of the great Luminist landscape painters of the 19th century, he was also a naturalist and poet. He is best known for four basic themes: atmospheric landscapes of marshes and shores; vividly colored paintings of tropical hummingbirds in their natural settings; floral still lifes (of orchids, magnolias, Victorian vases with apple blossoms or roses); and, to a lesser extent, portraits. He began exhibiting in 1841, but possessed of wanderlust, he worked as a portrait and landscape painter for a year or two at a time (through 1883) in NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Trenton, Providence, Newburyport, and Boston; and worked in the Midwest (St. Louis, 1852, and Chicago, 1853-54). In 1863-64, Heade visited Brazil, the first of several painting trips which took him to Nicaragua (1866), to Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica (1870) and later to British Columbia, California, and Florida. During the early 1880s he was living in Wash., DC; and in 1883 he finally married and in 1885 settled permanently at St. Augustine, FL.

Sources: G&W; the first biography is Robert G. McIntyre, Martin Johnson Heade, 1819-1904 (NY: Pantheon Press, 1948). See also: Karolik Cat., 301-349, with 26 repros.; Rutledge, PA; Cowdrey, NAD; Cowdrey, AA & AAU; Swan, BA; Sweet, The Hudson River School; CAB; Tuckerman; Richmond Portraits; McCausland, American Still-life Paintings," repro. More recently see Baur; Stebbins; Muller, Paintings and Drawings at the Shelburne Museum, 74-75 (w/repros.); Robert Workman, The Eden of America (RISD, 1986, p.31); For Beauty and for Truth, 65 (w/repro.); Falk, Exh. Record Series.