This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  A leader of the White Mountain School of painting in the 1840s, Samuel
Gerry painted in the Hudson River style and also was among the Hudson
River School artists who painted in that geographical area. He
also painted occasional views of the Hudson River Valley including in
1858, a painting titled West Point, Hudson River, and Sailing on the Hudson (undated).
In addition, he was noted for portrait, genre and animal subjects, and
sometimes he copied the works of other artists such as several by New
York artist George Harvey (1800-1878) and by William Henry Bartlett
(1809-1854).
According to Shannon's auction catalogue of 10/24/2002: Samuel
Gerry and James Burt were close artistic friends and lived across the
street from each other in Boston. In 1836, they collaborated on a
series of Boston views for the engines of the Boston Fire Company. Over
the years, the two would collaborate on landscapes that became
engravings, especially those of William Henry Bartlett, English painter
and engraver.
Gerry was born in Boston and had no formal art training. It is
thought that major American influences on his work were Hudson River
School painters Asher Durand and Thomas Cole as well as artists he met
on his travels in Europe between 1837 and 1840.
When he
returned to America, he set up a studio in Boston and made many trips
from there to New Hampshire. He exhibited at the Boston
Athenaeum and was a founder of the Boston Art Club, organized
1854. In 1858, he served as the Club's President. He made two
return trips to Italy, 1850 to 1854 and 1873 to 1875.
Sources include:
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
Groce and Wallace, Dictionary of Artists in America
Shannon's Auction House
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Biography from Boston Art Club:
| Samuel
Lancaster Gerry was born and died in Boston. In 1854 a group of Boston
artists, including Gerry, formed an association that they called The
Boston Art Club. S.L.Gerry was president for a term during the period
between 1854 and The Boston Art Club's first incorporation in 1871. In
1868 he was a Trustee.
Gerry was considered a formidable force
in the local Boston scene, and became a teacher to a few talented local
young artists, including the famous artist Joseph Frank Currier. It has
been noted that several versions of his White Mountain and Adirondack
Paintings of the 1870s were composites of sketches done in different
distant locations, melded together with varied foregrounds to create
panoramic vistas of the mountains.
The industrial cities of
Boston and New York were turning their sites to the disappearing
Eastern wilderness at this time and views and news of the then far away
reaches became popular, albeit occasionally fictitious.
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Samuel Gerry is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Hudson River School Painters
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