Biography from AskART:
| Born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, James Hart was a leading figure of the
second generation Hudson River School painters and was known for
idyllic landscapes, especially with cows. His family emigrated to
Albany, New York in 1830 when he was age two, and Hart, at age 15,
apprenticed to a sign and banner painter in Albany. Later he switched
to portrait painting.
At age 22, he went to Germany and
enrolled in the Dusseldorf Art Academy for three years and returned to
Albany where he opened a studio and taught and painted until 1857 when
he established a studio in New York City. There members of the
newly rich, post-Civil War society were delighted with his serene,
rural landscapes. It was a time when New York "swarmed with
people newly rich and feverishly eager to acquire at once the trappings
and paraphernalia of culture, oil paintings included. With
such clients Hart and his brother, William, found abundant employment
for their painting in a language intelligible to the artistically
illiterate. James garnished his landscapes with barnyard animals,
chiefly cows, and painted them with such fidelity that his delighted
customers thought they could distinguish the Alderneys from the
Guernseys."
His farm family teased him about his painting of
farm animals, saying he knew little about them first hand. In the
1840s and 1850s, he also painted panoramic, luminous landscapes in
meticulous details with many figures including farmers and children.
The idea was to suggest that rural America was an idyllic place.
Of
his cow paintings, G.W. Sheldon wrote in "American Painters": For
cows and oxen, he has the fullest sympathy. Their thoughts which
are not men's thoughts, their ways, which are not men's ways, and their
faces which do not depend for interest upon any human likeness or
suggestion, have been the objects of his studious love. He says that he
likes cattle as well as landscapes---and this, for an artist like him,
is saying a great deal." (50)
James McDougal Hart served as the
Vice President for three years of the National Academy of Design.
He was voted a full member in 1859.
His wife was artist Marie
Theresa Gorsuch, a still-life painter, and their three children became
artists: Robert Gorsuch Hart, Letitia Bonnet Hart, and Mary Theresa
Hart.
Sources include:
Letitia Falk, daughter of the artist, in materials submitted by Ashley Bracken
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art
G.W. Sheldon, American Painters
Note from Letitia Hart, courtesy Ashley Bracken:
James
and Marion Hart and seven of their children, including James M. Hart
age 1 yr., 9 mos., and William Hart age 6 yrs., 10 mos., came from
Scotland to New York on the ship, Camillus. They landed
on February 12, 1830. This information comes from a hand written record
at the National Archives. The year of arrival is illegible
because of the poor handwriting of the clerk at the dock. The
manifest lists the parents and seven children and their ages.
Based upon the known birthdates of the family and the ages listed on
the manifest, my arithmetic calculates that the ship arrived in 1830.
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Biography from AskART:
| Obituary of the artist, courtesy Ashley Bracken.
New York Herald, October 24, 1901:
James
McDougal Hart, who for years was President of the National Academy of
Design, died at his home, No. 94 First Place, Brooklyn, Thursday from
pneumonia. He had been ill 10 days. He was born in Killmarnock,
Scotland, in 1828, and with his parents, came to this country when six
years old and settled in Albany.
His first work was as an
apprentice to a coach maker to paint and decorate carriages. In 1851,
he was sent to Dusseldorf, Munich, and Leipsig. After remaining abroad
several years, he returned to Albany, and moved to N.Y. Later he became
an associate of the National Academy of Design and later an Academician.
Mr. Hart received several medals for his work which was exhibited at the Paris Salon.
He
worked at his easel until two weeks ago, when he was taken ill. He had
been a resident of the Sixth Ward for the last thirty-seven years, and
was a member of the South Reformed Church. A widow, son and two
daughters survive him.
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James Hart is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Hudson River School Painters
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