This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Buffalo, New York, James Beard was a self-taught artist known
for children's portraits, often with domestic pets. His satirical
anthropomorphic animal subjects and other humorous topics were much in
contrast to prevalent sentimentality.
He was an honorary member of the National Academy of Design from 1848 to 1860 and a full member until his death.
His birth date has been disputed with the years 1811, 1814 and 1815 given, but 1811 is the date in his family's Bible.
At
age 11, he moved with his family to Painesville, Ohio, where he was
raised and where his artist brother, William Holbrook, was born.
For some years, he was an itinerant portrait painter, traveling to
Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, New Orleans and Louisville.
From 1834 to
1870, Beard lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, but spent his winters in New
Orleans, and was in New York from 1846 to 1847 and from 1870 lived
there for the remainder of his life. He was in the Union Army
during the Civil War.
One of Beard's early pieces showing poor
people realistically was startling and successful, and encouraging to
him as subject matter.
He had artist children including
illustrators Daniel Carter Beard, 1850 -1941; James Carter Beard,
1837-1913; Frank Beard, 1842-1905; and Henry Beard, dates unknown,
painter and designer.
Sources include:
David Michael Zellman, Three Hundred Years of American Art
Millard Rogers Jr, The Golden Age: Cincinnati Painters of the Nineteenth Century Represented in the Cincinnati Art Museum" |
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