This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Newport, Rhode Island, George Brewerton was a sketch artist,
journalist, pastor, author, and army officer. As an early sketch
artist, he was in California in 1847 and 1848 during the
Mexican/American War. However, he became best known as a painter
of western landscapes in oil and pastel.
He was born in Newport,
Rhode Island and raised throughout the Northeast as the family followed
his father who was a Brigadier General and who from 1845 to 1852, was
superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. During
this time, young Brewerton studied with Robert Weir, who was then the
drawing master at West Point. He also trained for a military
career at West Point, and in 1846 sailed to California as a volunteer
with the army when war with Mexico was imminent. They arrived in
San Francisco Bay during March/April, 1847. Shortly after he went to
Vera Cruz, Mexico.
In 1848, he was ordered to Los Angeles, where
he met Kit Carson, and the two left for Independence, Missouri
traveling overland through Arizona and New Mexico where Brewerton
became ill and had to stay behind while Carson completed the trip.
Subsequent assignments for Brewerton included Fort McIntosh, near
Laredo, Texas and Ringgold Barracks near Rio Grande City.
In 1852, Brewerton resigned from the army and returned to journalism, becoming a special correspondent for the The New York Times. His accounts of his trip with Carson appeared there and in Harper's Monthly and the New York Herald. In 1853, Brewerton wrote an article about his experiences on this stay in Taos published in Harper's
magazine. Brewerton was a Yankee Protestant, and his attitudes
reflected the anti-Mexican attitudes prevalent after the Mexican
War. He wrote of Taos: "its inhabitants exhibit all the indolent,
lounging characteristics of the lower order of Mexicans, the utter want
both of moral and mental culture" (Samuels 65).
In 1854, he went
to Kansas to report on events that subsequently led to the Civil War
and read law in the office of a lawyer and was admitted to the Kansas
Bar. Shortly after he moved to New York and exhibited his views
and paintings at the National Academy of Design. His exhibited
works indicate he traveled and painted widely from
California to the Tropics including the Adirondack, Catskill, and White
mountains and along the New England coast to Maine and the Bay of Fundy
as well as to Ireland.
By 1858, he was helping his father fortify forts in South Carolina.
During
the Civil War, manuals illustrated and written by Brewerton were used
widely for the instruction of recruits, and he served on the staff of a
militia unit. During 1866-67, he was pastor of a Baptist Church in
Annville, Pennsylvania, and then he settled in Brooklyn where he wrote
books and poetry and illustrated books including History of Washington
by Julian Hawthorne. He spent much time in Newport painting
marines and landscapes and continued to travel in the New Mexico,
Arizona, and California.
He died in Fordham, New York in 1901.
Sources:
John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors, & Graphic Artists
Harold and Peggy Samuels, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West
Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Lived throughout the Northeast following his military father. Studied with Robert Weir and attended West Point. As an early sketch artist, he was in California in 1847 and 1848 during the Mexican/American War. In 1852, Brewerton resigned from the army and became a special correspondent for the New York Times. In 1854, he went to Kansas to report on events that subsequently led to the Civil War. He read law in the office of a lawyer and was admitted to the Kansas Bar. Shortly after he moved to New York and exhibited his views and paintings at the National Academy of Design. His exhibited works indicate that he traveled and painted
widely from California to the Tropics including the Adirondack, Catskill, and White
mountains and along the New England coast to Maine and the Bay of Fundy as well as
to Ireland.
Author of several books including The War in Kansas (1856), Overland with
50 Kit Carson (1853), In the Buffalo Country (1854).
Exhibitions: Brooklyn Art Assoc., 1874.
Collections: Oakland Museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art; Butler Institute of American Art; Virginia Historical Society; Chazen Museum of Art. | Source:
SOURCES:
Susan Craig, "Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945)"
AskART, www.askart.com, accessed Oct. 11, 2007; Art Inventories Cat.; Pamphlet file at the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library in Washington, DC. | | This and over 1,750 other biographies can be found in Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945) compiled by Susan V. Craig, Art & Architecture Librarian at University of Kansas. |
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George Brewerton is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Taos Pre 1940
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