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Ad Code: 3
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from Auction House Records.
Running Ashore on the Florida Coast
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Portsmouth, England, George Bonfield arrived in Philadelphia in 1816 and there learned stone carving from a stone master working on the New Jersey estate of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napolean. He was also exposed to European art, and successfully copied Old Masters.
In 1820, Bonfield enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and studied with Thomas Vest. He became prominent in Philadelphia cultural life. He did some landscapes, but primarily he was a marine artist of scenes along the Delaware River and Atlantic Coast. His work was popular in the 1840s and 1850s, and many of his collectors were wealthy people invested in shipping activities.
After the Civil War, his popularity declined in the face of impressionism and other modernist styles that he did not adopt. He was also a collector of engravings and lithographs. | |
Biography from Schwarz Gallery:
| George Robert Bonfield was born in Portsmouth, England, the son of a
stonecutter. As a child, Bonfield was attracted to the sea and made
sketches of the ships and views of Portsmouth Harbor.
The family immigrated to the United States in 1816 and settled in
Philadelphia. Bonfield followed his father’s profession and found
employment with a local marble dealer carving inscriptions and
ornaments on gravestones. He occasionally worked in Bordentown,
New Jersey, at Point Breeze, the estate of Joseph Bonaparte, the
brother of Napoleon Bonaparte and exiled former king of Naples and
Spain. Bonaparte is said to have encouraged the youth’s interest in art
and allowed him access to his collection of Dutch and French marine
paintings. Bonfield is alleged to have attracted the attention of
Joseph Hopkinson, the eminent Philadelphia attorney and president of
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, who arranged for him to
study painting with Thomas Birch (1779–1851).
Bonfield became one of the foremost American marine painters during the
1840s and 1850s, when such subjects appealed to Philadelphia
merchants. Influenced by Dutch seventeenth-century seascapes, he
eschewed the topographical style of his contemporaries and painted
distinctly romantic scenes in a much freer, painterly style. Bonfield
exhibited widely and was an active participant in Philadelphia’s
cultural life. He was one of the founders of the Artists’ Fund Society
in 1836 and exhibited with the group until 1845. He exhibited at
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1847 to 1885, at the
National Academy of Design from 1837 to 1844, at the Apollo Association
and the American Art Union from 1838 to 1849, and at the Maryland
Historical Society in 1848. He was elected an Honorary Trustee of
the National Academy in 1845 and an Academician of the Pennsylvania
Academy in 1847. Bonfield’s popularity declined after the Civil
War.
He was an avid print collector and helped his patron, the wealthy
Philadelphia banker and art connoisseur James L. Claghorn assemble a
substantial collection that is now owned by the Baltimore Museum of
Art. The antiquarian William S. Baker dedicated his American Engravers and Their Works
(Philadelphia, 1875) to Bonfield. Bonfield spent the majority of
his career in Philadelphia, where he painted views of the Delaware
River. The titles of the paintings that he exhibited at the
Pennsylvania Academy indicate that he worked in such popular resorts as
Newport, Rhode Island, and Mount Desert, Maine. Bonfield lived in
Beverly, New Jersey, from 1853 to 1854, Bordentown in 1856, and
Burlington in 1857.
Notes:
1. There is a discrepancy in the literature as to exactly when Bonfield
immigrated to the United States and began to exhibit at the
Pennsylvania Academy; see WWWAM, vol. 1, p. 377.
2. For biographical information on Bonfield, see James McClelland and John M. Groff, George Robert Bonfield: Philadelphia Marine Painter, 1805–1898 [exh. cat.] (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 1978). |
Biography from VALLEJO GALLERY, LLC, Marine Art Specialists:
| Born in Portsmouth, England, the son of a marble cutter, George
Bonfield emigrated to America with his family in 1816. He settled
in Philadelphia where he worked at the estate of Napoleon Bonaparte's
exiled brother, Joseph Bonaparte, and was encouraged by this French
ex-patriot to begin a painting career.
A painting exhibited by
Bonfield at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1820 prompted the
Academy's president to arrange for Bonfield to study marine and
landscape painting there under Thomas Vest. The artist would
spend the rest of his life in Philadelphia, creating shipping scenes.
Bonfield
was an early member of the Pennsylvania Academy. He exhibited
there between 1847 and 1867 as well as the Artist's Friends Society
(1836-45), the National Gallery (1837-44) and the Maryland Historical
Society (1848). He is known to have traveled widely as
backgrounds for his paintings include both England and France, as well
as locations in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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