This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Painesville, Ohio, William Beard painted anthropomorphic, satiric genre scenes with animals engaged in human activity, and frequently bears were his symbols for human beings.
Early in his career, he was basically self-taught although he painted with his older brother, James Henry Beard. In 1845, he set up a studio in New York City, joining his brother, but his portrait skills did not earn him much money or attention. Five years later he moved to Buffalo, hoping to find more success, but he was disappointed.
From 1856 to 1858, having saved enough money to travel, he went to Europe. In Dusseldorf, Germany, he met and painted with many American artists including Emanuel Leutze, Sanford Gifford, Worthington Whittredge, and Albert Bierstadt. He also toured Switzerland and then returned to America where he again settled in New York City and took a residence studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building.
In 1866, he traveled West by train, and in Colorado his companion was Bayard Taylor, a writer and lecturer. Beard wrote to his wife, the daughter of New York portraitist Thomas le Clear, that he thought the landscape was monotonous, was disappointed he didn't see more buffalo, and was unhappy with wild life and hardship living. As a result, he turned more and more to his imagination, retaining an interest in wildlife but not in studying their habits and environment first hand. Many of his paintings showed animals, especially bears, as realistic physically but atypical in their behavior.
William Beard was elected an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1861, and a full member in 1862. He served on the Academy Council from 1873 to 1875. He is generally regarded as a better artist than his brother, James Beard, but both were successful during their life times.
William died in New York City in 1900.
Compiled by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier
Sources:
Jonathan P. Harding, Essay, Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design, Volume 1, 1826-1925. David Dearinger, General Editor
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art | |
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born Painesville, OH, Apr. 13, 1824; died New York, NY, Feb. 20, 1900. Painter, specialized in animals, landscapes, portraits. Pupil of his older brother, John Henry Beard. William Beard worked as an itinerant portrait painter before joining his brother in New York in 1845 then establishing his own studio in Buffalo, NY in 1850. He traveled in Europe from 1856-58 before settling in New York City in 1860. Beard gained enormous success during the 1860s, when narrative, mythological, and fairytale paintings became treasured escapes from the cruel realities of the Civil War. In 1866 he joined the writer Bayard Taylor on a trip to Colorado, traveling by Overland Stage from Kansas-Denver. Known to have been in Atchison, Lawrence, and Topeka. | Source:
COLLECTIONS:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Art Institute of Chicago, New York Historical Society, Buffalo Fine Art Gallery; Wadsworth Athenaeum; Amon Carter Museum; Smithsonian Museum of American Art.
MEMBERSHIPS:
National Academy of Design (Association 1861, Full 1862).
SOURCES:
Susan Craig, "Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945)"
Samuels, Peggy. Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1976., Peggy. Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1976.; Fielding, Mantle. Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, with an Addendum containing Corrections and Additional Material on the Original Entries. Compiled by James F. Carr. New York: James F. Carr Publ., 1965.; American Art Annual. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1898-194701; Clark, Eliot. History of the National Academy of Design, 1825-1953. New York: Columbia University Press, 1954.; Taft, Lorado. History of American Sculpture. New edition with supplemental chapter by Adeline Adams. New York: Macmillan Co, 1930.; AskArt, www.askart.com, accessed Jan. 19, 2006; Family Search. Version 2.5.0. Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2002. www.FamilySearch.org accessed July 13, 2006; Gerdts, William H. William Holbrook Beard: Animals in Fantasy: Essay (New York: Alexander Gallery, 1981); New York History (Jan. 1962); | | 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. |
Biography from Patrick Orbe Fine Art- II:
| William Holbrook Beard was born in Plainsville, Ohio and began his
artistic career as an itinerant portrait painter before moving to New
York City in 1845. He opened a studio in Buffalo in 1850, where
he painted mostly romantic genre paintings. In 1856 he studied
and traveled through Europe where he befriended Albert Bierstadt,
Sanford R. Gifford, and Worthington Whittredge. Upon his return to the
United States in 1858, Beard settled again in Buffalo and began to send
his paintings to the National Academy of Design in New York City for
exhibition. While in Buffalo, Beard was an integral force in the
local art community as a teacher and participant in the early planning
of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.
Moving to New York City in 1860, Beard set up a studio in the
prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building where he began to paint his
animal paintings and held a space for nearly 40 years. His genre and
animal paintings continued to garner attention, and by 1862 was he was
elected Academician of the National Academy of Design. Beard
gained enormous success during the 1860s, when narrative, mythological,
and fairytale paintings became treasured escapes from the cruel
realities of the Civil War. His paintings such as Bulls and Bears of Wall Street (The New-York Historical Society) and March of Silenus (Albright-Knox Gallery) are foremost examples of his oeuvre.
Beard became known for genre scenes of animals satirizing human
behavior, and painted his first known monkey painting only two years
after the publication of Charles Darwin's controversial Origin of the Species,
1859. Beard believed that animals possessed souls and could express
human emotions and feelings, yet according to Robert M. Peck, "Beard
refused to believe in man's descent from more primitive primates."
(Peck, 1994, p.699) No other work in Beard's extensive oeuvre so
clearly and humorously illustrates the artist's opinion of Darwin's
theory than the Discovery of Adam, 1891. Here, a group of
well-dressed monkeys appear confounded at the discovery that their
ancestor, Adam, is in fact a turtle. Beard further conveys his
message by inscribing "200,000 B.C. Adam" on the tortoise's
shell. Beard possibly refers to Darwin's theory of evolution, the
survival of the fittest, by depicting two prehistoric pterodactyls
fighting in the left background.
In 1885, Beard published a treatise titled Humor in Animals, in
which he devoted chapters to individual species of animals and birds,
anthropomorphizing various aspects of each, while offering a
significant key to his pictorial meanings. He exhibited
extensively at the National Academy of Design until the year before his
death. Beard also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Art Association as well as the Centennial
Exhibition, 1876, and the Paris International Exposition. He also
showed his work at Snedicor Art Gallery, Samuel P. Avery, and William
and Everett, all located in New York City.
Today, his work is found in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New-York
Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum, Amon-Carter
Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago,
and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Submitted October 2005 by James Halperin, Co-Chairman Heritage Galleries and Auctioneers, Dallas, Texes
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