This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Known for watercolors of the American West, he did panoramic and topographic views, many of them in Colorado including the Garden of the Gods and Yosemite in California. He excelled at capturing the grandeur of the scenery, especially natural forms looming over figures diminished in landscape.
He was born in Washington D.C., and little is known about his early life and schooling except that his parents were English, and he taught both music and drawing in Boston. He suffered heavy financial losses in a Boston theatre fire and then turned again to painting.
In 1849, he began a three year tour of Canada and the United States with the goal of creating a giant panoramic painting of the scenic wonders of the land. This panorama was first unveiled in Quebec and then exhibited in cities throughout Canada, the United States, and England where Queen Victoria requested a special showing at Buckingham Palace. He often supplemented the showing of his large paintings with singing of American and Canadian folk songs. |
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Washington, DC in 1820 of English parents. Friend established a music academy in Boston in 1846. After fire destroyed his business, he briefly had a “floating museum” on the Wabash River. Beginning in 1849, he led a peripatetic life which took him to Canada and the American West. The itinerant artist sketched in Utah, California, Colorado, and Montana. Returning to the East, his panorama of the adventure was a popular entertainment in NYC, Canada, and London. During the 1880s he painted in New England and around the Hudson River. In: Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley (Placer Mining); Boston Museum; Denver Public Library. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Kennedy Quaterly, June 1968; Artists of the American West (Doris Dawdy); Artists of the American West (Samuels); Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs (Bénézit, E); Art of the Gold Rush. | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
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Washington Friend is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Taos Pre 1940
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