Background
Charles Henry Hayden was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Edward Boyd and Ann Flower (Goodspeed) Hayden. His father was a cotton manufacturer, with mills at Chiltonville, Plymouth.
Charles Henry Hayden was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Edward Boyd and Ann Flower (Goodspeed) Hayden. His father was a cotton manufacturer, with mills at Chiltonville, Plymouth.
Charles began the study of drawing and painting at the age of twenty under John B. Johnston, the cattle painter, in Boston, but remained with him only two or three months. When, in 1877, the school of drawing and painting of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was opened, he followed the advice of his teacher and entered that institution, where he worked for two years. The ensuing four years he devoted to out-of-door work and to attendance on evening life classes, Johnston still acting as adviser and critic. In the spring of 1887 he passed a few months in Italy for the purpose of study, with a view to specializing in decorative work.
In 1882 Charles Hayden secured a situation as designer in the stained-glass establishment of Cook, Redding & Company, Boston, remaining there until December 1886, when he went to Paris and entered the atelier of Raphael Collin. In 1888 Hayden settled in St. Léger, a picturesque village in the forest of Rambouillet, where he gave all his time to landscape work, continuing there until the opening of the Paris Exposition of 1889. He sent to the Salon of that year a landscape entitled “Near the Village” and also exhibited in the international exposition, where he received a mention. Returning to America in July 1889, he settled in Belmont, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, where he built a studio, making that place his home for the rest of his life.
In 1895 Hayden received the Jordan prize of $1, 500 for his picture of “The Turkey Pasture, ” exhibited at the Jordan Gallery, Boston, and subsequently presented to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by Eben D. Jordan. An exhibition of his pictures was opened at the St. Botolph Club, Boston, in 1897. Hayden died, unmarried, at Belmont, on the forty-fifth anniversary of his birth. He left $50, 000 to the Boston Art Museum. A memorial exhibition of his paintings which was held at the St. Botolph Club from December 30, 1901, to January 18, 1902, contained fifty-three works painted at Belmont, on Cape Cod, in the Berkshires, and at Mystic, Connecticut.
Hayden's landscapes are serene and sober in an unusual degree, so much so that a casual observer is likely to wonder what there is in them that artists should esteem them so highly. Most of his pictures deal with nature’s undemonstrative moods. Their excellence is best realized by close observers of nature. The merits of his pictures correspond to the unassuming and sensitive character of the man.
Hayden never married.