Francis Bicknell Carpenter

Background

Francis Bicknell Carpenter was born on August 6, 1830 at Homer, New York, United States; the son of a farmer, Asaph A. Carpenter.

Education

In 1844, after showing his father a painting of his mother that the former viewed as a success, Carpenter was allowed to go to Syracuse, New York for six months to study under Sanford Thayer. In 1848, at age 18, he was awarded a purchase prize by the American Art-Union. By the age of twenty-one, Carpenter established a studio in New York City.

Career

As a boy Carpenter sketched pictures on smooth pieces of board and leaves torn from old account books. Later he watched an itinerant painter at work and attempted to imitate him with the crude materials that a moneyless country boy might find about the farm, --lampblack used for marking sheep, old dried lumps of Venetian red, worn carriage painters' brushes. Finally his father allowed him to spend five months at Syracuse with an artist named Sanford Thayer. With only so much training, Carpenter, now sixteen years old, set up a studio in his native village. His first big fee was ten dollars for illustrating a book on sheep husbandry by Henry Stephens Randall, who, delighted with the pictures of the sheep, immediately ordered his own portrait. Thus encouraged, Carpenter sent examples of his work to competitions in New York, was successful, and in 1851 moved to the metropolis.

In 1852 he was made an associate of the Academy of Design. A full-length portrait of President Fillmore established his reputation, and for a number of years he enjoyed a large measure of popularity.

His exalted patriotism and generous humanitarian sympathies are expressed in a memorable historical painting of Lincoln reading the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet, which now hangs in the Capitol at Washington. For painting this picture he was accorded unusual facilities. From February to July 1864, he was "turned loose" as Lincoln put it--in the White House, setting up his huge canvas in the East Room and living on friendly terms with the President and his fractious cabinet. A second product of this association was his Six Months at the White House (1866), which in a subsequent edition was misnamed The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867). The book has an artless charm as well as the value of direct testimony. Carpenter's later career was comparatively uneventful. As a friend of Theodore Tilton, he was sucked into the vortex of the Beecher-Tilton scandal and thrown out again, disheveled and humiliated. For the last few years of his life he suffered from dropsy. He died in New York, May 23, 1900.

Achievements

• Carpenter is best known for his painting First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, which is hanging in the United States Capitol. Carpenter resided with President Lincoln at the White House and in 1866 published his one volume memoir Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. The list of his sitters include many notable men of letters, divines, and statesmen, among them four presidents of the United States.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Picture

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Membership

Carpenter was elected to the National Academy of Design as an associate member in 1852.

Personality

A gentle, meditative man, with long, straight black hair and delicate features, he readily won the regard of his patrons.

Connections

In 1852 he married Augusta H. Prentiss, by whom he had a son and a daughter.

Father:

Asaph A. Carpenter

Farmer

Wife:

Augusta H. Prentiss

Friend:

Theodore Tilton

References

• The Picture and the Men : Being Biographical Sketches of President Lincoln and His Cabinet; Together with an Account of the Life of the Celebrated Artist, F. B. Carpenter...
• The True History of the Brooklyn Scandal: Being a Complete Account of the Trial of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, Upon ... Letters, Documents and Private Corresponden