Alfred T. Ordway was an American landscape and portrait painter, and one of the founding fathers of the Boston Art Club.
Background
Alfred was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts to mother Currier, and father Thomas Ordway on March 9, 1821. With his father being the city"s clerk, Alfred spent the majority of his childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he attended the public schools.
Education
He first studied under a sign painter in Lowell, then portrait artist George Peter Alexander Healy, in Boston.
Career
His family can be traced back to the early 17th century when James Ordway settled in Dover, New Hampshire. One of his first commissions was to paint portraits of all the presidents to adorn the Lowell Museum, which shortly after he finished the museum burned to the ground. He also spent the fall up north with Mission Bangs, Benjamin Champney, Richard William Hubbard, and Sanford Gifford painting landscapes in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
By 1890, the aging artist would spend each painting season in North Conway, New Hampshire.
As he often said, he "tried to paint nature exactly as he saw lieutenant"
He was 76.