Gifford Robert Swain was a landscape-painter, etcher, illustrator. From the outset his paintings were welcomed in the exhibitions. He was an academician of the National Academy.
Background
Robert Swain Gifford was born on December 23, 1840, in the township of Gosnold, Massachusets, on the island of Naushon, the largest of the Elizabeth Islands, lying between Buzzard’s Bay and Vineyard Sound.
His father was William Tillinghast Gifford, sailor, pilot, fisherman, at one-time skipper of the yacht Fawn, owned by Robert Swain, son of William Swain, then a part owner of Naushon, for whom the future artist was named.
Swain Gifford’s mother was Annie (Eldridge) Gifford, daughter of Stephen El- bridge of Dartmouth, Massachusets.
His birthplace was a humble little house in an isolated spot with a tiny garden and a few gnarled trees about it. Thence the family moved to the mainland, about two years after his birth, and settled in Fair-Haven, Massachusets, a suburb of New Bedford.
Here his boyhood years passed uneventfully in the study, work, and play.
Career
In spite of delicate health, Gifford was fond of outdoor life; he spent much of his leisure time in sailing and in sketching along the shore. For a short time, he was employed in the railroad yard.
The idea of becoming a painter, which was vaguely forming in his mind, assumed a more serious character when he made the acquaintance of two men, both marine painters, then living in New Bedford and occupying the same studio - William Bradford and Albert van Beest.
The lad was allowed to frequent their studio, and he took them out on the bay in his catboat. His association with them stirred his ambition; they gave him his first practical instruction in drawing from nature.
Later, he met Walton Ricketson, who was living at Brooklawn, the home of his father, Daniel Ricketson, the local historian of New Bedford. Walton, who was just beginning work as a sculptor, arranged a corner in his studio where young Gifford could paint.
In the Gifford household, it had by now become obvious that the boy’s heart was set upon art as a vocation, but the problem of ways and means loomed largely, and his parents had some thought of making a carpenter of him.
Ricketson now intervened and suggested that the youth should paint a certain number of pictures and see if there were any buyers for them. This test being agreed to, Gifford did so, and much to the surprise of all concerned, the pictures were sold.
With the earned money in his pocket, the young artist set out for Boston in 1864 and began his professional career. He was then twenty-four. At first, his work was dry and literal, but it gained in quality with experience, becoming increasingly atmospheric and lyrical.
From the outset, his paintings were welcomed in the exhibitions and found a ready market. He remained in Boston for two years, going to New York in 1866.
He served for nearly thirty years as a teacher in the various art classes maintained by the Cooper Union.
In 1869, Gifford had made a long journey to the Pacific Coast, mainly to gather material for W. C. Bryant’s Picturesque America.
In 1870, he made an extensive tour abroad, visiting England, France, Spain, Italy, Morocco, and Egypt. Four years later, in company with his wife, herself a painter of merit, he started on a similar trip, which included Corsica, Algeria, and many parts of North Africa seldom visited by tourists.
The pair pitched their tent in the great desert and were entertained by Arab chiefs in the wilds of the Atlas Mountains. S. G. W. Benjamin tells of an over-night sojourn with a haughty chieftain who had decorated the interior of his dwelling with the heads of twelve men suspected of organizing a conspiracy for the overthrow of the prince.
Such pictures as the “Halt in the Desert, ” the “Palms of Biskra, ” “Evening in the Sahara, ” and “The Oasis of Filiach” may be cited as characteristic examples of Gifford’s Oriental compositions. About a decade later Gifford made still another visit to the Old World, this time with two artist companions.
After this, he divided his time between the New York studio and his summer home at Nonquitt, Massachusets, with the exception of a voyage to Alaska in 1899 with the scientific party made up by E. Harriman.
This trip of three months took the party along the coast from Seattle to Bering Strait, and Gifford made many studies of the northern scenery. He had some exciting experiences and narrow escapes in hazardous mountain ascents and sailing among the ice floes.
At Nonquitt, a summer resort on the shore of Buzzard’s Bay, a few miles south of New Bedford, Gifford found the most congenial subjects for his landscape work and painted most of the pictures which will be regarded as representative.
Typical examples, such as “Dartmouth Moors, ” are in a low tone, and are melancholy in sentiment. They are impressive, spacious, solidly constructed, and many of them reveal the somber beauty of autumn on the marshes and among the dunes.
Isham suggests that Gifford may have derived from his first teacher, Van Beest, something of the gravity of the old Dutch painters, which reappears in “the long brown sweeps of moorland or seashore under a sky of broken gray clouds. ”
His death occurred in New York, in the winter of 1905.
Achievements
Gifford served for nearly 30 years as a teacher in art classes. He painted several of the most important Washington, Oregon and California landscapes of that period. The “Halt in the Desert, ” the “Evening in the Sahara, ” “Dartmouth Moors, ” are among his famous pictures.
He sketched in Washington, Oregon, and California, and from these sketches, several of the most important of the landscapes of that period were painted.
Membership
Gifford was elected an associate of the National Academy in 1867, and academician in 1878.
Personality
Gifford was esteemed and loved by his students. One of them was Frances Eliot, his future wife.
Although Gifford was serious, he was genial and sociable, and extremely popular. His character and distinguished ability won the admiration of his colleagues, and his success shows that good artwork was not without recognition in his time.
Connections
Gifford married Frances Eliot, daughter of Hon. T. D. Eliot, a well- known jurist, in 1873.
