Background

Thomas Wilmer Dewing was born on May 4, 1851 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was a son of Sophronia Durant and Paul Dewing, who worked in a paper mill, suffered financial ruin and died an alcoholic.

Education

After school, Thomas studied at the Lowell Institute in Boston. Some time later, in 1876, he entered the Académie Julian in Paris, where Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre were his mentors. Dewing remained at the Académie Julian until 1879.

Career

After school, Thomas served as a lithographic apprentice in Boston. In 1878, he began exhibiting with the newly founded Society of American Artists in New York City. Two years later, Dewing finally settled down there and in 1881, he was appointed a teacher at the Art Students League of New York. From 1885 to 1905, Thomas and his wife Maria Oakey Dewing spent their summers at the Cornish Art Colony in New Hampshire.

In 1898, Dewing co-founded an artists' group Ten American Painters. The following year, he became a member of the Society of Landscape Painters, where he worked with other Tonalist artists.

Thomas did not paint much after 1920 and lived out his later years in his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. Also, during his lifetime, the painter took part in many exhibitions, which were held at different museums, including those at the Delaware Art Museum in 1879, Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1894, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1907, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1926 and others.

Achievements

• Thomas Wilmer Dewing gained prominence for his paintings, featuring aristocratic women. Also, in 1898, he co-founded an artists' group Ten American Painters.
  
  Today, the painter's works ar kept in the collections of different museums and galleries, including Cleveland Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • A Musician

  • Antoinette

  • The Spinner

  • Hymen

  • The Days

  • Lady with a Lute

  • Summer

  • Portrait of Frances C. Houston

  • Summer

  • Lady in Yellow

  • Lady in Blue, Portrait of Annie Lazarus

  • Portrait of a Young Girl

  • The Recitation

  • The Piano

  • A Reading

  • Portrait of a Lady

  • Symphony in Green and Gold

  • Before the Mirror

  • Yellow Tulips

  • The Lute

  • Portrait of a Lady Holding a Rose

  • Repose

  • Portrait of a Woman in Pink

  • Lady with a Cello

  • Black And Gold

  • Reclining Nude Figure of a Girl

Membership

• Society of Landscape Painters , United States

  1899

• 

  National Academy of Design , United States

  1888

Connections

Thomas married Maria Oakey Dewing, also a painter, in 1881. Their marriage produced one son, who died in infancy.

Father:

Paul Dewing

Mother:

Sophronia Durant

Wife:

Maria Oakey Dewing

mentor:

Gustave Boulanger

mentor:

Jules Lefebvre

References

• The Art of Thomas Wilmer Dewing This book contains photographs and color reproductions of Dewing's work.
  1996
• A Mural by Thomas Wilmer Dewing: Commerce and Agriculture Bringing Wealth to Detroit The work provides an overview of Thomas Dewing's career and discusses the influences on his mural.
  1998
• Thomas Wilmer Dewing: Beauty into Art: A Catalogue Raisonné Featuring a comprehensive biography and engaging, narrative commentaries, this elegant, 2-volume catalogue raisonné is an essential and much-needed reference. It includes more than 550 works of art, as well as previously unpublished photographs from the artist’s own albums. Each work is accompanied by a full provenance, exhibition histories and literature — both published and archival.
  2018