Wyatt Eaton

Background

Wyatt Eaton was born on May 6, 1849 in Philipsburg, Quebec, Lower Canada. He was the son of Jonathan Wyatt and Mary (Smith) Eaton, the former a lumber and shipping merchant and native of New Hampshire.

Education

When about eighteen years old, Eaton became a student at the National Academy of Design under Samuel Colman, Daniel Huntington, Leutze, and others, and painted in the studio of Joseph Oriel Eaton, who became both instructor and friend.

Career

In 1872 Wyatt took a European trip which widened his horizon consider ably.

In London he became acquainted with Whistler, then, journeying to the continent, he sought the studio of Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Here valuable contacts with Munkâcsy, Bastien-Lepage, Dagnan-Bouveret, and others stimulated him in his work in Paris and at Barbizon in the Forest of Fontainebleau, but of all his friendships, that with Millet was of most vital and lasting worth to him. The older artist cast a noticeable influence on the younger, and in his family, Eaton was treated as a son.

In addition to required academic work, Eaton painted portraits, figures, and landscapes. At the Salon of 1874 his “Reverie” was exhibited and in 1876 his “Harvesters at Rest. ” Both were shown at the Universal Exposition of 1878.

Later he exhibited a portrait of Mrs. Hawkins, said to be one of the finest canvases in the Salon that year. After returning to America in 1877, Eaton, with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Walter Shirlaw, and others, founded the Society of American Artists, was its first secretary, and later its president. He was then a teacher at Cooper Institute, New York.

In 1884 and 1885, while in Europe, he painted a few peasant subjects but eventually became absorbed in portraiture.

During a trip to Canada, in 1892-93, Eaton painted some of the benefactors of McGill University, as well as Sir William Dawson of Montreal and other prominent people.

His work there was so successful that other important commissions followed and he spent the remainder of his life chiefly in Canada. Among the best-known of his Canadian portraits are those of Sir William and Lady Van Horne, Sir Donald and Lady Smith, Mr. Angus, and Lady Marjorie and the Hon. Archie Gordon.

Being unequal to an anticipated summer trip abroad in 1896, Eaton went to Newport, Rhode Island, instead, wdiere he died of consumption.

Achievements

• His portraits of the poets Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow', Bryant, Holmes, and Dr. Holland, engraved by T. Cole for the Century Magasine, were considered an innovation in magazine work. Notable examples of Eaton’s work are his portraits of Bishop Horatio Potter, Roswell Smith, President Garfield (after his death), for the Union League Club of New York, John Burroughs, Senator Franklin Murphy of Newark, and Mrs. R. W. Gilder. The last has won a place among the best pictures produced in this country. Eaton’s deft use of the brush gave his paintings an unusual delicacy and grace, wdiile his portraiture reveals a rare skill in transcending the limitations of photographic likeness.

Connections

His first wife, whom he married on September 24, 1874, was Laura Constance Papelard, born in Château-Thierry, France. After her death, on Feburary 7, 1886, he married, July 23, 1887, Charlotte Amelia Collins.

Father:

Jonathan Wyatt

Mother:

Mary (Smith) Eaton

2nd spouse:

Charlotte Amelia Collins

1st spouse:

Laura Constance Papelard

Friend:

Joseph Oriel Eaton