Mayna Treanor Avent  (1868-1959) Mayna Treanor Avent was the daughter of Thomas O. and Mary Andrews Treanor. She was born Sept. 17. 1868 at Tulip Grove Mansion, across the Lebanon Pike in Nashville from Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. Study at Cincinnati was followed by two years at the Academie Julien in Paris. In 1891 she married […]

 (1801-1889) Born near Jonesboro in 1802; died at Nashville in 1889.  He was unschooled in art up to the age of 26, but he was said to have been always painting faces on barn doors, fences and anything else with a smooth surface.  After receiving instruction for two years from an unknown artist in Murfreesboro–possibly […]

(1811-1900) Born near Carthage in 1811; died at Chattanooga in 1900.  Financially assisted by his brother Washington, he was able to study at the New York Academy of Design and to follow this with three years in the academies of Paris and Rome.  On his return to the United States he painted portraits in Washington, […]

Encouraged by an artistic family environment, Mark Alan Burnett’s early ability was inspired by wide travel and visits to art museums in Europe, the Orient and the United States. His father, a well-known portrait artist and western sculptor, encouraged Mark to pursue art as a career but he selected other paths. After studying both Art […]

Cornelius Hankins was born on July 12, 1863, near Guntown, Itawamba County, Mississippi, the sixth of eight children of Reverend Edward Lockee Hankins and Annie Mary (McFadden) Hankins. He contracted smallpox as a boy after his mother cared for Confederate soldiers. As a result, he was deaf until he was eight years old and had […]

An American portrait and historical painter, b. at Boston, 15 July, 1808; d. at Chicago, 14 June 1894. His father was an Irish captain in the merchant marine, and “the Celtic strain ran bright and lovable through the temperament of the son’ (Isham). The eldest of five children, Healy, early left fatherless, helped to support […]

Born Philadelphia, PALives and works in Philadelphia, PAEducation 1972 MFA, Tyler School of Fine Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA1970 BFA, Tyler School of Fine Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA1968-69 Tyler School of Art, Rome, Italy1959-63 Certificate, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA The artist names the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky when talking about […]

 (1807-1893) John Wood Dodge: and the portrait miniature – Raymond D. White Dodge was born into a middle-class family in New York City on November 4, 1807. (2) At about the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a sign painter in whose shop his work included painting tinned cans. Dodge, his fellow workers, and his […]

Born at Wurzburg, Bavaria, in 1817; died at Nashville, Tennessee in 1894.  He studied in Munich and, as a young man, enjoyed the patronage of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.  A portrait of Lola Montez, Ludwig’s flamboyant mistress, and a miniature of the Grand Duke Alexis survive from that era. In 1849 he found it […]

 ca. 1785-1838 Ralph E. W. Earl, portraitist, was the son of Connecticut painter Ralph Earl (1751-1801) and his second wife, Anne Whiteside of Norwich, England. Born in England, Earl studied under his father in Northhampton, Massachusetts, before traveling to London in 1809 to study under Benjamin West and John Trumbull. After a year in London, […]

WILLIAM GILBERT GAUL 1855-1919   Gilbert Gaul, late nineteenth-century artist, is best known for his depictions of military topics, particularly scenes of the Civil War. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he entered the National Academy of Design in New York City at age seventeen and emerged as one of the era’s leading illustrators. Gaul moved […]

(1873 – 1943) Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer was a painter and printmaker, best known for her images of Tennessee notables, especially society women and their children. Hergesheimer was the great-great granddaughter of the Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale, who named one of his daughters Sophonisba after the Italian woman artist of the Renaissance, Sophonisba Anguissola (1523/35-1625). Hergesheimer […]

(July 2, 1905 – December 26, 1989) Kellogg was born in Hartford, Connecticut,and his family home was passed down though many generations. His last known address was in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee. He lived in West Hartford and Bloomfield, Connecticut as well as Nashville, Tennessee during his working career. Among other portraits, Kellogg painted John […]

Jacob Lawrence, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, was born in 1917 and is best known for his series of narrative paintings depicting important moments in African American history. Lawrence was introduced to art when in his early teens, Lawrence’s mother enrolled him in Utopia Children’s Center, which provided an after-school […]

Michael Shane Neal is among the most sought after young portrait artists in America today. Recently completing portraits of such luminaries as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, and Federal Chief Judge Anthony Scirica. Neal’s current commissions include former Majority […]

Willie Betty Newman, a key figure in the state’s art community at the turn of the century, was born on the Benjamin Rucker plantation near Murfreesboro, the daughter of Colonel William Francis Betty and Sophie Rucker Betty. She attended Soule College in Murfreesboro and Greenwood Seminary in Lebanon before studying art at the Cincinnati Art […]

1851-1913 American While Henry Stull initially wanted to be an actor, his life and art ultimately revolved around racehorses, especially at Coney Island, New York.  To make this point, it has been said he was born above a stable in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1851, but this may be an item helpful to making his […]

(b Lausanne, 12 July 1808; d Georgetown, KY, 25 July 1874). American painter of Swiss birth. Before 1822, his father, Jean-Baptiste de Troy, a sculptor of minor fame, moved his family to England, where Edward was instructed in drawing and perhaps painting. The animal painter Jacques-Laurent Agasse knew the family well. Troye wrote in 1857 […]

Associate Professor, Department of ArtOhio State University Areas of Expertise • Painting and drawing • Computer graphics • Design Pheoris West is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art’s Painting and Drawing program. His work has appeared in numerous art venues, including the Philadelphia Museum, Boston Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, MuseoCivico D’Arts […]

American, 1918 – 1979The African-American painter, lithographer, and teacher Charles Wilbert White was born in Chicago. He attended The Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York City. White taught at the George Washington Carver School in New York from 1943 to 1945 and was artist-in-residence at Howard University in Washington, […]

(1900-1980) Hale Woodruff, a nationally known printmaker, draftsman, and painter, was a member of the Atlanta University faculty for fifteen years. During that time the Paris-trained African American artist developed a distinctive American regionalist style. While teaching at Atlanta University, he was responsible for establishing the university’s art program . Hale Aspacio Woodruff was born […]