Portrait of Asher Brown Durand

Asher Brown Durand Painting Reproductions 1 of 1

1796-1886

American Hudson River School Painter

Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796 - September 17, 1886) was a U.S. painter of the Hudson River School. He was born in Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village), the eighth of eleven children; his father was a watchmaker and a silversmith.
Durand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 to 1817, later entering into a partnership the owner of the firm, who asked him to run the firm's New York branch. He engraved Signing of the Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull in 1823, which established Durand's reputation as one of the country's finest engravers. Durand helped organize the New York Drawing Association in 1825, which would become the National Academy of Design; he would serve the organization as president from 1845 to 1861.
His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and soon after began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondack, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.
Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth."
Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..."
Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record for an American artist.

11 Asher Brown Durand Paintings

Portrait of John Adams, 1835 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of John Adams 1835

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5404
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

James Monroe, 1835 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

James Monroe 1835

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5405
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

Andrew Jackson, 1835 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Andrew Jackson 1835

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5406
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson, c.1835 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson c.1835

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5407
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

Portrait of George Washington, n.d. by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of George Washington n.d.

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5408
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

John Quincy Adams, 1835 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

John Quincy Adams 1835

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5409
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

James Madison, 1835 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

James Madison 1835

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5410
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Historical Society, New York, USA

Luman Reed, 1838 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Luman Reed 1838

Oil Painting
$1016
SKU: DAB-5411
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: unknown
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California, USA

Monument Mountain, Berkshires, c.1855/60 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Monument Mountain, Berkshires c.1855/60

Oil Painting
$1299
Canvas Print
$50.56
SKU: DAB-6990
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: 71.1 x 106.7 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, USA

Woodland Glen, c.1850/55 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Woodland Glen c.1850/55

Oil Painting
$1614
Canvas Print
$58.27
SKU: DAB-18197
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: 61 x 47 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York, 1848 by Asher Brown Durand | Painting Reproduction

Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York 1848

Oil Painting
$1297
Canvas Print
$52.90
SKU: DAB-18198
Asher Brown Durand
Original Size: 108 x 153.7 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

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