Frank Duveneck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Duveneck (October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter.

Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, and by the age of fifteen had begun the study of art under the tutelage of a local painter, Johann Schmitt. In 1869 he went abroad to study with Wilhelm von Diez and Wilhelm Leibl at the Royal Academy of Münich, where he learned a dark, realistic and direct style of painting. He subsequently became one of the young American painters — others were William Merritt Chase, John Henry Twachtman, and Walter Shirlaw — who in the 1870s overturned the traditions of the Hudson River School and started a new art movement characterized by a greater freedom of paint application.

His work shown in Boston and elsewhere about 1875 attracted great attention, and many pupils flocked to him in Germany and Italy, where he made long visits. After returning from Italy to America, he gave some attention to sculpture, and modelled a fine monument to his wife, Elizabeth Boott, now in the English cemetery in Florence.

Among his most famous paintings are Lady with Fan (1873) and The Whistling Boy (1872), both of which reveal Duveneck's debt to the dark palette and slashing brushwork of Frans Hals. His work can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Kenton County Library in Covington, Ky.

Duveneck is buried at Old Mother of God Cemetery, Madison Avenue and 26th Street, Covington, Kenton County. [1]