Edward Simmons (painter)

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Edward Emerson Simmons, Melpomene (1891). Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.

Edward Emerson Simmons (October 27, 1852 – November 17, 1931) was an American impressionist painter, remembered for his mural work. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian minister.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1874, and was a pupil of Lefebvre and Boulanger in Paris, where he took a gold medal. In 1894, Simmons was awarded the first commission of the Municipal Art Society, a series of murals — “Justice,” “The Fates” and “The Rights of Man” for the interior of the Criminal Courthouse at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan. This court is the criminal branch of New York Supreme Court where many New Yorkers serve on Jury Duty. Later Simmons decorated the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and the Capitol at Saint Paul, Minnesota.

In the year 1914 he travelled with Childe Hassam to view the Arizona desert paintings of the rising California artist, Xavier Martinez at his Piedmont studio.

Simmons was a member of the Ten American Painters, who, as a group, seceded from the Society of American Artists. He was also considered a contributor to the style known as the American Renaissance, a movement after the American Civil War that stressed the relationship of architecture, painting, sculpture and interior design.