George Henry Durrie (1820-1863)

Professions: Painter

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  GEORGE HENRY DURRIE 1820-1863 SEVEN MILES TO FARMINGTON Measurements 26 by 36in. Alternate Measurements: (66 by 91.4 cm) signed G.H. Durrie and dated N. Haven 1855, l.r. oil on canvas Provenance: Acquired by the present owner, before 1938 Note:

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  George Henry Durrie 1820-1863 Ketcham Farm in Winter, New Haven, 1858

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  George Henry Durrie 1820-1863 , The Hunter oil on board

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  George Henry Durrie 1820-1863 , Winter: The Old Mill oil on board

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George Henry Durrie Biography

(b Hartford, CT, 6 June 1820; d New Haven, CT, 15 Oct 1863). American painter. Durrie and his older brother John (1818–98) studied sporadically from 1839 to 1841 with the portrait painter Nathaniel Jocelyn. From 1840 to 1842 he was an itinerant painter in Connecticut and New Jersey, finally settling permanently in New Haven. He produced c. 300 paintings, of which the earliest were portraits (e.g. Self-portrait , 1839; Shelburne, VT, Mus.); by the early 1850s he had begun to paint the rural genre scenes and winter landscapes of New England that are considered his finest achievement. His landscapes, for example A Christmas Party (1852; Tulsa, OK, Gilcrease Inst. Amer. Hist. & A.), are characterized by the use of pale though cheerful colours and by the repeated use of certain motifs: an isolated farmhouse, a road placed diagonally leading the eye into the composition, and a hill (usually the West or East Rocks, New Haven) in the distance. By the late 1850s Durrie’s reputation had started to grow, and he was exhibiting at prestigious institutions, such as the National Academy of Design. In 1861 the firm of Currier & Ives helped popularize his work by publishing prints of two of his winter landscapes, New England Winter Scene (1858; Mr and Mrs Peter Frelinghuysen Carleton priv. col.) and the Farmyard in Winter (untraced). Two more were published in 1863 and a further six after his death.

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