Shurtleff, Roswell Morse

Roswell Morse Shurtleff (1838-1915) American

Late Evening in the Adirondacks

Medium: Oil on board
Image Size: 14” x 11”
Frame Size: 18” x 15”
Signature: Initialed R.S.M. in the lower center
Price: $7500

Biography/Statement

Most noted for his paintings of forest interiors, Roswell Shurtleff settled in Hartford, Connecticut but spent his summers painting his signature works in the Adirondacks at Keene Valley, New York. He and John Lee Fitch successfully encouraged other artists to join them including Winslow Homer, J Alden Weir, James Smillie, and Alexander Wyant.

Shurtleff was born in New Hampshire and studied at Dartmouth College but did not graduate. He also attended the Lowell Institute and the National Academy of Design. In 1857, he became an architect’s assistant in Manchester, New Hampshire, and from 1858 to 1859, worked for a lithographer in Buffalo, New York. Then he moved to Boston and worked for an engraver.

In 1860 to 1861, he worked in New York City as a magazine illustrator and then volunteered for service in the Civil War. He became the first Federal officer to be wounded, and spent eight months in a southern prison, after which he returned to New York and Hartford and worked as an illustrator and painter. He did two Western illustrations for Albert Richardson’s book, Beyond the Mississippi. He also did paintings of animals, a subject he abandoned after taking up landscape painting.
He married in 1867, and at that time, the couple began spending their summers in upstate New York.

Source:
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art
Peggy and Harold Samuels, Artists of the American West

Artist Profile Page: Shurtleff, Roswell Morse / Categories: Hudson River School

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