Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Boughton, George Henry

BOUGHTON, George Henry, artist, b. in Norfolk, England, in 1836. His family came to this country about 1839, and he passed his youth in Albany, N. Y. Here he entered business, but spent his spare moments in making pen-and-ink sketches. From this time he continued to paint. In 1853 he sold several of his pictures, and, with the money thus obtained, went to London for study. After a few months he returned to Albany, and subsequently moved to New York, where he remained two years, and soon made himself known as a landscape painter. In 1858 he exhibited his first picture at the national academy, " Winter Twilight." Another picture produced during this period was "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp." His paintings at this time indicate a transition from landscape to genre, and to fit himself for the latter he studied two years in Paris. In 1861 he removed to London, where he as since passed the greater part of his time, contributing annually to the exhibitions of the royal academy, of which he is an associate. He has also exhibited frequently at the national academy in New York, and was made an academician in 1871. His works are popular and meet with a ready sale. They are marked by simplicity, tenderness, and subdued, but not weak, coloring. He excels in delineating Puritan life in New England. Among his pictures on American subjects are "The Scarlet Letter," "Return of the Mayflower," "Puritans Going to Church," and " Rose Standish." He has also been successful in painting pictures of French peasant-life, as "Passing into the Shade" (1863); "A Breton Haymaker" (Royal academy, 1864); "Wayside Devotion" (1867); "Breton Pastoral" (1869); "Coming from Church," "Cold Without," and "Morning Prayer." To the American fine-art department at the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876 he sent, among other paintings, " Normandy Girl in a Shower," "By the Sea," and "Going to Seek his Fortune"; and to the British department at Paris, in 1878, "Snow in Spring" and "A Surrey Pastoral." Among his other works are the "Canterbury Pilgrims" (1874); "A Ruffling Breeze" (1877); the "Waning of the Honeymoon " (1878); and "The Idyl of the Birds," a composition in three parts. "The Testy Governor" (1877) is in the Corcoran gallery at Washington, D. C. Mr. Boughton has been especially successful in painting female figures.