Charles Octavius Cole
{{Short description|American painter}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Charles Octavius Cole
| birth_date = July 1, 1814
| death_date = {{death date and age|1858|2|14|1814|7|1}}
| nationality = American
| known_for = Painting
| notable_works =
| style = Portraiture
| movement =
| partner =
| birth_place = Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.
| death_place = Portland, Maine, U.S.
| resting_place_coordinates = Western Cemetery
}}
Charles Octavius Cole (July 1, 1814 – February 14, 1858) was an American painter. Born in Massachusetts, he spent spent much of his life in Maine, where he was regarded as Portland's most eminent painter during his time in the city.{{Cite web |title=James Clark Burnham, Portland, 1848 |url=https://www.mainememory.net/record/18674 |access-date=2025-03-30 |website=Maine Memory Network |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Carbone |first=Teresa A. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Paintings_in_the_Brooklyn_Museu/ye8xAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&printsec=frontcover |title=American Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum: Artists Born by 1876 |last2=Museum |first2=Brooklyn |last3=Gallati |first3=Barbara Dayer |last4=Ferber |first4=Linda S. |date=2006 |publisher=Brooklyn Museum |isbn=978-1-904832-08-9 |pages=381 |language=en}} Although he was known as a portrait painter, he did produce some landscape paintings. Cole's portrait of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is on display in Portland's Wadsworth-Longfellow House, while his Imperial Knob and Gorge: White Mountains of New Hampshire{{Cite book |last=McGrath |first=Robert L. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gods_in_Granite/MIKfeV_KIeEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&pg=RA1-PA86&printsec=frontcover |title=Gods in Granite: The Art of the White Mountains of New Hampshire |date=2001-03-01 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0-8156-0663-5 |pages=86 |language=en}} oil-on-canvas landscape is in the possession of Brooklyn Museum in New York City.
Early life
Cole was born in 1814 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His father, Bordeaux native Moses Dupré Cole (1783–1849),{{Cite web |title=Cole, Moses Dupre, 1783-1849 - born Jacques Moyse Dupre. {{!}} Portsmouth Athenaeum |url=https://athenaeum.pastperfectonline.com/byperson?keyword=Cole,%20Moses%20Dupre,%201783-1849 |access-date=2025-03-30 |website=athenaeum.pastperfectonline.com}} was a sign painter and portraitist in that town.{{Cite book |last=Arts |first=Detroit Institute of |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Paintings_in_the_Detroit_Instit/FabqAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&printsec=frontcover |title=American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: Works by artists born before 1816 |last2=Black |first2=Mary |last3=Society |first3=Founders |date=1991 |publisher=Hudson Hills Press |isbn=978-1-55595-044-6 |pages=272 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Belknap |first=Henry Wyckoff |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Artists_and_Craftsmen_of_Essex_County_Ma/vZhLAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&pg=PA7&printsec=frontcover |title=Artists and Craftsmen of Essex County, Massachusetts |date=1927 |publisher=Essex Institute |pages=7 |language=en}}
Career
File:Elizabeth Bourne, 1832 - 1855.jpg
Between 1838 and 1842, Cole worked in New Orleans, where he was coined a "Plantation Baroque painter",{{Cite book |last=Orgera |first=Ryan |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Louisiana_Field_Guide/CXaOAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&pg=PA215&printsec=frontcover |title=The Louisiana Field Guide: Understanding Life in the Pelican State |last2=Harlan |first2=Raynie |last3=Parent |first3=Wayne |date=2014-10-13 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-5777-0 |pages=215 |language=en}} before moving to Portland, Maine, where he remained until around 1856.{{Cite web |title=Charles Octavius Cole (1814-1858) {{!}} White Mountain Art & Artists |url=https://www.whitemountainart.com/about-3/artists/charles-octavius-cole-1814-1858/ |access-date=2025-03-30 |language=en-US}}
His portrait of Portland minister Revd. Asa Cummings is in the possession of Portland Public Library and is in the art inventories catalog at Smithsonian American Art Museums in Washington, D.C.,{{Cite web |last=Institution |first=Smithsonian |title=Portrait of Asa Cummings (1795-1856), (painting) |url=https://www.si.edu/object/portrait-asa-cummings-1795-1856-painting:siris_ari_82199 |access-date=2025-03-29 |website=Smithsonian Institution |language=en}} while his unfinished portrait of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is on display in the Wadsworth-Longfellow House in Portland.{{Cite web |title=Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ca. 1843 |url=https://www.mainememory.net/record/4117 |access-date=2025-03-30 |website=Maine Memory Network |language=en}} Cole also gifted Longfellow "a painting of great merit" of waxworker Patience Wright.{{Cite book |last=Longfellow |first=Henry Wadsworth |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Letters_of_Henry_Wadsworth_Longfello/Dkdp7mWDCR0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&pg=PA385&printsec=frontcover |title=The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1814-1843 |date= |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-52725-6 |pages=385 |language=en}}
Personal life
Cole married Mary B. Smith, with whom he had three children. Daughter Annie Darling married Dr. Henry Carmichael, an analytical and consulting chemist from New York City.{{Cite book |last=Corey |first=Deloraine Pendre |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Malden_Past_and_Present/kisWAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Charles+Octavius+Cole+painter&pg=PA75&printsec=frontcover |title=Malden Past and Present: Issued on the Occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Malden, Mass., May, 1899 : Incorporated as a Town in 1649 |date=1899 |publisher=Malden Mirror |pages=74 |language=en}}
Death
Cole died of tuberculosis in 1858, aged 43. He was interred in Portland's Western Cemetery.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Charles}}
Category:19th-century American male artists
Category:19th-century American painters
Category:American portrait painters
Category:American landscape painters
Category:Artists from Massachusetts
Category:Painters from Massachusetts
Category:People from Newburyport, Massachusetts