Henry Peters Gray
{{Short description|American painter}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Henry Peters Gray
| image = Henry Peters Gray.jpg
| alt = Henry Peters Gray, 1850.
| caption =
| birth_name = Henry Peters Gray
| birth_date = June 23, 1819
| birth_place = New York City, United States
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1897|11|12|1819|6|23}}
| death_place = New York City, United States
| death_cause =
| resting_place =
| resting_place_coordinates =
| nationality = American
| movement =
| training = Daniel Huntington
| field = Painting, drawing
| works = The Greek Lovers (1846)
The Wages of War (1848)
The Pride of the Village (1859)
}}
Henry Peters Gray (June 23, 1819 - November 12, 1897) was an American portrait and genre painter.
Early life
File:Henry Peters Gray (Henry Colton Shumway).jpg, 1842]]
File:Brown Gray Durand 1850.jpg, Henry Peters Gray and Asher Brown Durand, 1850]]
Born in New York City he was a pupil of Daniel Huntington in New York, and subsequently studied in Rome and Florence.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Gray, Henry Peters|volume=12|page=391}}
Career
Elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871.
The later years of his life were devoted to portrait work. He was strongly influenced by the old Italian masters, painting in mellow colour with a classical tendency. One of his notable canvases was an allegorical composition called "The Birth of our Flag" (1875). He died in New York City.
=Major works=
The Greek Lovers was painted by Gray after a trip to Italy, where he was greatly influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance. This painting was very well received in its day, and reflects the nineteenth-century fascination with Greco-Roman antiquity.{{cite web|title=Henry Peters Gray {{!}} The Greek Lovers {{!}} The Met|url=http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10966?sortBy=Relevance&ao=on&ft=henry+peters+gray&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=2|website=metmuseum.org|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|accessdate=12 February 2017}}
The Pride of the Village was based on Washington Irving’s story of the same name and is about a beautiful and simple country girl, the proverbial "pride of the village," who fell in love with an army officer. When the officer is transferred to another post, he asks that she accompany him, however, her pure mind was so upset by this indecorous suggestion that she pined away, surrounded by her devoted family. The painting shows her in her decline, possibly "thinking of her faithless lover?—or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?"{{cite web|title=Henry Peters Gray {{!}} The Pride of the Village {{!}} The Met|url=http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10967?sortBy=Relevance&ao=on&ft=henry+peters+gray&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=4|website=metmuseum.org|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|accessdate=12 February 2017}}
Gallery
File:The Greek Lovers - Henry Peters Gray.jpg|The Greek Lovers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1846
File:The Wages of War - Henry Peters Gray.jpg|The Wages of War at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1848
File:The Pride of the Village - Henry Peters Gray.jpg|The Pride of the Village at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1858–59
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924020334771#page/n49/mode/2up 1893 Biographical Sketch]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Henry Peters}}
Category:19th-century American painters
Category:American male painters
Category:American genre painters
Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery
Category:American portrait painters
Category:Painters from New York City
Category:19th-century American male artists
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