David gilmour blythe biography template
Blythe was also an accomplished portraitist and poet. He is widely regarded as the Pittsburgh region's pre-eminent nineteenth-century painter. After a childhood in a log cabin by the Ohio River, at the age of 16, Blythe moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There he apprenticed himself to woodcarver Joseph Woodwell. After his discharge from the Navy, Blythe returned to East Liverpool and took up work as an itinerant portrait painter.
Always restless, Blythe traveled widely from Baltimore to Philadelphia and perhaps as far as New Orleans. Other than his stint with Woodwell, Blythe had no known artistic education or training and his early East Liverpool portraits were ungraceful and stiff. Despite his dearth of formal training, Blythe's proficiency as an artist grew throughout his adulthood.
Blythe's early poetry was written in East Liverpool and is generally of a sentimental, simple nature. The couple had been acquainted since the mids. Julia's family had relocated to Uniontown sometime around Julia and David were married in Pittsburgh's Roman Catholic cathedral on September 30, and set up residence in Uniontown.
David gilmour blythe biography template
Blythe established a living as a portraitist in Uniontown, and a large number of his early portraits from that period survive. They are generally in the same stiff manner as his early East Liverpool portraits. In addition to painting, Blythe was commissioned to carve a large poplar 8'2" statue of Lafayette for the cupola of the Uniontown, Pennsylvania courthouse.
Blythe was an alcoholic throughout adulthood. Although Blythe was well-regarded in Pittsburgh during his final years, he did not enjoy a larger national reputation in his lifetime. For decades — from his death until the s — Blythe's life and work were largely forgotten. Since the s, however, his oeuvre has earned growing respect and prestige.
The largest collection of Blythe genre paintings about two dozen is owned by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, followed by the ten owned by the private Duquesne Club in downtown Pittsburgh. A small number of Blythe genre paintings are privately owned. The relative scarcity of his work usually results in high prices for the rare examples that come to auction.
Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. American painter — Early years [ edit ]. Adulthood [ edit ]. Civil War [ edit ]. Later work [ edit ]. Reputation [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. In addition to painting, Blythe carved from poplar a large 8'2" statue of Lafayette for the Uniontown, Pennsylvania courthouse.
He also invested a great deal of time and energy painting a panorama — an early forerunner to motion pictures. His social awkwardness and general bellicosity were intensified when Blythe drank, which was often. After another statue project in nearby Green County fell through, the Uniontown newspapers published Blythe poems in which he referred to Greene County as "a sow grown fat with buttermilk and meal.
Blythe's impudent response was a letter in which he called the poet "the son of an insolvent rat. Between andBlythe suffered several profound losses. Both his father and his wife, the former Julia Ann Kefferdied. His panorama venture failed financially. After these tribulations, his work became increasingly and bitingly satirical. He turned away from portraiture and instead concentrated on canvases depicting hot-button social and political issues.
A leading satiric genre painter of his time, David Blythe did work that often commented on the American court system and also depicted poverty-stricken street children. He had little formal art training but at age 16, apprenticed to Joseph Woodwell, a woodcarver from Pittsburgh.