Blue Hole, Little Miami (1851)
Duncanson painted in the style of the Hudson River School movement, whose panoramic images of the American landscape gained wide popularity in the mid-19th century. Duncanson's romantic paintings of landscapes untouched by man epitomize the Hudson River School style.
Robert S. Duncanson was born in Seneca County, New York in 1821 to an African American mother and a Scottish Canadian father. Duncanson spent his early childhood in Canada and later he and his mother moved to a small community near Cincinnati, Ohio. It is not known where Duncanson received his artistic training, but by 1842 he was exhibiting in the Cincinnati area. With the help of the Freedman's Aid Society of Ohio, Duncanson traveled to Glasgow, Scotland to study painting in 1853. Upon his return to the United States around 1854, he began painting portraits of prominent white abolitionists from Detroit and Cincinnati, the cities where he was artistically active. His portraits include that of James G. Birney, editor of the Philanthropist, an abolitionist newspaper and of Lewis Cass, an abolitionist senator from Michigan.
Duncanson gained international recognition for his landscape paintings, which were influenced by the Hudson River School. The Hudson River School was a group of artists who painted romantic images of America's wilderness, untainted by man. Their landscape paintings often included moral messages or literary associations and provided a unique American artistic identity. An extensive traveler, Duncanson depicted numerous landscape scenes throughout North Carolina, Pennsylvania, England, Canada and Scotland. In 1863, he again left for Europe to escape the soured race relations brought on by the Civil War. Four years later, he returned, continuing his work in landscapes and enjoying a particular success in Cincinnati and Detroit where he had previously exhibited.
Image courtesy of Harmon Collection/National Archives.
Text courtesy of PBS African American World.
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