Wyatt Eaton

Wyatt Eaton

Wyatt Eaton, portrait, genre and landscape painter, illustrator (b at Philipsburg, Qué 6 May 1849; d at Newport, RI 7 June 1896). Eaton left Canada for New York around 1867 and studied at the National Academy of Design, and then for 5 years under Joseph Oriel Eaton. He went to London, then Paris, where he studied at the École des beaux-arts (1872-76) and became a disciple of Millet and several other Barbizon painters. On his return to New York (1876), he taught at the Cooper Union and executed a series of pen-and-ink portraits of American poets forCentury Magazine. In France again during 1883-84, he painted his most famous canvas, Harvest Field. His portraits of George Stephen, Sir Donald Smith and William Van Horne painted in Montréal in 1892-93 were so well received that orders for portraits of Sir William Dawson, William C. MacDonald and others followed. His last working days were spent in Ottawa. He was a founding member and president of the American Art Association (later Society of American Artists), and founding member of the Society of Canadian Artists (1867).