John F. Kensett (1816-1872)

John F. Kensett (1816-1872)

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A leading painter of the Hudson River School, John F. Kensett began his career as a bank note engraver rather than a painter.  He first studied engraving with his father Thomas Kensett and by 1829 he moved to New York City where he was apprenticed to an engraver.  That same year he went to work for his uncle in New Haven, Connecticut as an engraver at the firm of Daggett & Ely from 1829 until 1835.  Kensett is best remembered for his luminist paintings depicting the picturesque landscape of New York and Northern New England; especially New Hampshire’s White Mountain region. During his lifetime he was enormously successful. He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Artists Funds Society; and in 1859 President Buchanan made him a member of the First Federal Art Commission. 

 

References: See Who Was Who In American Art (1999).; Catherine H. Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery (New Hampshire Historical Society: Phoenix Publishing, 1985).   

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