Rae Sloan Bredin
American, 1881 - 1933
Rae Sloan Bredin was born in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on September 9, 1880, to Catherine Sloan and Stephen Lowrie Collins Bredin, a physician. Having received his primary school education in Franklin, Pennsylvania, he attended the Pratt Institute High School in Brooklyn, New York, graduating in 1899. He enrolled at the New York School of Fine Arts in 1900 and studied with William Merritt Chase and Frank Vincent DuMond for two and one half years. With fellow students Charles Rosen and Robert Spencer, Bredin eventually moved to Bucks County.
Bredin furthered his studies in drawing and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In his early twenties he exhibited in a group show at the National Academy of Design in New York. His initial foray into the working world was as an illustrator, primarily for Harper's magazine. He first visited the Delaware Valley around 1910 at the home of the painter Charles Rosen.'
On May 14, 1914, Bredin married Alice Rachel Price,' a member of the well-known Price family of Bucks County; her sister was the painter M. Elizabeth Price (see p. 194), and her brother was gallery owner and author F. Newlin Price. The ceremony took place "under the boughs of a flowering apple tree on the Price farm in Solebury Township, Bucks County, attended by flower girls Ellen Lathrop and Katherine Rosen,' daughters of the painters William L. Lathrop and Charles Rosen, respectively. Rosen was best man at the wedding.
Following their marriage, the couple spent the summer in France and Italy, where Bredin studied and painted. When they returned to New Hope, they made their home just north of the Rabbit Run Bridge in the house where the artist Morgan Colt had lived.
In 1918 Bredin joined the Foyer du Soldat, a social service of the French Army, where he was a regional director and interpreter until the end of World War I. Later he would return to France on a portrait commission from Swarthmore College.
Although he received many portrait commissions, Bredin preferred to make landscapes and murals. His landscapes often incorporated figures, which was unusual among Bucks County painters but fairly common among French and American impressionists. Bredin often used his family members as subjects for his figure paintings. He preferred to paint the lush scenes of Bucks County's spring and summer, unlike many other artists of the New Hope colony who were famous for their snow scenes. In 1928 Bredin was commissioned by the Trenton State Museum (now the New Jersey State Museum) for a series of large murals, four of which are six by twelve feet, and the fifth, six by twenty-five feet. These arc landscapes depicting the representative plant and animal life of New Jersey's eastern shore, southern plains, northern mountains, and the Delaware Valley on the western border. Presently the murals arc exhibited in the New Jersey State House Annex in Trenton.
Bredin taught at the New York School of Fine Arts, the Trenton School of Industrial Arts, the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design), the Pennsylvania Academy, the University of Virginia, the Holmquist School for Girls in New Hope, and with 'William Merritt Chase at his school in Shinnecock, Long Island. He regularly exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design, New York; the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and many smaller venues across the country. He was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1921.
Bredin received the Second Hallgarten Prize, National Academy of Design, 1914; a bronze medal, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; the Maynard Portrait Prize, National Academy, 1921; a bronze medal, Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia, 1926; the Vezin Prize, Salmagundi Club, New York, 1923; honorable mention, Philadelphia Arts Club, 1921, and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922; and the Talcott Prize, National Arts Club, 1928.
Bredin died on July 17, 1933, at the Joseph Price Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia, following an operation for cancer.' He was fifty-two.
Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton
Bredin furthered his studies in drawing and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In his early twenties he exhibited in a group show at the National Academy of Design in New York. His initial foray into the working world was as an illustrator, primarily for Harper's magazine. He first visited the Delaware Valley around 1910 at the home of the painter Charles Rosen.'
On May 14, 1914, Bredin married Alice Rachel Price,' a member of the well-known Price family of Bucks County; her sister was the painter M. Elizabeth Price (see p. 194), and her brother was gallery owner and author F. Newlin Price. The ceremony took place "under the boughs of a flowering apple tree on the Price farm in Solebury Township, Bucks County, attended by flower girls Ellen Lathrop and Katherine Rosen,' daughters of the painters William L. Lathrop and Charles Rosen, respectively. Rosen was best man at the wedding.
Following their marriage, the couple spent the summer in France and Italy, where Bredin studied and painted. When they returned to New Hope, they made their home just north of the Rabbit Run Bridge in the house where the artist Morgan Colt had lived.
In 1918 Bredin joined the Foyer du Soldat, a social service of the French Army, where he was a regional director and interpreter until the end of World War I. Later he would return to France on a portrait commission from Swarthmore College.
Although he received many portrait commissions, Bredin preferred to make landscapes and murals. His landscapes often incorporated figures, which was unusual among Bucks County painters but fairly common among French and American impressionists. Bredin often used his family members as subjects for his figure paintings. He preferred to paint the lush scenes of Bucks County's spring and summer, unlike many other artists of the New Hope colony who were famous for their snow scenes. In 1928 Bredin was commissioned by the Trenton State Museum (now the New Jersey State Museum) for a series of large murals, four of which are six by twelve feet, and the fifth, six by twenty-five feet. These arc landscapes depicting the representative plant and animal life of New Jersey's eastern shore, southern plains, northern mountains, and the Delaware Valley on the western border. Presently the murals arc exhibited in the New Jersey State House Annex in Trenton.
Bredin taught at the New York School of Fine Arts, the Trenton School of Industrial Arts, the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design), the Pennsylvania Academy, the University of Virginia, the Holmquist School for Girls in New Hope, and with 'William Merritt Chase at his school in Shinnecock, Long Island. He regularly exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design, New York; the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and many smaller venues across the country. He was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1921.
Bredin received the Second Hallgarten Prize, National Academy of Design, 1914; a bronze medal, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; the Maynard Portrait Prize, National Academy, 1921; a bronze medal, Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia, 1926; the Vezin Prize, Salmagundi Club, New York, 1923; honorable mention, Philadelphia Arts Club, 1921, and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922; and the Talcott Prize, National Arts Club, 1928.
Bredin died on July 17, 1933, at the Joseph Price Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia, following an operation for cancer.' He was fifty-two.
Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton
