William Stanley Haseltine
American, 1835 - 1900
After studying abroad in the late 1850s, William Stanley Haseltine returned to the United States to concentrate his efforts on painting the beauty of the American landscape. Traveling to the coast of Rhode Island and the North Shore of Massachusetts, Haseltine executed a series of vivid landscapes that celebrate the bold rock formations of those particular locales. Marc Simpson writes, "Haseltine's record of exhibited American scenes reveals a sensibility akin to that of the poet and essayist Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, 'My years are like a stroll upon the beach/As near the ocean's edge as I can go. From Maine's Mount Desert Island south approximately three hundred miles to Rhode Island's Point Judith, Haseltine, too, repeatedly traveled as near the ocean's edge as he could go, recording the wonders of the shore in crisply detailed drawings and careful oil studies. These, and the paintings derived from them, are among the artist's most original and memorable works.Haseltine's American coastal views are the works of an accomplished and well-educated artist just setting out on his career. His depictions of specific rock formations and particular light conditions frequently prompted enthusiastic recognition of a favored spot by critics and, presumably, patrons. Further, his contemporaries were able to find some of the most important movements of the age reflected in these works. The belief that art's purpose was best expressed through the accurate depiction of nature and the recognition of geology as a science with the authority to rival scriptural accounts of the early creation. Both recognizability and the resonance of his art grew from Haseltine's choice of elemental subjects observed closely and recreated faithfully. In his best American paintings, pared down visions of rock, sea, and sky, the land formations speak with geological truthfulness, the waves break convincingly, and a palpable atmosphere suffuses the whole." (Expressions of Place: The Art of William Stanley Haseltine, San Francisco, California, 1992, P. 15).Haseltine received positive critical response for works of the coastal rocks, and the artist came to be something of a fixture at Nahant. Marc Simpson writes, "The art press reported on Haseltine's stay at Nahant, aptly mentioning both art and society as occupations: 'Haseltine divides his time between fashion and the sea at Nahant.' The same periodical, Watson's, praised the results of his summer's works when he had returned to the studio later in the fall, 'Haseltine, who passed the summer months at Nahant, has brought back many admirable studies of the scenery of that neighborhood... it is within three years that Mr. Haseltine has come into notice as a painter of coast scenes, and so marked has been his success, that his prominence and superiority in the portrayal of the rocky shores of Nahant and Narragansett are by all fully acknowledged."' (Expressions of Place: The Art of William Stanley Haseltine, p. 23)Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton
William Stanley Haseltine Paintings Art & American Landscape Works
William Stanley Haseltine Paintings Art & American Landscape Works
William Haseltine was born in 1835. He concentrated on academics from 1850-1854 at the University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard. Later, he studied landscape painting in Dusseldorf with Auchenbach from 1854-58. Haseltine was noted for his keen sense of light with a focus on geological detail. He became one of the major figures of American artists in Dusseldorf at that time. In 1859, Haseltine returned to America and took a place in the 10th Street Studio Building. However, in 1866 he left for Paris and then moved to Rome in 1869, which remained his home until death. In Rome he specialized in Italian scenes for American patrons and had replaced his cool palette with the warm hues of Italy. Haseltine had also been elected to the board of the National Academy of Design.
Biography courtesy of The Caldwell Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/caldwell
Biography courtesy of The Caldwell Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/caldwell
William Stanley Haseltine was one of the nineteenth century's most celebrated expatriates, whose Italian landscapes introduced American audiences to the romance, history, and beauty of the ancient landscape. Born in Philadelphia, Haseltine descended from a rich artistic history of his own: his mother Elizabeth was an amateur painter, his older brother James became a prominent sculptor, and his younger brother Charles established the Haseltine Art Galleries in Philadelphia. William was the most promising artistic talent, and he pursued his studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University before returning to Philadelphia to train under the German artist Paul Weber. He accompanied Weber to Dusseldorf soon after, remaining in the artist's colony from 1854-1858. There, Haseltine honed his painterly technique and began to explore the European continent. He traveled to Italy in 1856, accompanying Albert Bierstadt, Emanuel Leutze, and Worthington Whittredge on a sketching trip from the Rhine to the Roman Campagna.
Back in the United States, Hasletine joined Bierstadt, Leutze, and Whittredge in New York's Tenth Street Studio Building, the center of the Hudson River School and the American art world. He didn't stay long. Haseltine returned to Europe in 1866, spending three years in Paris before settling permanently in Rome. His romantic evocations of Italy's historic ruins and peaceful coasts drew patrons from there and abroad. Distinguished by their rich colors and precisely-rendered forms, Haseltine's Italian scenes combine sentiment and strength -emotion filtered through a steady gaze.
Haseltine continued to exhibit his work at the Paris Salon, the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Art Association, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts until just before the turn of the century. Today, his paintings are featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Biography courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, www.antiquesandfineart.com/questroyal
Back in the United States, Hasletine joined Bierstadt, Leutze, and Whittredge in New York's Tenth Street Studio Building, the center of the Hudson River School and the American art world. He didn't stay long. Haseltine returned to Europe in 1866, spending three years in Paris before settling permanently in Rome. His romantic evocations of Italy's historic ruins and peaceful coasts drew patrons from there and abroad. Distinguished by their rich colors and precisely-rendered forms, Haseltine's Italian scenes combine sentiment and strength -emotion filtered through a steady gaze.
Haseltine continued to exhibit his work at the Paris Salon, the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Art Association, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts until just before the turn of the century. Today, his paintings are featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Biography courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, www.antiquesandfineart.com/questroyal
