Master Outdoor Painters
Robert William Vonnoh
By Armand Cabrera

Robert William Vonnoh was born in 1858 in Hartford, Connecticut.  His parents moved to Boston while Vonnoh was still a child.  He attended the Massachusetts Normal Art School, studying under George Bartlett and Edmond Tarbell.  He graduated in 1879. Upon graduation, he began teaching drawing and painting at the same school.  In 1881, Vonnoh made his first trip to France where he enrolled in the Académie Julian as a student under Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. Vonnoh remained in France for two years and returned to Boston in 1883. His portrait of a fellow American art student at the Académie Julian in Paris was juried into the Paris Salon of 1883.  The portrait secured Vonnoh’s reputation when it was later displayed in his hometown of Boston.

Vonnoh became the principle at the East Boston Evening Drawing School while continuing to show his work. Vonnoh won his first American exhibition medal from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in 1884.  The next year, Vonnoh transferred to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accepting a position as instructor of portrait and figure painting.  In 1887, Vonnoh returned to France, settling in the area of Grèz-sur-Loing near the Forest of Fontainebleau with his new wife Grace D. Farrell. It was here that Vonnoh fully adopted the Impressionist aesthetic. Vonnoh’s paintings were accepted into the Paris Salon shows between 1887 and 1891.

In 1889, Vonnoh sent paintings from France for a One Man Show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1890, he returned to America and accepted a position as principal instructor in portrait and landscape painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts He held this position until 1894.  In 1896, Vonnoh’s wife died.  Three years later, Vonnoh married sculptor Bessie O. Potter.  

Vonnoh’s influence as a teacher was significant. Vonnoh was considered a leading figure in American art at the turn of the 20th century.  His students include Edward Henry Potthast, Edward Redfield, Walter Elmer Schofield, Robert Henri, John Sloan and William Glackens---the last three artists forming the core of the influential Ashcan School.

 
Beginning in 1905, the Vonnoh’s spent their next 25 summers at the Art Colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut.  Vonnoh was one of the first American artists to successfully adopt Impressionism, although his style was a completely American version---never relinquishing form for the effect of light and atmosphere.  His academic training made him an excellent portrait painter.  

In 1925, Vonnoh’s eyesight began to deteriorate, robbing him of his ability to paint.  He returned to Grèz-sur-Loing, France and died of a heart attack in Nice in 1933.