| Notes |
- William L. Lathrop, who became an outstanding American landscape painter, began to sketch and paint as a boy, using materials handy on his father's farm. In 1876, William finished his formal schooling, and the same year sold his first picture -- a painting of his neighbor's cows. With the money he earned he decided to try his luck in New York, but after a few weeks returned home unsuccessful. For the next few years, William was a country schoolmaster, worked on his father's farm, and continued to practice and develop his art, making a homemade etching press.
At the age of 21, William again went to New York and for the better part of a decade began illustrating for "Harper's" and "Century" magazines, When funds ran low, William would return to Painesville. In 1884, he built his own canoe and sailed it across Lake Erie to Buffalo, where he worked for a time as an illustrator on the "Buffalo Express." By the late 1880's, William had achieved considerable success with his etchings, selling enough to send himself to Europe for a year in 1888. Travelling and sketching through England and France, William saw a young woman through a train window at Oxford. He got off at the next stop, went back, and two months later married Annie Burt.
William returned with his bride to the United States to find that etching had become commercialized and his marked vanished, resulting in a turn to watercolor. Having a difficult time financially, William and Annie lived for a time at the farm of artist friend J. Alden Weir in Connecticut, and in Greenport, Long Island. Finally returning to Painesville, William tried for several years to farm (unsuccessfully) and paint.
1896 was the turning point of his career. That spring, Henry B. Snell, an artist friend, took six of William's small watercolors to the annual exhibition of the American Watercolor Society. One of his pictures won the W.T. Evans prize, the highest annual award for watercolor painting in the United States. All five other paints were sold at the show, and suddenly William's work was in demand. Two years later he moved with his family to New Hope, Bucks County, PA. By his character, talents and reputation, William attracted many students and began what was to become the famous New Hope art colony.
At the age of 68, William realized a life-long dream, building with his own hands a twenty-seven foot sailboat. Called "Widge," she was three years in the building and was powered by sail alone. William launched her in October 1930 in the canal at New Hope, and took her down Delaware Bay to the New Jersey coast that fall. From 1930 to 1938, he sailed and cruised, summer and fall, mostly by himself, sketching and painting. September 21, 1938, William, alone on his boat at Montauk Point, Long Island, was lost in the great hurricane of 1938, which hit the end of Long Island with its full fury. William was 79 years old.
|
1859 - 1938 (79 years)