John Banvard (1815-1891). Panorama, landscape, and portrait. Banvard was born in New York City but is closely associated with Kentucky. He settled in Louisville but traveled up and down the Mississippi River recording the geography. He created a panoramic view of the river including one that stood twelve feet high and thirteen hundred feet long. This panorama was taken on a world tour in 1846 that included a special private viewing of the piece by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The Mississippi River panorama was lost and never recovered. Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975). Muralist, genre, figure, and graphics. Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri. He studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Julian Academy, Paris. He moved to New York City and worked as a graphic artist. After World War I, he was recognized as a realist artist. He traveled across the United States sketching scenes of everyday life and people. He returned to Missouri during the Depression and became the director of painting at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1935-36, he painted a mural depicting famous folk heroes of Missouri in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol. Benton was a close friend of Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry who, along with Benton, are classified as American regionalist artists. Dawson Dawson-Watson (1864-1939). Landscape, portrait, graphic artist. Dawson-Watson was born in London. He was the son of a popular English illustrator. He studied under an art teacher in Sussez, England, and later in Paris. He continued to live in France but married an American woman. They moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he became the director of the Hartford Art Society. In 1905, he moved to St. Louis to teach art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. He also served as the art director of the annual pageant at Brandesville, Missouri. Dawson-Watson moved to San Antonio, Texas, and served as the director of the San Antonio Art Guild. Manuel Joachim Defranca (1808-1865) Portrait, historical, religious. Defranca was born in Portugal. He was a member of a family of wine merchants. Defranca began to paint as a child and created models of cathedrals. Defranca studied art at the Academy of Art in Lisbon. During his studies, he was forced to flee Portugal due to a civil war. He became separated from his family who were sailing for Brazil and instead to ok a ship to Philadelphia. He was befriended by the American portraitist Thomas Sully who encouraged Defranca to paint. Defranca received commissions for portraits but also began to paint cathedrals. He permanently settled in St. Louis where he painted portraits of many of the city’s wealthy and prominent citizens. Matthew Hastings (1834-1919). Historical, portrait, southern genre. Hastings was born in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and moved to St. Louis in 1840. There he became friends with Missouri artists George Caleb Bingham and Carl Wimar. He briefly left St. Louis to study art in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1848. When he returned to Missouri he began to paint scenes from the Arcadia Valley in south central Missouri. In 1871, he joined a western expedition led by Father Desmet. During this period he created a series of sketches of the plains Indians encountered during the expedition. Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908). Sculpture. Hosmer was born in Watertown, Massachusetts. Hosmer studied sculpture in Boston but when she attempted to study anatomy at Boston Medical School she was denied due to a policy barring female students. A Boston doctor arranged for Hosmer to study at St. Louis University where she began her study of anatomy. She traveled to Europe where she received many commissions and became a member of the Spanish Steps intellectuals. She returned to the United States and received a commission from the state of Missouri to create a sculpture of Missouri’s first senator, Thomas Hart Benton. The Benton statue was unveiled in Lafayette Park in St. Louis in 1868. William Henry Jackson (1843-1942). Photographer, painter, explorer. Jackson was born in Keesville, New York. He taught himself art and became a touch-up artist for a photography studio in Troy, New York. He served in the Civil War and afterwards became a sketch artist. In 1866, he traveled to the West, where he sketched scenes in Utah and California. He photographed the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad and joined the Hayden expedition to Yellowstone. Here he took the first photographs of the Yellowstone River region. They were used to persuade Congress to establish Yellowstone as the first national park. He worked with Jay Gould by photographing scenic railroad routes to promote railroad tourism throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Jackson continued to paint and photograph well into his older years. He died in New York City at the age of 99. Joseph Meeker (1827-1889). Landscape-bayous, portraitist. Meeker was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Auburn, New York. He studied art at the National Academy of Design under Hudson River School painters Asher B. Durand and Charles Loring Elliot. He moved to St. Louis in 1860 and enlisted in the Union Navy after the outbreak of the Civil War. Meeker began sketching scenes of the bayous and swamps that he encountered during his travels along the Mississippi River on a gunboat. In the 1870s, he became associated with the Luminism style. He is best known for his bayou paintings, but also created landscapes of the New England coast and western territories. Ferdinand Von Miller, II (1842-1929). Sculpture. Miller was born in Munich, Germany. He was the son of the renowned sculptor Ferdinand Von Miller who is most famous for his colossal brass sculpture Bavaria in Munich. Ferdinand, Jr. followed in his father's footsteps and became a noted brass sculptor. He created the brass busts of Shakespeare and Alexander Von Humboldt and the sculpture of Henry Shaw that stand in Tower Grove Park in St. Louis. Richard Edward Miller (1875-1943). Female figure artist, portraitist, landscape. Miller was born in St. Louis. He began to study art as a child and later attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. He found employment as an illustrator for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper in the 1890s. In 1898, he earned a scholarship to study at the Academie Julian in Paris with Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurens. By 1901, Miller was teaching at the Academie Colarossi in Paris. He became friends with Claude Monet and socialized with a number of noted American expatriate artists in France. He returned to the United States during World War I and settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He was known as the dean of the Provincetown art colony. He died in St. Augustine, Florida. Frank Nuderscher (1880-1959). Rural landscape, industrial, and city view artist. Nuderscher was a self-taught artist who lived in St. Louis his entire life. He painted many Ozark landscapes and industrial scenes of St. Louis. He was a member and the last survivor of the River Front Art Colony. He became the supervisor of the Works Progress Administration project. He served as president of the Independent Artists of St. Louis and earned ten prizes for his work from the St. Louis Art Guild. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Artist, museum curator. Peale was born in Chester, Maryland. He studied art in Boston under portraitist and silversmith John Singleton Copley and painter John Smibert. Later he traveled to Italy and studied the Italian masters. He returned to the United States and became a noted portraitist in the neo-classical style. When the American Revolution began he joined the army and fought with George Washington. He painted Washington during the Continental army’s winter at Valley Forge. Peale eventually painted fourteen portraits of Washington. In 1788, he opened the Peale Museum of art and natural history in Philadelphia. Peter Rindisbacher (1806-1834). Frontier Indian genre, portraitist. Rindisbacher was born in Bern Canton, Swizterland. He studied art in Switzerland before his family immigrated to western Canada in 1821. He moved to St. Louis in 1829 and created paintings and drawings of fur traders and Indians. Paulus Roetter (1806-1894). Landscape artist, botanical illustrator. Ro etter studied art in Dusseldorf and Munich, Germany, before settling in Switzerland in 1825. He emigrated to St. Louis in 1845 where he became an Evangelical pastor and schoolteacher. Roetter served in the Union army during the Civil War. He later became an associate of biologist Louis Agassiz at Harvard University. W. Dendy Sadler (1854-1923) Genre painter. Studied at Heatherly’s Art School, London. Sadler painted mostly costume pieces of the 18th and early 19th century, often with humorous or sentimental themes. His pictures were very popular and reproduced often through engravings. Sadler’s works are in the Tate Gallery, London.