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Robert Walter Weir

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ROBERT WALTER WEIR (1803-1889), American portrait and historical painter, was born at New Rochelle, New York, on the 18th of June 1803. He was a pupil of Jarvis, was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829, and was teacher of drawing at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1834-1846, and professor of drawing there in 1846-1876. He died in New York City on the 1st of May 1889. Among his better-known works are: "The Embarkation of the Pilgrims" (in the rotunda of the United States Capitol at Washington, D.C.); "Landing of Hendrik Hudson"; "Evening of the Crucifixion"; "Columbus before the Council of Salamanca"; "Our Lord on the Mount of Olives"; "Virgil and Dante crossing the Styx," and several portraits, now at West Point, and "Peace and War" in the Chapel there.

His son, John Ferguson Weir (b. 1841), painter and sculptor, became a Member of the National Academy of Design in 1866, and was made director of the Yale University Art School in 1868. Another son, Julian Alden Weir (b. 1852), studied under his father, and under J. L. Gerome, and became a distinguished portrait, figure and landscape painter. He was one of the founders of the Society of American Artists in 1877, and became a member of the National Academy of Design (1886) and of the Ten American Painters, New York.