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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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[ 31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men ]info
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31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men

When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.

He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH

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Hills no. 31.1.65
Wilder Dwight
Alternate title: Portrait of Wilder Dwight
c.1887
Oil
[dimensions unknown]
Present whereabouts unknown
Provenance
Brookline Public Library, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1887 (by gift)
Present whereabouts unknown
References
Brookline Public Library 1888
Thirty-First Annual Report of the Trustees of the Public Library of the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts. Brookline, MA: The Chronicle Press, 1888, p. 4: "Friends of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, of the Second Massachusetts Regiment, who was fatally wounded at Antietam, have presented to the library a life-like portrait of that gallant young officer, painted by Eastman Johnson. This now hangs upon the south wall of Garner Hall".
Bolton 1897
Bolton, Charles Knowles. Brookline: The History of a Favored Town. Brookline, MA: C. A. W. Spencer, 1897, p. 61: "A fine portrait of Major Dwight by Eastman Johnson hangs in the Public Library".
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Dwight, Wilder
Biography:

Wilder Dwight (1833–1862). Lieutenant Colonel when he died in battle at Antietam in Maryland at the age of twenty-nine.

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Dwight, Wilder
Keywords
Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Wilder Dwight, c.1887 (Hills no. 31.1.65)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1731 (accessed on April 26, 2024).