Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Edwin White (1817-1877)
MSA SC 3520-16836

Biography:

Birth: 21 May 1817 (South Hadley, Massachusetts to Cyrus and Elvira White). Marriage: Harriet Hinman Allen, 7 December 1841.[1]

Edwin White began painting at an early age at his home in the town of South Hadley, Massachusetts. At the age of 18, White began to study under portraitist Philip Hewins in Harford, Connecticut and within five years his painting of The Beggar Boy was displayed at the prestigious National Academy of Design in New York.[2/3] Between 1840 and 1846, White took multiple classes at the National Academy, focusing on antique and life study, and worked under respected painters such as John Rubens Smith. In 1848, White was elected an associate of the Academy and became a full Academican only a year later.[4] White achieved some success as well through the American Art Union, Self-Portrait of Edwin White c.1848through which many of his paintings were distributed.

In 1850, White visited Paris for the first time to study under François Edouard Picot at the Academie des Beaux-Arts before moving to Dusseldorf in 1851 to study with Carl Wilhelm Hubner.[5] In a letter to the American Art-Union, White wrote favorably of his time abroad, "Paris appears to me as one of the most desirable places for an artist in the world whatever branch of the art he may choose to further a study, he finds him the material. For models both male and female, costumes of his subjects...at the Old Hotel de Cluny he finds the most complete collection of furniture and objects such as tapestry, armour, old pictures, in there every thing he can desire, he has only to ask and he is allowed to study when he chooses."[6] White maintained several studios across Europe including Paris, Dusseldorf, and Florence. Artist Sanford Gifford described White in a series of letters to his father as "a most amiable man as well as an excellent artist" who was a member of a tight-knit circle of American painters in Paris. Among his colleagues, White made the acquaintance of well-known artists such as John Singer Sargent and Erastus Palmer. On October 8, 1855, after five years in Europe, White returned to New York.[7]

In Annapolis, Maryland in 1856, the Maryland Senate formed a Committee comprised of Samuel Owings Hoffman, William Lingan Gaither, and James Wallace to commission a painting of George Washington's resignation as Commander-in-Chief on December 23, 1783 in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House.[8] While there are no known records indicating that White ever visited Annapolis, the committee officially selected White in the spring of 1857 for the commission and the artist left for Paris in late May of 1857.[9] During this second trip to Paris, White worked on a multitude of paintings, including several historical pieces: George Washington Reading the Burial Service Over the Body of Braddock (1860) and Evening Hymn of the Huguenots (1859).

White returned to the United States in July of 1859 and completed his most famous work: Washington Resigning His Commission by October. The painting then toured several galleries throughout the United States for some months, before arriving at the Maryland State House at the end of 1859. The art journal, The Crayon, followed the progress of Washington Resigning His Commission (1859)Washington Resigning throughout its commission and completion, describing it favorably. The October 1859 edition reviewed the painting at some length,

 "The artist has managed a difficult subject very successfully. Having no energetic posture or dramatic action to express, he has yet contrived to render a formal assembly listening. By the arrangement and variety of his figures, all of them true in costume and character, by a judicious use of accessories, which are neither obtrusive in form nor color, and by making us feel the interest which the figures themselves take in the proceeding before us, all eyes being fixed on Washington, he has succeeded in impressing us with the soleminity of an important event in our national history. We have no doubt but that Washington Resigning His Commission will give perfect satisfaction to the people of Maryland, and take rank with the best efforts of its class."[10]

Washington Resigning hung in the Old Senate Chamber until 1904 when it was moved to the Grand Staircase in the New Annex of the State House.

White remained in New York for several years, and served as visiting instructor at the National Academy of Design between 1867 and 1869. Between 1869 and 1875, White made his final trip to Europe, residing primarily in Florence, but he also traveled to Egypt in the winter of 1873 and 1874.[11]

In 1877, Edwin White died in Saratoga Springs, New York after a long bout of poor health. American painter Jervis McEntee reflected on White's death and wrote, "The last time I saw [White] he seemed crushed and broken and I learn that the severe criticism on his pictures in the Academy last year had a very serious effect upon him."[12]

[1] Kellogg, Allyn S, Memorials of Elder John White one of the first settlers of Hartford, Conn., and of his Descendants. Hartford: Case, Lockwood, and Company: 1860, p.254.
[2] National Academy of Design Museum. Edwin White Biography. ANA 1848; NA 1849.  http://www.nationalacademy.org/collections/artists/detail/1272/.
[3] Ackerman, Gerald M., American Orientalists. Mame, Tours, France: ACR, 1994, p.230.
[4] National Academy of Design Archives, Student and Teacher Records, 1840-1869.
[5] National Academy of Design Museum. Edwin White Biography. ANA 1848; NA 1849.  http://www.nationalacademy.org/collections/artists/detail/1272/.
[6] New York Historical Society. Records of the American Art-Union, 1848-1851, "Letters from Artists," MS 12. See reel 7.
[7] Sanford Robinson Gifford papers, 1840s-1900, circa 1960s-1970s. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 8 October 1855.
[8] GENERAL ASSEMBLY (House, Journal), 1856, vol. 659, p.548.
[9]"Sketchings," The Crayon, April 1857.
[10] "Sketchings," The Crayon, October 1859.
[11] Ackerman, Gerald M., American Orientalists. Mame, Tours, France: ACR, 1994, p.230.
[12] Archives of American Art. The Jervis McEntee Diaries, 11 June 1877.  http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/diaries/mcentee/entry/18770611.

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