In the 1840s, Samuel Lancaster Gerry was known as the leader of the White Mountain School. This area in New Hampshire is the setting for a large number of the landscapes for which he is most widely known, although he also painted portraits, genre pictures and animal studies.

Gerry was born in Boston in 1813. Although he had no formal instruction in art, he is believed to have been somewhat influenced by Asher Durand and Thomas Cole in the United States, and by Constant, Troyon and Lambinet in Paris. He spent three years in Lingland, France, Switzerland and Italy, studying and associating with some of America's most respected expatriate artists.

He sometimes copied others' works. Two copies of George Harvey pictures are reproduced in The Old Print Shop Portfolio: A New Gallery of "Honest American " Paintings. They are Summer (a scene of a road accident in which a cart has lost a wheel) and Winter (a scene of travelers in the Canadian woods topped by a fallen pine).

Gerry's West Point, Kosciusko Monument (1838, private collection), is based on a composition by W.H. Bartlett. The tomb of the Lithuanian patriot rises tall a the upper left-hand corner, standing like a sentinel along the Hudson River and overlooking a view of ships and holiday group of gentlemen and women with parasols. The color in Gerry's version of this scene is stronger than Bartlett's. Gerry's attention to detail and his expertise in bringing the work to a professional finish are apparent. Franconia Mountains Near Thornton, New Hampshire (1857, location unknown), not a copy, is a serene composition of sky and hills in soft browns and lavenders; two horsemen water their horses in the shallow bend of a river.

Gerry was one of the founders of the Boston Art Club, organized in 1854. In 1858, he served as its president. He died in 1891 in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Membership:
Boston Art Club

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton

Regarded as the leader of the White Mountain School, Samuel Lancaster Gerry incited scores of artists to paint New Hampshire's rustic scenery in the nineteenth century. Born in Boston, Gerry traveled through France, England, Italy, and Switzerland in the late 1830's, absorbing the art and landscape of Europe. He returned to the United States in 1840 and established his studio in Boston, from which he could make frequent painting trips to New Hampshire's Lake District and White Mountains. It was there that Gerry produced his most influential work, which formed the basis of the White Mountain School. Although he never received formal training, his landscapes drew upon the visions and techniques of Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, whom he may have met in Europe. Gerry founded the Boston Art Club with Benjamin Champney, another important member of the White Mountain School, in 1854 and served as the Club's president four years later. He exhibited his paintings there and at the National Academy of Design, the Boston Athenaeum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the American Art-Union. Today, his paintings are displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art.

Biography courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art LLC, www.antiquesandfineart.com/questroyal