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Gilbert Gaul

Gilbert Gaul was born in New Jersey, and studied in New York at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. He maintained a long association with the academy, exhibiting in annual shows from 1877-1902, becoming the youngest member to attain academician status at age 27. His skill in creating military, western and genre paintings, as well as illustrations for Century and Harper's Weekly, earned him extraordinary success in popular and official art circles in the late nineteenth century. Gaul's descriptive views of Civil War battle action, and his many sentimental and anecdotal genre scenes of American soldiers, farmers, hunters, and adventurers were based on the solid academic realism of his training.

In 1881 Gaul inherited a farm in Van Buren County, Tennessee, where he built a cabin and studio. While continuing his military and genre work, he also began to explore more pastoral views of nature that evoked the beauty of the woodland countryside. His experience of the landscape and culture of the south continued to inform his art throughout his career.

Biography courtesy of The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/charleston

William Gilbert Gaul was known for his portrayals of Civil War army life and his later paintings and illustrations of Western Indian themes. He was born March 31, 1855 in Jersey City, New Jersey and died in New York City on December 21, 1919. Gaul attended Newark schools and Claverack Military Academy. Poor health prevented him from pursuing the Navy as a career.

Showing an early talent for drawing, Gaul decided to study art. He started his formal art training in 1870's at the National Academy of Design with L. E. Wilmarth (1835-2918) and the Art Students League with J.G. Brown (1831-1913) in New York City.

Gaul spent four years on a farm he inherited in Van Buren, Tennessee, painting the remnants of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as some rural scenes.

His career as an artist and illustrator for magazines, notably Harper's Monthly, was successful. He traveled West many times, living on Army posts and among Indians, photographing and sketching frontier scenes to complete later at his New York City studio or Tennessee home. Gaul was elected A.N.A in 1879 and N.A. in 1882.

His most popular works show soldierly action, notably Charging the Battery (date and location unknown), an 1889 Paris Exposition gold medal winner, and Wounded to the Rear (date and location unknown). Gaul's most impressive single work is Issuing Government Beef (date unknown, Gilcrease Institute), depicting the final lot of once-proud Plains Indians. The Indians, in the clothing of their conquerors, sit and stand stolidly on a hillside in their former hunting lands, while soldiers distribute beef.

Painted with Gaul's characteristic accurate, spare, painterly style and compositional insight, it avoids demeaning melodrama. The contrast of the broad open landscape and sky with the scattering of passive Indians conveys the stark message.

In 1890, he was among artists commissioned by the federal government conduct a census of American Indians. Gaul not only drew and painted the Indians, he added his observations to a Report on Indians Taxed and Indians Not Taxed, a now-rare 683-page work. Gaul traveled widely to cover subjects in Mexico, the West Indies, Panama and Nicaragua. An illustrated account of his travels was exhibited at the 1893 World Columbian in Chicago.

MEMBERSHIPS:

National Academy of Design

Public Collections:

Toledo Museum, Ohio

Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

Thomas Gilcrease of American History and Art, Tulsa, Ok.

Awards:

1882 American Art Association, prize

1886 Prize Fund, gold Medal

1889 Paris Exposition, medal

1893Columbian Exposition, Chicago medal

1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, medal

1910 Appalachian Exposition, Knoxville, gold metal



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

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