Joseph Oriel Eaton
Portrait, genre, and landscape painter, Joseph Oriel Eaton studied in New York City but worked mainly in the Midwest. He was active in Indianapolis 1846-48; in Cincinnati, 1850, 1853, and 1857-60; and in New Orleans before 1857. During the latter part of his career he was a successful painter of children's portraits in New York City. (Source: Groce & Wallace, "The New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America," quoted on Askart.com,
Joseph Oriel Eaton (1829-1875)
From Lessons in Likeness by Estill Curtis Pennington, 2011.
Eaton was born in Newark, Ohio, to Orin and Mary Fidler Eaton. According to a dramtic episode recounted by Wilbur Peat Eaton ran away from home in 1845 with two early works he had painted, a portrait of George Washington and one of the local Methodist minister. The portrait of Washington he hoped to sell as a tavern sign. Making his way to Indianapolis on the proceeds he set up as a portraitist, charging five dollars, and attracted the patronage of Dr. Abner Pope who introduced him to Jacob Cox. He became a pupil-assistant to Jacob Cox in Indianapolis, 1845, then moved on to Cincinnati in 1846, where he maintained a studio until 1864. His portraits of the Gibsons, from early in his tenure there, clearly demonstrate the attractions his work held for the local citizenry. “Commodore” David Gibson was born in Paisley, Scotland, emigrated to America in 1829, and was in Cincinnati by 1832. After a short stint as a miller he founded a distillery in New Richmond, Ohio, which became so highly successful that he built his own wharf at the foot of Main Street, Cincinnati, and built up a large fleet of steamboats. Ever the clever Scotsman, Gibson became one of the wealthiest men in America, reputedly worth as much as $6,000,000 from his extensive investments in river shipping, railroads, fire insurance companies and banks. Matilda Chessman Gibson was a kinswoman of Dave Chessman, the clerk of Gibson’s most famous vessel, the Tacoma. They were married in 1852 and lived in large “marble mansion” in the Clifton section of Cincinnati, on an estate which covered 8 city lots. Eaton’s portraits of the Gibsons have a very robust quality, fully occupying the planar field, lushly modeled and contoured and strongly colored. Eaton, with some encouragement from James Henry Beard, departed from the formulas of those artists who emulated Gilbert Stuart, and later Thomas Sully to create works which are highly sensitive to the entrepreneurial Germanic spirit of the Ohio River Valley. Following his marriage, in 1855, to Emma Jane Goodman, he lived in northern Kentucky. His activity as an itinerant included trips to New Orleans, 1853-1854, 1857, and to Louisville, where he is recorded at the Exchange Hotel in 1860. That year he opened a studio on West Forth Street in Cincinnati with Charles T. Weber, making tinted photographs. Following a lengthy trip to Europe in 1869 Eaton settled in New York City, where he was an associate and frequent exhibiter at the National Academy of Design. While in New York he painted Herman Melville in 1870 at a time when the author of Moby Dick was living in obscurity and working as a clerk in the New York Customs House. The portrait is now in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. According to Goss Eaton “possessed fine social qualities and was personally acquainted with not only the leading artists of America but held the warm friendship of many prominent men and women” including William Merritt Chase, Bret Harte, and Sara Orne Jewett. Eaton is known to have painted landscapes, including Farm at Yellow Springs, Ohio, as well as several genre works based on his studies in Europe. Late in his career he was especially admired for his paintings of children. He died in Yonkers, New York.
Collections where his work is held include: Cincinnati Historical Society, Cincinnati Art Museum, Dayton Art Institute, Harvard, Indianapolis Museum of Art, National Academy of Design, West Point;
Sources:
Peat, Wilbur. Pioneer Painters of Indiana, 1957
Pennington, Estill Curtis. Lessons in Likeness: the portrait painter in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, 1800-1920. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011.
