"Bringing the Museum to You"

The Cyber Art Show continues our study of Impressionist landscape painters in the Public Domain with the first of a two ten-piece Exhibitions of works by American artist Theodore Robinson (1852-1896).

Born in Irasburg, Vermont, Robinson moved with his family to Evansville, Wisconsin. After studying art briefly in Chicago, he moved to New York City in 1874 to attend classes at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. Two years later he traveled to Paris to study under Carolus-Duran and at the École des Beaux-Arts, with Jean-Léon Gérôme. He first exhibited his paintings at the 1877 Salon in Paris.

After trips to Venice and Bologna, he returned to the United States in 1879 for five years. Upon returning to France, Robinson gravitated to Giverny, the center of French Impressionism burgeoning under the influence of Claude Monet. He moved next door to the famous Monet in 1888 and the two artists became friends. Monet’s art became a major influence on Robinson’s style of painting. Robinson left France and Monet for the final time in 1892.

Robinson returned to America and took a teaching position at Brooklyn Art School. He also taught summer classes in the Catskill Mountains, at Evelyn College in Princeton, New Jersey, and later at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He became particularly close to artists John Henry Twachtman and Julian Alden Weir, and spent time at the nearby Cos Cob Art Colony in Connecticut.

In the last year of his life he contributed an essay to "Modern French Masters" a book by the editor and art historian John Charles Van Dyke. He wrote an essay on the Barbizon painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and wrote and illustrated an essay on Claude Monet. The book was published in 1896 and his illustration of Monet was featured in the exhibition "In Monet's Light."

Robinson died of an acute asthma attack in New York City in April, 1896. He was buried in his hometown of Evansville, Wisconsin. He was 43 years old.

Today Robinson's paintings are in the collections of many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago.