Frederic Porter Vinton: A Good Finish

"Alanson W. Beard" by Frederic Vinton

"In June, 1889, Frederic Porter Vinton and his wife went abroad, and remained for eighteen months. They visited France, Italy, and Holland, with a week in England. The artist's enthusiasm over the work of Franz Hals was hardly second to his admiration for Velasquez, and subtly influenced his later work. During his stay in Paris Vinton painted the well-known portrait of his wife, which, exhibited in the Salon of 1890, received Mention Honorable. This picture, with others, also won a gold medal at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893.

After his return to Boston in the autumn of 1890, Vinton took up his work with fresh vigor. He had abundant commissions, and that general and undisputed recognition which stimulates an artist to his best. In 1891 he was made a full Academician of the National Academy of Design. In 1894 he painted the admirable portrait of the Hon. Alanson W. Beard, which by its wonderful vitality deservedly won a silver medal at the Paris Salon of 1900. In 1909 his work was awarded the Temple gold medal by the Pennsylvania Academy. The finished portraits that he painted number between two and three hundred, and embrace a surprising variety not only in subject, but no less in treatment. The fervor with which he worked, and his nervously sensitive temperament, combined with so much labor, wore him out. Although he showed no failure in his artistic powers, his friends were deeply troubled by his physical condition long before the end came on the morning of May 20, 1911."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Frederic Porter Vinton" by Arlo Bates on behalf of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1911.)