Frederic Porter Vinton: Success

"Portrait of a Gentleman" by Frederic Vinton

"Frederic Porter Vinton now settled down to steady work, and commissions followed one upon another. That winter he painted Sir Lyon Playfair, Mr. Samuel H. Russell, Dr. Alexander Vinton, and others. In the next ten years came portraits of more than sixty others. Vinton took a leading and undisputed place in the front ranks of American portrait painters, and this he held without challenge to the day of his death.

In 1880 he was made a member of the Society of American Artists, New York. In 1881 he removed to the studio most strongly associated with his name, that which had been occupied by William M. Hunt in the building (not now standing) at the corner of Park Square and Boylston Street in Boston. It is hardly too much to say that the studio became the artistic centre of Boston. 

Mr. Vinton was a man whose personality would make itself felt anywhere. He was concerned in all the important art events of the town, and for that matter was in request all over the country as a member of art juries and hanging committees. The critics of the Boston papers were constantly consulting him, and his opinion was held in general esteem. As he had in 1875 stirred up a commotion by his frankness, he not infrequently aroused antagonism by his plain speech, but his hatred for shams and for what he felt to be bad in art was too strong to pass off in silence because of any fear of consequences."

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.)