William Sidney Mount: the Education of an Artist March 27, 2011

William Sidney Mount (1807-1868) was the best-known genre painter in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Since the sources of his fame - scenes depicting country folk in country settings - were rustic in nature, Mount came to be thought of as a simple, uncultured "down-home" type, who presumably had invented his own style and technique. But nothing could be farther from the truth. In 1826, at the age of 18, William enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York, which offered the best art education available in the United States. There he worked alongside artists who had studied in Europe and was taught by instructors who had trained there. Throughout the gallery, paintings by William Sidney Mount have been paired with works that helped to inspire and inform them. French, English and Dutch etchings, engravings of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and paintings, and works of other American artists all had a tremendous influence upon Mount, America's first great genre painter.