Lot 346: Julie Hart Beers (American, 1835-1913), Hudson River School Landscape, Monogrammed "J.H.B." l.l., incised "J.H. BEERS/'67" on the stre

Julie Hart Beers (American, 1835-1913)

Hudson River School Landscape
Monogrammed "J.H.B." l.l., incised "J.H. BEERS/'67" on the stretcher.
Oil on canvas, 8 11/16 x 7 1/4 in. (22.0 x 18.5 cm), in a period frame.
Condition: Fine craquelure, surface grime.

N.B. Julie Hart Beers, one of the few professional woman landscape painters of the mid-19th century, was the younger sister of James and William Hart. Unlike her siblings who were born in Scotland, Julie was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as Julia Fenn Hart. She changed her name to Julie and dropped the Fenn, finding it too foreign. Little of her schooling is known, but it is assumed that she learned to paint from her brothers. In 1853, she married the journalist George Washington Beers, who died three years later leaving her a young widow with two children. Beers relocated from Albany to New York City where she opened a studio in the Dodsworth's Building on Broadway and helped support her family by leading painting trips for young women. By the mid 1860s, she was exhibiting at the National Academy of Design in New York and at the Boston Athenaeum.