John Joseph Enneking

John Joseph Enneking, one of America's first Impressionist painters, was the son of a farmer. He studied drawing at eighteen and moved to Boston where he studied art with a Mrs. Walters. He drew animal trophies under her tutelage and later sought direct learning from nature. Enneking was successful enough to travel to Munich, Italy, and Paris. Once installed in Paris, he studied with figure painter Leon Bonnat, and he painted alongside

Impressionists such as Renoir, Manet, Monet, and Pissarro. His best friends in

Europe were the Barbizon painters Corot, Millet, and Daubigny.

Enneking returned to America to celebrate the 1876 Centennial in

Philadelphia and to paint the New England landscape. His many awards

include the 1884 Mechanics Fair, the 1893 Columbia World's Fair, the

1900 Paris Exposition, the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY,

and the 1915 World's Fairs in St. Louis and San Francisco.

Text courtesy of Beverly and Stuart Denenberg