Boston School (painting)

The Boston School was a group of Boston-based painters active in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Often classified as American Impressionists, they had their own regional style, combining the painterliness of Impressionism with a more conservative approach to figure painting and a marked respect for the traditions of Western art history. Their preferred subject matter was genteel: portraits, picturesque landscapes, and young women posing in well-appointed interiors. Major influences included John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, and Jan Vermeer. Key figures in the Boston School were Edmund C. Tarbell, Frank Weston Benson, and William McGregor Paxton, all of whom trained in Paris at the Académie Julian and later taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Their influence can still be seen in the work of some contemporary Boston-area artists.

The progenitors of the Boston School were Edmund C. Tarbell, Frank Weston Benson, and William McGregor Paxton, all of whom trained in Paris at the Académie Julian and later taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Their interest in modern French art can be traced to William Morris Hunt, a well-known teacher, painter, and taste-maker in late nineteenth-century Boston. After a visit to Paris, Hunt, who was on the original advisory board of the Museum of Fine Arts, encouraged prominent Bostonians to invest in the work of French artists such as Millet, Monet, and Renoir. Through his influence, the MFA hosted the first American exhibition of Monet's work in 1911.

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