George de Forest Brush

George de Forest Brush (September 28, 1855 – April 24, 1941) was an American painter. In collaboration with his friend, the artist Abbott H. Thayer, he made contributions to military camouflage, as did his wife, aviator and artist Mary (called Mittie) Taylor (Whelpley) Brush, and their son, the sculptor Gerome Brush.

Although Brush was born in Shelbyville, Tennessee, his parents, Nancy (Douglas) and Alfred Clark Brush, were New Englanders, and he grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. He attended the National Academy of Design in New York, and also studied in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where Thayer was also a student.

He returned from Paris in 1880, and soon after accompanied his brother on a business excursion to Wyoming. He remained in that part of the country for some months, and lived among various Native Americans, including Arapahoes, Crows and Shoshones. When he returned East, he developed a series of paintings derived from his drawings of Indian life. In the early 1880s, some of these were published in prominent periodicals, such as Harper’s Weekly and Century Magazine, sometimes as illustrations for his own eyewitness accounts. Even years later, he still enjoyed living occasionally in a tepee. It was partly because of such “wildness” that his future in-laws refused to approve of his marriage to their daughter, née Mittie Taylor Whelpley, which took place by elopement in 1886.

Around the same time period, the subjects of Brush’s paintings evolved from heroic depictions of Indian life to Renaissance-inspired portraits, some of which were modeled by his wife and his children. Among his many awards were gold medals at the Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), Exposition Internationale (Paris, 1900), Pan-American Exposition (Buffalo, 1901), and Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis, 1904). He was elected to the Society of American Artists, the National Academy of Design (1908), and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1910).

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