ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Charles Hawthorne was born in 1872 in Lodi, Illinois. He was raised in Maine and lived part of his life in New York City and in Provincetown, MA. He was a painter of portraits and genre subjects.
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Hawthorne studied at the National Academy of Design, NYC, and the Art Students League with such master teachers as Frank Vincent DuMond and George de Forest Brush. He also studied with the famed American artist, William Merritt Chase.
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During his career, Hawthorne exhibited quite extensively and successfully receiving numerous awards. These exhibits included those at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1900-31, prizes in 1915 and 1923), National Academy of Design, NYC (1900-26, prizes in 1904, 1906, 1911, 1924, 1926, gold in 1914 and 1915), Carnegie Institute, NYC (prize 1908, prize 1925), Salmagundi Club, NYC (prize 1904), Buenos Aires Expo (medal 1910), Brooklyn Art Association (1912), Pan-Pacific Expo, San Francisco (medal 1915), Art Institute of Chicago (medal 1917, medal 1923), Society of Independent Artists, NYC (1917, 1919, 1936, 1941), Philadelphia Expo (prize 1923), Corcoran Galleries, Wash D.C. (1908-1930, silver medal 1923, gold medal 1926), Sesqui-Centennial Expo, Philadelphia (gold medal 1926) and National Museum American Art, Washington D.C. (1983).
Hawthorne was a member of many prestigious art associations including the National Academy of Design (N.A.), The Salmagundi Club, The National Arts Club, NYC, The Lotos Club, NYC, The Artists Fund Society, Philadelphia, Societe des Beaux-Arts, Paris, The American Watercolor Society, NYC, The National Institute of Arts and Letters, NYC and The Century Club, NYC.
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Charles Hawthorne had the enviable situation of being an artist appreciated during his lifetime by his fellow artists and by the general public. Early in his career, museums across the country collected his works including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Detroit Institute of Art, and The Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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His name is synonymous with the colony of artists at Provincetown, Ma, where numerous painters were attracted to his Cape Cod School of Art which he founded in 1899 and directed until his death. Hawthorne was a specialist in portraits and genre pictures of Provincetown fishermen. He was a naturalist painter whose Impressionist style and technical virtuosity was similar to that of his famous teacher, William Merritt Chase, to whom he was an assistant in the 1890’s. Hawthorne visited Italy in 1906-1907 and also painted in Bermuda.
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Charles Webster Hawthorne died at the young age of 58 in 1930 in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Today, his works can be found worldwide, in private and public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Wash D.C., The Peabody Institute, Baltimore, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The Toledo Museum of Fine Arts, The Denver Art Museum, The Town Hall, Provincetown and many others throughout the USA.