Hugh Bolton Jones

Hugh Bolton Jones was an American landscape painter.

He grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where he received his early training as an artist. While studying in New York he was strongly influenced by Frederic Edwin Church of the Hudson River School. After spending four years in Europe he settled in New York in 1881, where he shared a studio with his brother Francis Coates Jones for the rest of his long life.

He was celebrated for his realistic depictions of calm rural scenes of the eastern United States at different times of the year, usually empty of people.

He won prizes in several major exhibitions in the US and France. His paintings are held in public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.

Jones is best known for his paintings of the flat country of New England and New Jersey.

The influence of Frederic Edwin Church and the Hudson River School shows in his handling of light and the precision of his en plein air depictions of nature.

He painted the varying landscapes of each season of the year, in peaceful harmony.

The Rahway River in Union County, New Jersey was one of his subjects according to Frank Townsend Lent in A Souvenir of Cranford New Jersey (1894).

His subtle Barbizon-style studies drew praise, but his insistence on accuracy in his representation of nature was also criticized.

His earlier paintings are lit by a clear, bright light, and sharply detailed, while his later works were more muted and lyrical. In his last decades, Jones' work became increasingly stale, repeating the same subjects and compositions in an outdated style.

Thomas B. Clarke (1848-1931) said of him in 1891,

A native painter of American landscape, who has never been touched by any fashions in art, is H. Bolton Jones. He paints Nature for herself and not for the sake of illustrating any theory as to how she might or should be painted. He studies her form, color and various characteristics, and gives us the result of his investigations in transcripts of familiar scenes that are rich in rural charms. His drawing is careful and correct, his color vivacious and his execution finished... It is by his American landscape that America knows and will remember him.

Jones exhibited at the National Academy of Design between 1867 and 1927.

He exhibited at the Paris Salons (1877-81), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Annual (1879-85, 1891-1902, 1917-18), Boston Art Club (1881-1909).

In 1884 Jones exhibited with the first exhibition of the Society of Painters in Pastels.

He also exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Society of American Artists (1902) and the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1907-12).

He won prizes for his submissions at the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1889), Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1900), Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis, 1904) and Panama-Pacific International Exposition (San Francisco, 1915).

Jones' paintings are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023