Frank Duveneck Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

At age 21 Frank Duveneck left the USA to go to Germany to study at the Munich Academy with Wilhelm Dietz and was influenced by the works of Dutch artists Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens. At the age of 27, he was a celebrated artist, his work attracted great attention when shown at the Boston Art Club in 1875, yet was overlooked in his hometown. In 1878, Duveneck opened two art schools, one in Munich, and the other in the village of Polling in Bavaria and pupils flocked to him in Germany and Italy, where he made long visits. His students, known as the "Duveneck Boys", included John Twachtman, Otto Bacher, Julius Rolshoven, and John White Alexander.

In 1886, Frank Duveneck married one of his students who was much admired by Henry James, Boston-born Elizabeth Boott. They lived in Villa Castellani in Florence for two years, where she had been raised as a kid. Upon returning to America, he gave some attention to sculpture, and modeled a fine monument to his wife, now in the Cimitero Evangelico Agli Allori in Florence. Despite this action, Elizabeth's death marked a slowing in his productivity, but being successful and well off, he chose to lead a life of relative obscurity in Covington, Kentucky until his death and instructed at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where some pupils of note were Ida Holterhoff Holloway, John Christen Johansen, M. Jean McLane, Edward Charles Volkert, and Russel Wright. In 1905 he was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1906.

Art Movement: Realism.
Artists Influencing Duveneck: Johann Schmitt, Wilhelm von Diez, Wilhelm Leibl.
He Traveled To Germany, Italy.
Painters Frank Duveneck Influenced: John Twachtman, Otto Bacher, Julius Rolshoven, John White Alexander.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.