Frederic Porter Vinton American, 1846-1911

Overview

Born in Maine, Vinton was raised in Chicago and moved to Boston in 1861. He is associated with the Boston School of painting. He studied art at the Lowell Institute while supporting himself working as a bookkeeper. His teacher, William Rimmer, prompted him to submit his artwork to the Boston Advertiser. He opened a portrait studio in Boston in 1878; after enough success and innumerable commissions, he was able to travel to Europe for a year and a half. He visited the Netherlands, France, and Germany, and studied under Léon Bonnat, Frank Duveneck, and Jean-Paul Laurens. He first exhibited one of his portraits at the National Academy in 1880, and continued to do so annually until 1883, when unrest at the institution forced him to resign. That same year, he married his wife, Annie M. Pierce, who serves as the subject for many of his most famous portraits. Vinton returned to the Academy in 1884, by submitting his first-ever landscape, and was elected a full-time member in 1891. Following his death, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, held a retrospective of Vinton’s portraits and landscapes in 1911.