Eastman Johnson

Happy Birthday Eastman Johnson!! Co-founder of the Metropolitan Art Museum, Johnson was born in  Lovell, Maine, in 1824. He was a famed portrait painter of various well known public figures. In 1840 he was apprenticed to a lithographer, where he began his extensive study of art. He was a realistic genre painter who took care to paint what he saw rather than stereotypical images, providing an important historical record. His final genre painting is included here today, The Nantucket School of Philosophy, 1887, a creation of warmth and comaraderie amongst the figures who sit and solve the problems of the day.