Charles T. Webber (American, 1825 to 1911)
Charles T. Webber was one of the most influential painters, sculptors and teachers during the Golden Age of Art in Cincinnati in the 19th and early 20th centuries. When Webber’s family moved to Covington, Kentucky in 1858, the artist found work across the river in Cincinnati tinting photographs. Afterward, Webber entered a partnership in a dual photographic/artist’s portrait studio. He was a founding member of the Cincinnati Sketch Club and board member of the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts, and actively participated in most of Cincinnati’s artistic institutions.
Though he never studied abroad, Webber’s work was exhibited in the Paris Salon, largely because of his reputation and association with the well-known Cincinnati artists of the period. His forte was historical painting, and he often painted abolitionist subjects. Perhaps Webber’s best-known work was his Underground Railway of 1893, a work eventually brought to the Cincinnati Art Museum after exhibiting at the Chicago World’s Exposition.
Information courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc., October 2006, and Cowan’s Auctions Inc., June 2007.