Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927)
Edward Henry Potthast, landscape painter and illustrator, was born 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio to a family of German immigrant artisans. At the age of thirteen he was already attending the McMicken School of Design, and at sixteen he was working for the Strobridge Lithography Company. He maintained his interest in lithography and illustration for much of his early career. In 1892 he moved to New York. Like many residents of the city, he was enamoured of Coney Island and cool summers of Brighton Beach. He is best known for his Impressionist beach scenes featuring women and children playing in the surf.
After studying in Paris and working as an illustrator for Harper’s and Scribner’s in New York, he turned to seriously painting figures, landscapes and seascapes in the mid 1880′s and began exhibiting his beach scenes in 1914. Mostly painted along the New England coast, often at the artists’ colonies at Rockport, Massachusetts or Ogunquit, Maine, Potthast’s bold brushwork set his style apart from other seascape artists.
Potthast’s work was recognized with numerous prizes at exhibitions including Corcoran Gallery Biennial (1907 to 1923 – 8 times,) Boston Art Club, 1896 to 1909, Paris Salon, 1889 to 1891, American Water Color Society, 1901 and the Salmagundi Club NYC, 1904.
Reference material courtesy of Skinner Inc.