A.T. VAN LAER

Influential teacher and leading tonalist landscape painter Alexander Theobald Van Laer was born in Auburn, NY, in 1857. He studied at the National Academy, privately with R.S. Gifford, and with his cousin George Poggenbeek in Holland. He particularly enjoyed painting in Litchfield, CT, where he bought a home in 1911. Teaching positions included: director of the Athenaeum Art School in Illinois, director of the American Art Study Course, lecturer at the New York Board of Education, lecturer at Smith College, and a position the National Academy. He died in Indianapolis in 1920. Laer’s paintings are in private and public collections including: the Litchfield Historical Society, the Meridian Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design Museum, the National Gallery of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and The Mattatuck Museum of the Mattutuck Historical Society.