GEORGE COCHRAN LAMBDIN

George Cochran Lambdin is remembered today primarily for his numerous and popular floral paintings. He was born in Pittsburgh in 1830, the son of James Reid Lambdin, a successful portraitist from whom he received his early artistic training. He was taken to Philadelphia at age eight and lived there for the rest of his life, except for a brief residence in New York City and trips to Europe in 1855 and 1870. Lambdin began exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1848. His first successes were genre paintings. Lambdin turned to still life painting in 1857 and began concentrating on floral themes during the 1860s. He settled in Germantown, near Philadelphia, and cultivated a garden famous for its roses. Lambdin’s floral paintings fall into two categories. One group consists of bouquet pictures, showing flowers painted with confidence and exuberance against rather simple backgrounds. The other category is flowers, usually roses, growing in gardens. These “natural setting” paintings often show the rose’s life cycle, from bud to aging bloom, an evolutionary theme popular at the time. Lambdin was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1868. He died in 1896.