WILLIAM HOLBROOK BEARD

William Holbrook Beard was born in Plainsville, Ohio and began his artistic career as an itinerant portrait painter before moving to New York City in 1845. In 1856 he studied and traveled through Europe where he befriended Albert Bierstadt, Sanford R. Gifford, and Worthington Whittredge. Moving back to New York City in 1860, Beard set up a studio in the prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building where he began to paint his animal paintings. Beard became known for genre scenes of animals satirizing human behavior, and in 1885 he published a treatise titled Humor in Animals. Beard exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Art Association, the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and the Paris International Exposition. His work is found in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New-York Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum, Amon-Carter Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Rhode Island School of Design.