WILLIAM LAMB PICKNELL

William Lamb Picknell was born in Vermont in 1853. The young Picknell was determined upon a career in art, despite his family’s discouragement. Greatly inspired by George Inness, Picknell left for Rome where Inness was working at the time. After studying with this Barbizon-style American painter and spending two years in Italy, Picknell moved on to Paris where he studied under the 19th century French master, Jean-Leon Gerome at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and also with Robert Wylie. From 1873 on, Picknell was largely an expatriate itinerant painter, living in artist colonies throughout France, traveling from North to South with the seasons. The landscape and light of France inspired his painting en plein air. Picknell was so devoted to capturing nature directly that he painted from within a glass-sided shed during the cold winter months. He developed a keen, sensitive eye for the nuances of nature and achieved the ability to represent the visual effects of light and the sensation of warmth in his paintings. Picknell’s work was exhibited frequently in Paris and in the United States. He died in 1897 at the age of forty-four. His paintings are represented in the collections of major French, English, and American galleries and museums.