George Hitchcock
1850–1913 · American painter active in the Netherlands
George Hitchcock (Providence, Rhode Island, 1850 – Marken, Netherlands, 1913) was an American painter who spent most of his career in Europe, chiefly in the Netherlands. He is best remembered as the founder of an informal community of artists on the Dutch coast, which came to be known as the Egmondse School.
From a family of lawyers and judges, he graduated from Brown University and from Harvard Law School in 1874, but later turned to art. He studied at Heatherley's School of Fine Art in London from 1879, and then in Paris at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, around 1882. His painting Tulip Growing, a Dutch garden he painted in the Netherlands, attracted attention at the Paris Salon of 1885.
For years he kept a studio near Egmond aan Zee, where he began an "Art Summer School" that drew artists who returned each season, among them Gari Melchers. His subjects included Dutch rural scenes, young women with flowers and landscapes of bulb fields with windmills. Works include Dutch Flower Girls and The Flight into Egypt (1892).
His recognition brought honours such as the French Legion of Honour and membership of the Vienna Academy of Arts and the Munich Secession, and in 1909 he was elected an Associate Academician of the National Academy of Design. His legacy rests largely on that Egmond community, which shaped Dutch painting at the end of the nineteenth century.
Works (3)
Vanquished presents a soldier beside his horse, with a flag, a cuirass and an open field forming the setting. The inclusion of a tulip and a reference to Haarlem places the scene in the Netherlands, which suggests a link to Dutch national history. Without further documentation, the exact episode depicted remains open to interpretation.
Where to see the work
- Musée d'Orsay Paris · 1
- Art Institute of Chicago Chicago · 1