2. Martin Johnson Heade (August 11, 1819 – September 4, 1904) was
a prolific American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes,
seascapes, and depictions of tropical birds (such as
hummingbirds), as well as lotus blossoms and other still lifes. His
painting style and subject matter, while derived from the
romanticism of the time, are regarded by art historians as a
significant departure from those of his peers.
Heade was not a widely known artist during his lifetime, but his
work attracted the notice of scholars, art historians, and
collectors during the 1940s. He quickly became recognized as a
major American artist. Although often considered a Hudson River
School artist, some critics and scholars take exception to this
categorization. Heade's works are now in major museums and
collections. His paintings are occasionally discovered in unlikely
places such as garage sales and flea markets.

3.  Heade was born (in 1819) and raised in Lumberville, Pennsylvania, a
small hamlet along the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Until the mid-1850s, his family ran what is now called the Lumberville
Store and Post Office, the village's sole general store. The family
spelling of the name was Heed.
 Heade received his first art training from the folk artist Edward Hicks,
who lived in nearby Newton, and possibly also from Edward's cousin,
Thomas Hicks. Heade was painting by 1839; his earliest known work is a
portrait from that year. He traveled abroad and lived in Rome for two
years. He first exhibited his work in 1841, at the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and again in 1843 at the National
Academy of Design in New York. Heade began exhibiting regularly in
1848, after another trip to Europe, and became an itinerant artist until
he settled in New York in 1859.

4. Around 1857 Heade became interested in
landscape painting, partly by meeting the
established artists John Frederick Kensett
and Benjamin Champney in the White
Mountains of New Hampshire. Heade
moved to New York City and took a studio
in the Tenth Street Studio Building, which
housed many of the famous Hudson River
School artists of the time, such as Albert
Bierstadt, Sanford Gifford, and Frederic
Edwin Church. He became socially and
professionally acquainted with them, and
struck up a particularly close friendship
with Church. Landscapes would ultimately
form a third of Heade's total oeuvre

5. Heade's interest in the tropics was
piqued at least partly by the impact of
Church's monumental painting Heart of
the Andes (1859), now in the collection
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Heade travelled in Brazil from 1863 to
1864, where he painted an extensive
series of small works, eventually
numbering over forty, depicting
hummingbirds. He intended the series
for a planned book titled "The Gems of
Brazil", but the book was never
published due to financial difficulty
and Heade's concerns about the quality
of the reproductions. Heade
nevertheless returned to the tropics
twice, in 1866 journeying to Nicaragua,
and in 1870 to Colombia, Panama, and
Jamaica. He continued to paint
romantic works of tropical birds and
lush foliage into his late career.

6. Heade's primary interest in landscape,
and the works for which he is perhaps
best known today, was the New England
coastal salt marsh. Contrary to typical
Hudson River School displays of scenic
mountains, valleys, and waterfalls,
Heade's marsh landscapes avoided
depictions of grandeur. They focused
instead on the horizontal expanse of
subdued scenery, and employed
repeating motifs that included small
haystacks and diminutive figures. Heade
also concentrated on the depiction of
light and atmosphere in his marsh
scenes. These and similar works have led
some historians to characterize Heade
as a Luminist painter. In 1883 Heade
moved to Saint Augustine, Florida and
took as his primary landscape subject
the surrounding subtropical marshland.

7. Heade married and moved to St.
Augustine, Florida in 1883. He
remained there and continued to paint
until his death in 1904.During his later
years in St. Augustine, Heade painted
numerous still lifes of southern
flowers, especially magnolia blossoms
laid on velvet. This was a continuation
of an interest in still life that Heade
had developed since the 1860s. His
earlier works in this genre typically
depict a display of flowers arranged in
an ornate vase of small or medium size
on a cloth-covered table. Heade was
the only 19th century American artist
to create such an extensive body of
work in both still life and landscape.
Heade died in St. Augustine in 1904.

8. Art historians have come to disagree
with the common view that Heade is
a Hudson River School painter, a view
given wide currency by Heade's
inclusion in a landmark exhibition of
Hudson River School landscapes at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
1987.
Heade had less interest in
topographically accurate views than
the Hudson River painters, and
instead focused on mood and the
effects of light. Stebbins wrote, "If
the paintings of the shore as well as
the more conventional
compositions...might lead one to
think of Heade as a Hudson River
School painter, the [marsh scenes]
make it clear that he was not."

9.  Heade was not a famous artist during his time, and for much of
the first part of the 20th century was nearly forgotten.[2] A re-
awakening of interest in 19th century American art around World
War II sparked new appreciation of his work. Heade's work in
particular received critical attention with the exhibition in 1943
of his painting Thunderstorm Over Narragansett Bay (1868), as
part of the show "Romantic Painting in America" at the Museum of
Modern Art.[2] Art historians have come to consider him as one of
the most important American artists of his generation. His work
has inspired contemporary artists such as David Bierk and Ian
Hornak.
 His works are in most major American museums, including the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, which owns the
nation's most outstanding collection of his works, including about
30 paintings as well as numerous drawings and sketchbooks; the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; and the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

10.  In 1955, Robert McIntyre, art historian and director of the
Macbeth Gallery, donated a cache of Heade's personal papers to
the Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution.
These papers included, among other things, Heade's sketchbook,
notes, and letters from his friend and fellow artist Frederic Edwin
Church. In 2007, these papers were digitized and made
accessible on the Web as the Martin Johnson Heade Papers
Online.
 In 1999 and 2000, Heade was the subject of a major exhibition
organized by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. It traveled from the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, ending at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
 In 2004, Heade was honored with a stamp from the U.S. Postal
Service featuring his 1890 oil-on-canvas painting, "Giant
Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth."[6] As Stebbins notes in his
writings, Heade's work has also been copied and forged
extensively. It should be noted, however, that since Heade was
not popular during his lifetime, there were few contemporaries
who emulated his work. 20th century copies are therefore readily
apparent as fakes, since it takes oil paint decades to dry out and
harden.