DeWitt Clinton Boutelle (1820 - 1884) American
Oil on Board
Measure 13 1/4"in H x 9 1/4"in W and 19"in H x 15"in W with frame
Known for: Landscape, portrait, and coastal view painting
Name variants: D W Bartelle, De Witt Clinton Boutelle
Biography: Born in Troy, New York, DeWitt Clinton Boutelle, was an itinerant atist, likely named for New York Governor De Witt Clinton (1769-1828), a man honored with many namesakes because of his crucial role in the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal. Boutelle was painting both portraits and landscapes in New York City as early as 1846 and at that time, was also exhibiting at the National Academy of Design. For the next thirteen years, he worked and traveled in the vicinities of New York City and Philadelphia and also was in New Hampshire in the White Mountains. Influenced by Thomas Cole and Asher Durand, during this period, he painted in the Hudson River Valley, where his subjects included Niagara Falls and the Catskill Mountains. Boutelle was such an admirer of Cole, leader of the Hudson River School, that to honor him, he did a full-size copy of Cole's painting Voyage of Life. In 1851, DeWitt Clinton Boutelle was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design where he frequently exhibited. He also exhibited at the American Art Union, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Washington Art Association. There is no record of him receiving formal art training, although in 1859, he accepted the invitation of Samuel Wetherill, art collector and wealthy industrialist to join a group of landscape specialist painters in Bethelem, Pennsylvania. During this period, he is sometimes listed in Philadelphia with the name Bartelle. A painting with a western Indian by him was dated 1855, but there is no evidence he was ever in the American West. In 1855, Boutelle left New York, lived in Philadelphia for two years, and then settled for the remainder of his life in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.