Henry Fitch Taylor, painter

Henry Fitch Taylor (1853–1925) was an American artist.

Biography

He was born in Cincinnati in 1853. He studied at the Académie Julian, in Paris. He returned to America in either 1888 or in 1889, and established his studio in New York City. He was part of the Cos Cob Art Colony.[1] He married Clara Sidney Potter, the daughter of Henry Codman Potter. She drowned in 1921.[2]

In 1912, Henry Taylor and his wife, Clara Sidney Davidge, purchased an estate called "LaTourette" located on Richmond Hill in Staten Island , New York. It was a colonial estate that belonged to a wealthy landowner named David LaTourette in the early 19th century.

While living at "LaTourette" Mr. Taylor and his wife invited Edward Arlington Robinson to live in their home. Robinson was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who was a favorite of President Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, the President's son. Apparently Robinson had an alcohol affliction and Taylor and his wife offered to help him.

Robinson lived at "LaTourette" for approximately 2 years until he fell out of favor with Clara Davidge.

References

1. ^ "Henry Fitch Taylor". Ask Art. http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?artist=24951. Retrieved 2009-02-16. "Henry Fitch Taylor, born in Cincinnati in 1853, was the oldest American artist to experiment with modernist painting. He studied at the Académie Julian, in Paris, beginning 1884 and also worked at Barbizon, possibly encouraged to go to France by Joseph Jefferson whose popular performing troupe Taylor had joined."

2. ^ "Bishop Potter's Daughter Drowns. Body of Mrs. Henry Fitch Taylor Discovered in Marsh Near Her Long Island Home. Had A Spinal Ailment. Belief Is That She Fell Into the Mud and Could Not Free Herself." (PDF). New York Times. November 8, 1921. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B0DE2DB1431EF33A.... Retrieved 2009-08-10. "The body of Mrs. Clara Sydney Taylor, a daughter of the late Bishop Potter, was found on Sunday morning in a marsh beside a private road leading from the cottage where she was living to the home of her brother, Alonzo Potter, at Smithtown, Suffolk County, L.I."

Source: Downloaded May 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fitch_Taylor