John Vanderlyn

This biography from the archives of AskART.com.

Born and raised in Kingston, New York, John Vanderlyn studied drawing with Archibald Robinson and copied portraits by Gilbert Stuart. Aaron Burr, a portrait subject, was so impressed he arranged for Vanderlyn to go to Philadelphia to study with Stuart, and then subsidized him for a five-year stay in Paris, 1796 to 1801.

His painting"Marius Amid the Ruins of Carthage" was highly celebrated in Paris. In 1812, he painted "Ariadne," the first nude by an American. This brought him scandalous disapproval, and for the remaining thirty-seven years of his life, he was impoverished and died In Kingston, a very embittered old man.

Vanderlyn also exhibited and sold works to both the Apollo Art Association (1838-1844) and the American Art-Union (1844-1852).