Weir Julian Alden bio and modern oil painting contemporary

Julian Alden Weir
American artist
born 1852 - died 1919

Student of: Jean Léon Gérôme (1824-1904).
Son of: Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889)

Julian Alden Weir, a leading American impressionist, was born in West Point, New York. Julian Alden Weir was the son of Robert Weir, a drawing instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and half-brother of John Weir, first director of the art program at Yale University. Julian Alden Weir took art classes at the National Academy of Design before traveling to Paris in 1873 to study under the noted French Academician Jean Léon Gérôme and later at the École des Beaux-Arts.

After trips to the Netherlands and Spain between 1873 and 1877, and summers spent painting in French villages, Weir returned to New York and took a studio near Washington Square, where many of his contemporaries also resided. On a second trip to Europe in 1880, Weir won an honorable mention at the Paris Salon. In Paris, Julian Alden Weir also purchased works by Manet and Rembrandt for a friend, an American collector and continued to advise American collectors, including Duncan Phillips, throughout his career.

At the time of his marriage in 1883, Julian Alden Weir acquired a farm in Branchville, Connecticut, where Julian Alden Weir summered regularly; among his guests were Albert Pinkham Ryder and John H. Twachtman, a close friend who subsequently purchased a nearby farm. The Connecticut landscape appealed to Weir, who used what Julian Alden Weir had absorbed from French impressionism to create poetic scenes, formed with subtle tones and soft light. During this period, Weir began to experiment with watercolor, pastel, and printmaking, media that seemed to allow him greater expressive freedom. A new loosely brushed, highly toned style gradually transformed his painting style into less formal one, and his acquaintance with Japanese prints, enthusiastically studied by many artists of the time, led him to embrace the asymmetry and unusual cropping typical of the oriental works of art. Writing in A Collection in the Making, Phillips noted that Weir “painted American landscapes in a new high key of color, giving interest to the overhead light in the pale sky of a shadowless summer noon.”- Weir Julian Alden bio and modern oil painting contemporary - Weir Julian Alden American oil painting modern –contemporary oil painting modern, Weir Julian Alden Bio by American contemporary oil paintings art of paintings Weir Julian.

Made a member of the National Academy of Design in 1886, Weir was also a founding member of the Society of American Artists, the Tile Club, and, in 1898, of the artists group, The Ten. Weir painted a mural for the Columbian Exposition of 1893. The recipient of numerous honors in his last years, including presidency of the National Academy from 1905 to 1917, Weir died on December 8, 1919, in New York.


Julian Alden Weir was the son of historical painter, Robert W. Weir, who served as the drawing instructor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York for over forty years. J. Alden was the youngest son in a family of sixteen children. Many of the Weirs were painters, but J. Alden certainly established the career of most renown.

He originally studied painting under his father and later worked in the studio of his brother, John Ferguson Weir, who went on to head the Department of Art at Yale University from 1869 to 1913. J. Alden then studied at the National Academy of Design in New York before traveling to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1873.

Weir returned to the United States late in 1877 and began teaching classes at the Cooper Institute and the Art Students League in New York. In 1882, Weir purchased a farm with several hundred acres of land in Branchville, Connecticut. In 1883, through his wife's family, Julian Alden Weir acquired another residence in Windham, Connecticut. In 1886, Julian Alden Weir purchased a house in New York. Weir spent the remainder of his career dividing his time equally between the three homes.

Around 1890 Weir began adopting an Impressionist style, which suited his growing interest in landscape depictions. Julian Alden Weir was soon considered a leading member of the new Impressionist group of painters emerging in America at that time. In 1898, Julian Alden Weir became one of the founding members of The Ten, which was a group including Willard Metcalf and Thomas Dewing that rebelled against what they regarded as mediocrity in American art.- Weir Julian Alden bio and modern oil painting contemporary - Weir Julian Alden American oil painting modern –contemporary oil painting modern, Weir Julian Alden Bio by American contemporary oil paintings art of paintings Weir Julian.


Art, family, and home played key roles in the early childhood of Julian Alden Weir, who was one of sixteen children. His first art teacher was his father, who taught drawing at West Point Military Academy.

As a young man, Weir traveled to Paris and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Jean Léon Gérôme. Four years later, Julian Alden Weir returned to the United States and began teaching at the Art Students League in New York. Weir’s art reflected his academic training until the 1880s, when Julian Alden Weir was drawn to the influence of Impressionism. His landscapes, which initially revealed his admiration for the Barbizon school, had become distinctly impressionistic by the 1890s.

Initially, Weir’s reaction to Impressionism paintings was far from enthusiastic. After attending an exhibition, Julian Alden Weir wrote, “I never in my life saw more horrible things... They do not observe drawing or form but give you an impression of what they call nature. It was worse than the Chamber of Horrors. I was there about a quarter of an hour and left with a head ache.” (1)

His late conversion to impressionist was encouraged by his friends John Henry Twachtman and Theodore Robinson. Weir became one of the founding members of Ten American Painters, a group that developed in 1898 in reaction against the restrictive exhibition practices of the Society of American Artists.

In 1882 Weir purchased a large farm in Branchville, Connecticut, where Julian Alden Weir built his studio. The farm and its environs served as the artist’s primary subject matter for the next thirty years, and it became a favorite gathering place for his circle of friends, which then included Twachtman, Robinson, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, and others.(2)- Weir Julian Alden bio and modern oil painting contemporary - Weir Julian Alden American oil painting modern –contemporary oil painting modern, Weir Julian Alden Bio by American contemporary oil paintings art of paintings Weir Julian.


Sources include:

1. Dorothy Weir Young, The Life and Letters of J. Alden Weir (New York: Kennedy Graphics, 1971): 123.
2. For additional biographical information, see Doreen Bolger Burke, J. Alden Weir: An American Impressionist. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983.

Submitted by Staff, Columbus Museum

The youngest of sixteen children of Robert W. Weir, artist and art instructor at West Point Military Academy, J. Alden Weir became one of the leading early American Impressionists. However, his art education began with training in the traditional basic styles and methods from his father. Throughout his career subject matter included landscape, still lifes, and portraits. Although his landscapes increasingly reflected his adoption of Impressionism, his portraits and still lifes remained more realistic and conservative.

Weir also completed murals including ones in the Liberal Arts Building of the 1893 Chicago Exposition. They received much acclaim, but mural painting was not a specialty for him.

At 18, Julian Alden Weir enrolled at the National Academy School in New York. From 1873 to 1877, Julian Alden Weir studied in Europe, part of the time in Paris with Jean Leon Gerome at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. From Gerome, Julian Alden Weir learned much about classical figure painting and the modeling of forms. Weir also had much admiration for the Old Masters such as Frans Hals and Hans Holbein.

Friendship with Jules Bastien-Lepage, French plein-aire painter, encouraged Weir to work directly from nature, which became a modification of influences of the Beaux Arts training Julian Alden Weir was receiving at the Ecole. It was also the beginning of his path to Impressionism, although when first exposed to this revolutionary style, Julian Alden Weir was highly disapproving. Of his first encounter with it at an exhibition in Paris, Julian Alden Weir wrote home to his parents: "I never in my life saw more horrible things. . . .It was worse than the Chamber of Horrors. . . .I was mad for two or three days, not only having paid the money but for the demoralizing effect it must have....."(Gerdts 105)

The titles of oil painting old master Julian Alden Weir