Frank Duveneck

Painter, born in Covington, Kentucky, USA. He adopted his stepfather's name and studied at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany (1870). His style consisted of broad brushstrokes, sombre brown backgrounds, and an energetic approach, as seen in ‘Whistling Boy’ (1872). Beginning in 1900, he taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy for many years.

Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, and by the age of fifteen had begun the study of art under the tutelage of a local painter, Johann Schmitt. He subsequently became one of the young American painters — others were William Merritt Chase, John Henry Twachtman, and Walter Shirlaw — who in the 1870s overturned the traditions of the Hudson River School and started a new art movement characterized by a greater freedom of paint application.

Among his most famous paintings are Lady with Fan (1873) and The Whistling Boy (1872), both of which reveal Duveneck's debt to the dark palette and slashing brushwork of Frans Hals. His work can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Kenton County Library in Covington, Ky.

Duveneck is buried at Old Mother of God Cemetery, Madison Avenue and 26th Street, Covington, Kenton County.