(December 5, 1848 - October 12, 1936), an American artist, was born in New York City.
He was a pupil of Leon Joseph Florentin Bonnat in Paris beginning in 1867, and became (1888) a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. For some years a genre painter, he later turned to decorative work, where his academic background in painting and extensive travels to study fresco painting in Italy melded in work marked by rare delicacy and beauty of coloring.
Considered a leading muralist of the late 19th century, he painted mural decorations or created mosaics in a number of places associated with the American Renaissance period.
His style is cited as an influence of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Paul Baudr.
With his wife he wrote Italian Cities (1900) and edited Vasari's Lives of the Painters (1896), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He became president of the Society of Mural Painters, and of the Society of American Artists.
