HUNTINGTON, Daniel [1816-1906] -- American portrait painter

Born October 14, 1816, in New York City, he graduated at Hamilton College, and married, at St. Ann’s Church, Brooklyn, June 16, 1842, Harriet Sophia Richards. His life was given to the cultivation of the fine arts, for which nature designed him, and in which his success was a triumph. He studied art in 1835, with Samuel F. B. Morse, and became an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1839, and an Academician in 1840. As a portrait painter he stood at the head of his profession, having a continental reputation. He painted portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Van Buren, Albert Gallatin, Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, Admiral Dupont, Chancellor Ferris, of New York University, Sir Charles Eastlake, the Earl of Carlisle, James Lenox, William Cullen Bryant, John Sherman, and Bishop A. C. Coxe. The following criticism, found in the "Whig Review," for August 1846, exhibits his position among our artist at that time.

"Huntington, to whom we are inclined to give the highest place among our artists of the highest school, sent five pictures, exclusive of three portraits, any one of which would have asserted his pre-eminence in this department of his art. Of these, our favorite is the Sacred Lesson, which, although not so full of spirituality, and perhaps not so elevated in tone as his Italy, seems to us a more finished work. The subject, a beautiful girl listening to the story of the crucifixion from an aged man, gave opportunity for all the harmony of contrast, and the embodiment of that high physical and intellectual beauty, of which Huntington seems to have such an admirable conception. His female heads are remarkable for their graceful contour, their high foreheads, but broad, low and classical brows, and for their perfectly feminine expression, which, as well as their freedom from that exaggeration of points of beauty, such as large eyes and small mouths, into which modern painters are apt to fall, gives them a truthful air which some of hotbed taste mistake for materiality. In fact, his women do not look like sylphs, angels, nor goddesses, but like women, which is the grand reason that they are so beautiful. His heads of old men have equal excellence, and are full of character and vigorous drawing. He seems conscious of his abilities in this way, for three of his pictures for this year present the contrast of feminine youth with masculine age. Huntington’s pictures bear the stamp of high cultivation and of great genius. Not only are his conceptions beautiful, just, and of a high poetic order, and his designs clear, but his work is almost always well done; the tone of his pictures is such that the eye rests upon them with delight and contentment; the heart sympathizes with the sentiment expressed, and the judgment approves almost without a but.

His effects are always simple, direct, and forcible, for he never descends into the pettiness of his art. His coloring is singularly beautiful, and reminds us of that of Lueca Giordano, fa presto. Lucca as he was called, but among American artists it is peculiarly his own. Who has given us such unobtrusive reds and yellows, and such rich, quiet greens? Nobody has ever tried to do it; the very conception of such colors seems to have been left to him, for such was the character of his coloring before he had studied in Italy. They alone are enough to make a reputation, and yet they are but secondary to, though admirably in keeping with, his high poetic conception, his admirable drawing, and exquisite flesh tints. Indeed, so beautiful are these colors in themselves, and so harmonious are the broad masses in which they are introduced, that the eye, after wandering around upon the walls turns unwittingly upon his pictures to drink in their cool, refreshing tone."

The estimate in which Mr. Huntington was held by the members of his own profession, is evinced by his election to the presidency of the National Academy of Design, as their third president, the first two having been Prof. Morse, and A. B. Durand. He held this office from 1862 to 1869, and from 1877 to 1891. He died April 18, 1906. His wife died November 8, 1893.

Huntington Family Association, Huntington Genealogical Memoir, (Hartford, CT 1915)